M. Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus (Gordian I)

family and background

According to a tradition, Gordian was 80 years old in 238. This may be correct, as his son Gordian II was 46 in 238 and various other remarks in the sources suggest that his career was not a speedy one. He first appears in our records of magistrates as governor of Lower Britain in 220-222. This office would be held after the praetorship. Otherwise, we have reason to think that he may have accompanied Caracalla on his expedition to the east in 216/17 and that he held his consulship shortly after that (possibly under Elagabalus). He also governed the province of Achaia, and had a daughter, about whom we know nothing for certain other than that she had a son who became the emperor Gordian III.

We are told that he was related in some way to the multi-millionaire Herodes Atticus (prominent in the time of Marcus Aurelius), and know from the study of naming patterns in Asia Minor that the cognomen Gordianus originates on the Anatolian plateau. The family name M. Antonius shows that an ancestor received the Roman citizenship from Mark Antony, the rival of Augustus. The additional cognomina may suggest a connection with a family from Ancyra. There is some reason to think that his father was also a senator, and every reason to see him as one of a group of senators from Anatolia who show up in the second century AD.

M. Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus Africanus

Son of Gordian I, he had held the consulship before 238. The tradition that he received the quaestorship from Elagabalus, the praetorship and consulship from Alexander seems unexceptional and is consonant with the statement that he was 46 when he died. We otherwise know nothing about him save that his consulship is confirmed by an inscription.

D. Caelius Calvinius Balbinus

Born, between 165 and 175 AD, from a family that had achieved patrician status from the town of Italica in Spain, the future emperor Pupienus was consul for the first time around 200, and for the second time in 213. At that time he must have been a close associate of the emperor Caracalla. We know nothing for certain about his activities in the ensuing twenty-five years.

M. Clodius. Pupienus Maximus

Pupienus appears to have been from Etruria, and to have been born between 170 and 175 AD. He seems to have become consul for the first time in the later years of the reign of Septimius Severus, and for the second time in 234. Otherwise we know that he was governor of Asia in 230, and that he had two mature sons in 238, one, T. Clodius Pupienus Pulcher Maximus, had reached the consulship at some point prior to 238, the other, M. Pupienus Africanus, had been Maximinus' colleague as consul in 236.

General Consideration

The careers of the four emperors accepted by the senate who did not survive 238 (Pupienus and Balbinus were murdered in May) offer a good cross section of the different types of people who had risen to the top of the governing aristocracy at this time. They are also significant because this generation proved to be the last in which the senate was the source of emperors. With the passing of this generation in 268, the army became the principal institution from which emperors were drawn.

the revolt of 238

According to Herodian, the most important source, the oppressive tactics of a procurator in Africa proconsularis led to a revolt by the young men (presumably the collegium of upper class young men) at Thysdrus, a city of that province. They murdered trhe procurator and elevated the governor, M. Antonius Gordianus, to the purple. He set himself up at Carthage notified friends at Rome of his rebellion and they arranged for the murder of the Praetorian Prefect and for the senate's acclamation of Gordian. The Senate then appointed a board of twenty to assist in the defense of the Republic against the "tyrant" and to rally the provinces to their cause. Several of the eastern provinces responded favorably. In March, the governor of Numidia, who had a long-standing grudge against Gordian, led legio III Augusta to Carthage and crushed the revolt there. Gordian's son died in battle and Gordian committed suicide. When the news of this disaster reached Rome, the Senate proclaimed a pair of elderly members of the board of twenty, Pupienus and Balbinus, as rulers in his place. This led to a riot, sparked by friends of the deceased Gordian, and Gordian's thirteen-year old grandson was proclaimed as Caesar to Pupienus and Balbinus. The selection is remarkable in that Pupienus had two mature sons (both had already been consul), and suggests that there may not have been much organization amongst the opponants of Maximinus since the ready explnanation for the choice of the young Gordian as Caesar is that a Gordian's associates were tryting to secure therir interests by promoting the interests of his family against those of others.

Fortunately for the senate, Maximinus did not have the best of luck. He invaded Italy at the end of March and came to a halt before the powerfully defended city of Aquileia. The siege dragged on for some time, while Maximinus' troops became increasingly bored, sick, hungry, and discontented. In late April they murdered the emperor and his son.

Why did it happen?

