113 4 At any rate, I have set this statement down with its authorities, in order that no one may believe that I did not know it — which indeed would cause great wonder and
amazement!
Historia Augusta
46 6 And not only the Romans, but, because he had been savage to the soldiers also, the armies which were in Africa rose in sudden and powerful rebellion p343 and hailed the aged and venerable Gordian47 who was proconsul there, as emperor.
This rebellion came into being in the following manner.
48
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 There was a certain imperial steward in Libya, who in his zeal for Maximinus had despoiled every one ruthlessly, until finally the peasantry, abetted by a number of soldiers, slew him, after overcoming those who out of respect for Maximinus defended the agent of the privy-purse. 49 2 But soon the promoters of this murder saw that they must seek relief through sharper remedies, and so, coming to the proconsul Gordian, a man, as we have said, worthy of respect, well-born, eminent in every virtue, whom Alexander had sent to Africa by senatorial decree, and threatening him with swords and every other kind of weapon, they forced him, though he cried out against it and cast himself on the ground, to assume the purple and rule. 3 In the beginning, it is true, Gordian took the purple much against his will; but later, when he saw that this course was unsafe for his son50 and family, he willingly undertook to rule, and at the town of Thysdrus51 he, together with his son, was proclaimed Augustus by all the Africans. 4 From here he went speedily to Carthage with royal pomp and guards and laurelled fasces, and sent letters to the senate at Rome. And the senate, after the murder of Vitalianus,52 the prefect of the guard, received these with rejoicing because of their hatred for Maximinus,53 5 and proclaimed both the elder and p345 the younger Gordian Augusti. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 15 1 Then all the informers and accusers and Maximinus' friends were put to death, and Sabinus, the prefect of the city, was beaten by the populace and slain.
2 And when this had been done, the senate, now fearing Maximinus all the more, openly and freely proclaimed him and his son enemies of the state. 54 3 It next despatched letters to all the provinces, asking their aid for their common safety and liberty; and all of them gave heed. 4 Lastly Maximinus' friends and administrators, generals, tribunes, and soldiers were everywhere put to death. 5 A few communities, however, remained loyal to the public enemy; these betrayed the messengers who had been sent to them and promptly handed them over to Maximinus by means of informers.
6 The following is a specimen of the letters that the senate sent out:55 "The senate and Roman people, now beginning to be delivered from a most savage monster by the two princes Gordian, to the proconsuls, governors, legates, generals, tribunes, magistrates, and several states, municipalities, towns, villages, and fortified places, with prosperity, which they are just now beginning to regain for themselves. 7 With the help of the gods we have obtained the proconsul Gordian, a most righteous man and eminent senator, as emperor. We have given to him the title of Augustus, and not only to him, but also, for the further safeguarding of the state, to that excellent man Gordian his son. 8 It is now your part to unite, that the state may be made secure, that evil doings may be repelled, and that the monster and his friends, p347 wherever they be, may be hunted down. 9 We have pronounced Maximinus and his son enemies of the state. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 16 1 This was the senate's decree: After they had assembled in the Temple of Castor and Pollux56 on the sixth day before the Kalends of July,57 Julius Silanus, the consul, read the letter which had been received from Africa from Gordian the proconsul, emperor and father of his country: 2 "Conscript Fathers, the young men, to whom was entrusted Africa to guard, against my will have called on me to rule. But having regard to you, I am glad to endure this necessity. It is yours to decide what you wish. For myself, I shall waver to and fro in uncertainty until the senate has decided. " 3 As soon as the letter was read the senate forthwith cried out:58 "Gordian Augustus, may the gods keep you! May you rule happily; you have delivered us. May you rule safely; you have delivered us. Through you the state is made safe. All of us, we thank you. " 4 So then the consul put the question: "Concerning the Maximini, Conscript Fathers, what is your pleasure? " They replied, "Enemies, enemies! He who slays them shall have a reward. " 5 Again the consul spoke: "Concerning the friends of Maximinus, what seems good? " And they cried out, "Enemies, enemies! He who slays them shall have a reward. " 6 And then they cried out: "Let the foe of the senate be hanged on a cross. Let the senate's enemy everywhere be smitten. Let the senate's foes be burned alive. Gordiani Augusti, may the gods keep you! 7 Luckily may you live! Luckily may you rule! We decree the grandson of Gordian59 the praetorship, we promise the grandson of Gordian the consulship. Let the p349 grandson of Gordian be called Caesar. Let the third Gordian take the praetorship. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 17 1 When this decree of the senate reached Maximinus, being by nature passionate, he so flamed with fury that you would have thought him not a man but a wild beast. 60 2 He dashed himself against the walls, sometimes he threw himself upon the ground, he screamed incoherently aloud, he snatched at his sword as though he could slaughter the senate then and there, he rent his royal robes, he beat the palace-attendants, and, had not the youth retreated, certain authorities affirm, he would have torn out his young son's eyes. 3 He was enraged with his son, as it happened, because he had ordered him to go to Rome when he was first declared emperor, and this the youth, because of his excessive fondness for his father, had not done. And now Maximinus imagined that if he had been at Rome the senate would have dared none of this. 4 Blazing with rage, then, his friends got him to his room. 5 But still he could not control his fury, and finally, to get oblivion from his thoughts, he so soaked himself with wine on that first day, they say, that he did not know what had been done. 6 On the next day, admitting his friends — and they indeed could not bear to see him, but stood silent and silently commended what the senate had done, — he held a council as to what he should do. 7 From the council he proceeded to an assembly, and there said much against the Africans, much against Gordian, and more against the senate, urging his soldiers to avenge their common wrongs.
p351 18 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] His speech was altogether that of a soldier,61 this being the general purport of it: "Fellow soldiers, we are revealing something you already know. The Africans have broken faith. When did they ever keep it? 62 Gordian, a feeble old man on the brink of death, has assumed the imperial office. 2 Those most sacred Conscript Fathers, who murdered Romulus63 and Caesar, have pronounced me a public enemy, me, who fought for them and conquered for them too; and not only me but you also, and all who stand with me. The Gordians, both father and son, they have called Augusti. 3 If you are men, then, if there is any might in you, let us march now against the senate and the Africans, and you shall have the goods of them all. " 4 He then gave them a bounty — and a huge one, too — and turning towards Rome began to march thither with his army.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 19 1 But now Gordian began to be harassed in Africa by a certain Capelianus,64 whom he had deposed from the governorship of the Moors. 2 And when finally he sent his son against him, and his son after a desperate battle was killed, the old man hanged himself, well knowing that there was much strength in Maximinus and in the Africans none, nay rather only a great faculty for betraying. 3 And forthwith Capelianus, the victor, in the name of Maximinus slew and outlawed all of the dead Gordian's party in Africa, sparing none. Indeed, he seemed to perform these duties quite in Maximinus' own temper. 4 He overthrew cities, ravaged shrines, divided gifts among his p353 soldiers, and slaughtered common folk and nobles in the cities. 5 At the same time he strove to win over the affections of his soldiers, playing for the imperial power himself in the event that Maximinus perished.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 20 1 When news of these events was brought to Rome, the senate, fearing Maximinus's barbarity — natural at all times and inevitable now that the two Gordians were dead, — elected two other emperors,65 Maximus,66 who had been prefect of the city and had held many other offices with distinction before that, humble by birth but eminent by his virtues, and Balbinus,67 who was somewhat fonder of pleasure. 2 These were acclaimed Augusti by the people; and by the soldiers and the same people the little grandson of Gordian68 was hailed as Caesar. 3 With three emperors, therefore, was the state propped against Maximinus. 4 Maximus, however, was the most rigorous of life, the most sagacious, and the most uniformly courageous of the three, 5 so finally both the senate and Balbinus entrusted the war against Maximinus to him. 6 But after Maximus had set out to war against Maximinus, Balbinus was beset with civil war and domestic disturbances at Rome,69 especially after two soldiers of the praetorian guard were slain by the populace at the p355 instigation of Gallicanus and Maecenas. The populace, indeed, were cruelly butchered by the guard when Balbinus proved unable to quell the uprising. And in the end a great part of the city was burned.
