Rome, Military Anarchy (235-284): Maximinus’ Civil War [2/12]

28 *MAXIMINUS-I THRAX (u; c.65; r.235.03-238.05)

29 *GORDIAN-I (u; Africa; c.79; r.238.03-04)

30 *GORDIAN II (u; Africa; c.46; r.238.03-04)

31 *BALBINUS (u; Rome; c.60; r.238.04-07)

32 *PUPIENUS (u; Rome; 68/73; r.238.04-07)

At the beginning of Maximinus’ reign there were two threats against his life. The first involved Magnus, an aristocrat, who is said to have ordered some soldiers to destroy the bridge over the Rhine after Maximus had crossed, leaving him stranded on the north bank of the river at the mercy of the Germans. The plot was discovered and all the conspirators were executed. 

A unit of archers from Osroene in Syria then proclaimed Quartinus, a previous provincial governor and friend of the former emperor Severus Alexander, as emperor. Macedo, the commander of the Osroenians, had a change of heart, killed Quartinus and presented his head to Maximinus, who proceeded to have Macedo executed anyway. 

Maximinus restored order on the Rhine with a victory over the Germans in Wurttemberg (235) and on the Danube frontier fighting the Sarmatians and Dacians (236-237). To pay for these campaigns, the emperor taxed the wealthy at an extraordinarily high rate. In spring 238 the Senate, acting upon their dissatisfaction, elected twenty senators to organise the defence of Italy and declared Maximinus a public enemy.

Maximinus’ Civil War (238) [2/12]

Early 238 in Africa Proconsularis, a treasury official’s extortions provoked a full-scale revolt. Landowners entered Thysdrus (=El Djem, northeast Tunisia), where they murdered the official and proclaimed the governor of province, ¹⁴Antonius Gordianus, and his son, ¹⁵Antonius Gordianus, said to be descendants of the Gracchi and Trajan, as co-emperors.

Capelianus, governor of the neighbouring province of Numidia, remained loyal to Maximinus and took his forces into Proconsularis to suppress them. On 12 April, only twenty-two days after the rebellion had broken out, the younger Gordian was defeated and killed in battle outside Carthage. The elder Gordian took his own life shortly afterwards.

When news of this reached Rome, the Senate set up two of its twenty-man commission, ⁰⁴Clodius Pupienus (68/73; fl.207-238) and Caelius Calvinus Balbinus (60/73; fl.213-238), as joint emperors. Maximinus set out with his son Julius (37) Verus Maximus (18/21; fl.236-238), now caesar, from Pannonia and marched on Italy. At the end of March they came to the strongly defended city of Aquileia. The siege dragged on and Maximinus’ troops, disheartened with the lack of progress, murdered the emperor and his son.  When the people and the praetorians agitated in favour of the elder Gordian’s thirteen-year-old grandson, ¹⁶Antonius Gordianus (18; fl.238-244), the Senate recognized the boy as caesar, conceding that he would succeed the senatorial emperors. Balbinus and Pupienus failed to win over the praetorians, who killed them in July and declared Gordian emperor.