Herodian's explanation for the revolt (the conduct of a North African procurator) has not been felt adequate, and there are other several lines of interpretation that have helped to enhance appreciation of what happened, even though not always convincing in and of themselves. No single factor can explain the extraordinary events of this year, events without parallel in Roman imperial history. The three considerations outlined below may all have contributed to them.

A. The excluded Severan aristocracy

It was once argued that a group of officials who had risen to high rank under Alexander Severus had been cast into obscurity by Maximinus and that they returned to power under Gordian III. The revolt of 238 was thus a "Severan" reaction against Maximinus. A careful investigation of all careers known from this period has shown that no such conclusions can be drawn. In fact, the reign of Maximinus shows remarkable continuity with that of his predecessor. Nonetheless, the participation of so many high officers requires explanation. This has been offered by another line of interpretation that may be referred to as the "obnoxious personality" line

B. Maximinus' personality

The adherence of many important men to the revolutionary cause in 238 has to be explained by snobbish contempt for Maximinus' background and a feeling that he was not suitably deferential to the senate, fear that property might be at risk or simple opportunism and cold calculation that his army might not be particularly loyal. The career and actions of Maximinus suggest that he possessed a powerful and forceful personality. A firm hand may have been resented after years of committee rule in the time of Alexander Severus. A more pliable monarch was to be preferred if the occasion offered. There is much to be said for this view, especially in light of the fact that the emperors of the previous twenty years (Elagabalus and Alexander Severus) had been nebulous forces in their own government. Weak emperors offered more opportunity for self-aggrandizement to important members of the upper class, a point that may be underlined by the selection of Gordian III. But, while this line may explain why leading members of the aristocracy supported the revolt it cannot explain the extraordinary degree of popular support that the rebellion received. For this another pair of explanations may be helpful: Maximinus' financial problems and the weakness of his base of support within the army.

C. Maximinus, money and the army

Maximinus' most serious problem was probably financial. The soldiers who elevated him to the throne had complained that Alexander was cheap, as well as a coward. Herodian says that when he addressed the recruits who first supported the revolution, Maximinus promised to double their pay and give them a large donative. He then pictures him as a tyrant who fleeced the provinces to find money for the army with which he lived "like a man in a citadel." This is not an entirely accurate picture.

The payment of donatives was probably a more serious issue than the regular pay of the army. In fact, the complaint of the soldiers against Julia Mamaea as they killed her and her son was that she was greedy and unwilling to distribute them. Massive payments had become the order of the day at the end of the second century and a new emperor would certainly have been expected to be generous. An emperor might have been able to balance ordinary income and expenditure (with a certain surplus) in time of peace, but this does not mean that the treasury would always have the enormous reserves on hand to pay them out. It may be assumed that there was not enough money in the treasury after four years of unremunerative warfare against Persia and the Alamanni to make good on whatever promise Maximinus may have made. Indeed, the policies which Maximinus implemented after his accession appear to be no more than what was necessary to raise a substantial amount of money for a large, one-time payout to the troops. They could not support a long-term pay increase. In the course of the lurid tales of judicial murder for money and the theft of temple treasures, which Herodian sketches as Maximinus' policies, there is one fact. This is that Maximinus reduced the amount of money fordistributions at Rome.

Maximinus' financial problem was important. In his effort to keep his promise to his men he took a step that made him deeply unpopular at Rome, and the Roman plebs would prove to be one of the most important forces behind the revolt in 238. The notion that he promised a large donative which he could not pay immediately might also serve to explain why, despite his military virtues, Maximinus was not particularly popular in the army. Furthermore the distribution of honorific titles to the legions suggest that he showed particular favor to the troops under his immediate command, and it might explain why a number of eastern legions supported the revolution of 238. Indeed, the slow and uneven distribution of largess might even explain why he was not uniformly popular with the troops under his direct command. There were two serious plots against his life, the conspiracies of Magnus and Quartinus, even before the uprising in 238.

Further Reading

Herodian,History of the Years after the Death of Marcus, 8; Historia Augusta, Life of Maximinus Thrax (virtually complete fantasy); Historia Augusta, Lives of the Three Gordians (some interesting detail and much fiction); Historia Augustus, Lives of Pupienus and Balbinus (virtually complete fiction); Zosimus, New History (a sixth century history of varying reliablity, and never very informative); Eutropius, Short History of Rome; Potter, Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire.