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CHAPTER V.*

MAXIMIN, PUPIENUS, BALBINUS, AND GORDIAN, PHILIP, DECIUS, GALLUS, EMILIAN, VALERIAN, GALLIENUS.

A. U. 988-1021. A. D. 235-268.

THE EMPIRE. MAXIMIN. - HIS TYRANNY.- INSURRECTION IN AFRICA. -THE GORDIANS. PUPIENUS AND BALBINUS. DEATH OF MAXIMIN. — MURDER OF THE EMPERORS. GORDIAN. PERSIAN WAR. MURDER OF GORDIAN.SECULAR GAMES. -DECIUS. -DEATH OF PHILIP. THE GOTHS. GOTHIC WAR. — DEATH OF DECIUS. GALLUS. - EMILIAN. VALERIAN. THE FRANKS. THE ALEMANS. GOTHIC INVASIONS. PERSIAN WAR.

PHILIP.

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DEGALLIENUS. THE

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DEATH OF GALLIENUS.

C. Julius Verus Maximinus.

A. U. 988-991. A. D. 235-238.

As we advance through the history of the Roman empire, we find it deteriorating at every step, the traces of civil government becoming continually more and more evanescent, and the power of the sword the only title under which obedience could be claimed. The government had, in fact, been a military despotism from the time of Augustus; but that prudent prince, and the best of his successors, had concealed the odious truth beneath the forms of law and civil regulations; and perhaps it may be considered that his own. reign, and the eighty-four years from Domitian to Commodus, are among the periods of the greatest happiness which mankind have enjoyed; absolute power being wielded by wisdom and goodness. Human nature, however, does not permit such a state to endure; and the thirteen years of Alexander Severus form but a gleam of sunshine in the political gloom of the succeeding century.

Elective monarchy is an evil of the greatest magnitude.

* Authorities: Herodian, the Augustan History, Zosimus, and the Epitomators.

He who cannot transmit his dominion to his son, will be in general little solicitous about its future condition. Nothing was farther from the intention of the founder of the Roman empire than that such should be its condition; yet Providence seems to have designedly thwarted all the efforts made to form an hereditary monarchy. The Cæsarian family, and the good emperors, as they are called, were but a series of adoptions: a son sometimes succeeded his father; but from Augustus till nearly the end of the empire, the imperial power never reached the third generation. The fiction of the two Syrian youths having been sons of Caracalla, was the last faint effort made in favor of the hereditary principle: with Maximin commenced a new order; and every soldier might now aspire to empire.

Maximin was originally a Thracian peasant, of enormous size and strength; his stature, we are told, exceeded eight feet; his wife's bracelet made him a thumb-ring; he could draw a loaded wagon, break a horse's leg with a kick, and crumble sandstones in his hands; he often, it is added, ate forty pounds of meat in the day, and washed them down with seven gallons of wine. Hence he was named Hercules, Antæus, and Milo of Croton. He became known to the emperor Severus on the occasion of his celebrating the birthday of his son Geta one time in Thrace. The young barbarian approached him, and, in broken Latin, craved permission to wrestle with some of the strongest of the camp followers; he vanquished sixteen of them, and received as many prizes, and was admitted into the service. A couple of days after, Severus, seeing him exulting at his good fortune, spoke to a tribune about him; and Maximin, perceiving that he was the object of the emperor's discourse, began to run on foot by his horse; Severus, to try his speed, put his horse to the gallop; but the young soldier kept up with him till the aged emperor was tired. Severus asked him if he felt inclined to wrestle after his running; he replied in the affirmative, and overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers. He rose rapidly in the service under Severus and his son; he retired to his native village when Macrinus seized the empire; he disdained to serve Elagabalus, but the accession of Alexander induced him to return to Rome. He received the command of a legion, was made a senator, and the emperor even had thoughts of giving his sister in marriage to the son of the Thracian peasant.

The first care of Maximin, when raised to the empire, was

to dismiss from their employments all who were in the council or family of his predecessor; and several were put to death as conspirators. He speedily displayed the native ferocity of his temper; for when, having completed a bridge of boats over the Rhine, commenced by Alexander, he was preparing to pass over into Germany, a conspiracy, headed by one Magnus, a consular, was discovered, the plan of which was to loose the farther end of the bridge when Maximin had passed over, and thus to leave him in the hands of the Germans; and, meantime, Magnus was to be proclaimed emperor. On this occasion, he massacred upwards of four thousand persons, without any form of trial whatever; and he was accused of having invented the conspiracy with this design.

A revolt of the Eastern archers,* which occurred a few days after, being quelled, Maximin led his army into Germany. As no large force opposed him, he wasted and burned the country through an extent of four hundred miles. Occasional skirmishes took place in the woods and marshes, which gave Maximin opportunities of displaying his personal prowess; and he caused pictures of his victories to be painted, which he sent to Rome, to be placed at the door of the senate-house.

Maximin employed the two first years of his reign in wars against the Germans and the Sarmatians. His winter residence was Sirmium in Pannonia, and he never condescended to visit Italy. But his absence was no benefit; for Italy, and all parts of the empire, groaned alike beneath his merciless tyranny. The vile race of delators once more came into life; men of all ranks were dragged from every part of the empire to Pannonia, where some were sewed up in the skins of animals, others were exposed to wild beasts, others beaten to death with clubs, and the properties of all were confiscated. This had been the usual course of the preceding despotism, and the people in general, therefore, took little heed of it; but Maximin stretched his rapacious hands to the corporate funds of the cities of the empire, which were destined to the support or the amusement of the people; and he seized on the treasures of the temples, and stripped the public edifices of their ornaments. The spirit of disaffection, thus excited, was general, and even his soldiers were wearied of his severity and cruelty.

* It was now the practice to have bodies of archers from the East in the Roman service.

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The whole empire was now, therefore, ripe for revolt; the rapacity of the procurator of Africa caused it to break out in that province, (237.) This officer, who was worthy of his master, had condemned two young men of rank to pay such sums as would have quite ruined them. In despair, they assembled the peasantry on their estates, and, having gained over part of the soldiers, they one night surprised the procurator, and slew him and those who defended him. Knowing that they had no safety but in a general revolt, they resolved to offer the empire to M. Antonius Gordianus, the governor of the province, an illustrious senator, of the venerable age of eighty years. They came to him as he was resting, after giving audience in the morning, and, flinging the purple of a standard over him, saluted him Augustus. Gordian declined the proffered dignity; but, when he reflected that Maximin would never pardon a man who had been proclaimed emperor, he deemed it the safer course to run the hazard of the contest, and he consented to accept the empire, making his son his colleague. He then proceeded to Carthage, whence he wrote to the senate and people, and his friends at Rome, notifying his elevation to the empire.

The intelligence was received with the greatest joy at Rome. The two Gordians were declared Augusti, and Maximin, and his son, whom he had associated with him in the empire, and their friends, public enemies, and rewards were promised to those who would kill them; but the decree was ordered to be kept secret till all the necessary preparations should have been made. Soon after, it was given out that Maximin was slain. The edicts of the Gordians were then published, their images and letters were carried into the prætorian camp, and forthwith the people rose in fury, cast down and broke the images of Maximin, fell on and massacred his officers and the informers; and many seized this pretext for getting rid of their creditors and their private enemies. Murder and pillage prevailed through the city. The senate, meantime, having advanced too far to recede, wrote a circular to all the governors of provinces, and appointed twenty of their body to put Italy into a state of defence.

Maximin was preparing to cross the Danube against the Sarmatians when he heard of what had taken place at Rome. His rage and fury passed all bounds. He menaced the whole of the senate with bonds or death, and promised their

properties, and those of the Africans, to his soldiers; but, finding that they did not show all the alacrity he had expected, he began to fear for his power. His spirits, however, soon rose, when tidings came that his rivals were no more: for Capellianus, governor of Mauretania, being ordered by the Gordians to quit that province, marched against Carthage at the head of a body of legionaries and Moors. The younger Gordian gave him battle, and was defeated and slain, and his father, on hearing the melancholy tidings, strangled himself. Capellianus pillaged Carthage and the other towns, and exercised all the rights of a conqueror, (237.)

When the fatal tidings reached Rome, the consternation was great; but the senate, seeing they could not now recede, chose as emperors, in the place of the Gordians, M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus and D. Cælius Balbinus, the former to conduct the military, the latter the civil affairs of the state. To satisfy the people, a grandson of the elder Gordian, a boy of twelve years of age, was associated with them as a Cæsar.

The new emperors were elected about the beginning of July, and Pupienus forthwith left Rome to oppose Maximin. The remainder of the year was spent on both sides in making preparations for the war, and in the following spring (238) Maximin put his troops in motion for Italy. He passed the Alps unopposed, but found the gates of Aquileia closed against him. His offers of pardon being rejected, he laid siege to the town: it was defended with the obstinacy of despair. Ill success augmented the innate ferocity of Maximin; he put to death several of his officers; these executions irritated the soldiers, who were besides suffering all kinds of privations, and discontent became general. As Maximin was reposing one day at noon in his tent, a party of the Alban soldiers approached it with the intention of killing him. They were joined by his guards, and, when he awoke and came forth with his son, they would not listen to him, but killed them both on the spot, and cut off their heads. Maximin's principal ministers shared his fate. His reign had lasted only three years.

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* See above, p. 208.

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