7 Meanwhile the Emperor Maximinus had been greatly cheered by hearing of the death of Gordian and Capelianus' victory over his son. 8 But when he received the second decree of the senate, in which Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian were declared emperors, he then realized that the senate's hatred for him was never to end and that everyone really considered him an enemy. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 21 1 Hotter than ever, then, he pushed on into Italy. He then learned that Maximus had been sent against him, and in a violent rage came up to Emona70 in line of battle. 2 But the plan agreed on for all the provincials was this:71 that they should gather up everything that could be useful for the commissariat and retire within the cities in order that Maximinus and his army might be pinched by famine. 3 And, indeed, when he pitched camp on the plain for the first time and found no provisions, his army was incensed at him because they suffered from hunger even in Italy, where they expected to be refreshed after the Alps, and they began at first to murmur and then indeed to speak out openly. 4 And when Maximinus attempted to punish this, the army was much inflamed, but silently stored up its hate for the moment and produced it again at the proper time. 5 Many authorities say that Maximinus found Emona empty and abandoned, and foolishly rejoiced because the entire city, as it seemed, had retreated before him. 72
p357 6 After this he came to Aquileia, which shut its gates against him and posted armed men about the walls. Nor did the defence lack vigour, being conducted by Menophilus and Crispinus,73 both men of consular rank. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 22 1 So when Maximinus found he was besieging Aquileia in vain, he sent envoys to the city. And the people had almost yielded to them, had not Menophilus and his colleague opposed it, saying that the god Belenus74 had declared through the soothsayers that Maximinus would be conquered. 2 Whence afterwards the soldiers of Maximinus boasted, it is said, that Apollo must have fought against them, and that really victory belonged not to the senate and Maximus but to the gods. 3 But, on the other hand, it is said that they advanced this theory because they blushed, armed men as they were, to have been defeated by men practically unarmed. 4 At any rate, after making a bridge of wine-casks, Maximinus crossed the river75 and began to invest Aquileia closely. 5 And terrible then was both the assault and the danger, for the townsmen defended themselves from the soldiers with sulphur, fire, and other defensive devices of this same kind;76 and of the soldiers some were stripped of their arms, others had their clothing burned, and some were blinded, while the investing engines were completely destroyed. 6 Amid all this Maximinus, with his young son whom he had entitled Caesar, strode about the walls, just far enough off to be safe from the throw of javelins, and besought now p359 his own men, now the men of the town. 7 But it profited him nothing. For against him, because of his cruelty, and against his son, who was a most beautiful creature, the townsmen merely hurled abuses.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 23 1 And so now Maximinus, flattering himself that the war was being prolonged by the cowardice of his men, put his generals to death, just at the time when he could least afford to do so; by which act he made his soldiers still further enraged against him. 2 In addition to that, he now ran short of provisions, because the senate had sent letters to all the provinces and to the overseers of ports to prevent any provisions coming into Maximinus' power. 3 It had sent praetors and quaestors throughout all the cities, moreover, to keep guard everywhere and defend everything against Maximinus. 77 4 Finally, it came to pass that he himself, while besieging, suffered the distress of one besieged. 5 At this juncture it was announced that the whole world was agreed in hatred of Maximinus. 6 And so some of the soldiers, whose wives and children were on the Alban Mountain,78 becoming fearful, in the middle of the day, when they rested from the fighting, slew Maximinus and his son as they lay in their tent,79 and putting their heads on poles, showed them to the citizens of Aquileia. 7 And thereupon in the neighbouring town the statues and portraits of Maximinus were immediately thrown down and his prefect of the guard, together with his more notable friends, were slain. Their heads were sent to Rome.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 24 1 This was the end of the Maximini, worthy the cruelty of the father, unworthy the goodness of the son. Among the provincials there was tremendous rejoicing at their death, but among the barbarians80 the most grievous sorrow.
p361 2 And now that the public enemies were slain, the soldiers were taken in by the townsfolk at their own request — but on condition that they would worship before the portraits of Maximus and Balbinus and also of Gordian, for all told them that the elder Gordians had been placed among the gods. 81 3 This done, a mighty store of provisions was speedily carried from Aquileia to the camp, which was suffering from hunger, and after the soldiers were refreshed, on a later day they came to an assembly. And there they all swore allegiance to Maximus and Balbinus, and hailed the elder Gordians as divine.
4 One can scarcely describe how great the joy was when the head of Maximinus was carried through Italy to Rome. From all sides folk came running as to a public holiday. 5 Maximus, whom many call Pupienus,82 was at Ravenna, preparing with the aid of German auxiliaries for war;83 but when he learned that the army had come over to himself and his colleagues, and that the Maximini were slain, 6 he at once dismissed the German auxiliaries,84 whom he was getting ready against the enemy, and sent a laurelled letter85 to Rome. And this caused unbounded rejoicing in the city; indeed at altars, temples, shrines, and holy places everywhere, everyone offered up thanks. 7 As for Balbinus, a somewhat timid soul by nature, who trembled when he heard Maximinus' very name, he sacrificed a hecatomb86 and gave orders that the gods should be worshipped with an equal sacrifice in every town. 8 Soon thereafter Maximus came to Rome,87 and after going into the senate,88 p363 where thanks were offered him, he held an assembly, whence he and Balbinus and Gordian victoriously betook themselves to the Palace.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 25 1 It is of interest to know what sort of decree the senate passed and what the day was in the city, when it was announced that Maximinus was slain. 2 For, in the first place, the messenger who had been sent to Rome from Aquileia, by changing his horses managed to gallop with such speed that he reached Rome on the third day after leaving Maximus at Ravenna. 3 As it happened, games were being held that day, when suddenly, while Balbinus and Gordian were seated, the messenger entered the theatre; and at once, before he uttered a word, the people cried out with one voice, "Maximinus is dead! " 4 Thus the messenger was anticipated and the Emperors, who were present, by nodding in assent expressed the public rejoicing. 5 The performance, then, being brought to a close, everyone immediately rushed to his religious duties, and thereafter the nobles sped to the Senate-house, the people to the assembly.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 26 1 The decree of the senate was as follows:89 After the Emperor Balbinus Augustus had read the letter, the senate cried: 2 "The gods take vengeance on the foes of the Roman people. Most great Jupiter, we give you thanks. Revered Apollo, we give you thanks. Maximus Augustus, we give you thanks. Balbinus Augustus, we give you thanks. We decree temples for the Deified Gordians. 3 The name of Maximinus, previously expunged,90 is now to be stricken from our hearts. Let the head of the public foe be cast into running water. Let no man bury his body. p365 He who threatened death to the senate is slain as he deserved. He who threatened chains for the senate is killed as he deserved. 4 Most reverend Emperors, we offer you thanks. Maximus, Balbinus, Gordian, may the gods keep you! victorious over your foes, we all desire your presence. We all desire the presence of Maximus. Balbinus Augustus, may the gods keep you! Honour the present year by being this year's consuls. In the place of Maximinus let Gordian be chosen. " 5 After this, Cuspidius Celerinus,91 being asked for his opinion, spoke thus: "Conscript Fathers, having expunged the name of the Maximini and deified the Gordians, in honour of the victory we decree to our princes Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian statues with elephants, triumphal cars, equestrian statues, and trophies of victory. " 6 After this, the senate being dissolved, supplications were ordered throughout the whole city. 7 The princes betook them victoriously to the Palace, but of their lives we shall write later in another book.
MAXIMINUS THE YOUNGER
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 27 1 The descent of the younger Maximinus92 has been related above. He himself was so beautiful that the more wanton of women loved him indiscriminately, and not a few desired to be gotten with child by him. 2 He gave such promise of height, moreover, that he might have reached his father's stature had he not perished in his twenty-first year, in the very flower of his youth, or, as some say, in his eighteenth. 3 Even so, he was well versed in Greek and Latin p367 letters, for he got his first schooling under the Greek man of letters Fabillus,93 many of whose Greek epigrams are extant today, chiefly on statues of the boy himself. 4 This Fabillus also made Greek verses from those Latin lines of Vergil, meaning to describe this same boy:
"Like to the star of the morning when he, new-bathèd in Ocean,
Raises his holy face and scatters the darkness from heaven,94
So did the young man seem, fair-famed in the name of his father. "
5 Latin grammar he studied under Philemon, jurisprudence under Modestinus,95 and oratory under Titianus, the son of that elder Titianus96 who wrote a very beautiful work on the provinces and was called the ape of his age because he imitated everything. He employed also the Greek rhetorician Eugamius, who was famous in his day.
6 Junia Fadilla,97 the great-granddaughter of Antoninus, was betrothed to him; but afterwards she was espoused by Toxotius, a senator of the same family, who died after serving his praetorship, certain poems of his being extant today. 7 The regal betrothal-gifts that he had presented her with, however, she kept. Junius Cordus, who was an investigator of these things, p369 says that they were such as these: a necklace of nine pearls; a net-work cap with eleven emeralds; a bracelet with a row of four sapphires; and besides these, gowns worked with gold, all of them royal, and other betrothal pledges.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 28 1 The young man Maximinus was most excessively insolent; indeed, when even his father, a very hard man, rose to greet many distinguished men, he remained seated. 2 He was fond of gay living, very sparing in the use of wine, but voracious in respect to food, especially game, eating only boar's flesh, ducks, cranes, and everything that is hunted. 3 The friends of Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian, and particularly the senators, spoke ill of him because his excessive beauty; for they were not willing that his beauty, fallen, as it were, from heaven, should be pure. 4 Indeed, that time when he walked about the walls of Aquileia with his father, asking its surrender, nothing but filthy insinuations were hurled at him,98 — though far removed from his real life. 5 He was very careful of his dress, and no woman was more elegantly groomed. 6 It was monstrous how his father's friends fawned on him, in hopes chiefly of gifts or largess. 7 For he was exceedingly haughty at his levees — he stretched out his hand, and suffered his knees to be kissed, and sometimes even his feet. This the elder Maximinus never permitted; for he said "God forbid that any free man should ever print a kiss on my feet". 8 And while we are speaking of the elder Maximinus we should not forbear to mention this amusing thing: as we have said,99 Maximinus was almost eight and a half feet tall; and certain men deposited a shoe of his, p371 that is, one of his royal boots, in a grove which lies between Aquileia and Arcia,100 because, sooth, they agreed that it was a foot longer than the measure of any foot of man. 9 Whence also is derived the vulgar expression, used for lanky and awkward fellows, of "Maximinus' boot". 10 I have put this down lest any one who reads Cordus should believe that I have overlooked anything which pertained to my subject. But now let me return to the son.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 29 1 Aurelius Alexander101 wished to give him his sister Theoclia in marriage and wrote to his mother Mamaea these words concerning the youth: 2 "Mother, were there not an element of the barbarian in the character of the elder Maximinus — he who is out general, and a very good one, too — I had already married your Theoclia to Maximinus102 the younger. 3 But I am afraid that such a product of Greek culture as my sister could not endure a barbarian father-in‑law, however much the young man himself seems handsome and learned and polished in Greek elegance. This is what I think; 4 but nevertheless I ask your advice. Tell me, do you wish Maximinus, the son of Maximinus, for a son-in‑law, or Messalla, who is a scion of a noble house, a very powerful speaker, very learned, and, if I mistake not, a man who would prove himself gallant on the field if occasion should arise? " 5 Thus Alexander on Maximinus. As for us, we have nothing further to say of him.
6 And yet — lest we seem to have omitted anything at all — I have set down a letter written by his father Maximinus, when he had now become emperor, in p373 which he says that he had proclaimed his son emperor in order to see, either in painting or actuality, what the younger Maximinus would look like in the purple. 7 The letter itself was of this nature: "I have let my Maximinus be called emperor, not only because of the fondness which a father owes a son, but also that the Roman people and that venerable senate may be able to take an oath that they have never had a more handsome emperor". 8 After the fashion of the Ptolemies this youth wore a golden cuirass; he had also a silver one. He had a shield, moreover, inlaid with gold and jewels, and also a gold-inlaid spear. 9 He had silver swords made for him, too, and gold ones as well, everything, in fact, which could enhance his beauty — helmets inset with precious stones and cheek-pieces done in the same fashion.
10 These are the facts which can be known and related of the boy with propriety. But whoever desires to know the rest, about sexual and amorous affairs with which Cordus bespatters him, let him read Cordus; as for us, we make an end of our book here, and hasten on, as though bidden by a public duty, to other things.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 30 1 The omens that he would be emperor were these: A snake coiled about his head as he was sleeping. A grape-vine which he planted produced within a year huge clusters of purple grapes, and grew to an astounding size. 2 His shield blazed in the sun. A small lance of his was split by lightning and in such a manner that the whole of it, even through the iron, was cleft and fell into two halves. And from this the soothsayers declared that from the one house there would spring two emperors of the same name, whose reign would be of no long duration. p375 3 His father's cuirass — many saw it — was stained not with rust, as is usual, but all over with a purple colour. 4 These omens, moreover, occurred for the son: When he was sent to a grammarian, a certain kinswoman of his gave him the works of Homer all written in letters of gold on purple. 5 And while he was yet a little boy, he was asked to dinner by Alexander as a compliment to his father, and, being without a dinner-robe, he wore one of Alexander's. 6 When still an infant, moreover, he mounted up into a carriage of Antoninus Caracalla's that unexpectedly came down the public way, seeing it empty, and sat down; and only with great ado was he routed out by the coachmen. 7 Nor were there lacking then those who told Caracalla to beware of the child. But he said, "It is a far chance that this fellow will succeed me. " For at that time he was of the undistinguished crowd and was very young.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 31 1 The omens of his death were these: When Maximinus and his son were marching against Maximus and Balbinus they were met by a woman with dishevelled hair and woeful attire, who cried out, "Maximini, Maximini, Maximini," and said no more, and died. She wished to add, it seemed, "Help me! " 2 And at their next halting-place hounds, more than twelve of them, howled about his tent, drawing their breath with a sort of sobbing, and at dawn were found dead. 3 Five hundred wolves, likewise, came in a pack into that town whither Maximinus had betaken himself — Emona,103 many say, others Archimea;104 at any rate, it was one which was left abandoned by its inhabitants when Maximinus approached. 4 It is a lengthy business to enumerate all these things; and if anyone desires to know them, let him, as I have p377 often said, read Cordus, who has related them all, to the point of telling idle tales.
5 They have no tombs. For their corpses were cast into running water and their heads, while the mob capered, were burned in the Campus Martius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 32 1 Aelius Sabinus105 has written, and we must not omit it, that such was the beauty of the son's face that even in death his head, now black, and dirty, shrunken, and running with putrid gore, seemed still the shadow, as it were, of a beautiful face. 2 And indeed, though there was great joy at seeing the head of Maximinus, there was almost equal grief when the son's head was carried with it. 3 Dexippus106 says that Maximinus was hated so thoroughly that when the Gordians perished the senate elected twenty men to oppose him. 107 Among these were Maximus and Balbinus, and these two they made emperors against him. 4 This same Dexippus says also that Maximinus' prefect of the guard and his son were slain before their eyes, after his soldiers had deserted him. 5 And there are not lacking historians who say that Maximinus also, after he had been deserted and had seen his son slain before his eyes, killed himself with his own hand,108 that nothing womanish might attach to him.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 33 1 Nor can we fail to mention the extraordinary loyalty displayed by the Aquileians in defending the senate against Maximinus. For, lacking bow-strings with which to shoot their arrows, they made cords of the women's hair. 109 2 It is said that this once happened at Rome as well, whence it was that p379 the senate, in honour of the matrons, dedicated the temple of Venus Calva. 110
We can by no means be silent about the following point. For although Dexippus, Arrianus,111 and many other Greek writers have said that Maximus and Balbinus were set up as emperors against Maximinus, and that Maximus, being sent out with the army, prepared for war at Ravenna, and did not see Aquileia until after he was victorious,112 Latin writers have said that it was not Maximus but Pupienus who fought Maximinus at Aquileia and beat him. 3 Whence this error arose I cannot say, unless it be that Maximus and Pupienus were one and the same.
113 4 At any rate, I have set this statement down with its authorities, in order that no one may believe that I did not know it — which indeed would cause great wonder and amazement!
The Three Gordians
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] It had been my plan, revered Augustus, following the example of many writers, to present each separate emperor to Your Clemency, each in a separate book. 2 For I have either seen for myself that many writers have done this, or I have so understood from my reading. 3 It did not seem proper, however, either to perplex Your Piety with a multitude of books or to expend my labour on many volumes. 4 For this reason in this book I have bound the three Gordians together, having a care both for my own labour and for your reading, lest you be compelled to unroll many volumes and yet read scarcely one story. 5 But let not me, who have always fled long books and many words, seem to run into the very thing I pretend cleverly to avoid; and so to my subject!
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 2 1 There were not, as certain uninformed writers maintain, two Gordians, but three. 1 These writers might have learned this from Arrianus,2 the writer of Greek history, and likewise from Dexippus,3 the p383 Greek writer, both of whom have investigated the whole question, briefly perhaps, but still conscientiously. 2 Of the three, Gordian the elder,4 that is the first, was the son of Maecius Marullus and Ulpia Gordiana. On his father's side he traced his descent from the house of the Gracchi, on his mother's from the Emperor Trajan. His own father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, his wife's father and grandfather, and likewise another of his wife's grandfathers and two of her great-grandfathers, were consuls. 3 He himself as consul was most rich and powerful; at Rome he owned the House of Pompey,5 and in the provinces more land than any other subject. 4 After his consulship, which he served with Alexander,6 he was sent out as proconsul to Africa by decree of the senate.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 3 1 But before I tell of his rule, I shall speak a little of his character. 2 When the Gordian of whom we are speaking was a young man, he wrote poetry, all of which has been preserved. 7 As a matter of fact, all the subjects were those which Cicero also treated, that is, Marius, Aratus, Alcyonae, Uxorius and Nilus. 8 And he wrote these in order that Cicero's poems might seem out of date. 3 Besides these, just as p385 Vergil wrote an Aeneid, Statius an Achilleid, and many others Alexandriads, he wrote an Antoniniad — the lives, that is, of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Antoninus, most learnedly versified in thirty books, wherein he recounted their wars and other doings both public and private. 9 4 And all this he did as a young boy. Later on, when he grew to manhood, he declaimed and disputed at the Athenaeum,10 at times in the presence of his emperors.
5 He served his quaestorship most splendidly. When he was aedile he gave the Roman people twelve exhibitions, that is one for each month, at his own expense; at times, indeed, he provided five hundred pairs of gladiators, and never less than a hundred and fifty. 6 He produced a hundred wild beasts of Libya11 at once, and likewise at one time a thousand bears. There exists also today a remarkable wild-beast hunt of his, pictured in Gnaeus Pompey's "House of the Beaks";12 this palace belonged to him and to his father and grandfather before him until your privy-purse took it over in the time of Philip. 13 7 In this picture at the present day are contained two hundred stags with antlers shaped like the palm of a hand, together with stags of Britain, thirty wild horses, a hundred wild sheep, ten elks, a hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, a hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred chamois, and two hundred fallow deer. 8 And all these he handed over to the people to be killed on the day of the sixth exhibition that he gave.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 4 1 He served a famous praetorship. Then, after administering the law, he entered upon his first p387 consulship with Antoninus Caracalla, his second with Alexander. 14 2 ºHe had two children, one the son who attained consular rank and was named Augustus with himself15 and perished in the war in Africa near Carthage,16 the other a daughter, Maecia Faustina by name17 who was married to Junius Balbus, a man of consular rank. 3 His consulships were more brilliant than that of any other man of his time; even Antoninus envied him, admiring now his togas, now his broad stripe,18 and now his games, which surpassed the imperial games themselves. 4 He was the first Roman subject to possess for his own a tunic embroidered with palms19 and a gold-embroidered toga; for previously even the emperors had gotten theirs either from the Capitol or the Palace. 20 5 With the emperors' permission he distributed a hundred Sicilian and a hundred Cappadocian horses among the factions. 21 And he endeared himself greatly to the people, who are always touched by acts of this nature. 6 Cordus22 says that he gave stage-plays and Juvenalia23 in all the cities of Campania, Etruria, Umbria, Flaminia, and Picenum, for four days at his own expense. 7 He wrote prose eulogies also of all the p389 Antonines who had preceded him. He admired the Antonines marvellously;24 many say that he himself assumed the name Antoninus or, as more declare, Antonius. 25 8 And certainly there is no doubt that he embellished his son with the name Antoninus, when, after the Roman custom, he acknowledged him before the prefect of the Treasury and entered his name in the public records. 26
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 5 1 After his consulship he was appointed proconsul of Africa27 through the efforts of all those who desired Alexander's reign to seem and to be brilliant in Africa through the splendour of its proconsul. 2 Indeed there still exists a letter of Alexander's in which he thanks the senate for electing Gordian proconsul for Africa. 3 It runs in this style: "You could have done nothing more pleasing or agreeable to me, Conscript Fathers, than to send Antoninus28 Gordian as proconsul to Africa, for he is well-born, high-minded, eloquent, just, moderate, virtuous," and so on. 4 It is clear from this how great a man Gordian was even at that time. 5 He was beloved by the Africans as no other proconsul had ever been before; some called him Scipio, others, Cato, and many, Mucius,29 Rutilius,30 and Laelius. 31 6 An acclamation of theirs which Junius32 noted down has been preserved. 7 For when on one occasion he was p391 reading an imperial act and began with the mention of the proconsuls Scipio, the people shouted, "The new Scipio, the true Scipio, the proconsul Gordian". He was often greeted with these and similar acclamations.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 6 1 In height he was characteristically Roman. He was becomingly gray, with an impressive face, more ruddy than fair. His face was fairly broad, his eyes, his countenance, and his brow such as to command respect. His body was somewhat stocky. 2 In character he was temperate and restrained; there is nothing you can say that he ever did passionately, immoderately, or excessively. 3 His affection for his kin was remarkable, for his daughter and granddaughter most devoted. 4 He was as deferential to his father-in‑law Annius Severus33 as though he considered that he had passed over into his family as a son; he never washed himself in his company, he never sat in his presence until he became praetor. 5 And when he was consul either he always remained at the old man's house, or, if he stayed at the House of Pompey, he went either at morning or evening to see him. 6 He was sparing in the use of wine, very sparing in the use of food. His dress was elegant. He was fond of bathing; indeed, during the summer, he would bathe four or five times a day, in the winter twice. 7 His love of sleep was enormous; he would doze off even at table, if he were dining with friends, and without any embarrassment. This he seemed to do at nature's bidding and not because of intoxication or wantonness.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 7 1 But all his virtuous behaviour profited him nothing. For this old man, worthy of respect as such a life had made him, who passed his days with Plato p393 and Aristotle, Cicero and Vergil, finally suffered an end other than that he deserved.
2 For, in the time of Maximinus, a grim and savage man, he was ruling Africa as proconsul,34 and his son was with him as his legate, having been so appointed by the senate from among the consuls. Now there was a certain agent of the privy-purse,35 who ran riot against a great number of Africans even more violently than Maximinus himself allowed. He outlawed a great many, he put many to death, he assumed all powers in excess even of a tax-gatherer's; and when he was finally restrained by the proconsul and legate he threatened those noble consular men with death. The Africans at length were unable to suffer these unwonted injuries any longer, and so, with the aid of a number of soldiers, they first killed him. 3 Then, after he was killed and while the whole world was blazing with hatred of Maximinus, his slayers began to take counsel how this conflict which had arisen between the agents of Maximinus and the peasants, or rather the Africans, might go unpunished. 4 Then a certain fellow, Mauritius36 by name, a municipal councillor,37 who had great influence with the Africans, held a sort of assembly on his farm near Thysdrus38 and made a most notable oration to the people of the town and the country, saying: [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 8 1 "Let us give thanks to the immortal gods, citizens, that they have given us a chance, and truly a needed one, of protecting ourselves against that madman Maximinus. 2 We have slain a tax-gatherer of his, one patterned after himself in character and conduct, and unless we make an emperor of our own we are lost. 3 Wherefore, since p395 not far off there is a man of noble blood, a proconsul, and with him his son, a consular legate, both of whom that pest has threatened with death, we shall hail them emperors, if it please you, taking the purple from the standards, and giving them their proper trappings make them secure by Roman law. " 4 Whereupon they shouted, "It is good, it is right. Gordian Augustus, may the gods keep you safe! Rule happily, rule with your son. "
5 Upon this, they came hastily to the town of Thysdrus, and there they found the venerable old man returned from the law-courts and lying on a couch. They girt him straightway with the purple, but he would have none of it and cast himself on the ground; and they lifted him up still refusing. 6 But when he saw that he could do nothing else, for the sake of escaping from a danger which threatened him for certain at the hands of his supporters and only doubtfully from the Maximinians, the old man suffered himself to be acclaimed emperor. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 9 1 He was then eighty years of age,39 and, as we have said,40 had ruled many provinces before; and he had so commended himself to the Roman people by his conduct in these that they thought him worthy of ruling the whole empire. 2 With regard to the killing of the agent, Gordian had had no previous knowledge. But when he learned of the fact, being now near to death and fearing greatly for his son, he preferred to die honourably rather than be handed over to the chains and prison-cell of Maximinus.
3 However, having now acclaimed Gordian emperor, the young men who were the authors of the deed proceeded to cast down the statues of Maximinus, break his busts, and publicly erase his name. p397 They also gave Gordian the name Africanus. 41 4 Some add that he was granted this honorary name, not because he became emperor in Africa, but because he was descended from the family of the Scipios. 42 5 In most books, moreover, I find that Gordian and his son were declared emperors with equal rank and both given the name Antoninus: certain other books, however, say that they were given the name Antonius. 43
6 After this, with kingly pomp and laurelled fasces, they came to Carthage, and there his son — who, after the example of the Scipios,44 as Dexippus the writer of Greek history says, was his father's legate — was invested with equal power. 7 Upon this an embassy was despatched to Rome, bearing letters from the Gordians to announce all that had taken place in Africa, which was received by Valerian, the chief of the senate (who was afterwards emperor),45 with rejoicing. Letters were sent also to their noble friends, in order that powerful men might support their action and from friends might become still greater friends.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 10 1 But the senate received them so joyfully as emperors against Maximinus that not only did it ratify all that had been already done but further elected twenty men46 — including Maximus, known also as Pupienus,47 and Clodius Balbinus,48 both of whom were made emperors after the two Gordians were slain in p399 Africa49 — 2 among whom the districts of Italy were portioned out to be guarded for the Gordians against Maximinus. 3 Embassies then came to Rome from Maximinus50 promising to redress the past. 4 For they promised all good things; they promised a huge bounty to the soldiers and fields and a largess to the people, and they were trusted. 5 In fact, so much more trust was placed in the Gordians than in the Maximini, that Vitalianus, the prefect of the guard, was put to death at the senate's command, a quaestor and some soldiers performing the deed with great daring. This Vitalianus had conducted himself with great cruelty before; and now they feared some greater piece of savagery pleasing and agreeable to one of Maximinus' character. 6 The following story is related about his death. 51 A forged letter, purporting to come from Maximinus and sealed as if with his ring, was brought to Vitalianus by soldiers in charge of a quaestor, who added that there was further information, not in the letter, to be imparted in secret. 7 They retired, therefore, to a distant portico, where he inquired what it was that was to be told him secretly. 8 But first they urged him to look at the seal on the letter, which he did. And while he was regarding it, they cut him down, and then persuaded the soldiers that he had been slain by command of Maximinus. And when this affair had been settled, the letters and images of the Gordians were displayed in the Camp.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 11 1 I think it my duty to set down in writing the decree of the senate in which the Gordians were p401 declared emperors and Maximinus a public enemy. 52 2 On an extraordinary, not a regular, day for the meeting of the senate, the consul, having foregathered at his own home with the praetors, the aediles, and the tribunes of the people, came to the Senate-house. 3 The prefect of the city, who had somehow got wind of something and had not received the official notice, kept away from the meeting. But as it turned out, that was as well, for before the usual acclamations were made or anything was said favourable to Maximinus, the consul53 cried: 4 "Conscript Fathers, the two Gordians, father and son, both ex-consuls, the one your proconsul, the other now your legate, have been declared emperors by a great assembly in Africa. 5 Let us give thanks, then, to the young men of Thysdrus, and thanks also to the ever loyal people of Carthage; they have freed us from that savage monster, from that wild beast. 6 Why do you hear me with quaking? Why do you look around? Why do you delay? This is what you have always hoped for. 7 Maximinus is our enemy; the gods shall now bring it to pass that he may now cease to be, and that we with joyful hearts may enjoy the happy sagacity of the elder Gordian, the intrepid virtue of the younger. " 8 After this he read the letters which the Gordians had sent to the senate and to himself. And then the senate cried aloud:54 "We thank you, O gods. We are freed from our enemies; so may we be wholly freed! 9 ºWe adjudge Maximinus an enemy. We consign Maximinus and his son to the gods below. 10 We call the Gordians Augusti. We recognize the Gordians as princes. May the gods keep safe the senate's p403 emperors, may we see our noble emperors victorious, may Rome see our emperors! Whoever shall kill the public enemies shall get a reward. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 12 1 Junius Cordus says that this was a secret decree of the senate. 55 Just what this is, and why it is so called, I shall briefly explain. 2 Today the equivalent of a secret decree of the senate is, in general, nothing more than the action of those inner councils of elders by which Your Clemency settles those affairs which are not to be published abroad. You are accustomed to take oath when discussing these matters, moreover, that no one shall hear or know anything of them until the business is completed. 3 But among the ancients the custom was introduced in the interests of the state, that, if by any chance violence threatened at the hands of their enemies, which forced them either to adopt ignoble counsels or resolve on things which should not be disclosed until they were ready to be put into effect, or if they were unwilling for certain measures to be divulged to friends, the senate passed a secret decree. At these sessions not even the clerks or public servants or officers of the Census56 were present; the senators took over and the senators performed the duties of all the clerks and officers of the Census, lest anything by any chance should be betrayed. 4 To prevent news of it reaching Maximinus, therefore, this decree of the senate was made secret.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 13 1 But as is the way with the minds of men — of such of them, at least, as blush if any knowledge of theirs does not become known and consider it abject not to betray a trust — Maximinus straightway learned everything. Indeed, he got a copy of the senate's secret p405 decree — a thing that had never previously occurred. 2 There is a letter of his to the city-prefect which says: "I have read the senate's secret decree about those emperors of ours; perhaps you, being city-prefect, did not know it had been passed, for you were not present on that occasion. I have sent you a copy, however, hoping that you may learn how to rule the commonwealth of Rome. " 3 The fury that shook Maximinus when he learned that Africa had revolted from him is impossible to describe. 57 4 For when he finally comprehended the decree of the senate, he dashed himself against the walls, he rent his garments, he snatched his sword as though he could slay them in a body, he seemed, indeed, to go wholly mad.
5 The prefect of the city now got even more violent letters and made an address to the people and the soldiers, wherein he said that Maximinus had been slain. 58 6 Upon this great rejoicing arose and the statues and portraits of the public enemy were immediately cast down. 7 The senate, moreover, employed the powers which belonged to it for impending war. Informers, false accusers, personal agents, in fact all the filth of the Maximinian despotism, it ordered to be put to death. 59 8 But this, the senate's decision, was not enough; the people decided that after they were put to death they should be dragged about and cast into the sewer. 9 Then also Sabinus, the prefect of the city and a man of consular rank, was beaten with a club and slain; his corpse was left lying in the streets.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 When Maximinus learned of these last measures he at once assembled his troops and harangued them in the following manner:60 "Consecrated fellow-soldiers, or rather partakers of my consecration, p407 who have, most of you, fought with me wars that were wars indeed, when we defended the majesty of Rome from Germany, when we redeemed Illyricum from the barbarians, the Africans have kept Punic faith. 61 2 They have acclaimed the two Gordians emperors; one of whom is so broken with old age that he cannot rise, the other so wasted with debauchery that exhaustion serves him for old age. 3 And lest this be not enough, that glorious senate of ours has approved what the Africans have done. They for whose children we bear arms have set up twenty men against us, and passed all such decrees against us as are passed against a foe. 4 Up! then, as men should; we must hasten to the city. For against us twenty men, all of consular rank, have been chosen; they must be withstood, we bravely leading, you happily fighting. " 5 But that this harangue left his soldiers with indifferent feelings, and not with quickened spirits, even Maximinus himself realized. 6 In fact, he at once wrote to his son, who was following at a distance behind, to hasten speedily, lest the soldiers devise some plot against him in his absence. 7 Junius Cordus gives the purport of the letter thus: "My attendant Tynchanius is coming to tell you my last advices on what has taken place in Africa and Rome, and also how the soldiers feel. 8 I beseech you, hasten as fast as you can, lest this mob of soldiers take further measures, as soldiers are wont to do. What I fear, you will learn from him whom I have sent you. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 15 1 But while all this was taking place, the Gordians were attacked in Africa by a certain Capelianus. 62 He had always been hostile to Gordian even in private life, and now the Emperor himself dismissed him when, as an old soldier, he was governing the Moors p409 by Maximinus' appointment. And so when Gordian dismissed him, he gathered the Moors together and with an irregular force of them came up to Carthage, the people of which, with typical Punic faith, came over to him. 2 None the less, Gordian desired to hazard the chances of war, and sent against them his son, now well advanced in years (he was then forty-six years old), and at that time his father's legate; we shall give a resumé of his character in its proper place. 63 3 But in military affairs not only was Capelianus the bolder man, but the younger Gordian was less well trained, placed at a disadvantage, as he was, by the luxurious life of the nobility. When they joined battle, accordingly, he was beaten, and in the same campaign slain.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 16 1 Such a host of Gordian's party fell in this campaign, it is said, that the body of the younger Gordian, although it was long searched for, could not be found. 2 There was a great storm, moreover, — a rare thing in Africa — which scattered Gordian's army before the battle and also made the soldiers less fit for the fight, and on this account Capelianus' victory was the easier. 64
3 And when the elder Gordian learned of this, seeing there was no aid in Africa, and being distressed with a great fear of Maximinus and by knowledge of Punic faith, also because Capelianus was assailing him very sharply, and because in the end the struggle had wearied him in mind and soul, he took a rope and hanged himself.
4 This was the end of two of the Gordians. 65 Both of them were named Augusti by the senate and afterwards placed among the gods. 66 p411
GORDIAN THE SECOND.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 17 1 This was the son of the old Gordian, the proconsul of Africa. He too was named Augustus by the Africans and the senate at the same time as his father, and he was illustrious in culture and character as well as in battle rank; the last, according to many writers, he derived from the Antonines, although most say from the Antonii. 67 2 Others adduce the following facts as evidence to show the high quality of his family — that the elder Gordian was called Africanus, the honorary surname of the Scipios;68 that he possessed the House of Pompey in the city;69 that he was always given the surname of the Antonines; and that he himself expressed a desire in the senate that his son should be known as Antonius. Each of these, they believe, represents a family connection. 3 I, however, follow Junius Cordus, who says that the nobility of the Gordians was derived from all these families. 4 At any rate, he was the first offspring of his father, Gordian, and Fabia Orestilla, the great-granddaughter of Antoninus,70 through whom he seemed also to be lined with the family of the Caesars. 5 A few days after his birth he was given the name Antoninus; later, in the senate, he was publicly named Antonius; and the people finally began to call him Gordian.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 18 1 He took his studies very seriously. In person he was remarkably good looking; his memory was extraordinary. He was very kind of heart; indeed, when any of the boys was flogged at school, p413 he could not restrain his tears. 2 Serenus Sammonicus,71 a great friend of his father's, was his tutor, and a very beloved and agreeable one he was; in fact, when he died, he left the young Gordian all the books that had belonged to his father, Serenus Sammonicus, and these were estimated at sixty-two thousand. 3 And this raised him to the seventh heaven, for being now possessed of a library of such magnitude and excellence, thanks to the power of letters he became famous among men.
4 He won his quaestorship upon the recommendation of Elagabalus; for the wildness of the young man, which was nevertheless neither extravagant nor depraved, had found him favour with that extravagant emperor. 5 He held the city-praetorship on the recommendation of Alexander, and did so well in this office, chiefly in administering the law, that he was immediately given the consulship,72 which his father had won late in life. 6 And in the time either of Maximinus or of this same Alexander, being sent to his father's proconsular command, he served as his legate, and then happened what has been related above. 73
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 19 1 He was somewhat fond of wine, but always, however, of wine in some way spiced, at one time with roses, again with mastic, again with wormwood and various other herbs — all of which are most pleasing to the palate. 2 He ate sparingly; indeed he finished his luncheon — if he lunched at all — or his dinner in an instant. 3 He was very fond of women; indeed, it is said that he had twenty-two concubines decreed him, from all of whom he left three or four children apiece. 4 He was nicknamed, in fact, the Priam74 of his age, but often the crowd jestingly called him not Priam but Priapus,75 as being nearer to his character. p415 5 He lived in revelry — in gardens, in baths, and in most delightful groves. Nor did his father ever rebuke him, but on the contrary very often said that sometime soon he would die in the greatest eminence. 6 Yet in his manner of life he never was inferior to the good in bravery, and he was ever among the most distinguished of citizens and never failed the commonwealth with advice. 7 And the senate, finally, entitled him Augustus with the greatest joy and laid on him the hopes of the state. 8 He was very elegant in his dress, and beloved by his slaves and entire household. 9 Cordus says that he was never willing to have a wife, but Dexippus thinks that the third Gordian was his son76 — the boy, that is, who was afterwards made emperor with Balbinus and Pupienus (or Maximus).
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 20 1 At one time the elder Gordian consulted an astrologer about his son's nativity, and the astrologer, it is said, answered that the child would be both son and father of an emperor, and that he also would be emperor. 2 Gordian laughed; but then, they say, the astrologer pointed out the constellationa and read from ancient books until he proved that he had spoken the truth. 3 ºThis same astrologer, moreover, predicted truthfully the day and the manner of the deaths of both father and son, and the places where they would die, all with stubborn firmness. 4 In after days, it is said, the elder Gordian recounted all of this in Africa, at a time when he was emperor and had nothing to fear — indeed, he spoke of his own death and his son's and of the manner in which they would die. 5 Often, too, the old man recited these verses when he saw his son:77 p417
"Him the fates only displayed to the circle of lands, and no longer
Suffered to be. Too great, too great did Rome's generations
Seem to you else, O Gods, had this figure really been granted. "
6 There are still in existence various things written by the younger Gordian in both prose and verse,78 which are often quoted by his kinsmen today. These are neither good nor yet very bad, but rather mediocre. They seem, in truth, the work of one who was really talented but gave himself over to pleasure and wasted his genius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 21 1 He was extremely fond of fruit and greens; in fact, though very abstemious in his use of other kinds of food, he was continually eating fresh fruit. 2 He had a craving for cold drinks, and passed the summer with great difficulty unless he drank cold drinks and a great many of them. He was of huge size, as a matter of fact, and this somewhat stimulated his longing for cold drinks.
3 This is what we have discovered about the younger Gordian that is worthy of mention. For we do not think we need recount absurd and silly tales such as Junius Cordus has written concerning his domestic pleasures and petty matters of that sort. 4 If any desire to know these things, let them read Cordus; Cordus tells what slaves each and every emperor had and what friends, how many mantles and how many cloaks. Knowledge of this sort of thing does no one any good. It is the duty of historians, rather, to set down in their histories such things as are to be avoided or sought after.
p419 5 But truly I have decided that I must not omit this, which I read in Vulcatius Terentianus,79 who wrote a history of his time, because it seems a marvellous thing. So I write it down.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 There was a certain imperial steward in Libya, who in his zeal for Maximinus had despoiled every one ruthlessly, until finally the peasantry, abetted by a number of soldiers, slew him, after overcoming those who out of respect for Maximinus defended the agent of the privy-purse. 49 2 But soon the promoters of this murder saw that they must seek relief through sharper remedies, and so, coming to the proconsul Gordian, a man, as we have said, worthy of respect, well-born, eminent in every virtue, whom Alexander had sent to Africa by senatorial decree, and threatening him with swords and every other kind of weapon, they forced him, though he cried out against it and cast himself on the ground, to assume the purple and rule. 3 In the beginning, it is true, Gordian took the purple much against his will; but later, when he saw that this course was unsafe for his son50 and family, he willingly undertook to rule, and at the town of Thysdrus51 he, together with his son, was proclaimed Augustus by all the Africans. 4 From here he went speedily to Carthage with royal pomp and guards and laurelled fasces, and sent letters to the senate at Rome. And the senate, after the murder of Vitalianus,52 the prefect of the guard, received these with rejoicing because of their hatred for Maximinus,53 5 and proclaimed both the elder and p345 the younger Gordian Augusti. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 15 1 Then all the informers and accusers and Maximinus' friends were put to death, and Sabinus, the prefect of the city, was beaten by the populace and slain.
2 And when this had been done, the senate, now fearing Maximinus all the more, openly and freely proclaimed him and his son enemies of the state. 54 3 It next despatched letters to all the provinces, asking their aid for their common safety and liberty; and all of them gave heed. 4 Lastly Maximinus' friends and administrators, generals, tribunes, and soldiers were everywhere put to death. 5 A few communities, however, remained loyal to the public enemy; these betrayed the messengers who had been sent to them and promptly handed them over to Maximinus by means of informers.
6 The following is a specimen of the letters that the senate sent out:55 "The senate and Roman people, now beginning to be delivered from a most savage monster by the two princes Gordian, to the proconsuls, governors, legates, generals, tribunes, magistrates, and several states, municipalities, towns, villages, and fortified places, with prosperity, which they are just now beginning to regain for themselves. 7 With the help of the gods we have obtained the proconsul Gordian, a most righteous man and eminent senator, as emperor. We have given to him the title of Augustus, and not only to him, but also, for the further safeguarding of the state, to that excellent man Gordian his son. 8 It is now your part to unite, that the state may be made secure, that evil doings may be repelled, and that the monster and his friends, p347 wherever they be, may be hunted down. 9 We have pronounced Maximinus and his son enemies of the state. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 16 1 This was the senate's decree: After they had assembled in the Temple of Castor and Pollux56 on the sixth day before the Kalends of July,57 Julius Silanus, the consul, read the letter which had been received from Africa from Gordian the proconsul, emperor and father of his country: 2 "Conscript Fathers, the young men, to whom was entrusted Africa to guard, against my will have called on me to rule. But having regard to you, I am glad to endure this necessity. It is yours to decide what you wish. For myself, I shall waver to and fro in uncertainty until the senate has decided. " 3 As soon as the letter was read the senate forthwith cried out:58 "Gordian Augustus, may the gods keep you! May you rule happily; you have delivered us. May you rule safely; you have delivered us. Through you the state is made safe. All of us, we thank you. " 4 So then the consul put the question: "Concerning the Maximini, Conscript Fathers, what is your pleasure? " They replied, "Enemies, enemies! He who slays them shall have a reward. " 5 Again the consul spoke: "Concerning the friends of Maximinus, what seems good? " And they cried out, "Enemies, enemies! He who slays them shall have a reward. " 6 And then they cried out: "Let the foe of the senate be hanged on a cross. Let the senate's enemy everywhere be smitten. Let the senate's foes be burned alive. Gordiani Augusti, may the gods keep you! 7 Luckily may you live! Luckily may you rule! We decree the grandson of Gordian59 the praetorship, we promise the grandson of Gordian the consulship. Let the p349 grandson of Gordian be called Caesar. Let the third Gordian take the praetorship. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 17 1 When this decree of the senate reached Maximinus, being by nature passionate, he so flamed with fury that you would have thought him not a man but a wild beast. 60 2 He dashed himself against the walls, sometimes he threw himself upon the ground, he screamed incoherently aloud, he snatched at his sword as though he could slaughter the senate then and there, he rent his royal robes, he beat the palace-attendants, and, had not the youth retreated, certain authorities affirm, he would have torn out his young son's eyes. 3 He was enraged with his son, as it happened, because he had ordered him to go to Rome when he was first declared emperor, and this the youth, because of his excessive fondness for his father, had not done. And now Maximinus imagined that if he had been at Rome the senate would have dared none of this. 4 Blazing with rage, then, his friends got him to his room. 5 But still he could not control his fury, and finally, to get oblivion from his thoughts, he so soaked himself with wine on that first day, they say, that he did not know what had been done. 6 On the next day, admitting his friends — and they indeed could not bear to see him, but stood silent and silently commended what the senate had done, — he held a council as to what he should do. 7 From the council he proceeded to an assembly, and there said much against the Africans, much against Gordian, and more against the senate, urging his soldiers to avenge their common wrongs.
p351 18 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] His speech was altogether that of a soldier,61 this being the general purport of it: "Fellow soldiers, we are revealing something you already know. The Africans have broken faith. When did they ever keep it? 62 Gordian, a feeble old man on the brink of death, has assumed the imperial office. 2 Those most sacred Conscript Fathers, who murdered Romulus63 and Caesar, have pronounced me a public enemy, me, who fought for them and conquered for them too; and not only me but you also, and all who stand with me. The Gordians, both father and son, they have called Augusti. 3 If you are men, then, if there is any might in you, let us march now against the senate and the Africans, and you shall have the goods of them all. " 4 He then gave them a bounty — and a huge one, too — and turning towards Rome began to march thither with his army.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 19 1 But now Gordian began to be harassed in Africa by a certain Capelianus,64 whom he had deposed from the governorship of the Moors. 2 And when finally he sent his son against him, and his son after a desperate battle was killed, the old man hanged himself, well knowing that there was much strength in Maximinus and in the Africans none, nay rather only a great faculty for betraying. 3 And forthwith Capelianus, the victor, in the name of Maximinus slew and outlawed all of the dead Gordian's party in Africa, sparing none. Indeed, he seemed to perform these duties quite in Maximinus' own temper. 4 He overthrew cities, ravaged shrines, divided gifts among his p353 soldiers, and slaughtered common folk and nobles in the cities. 5 At the same time he strove to win over the affections of his soldiers, playing for the imperial power himself in the event that Maximinus perished.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 20 1 When news of these events was brought to Rome, the senate, fearing Maximinus's barbarity — natural at all times and inevitable now that the two Gordians were dead, — elected two other emperors,65 Maximus,66 who had been prefect of the city and had held many other offices with distinction before that, humble by birth but eminent by his virtues, and Balbinus,67 who was somewhat fonder of pleasure. 2 These were acclaimed Augusti by the people; and by the soldiers and the same people the little grandson of Gordian68 was hailed as Caesar. 3 With three emperors, therefore, was the state propped against Maximinus. 4 Maximus, however, was the most rigorous of life, the most sagacious, and the most uniformly courageous of the three, 5 so finally both the senate and Balbinus entrusted the war against Maximinus to him. 6 But after Maximus had set out to war against Maximinus, Balbinus was beset with civil war and domestic disturbances at Rome,69 especially after two soldiers of the praetorian guard were slain by the populace at the p355 instigation of Gallicanus and Maecenas. The populace, indeed, were cruelly butchered by the guard when Balbinus proved unable to quell the uprising. And in the end a great part of the city was burned.
7 Meanwhile the Emperor Maximinus had been greatly cheered by hearing of the death of Gordian and Capelianus' victory over his son. 8 But when he received the second decree of the senate, in which Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian were declared emperors, he then realized that the senate's hatred for him was never to end and that everyone really considered him an enemy. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 21 1 Hotter than ever, then, he pushed on into Italy. He then learned that Maximus had been sent against him, and in a violent rage came up to Emona70 in line of battle. 2 But the plan agreed on for all the provincials was this:71 that they should gather up everything that could be useful for the commissariat and retire within the cities in order that Maximinus and his army might be pinched by famine. 3 And, indeed, when he pitched camp on the plain for the first time and found no provisions, his army was incensed at him because they suffered from hunger even in Italy, where they expected to be refreshed after the Alps, and they began at first to murmur and then indeed to speak out openly. 4 And when Maximinus attempted to punish this, the army was much inflamed, but silently stored up its hate for the moment and produced it again at the proper time. 5 Many authorities say that Maximinus found Emona empty and abandoned, and foolishly rejoiced because the entire city, as it seemed, had retreated before him. 72
p357 6 After this he came to Aquileia, which shut its gates against him and posted armed men about the walls. Nor did the defence lack vigour, being conducted by Menophilus and Crispinus,73 both men of consular rank. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 22 1 So when Maximinus found he was besieging Aquileia in vain, he sent envoys to the city. And the people had almost yielded to them, had not Menophilus and his colleague opposed it, saying that the god Belenus74 had declared through the soothsayers that Maximinus would be conquered. 2 Whence afterwards the soldiers of Maximinus boasted, it is said, that Apollo must have fought against them, and that really victory belonged not to the senate and Maximus but to the gods. 3 But, on the other hand, it is said that they advanced this theory because they blushed, armed men as they were, to have been defeated by men practically unarmed. 4 At any rate, after making a bridge of wine-casks, Maximinus crossed the river75 and began to invest Aquileia closely. 5 And terrible then was both the assault and the danger, for the townsmen defended themselves from the soldiers with sulphur, fire, and other defensive devices of this same kind;76 and of the soldiers some were stripped of their arms, others had their clothing burned, and some were blinded, while the investing engines were completely destroyed. 6 Amid all this Maximinus, with his young son whom he had entitled Caesar, strode about the walls, just far enough off to be safe from the throw of javelins, and besought now p359 his own men, now the men of the town. 7 But it profited him nothing. For against him, because of his cruelty, and against his son, who was a most beautiful creature, the townsmen merely hurled abuses.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 23 1 And so now Maximinus, flattering himself that the war was being prolonged by the cowardice of his men, put his generals to death, just at the time when he could least afford to do so; by which act he made his soldiers still further enraged against him. 2 In addition to that, he now ran short of provisions, because the senate had sent letters to all the provinces and to the overseers of ports to prevent any provisions coming into Maximinus' power. 3 It had sent praetors and quaestors throughout all the cities, moreover, to keep guard everywhere and defend everything against Maximinus. 77 4 Finally, it came to pass that he himself, while besieging, suffered the distress of one besieged. 5 At this juncture it was announced that the whole world was agreed in hatred of Maximinus. 6 And so some of the soldiers, whose wives and children were on the Alban Mountain,78 becoming fearful, in the middle of the day, when they rested from the fighting, slew Maximinus and his son as they lay in their tent,79 and putting their heads on poles, showed them to the citizens of Aquileia. 7 And thereupon in the neighbouring town the statues and portraits of Maximinus were immediately thrown down and his prefect of the guard, together with his more notable friends, were slain. Their heads were sent to Rome.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 24 1 This was the end of the Maximini, worthy the cruelty of the father, unworthy the goodness of the son. Among the provincials there was tremendous rejoicing at their death, but among the barbarians80 the most grievous sorrow.
p361 2 And now that the public enemies were slain, the soldiers were taken in by the townsfolk at their own request — but on condition that they would worship before the portraits of Maximus and Balbinus and also of Gordian, for all told them that the elder Gordians had been placed among the gods. 81 3 This done, a mighty store of provisions was speedily carried from Aquileia to the camp, which was suffering from hunger, and after the soldiers were refreshed, on a later day they came to an assembly. And there they all swore allegiance to Maximus and Balbinus, and hailed the elder Gordians as divine.
4 One can scarcely describe how great the joy was when the head of Maximinus was carried through Italy to Rome. From all sides folk came running as to a public holiday. 5 Maximus, whom many call Pupienus,82 was at Ravenna, preparing with the aid of German auxiliaries for war;83 but when he learned that the army had come over to himself and his colleagues, and that the Maximini were slain, 6 he at once dismissed the German auxiliaries,84 whom he was getting ready against the enemy, and sent a laurelled letter85 to Rome. And this caused unbounded rejoicing in the city; indeed at altars, temples, shrines, and holy places everywhere, everyone offered up thanks. 7 As for Balbinus, a somewhat timid soul by nature, who trembled when he heard Maximinus' very name, he sacrificed a hecatomb86 and gave orders that the gods should be worshipped with an equal sacrifice in every town. 8 Soon thereafter Maximus came to Rome,87 and after going into the senate,88 p363 where thanks were offered him, he held an assembly, whence he and Balbinus and Gordian victoriously betook themselves to the Palace.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 25 1 It is of interest to know what sort of decree the senate passed and what the day was in the city, when it was announced that Maximinus was slain. 2 For, in the first place, the messenger who had been sent to Rome from Aquileia, by changing his horses managed to gallop with such speed that he reached Rome on the third day after leaving Maximus at Ravenna. 3 As it happened, games were being held that day, when suddenly, while Balbinus and Gordian were seated, the messenger entered the theatre; and at once, before he uttered a word, the people cried out with one voice, "Maximinus is dead! " 4 Thus the messenger was anticipated and the Emperors, who were present, by nodding in assent expressed the public rejoicing. 5 The performance, then, being brought to a close, everyone immediately rushed to his religious duties, and thereafter the nobles sped to the Senate-house, the people to the assembly.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 26 1 The decree of the senate was as follows:89 After the Emperor Balbinus Augustus had read the letter, the senate cried: 2 "The gods take vengeance on the foes of the Roman people. Most great Jupiter, we give you thanks. Revered Apollo, we give you thanks. Maximus Augustus, we give you thanks. Balbinus Augustus, we give you thanks. We decree temples for the Deified Gordians. 3 The name of Maximinus, previously expunged,90 is now to be stricken from our hearts. Let the head of the public foe be cast into running water. Let no man bury his body. p365 He who threatened death to the senate is slain as he deserved. He who threatened chains for the senate is killed as he deserved. 4 Most reverend Emperors, we offer you thanks. Maximus, Balbinus, Gordian, may the gods keep you! victorious over your foes, we all desire your presence. We all desire the presence of Maximus. Balbinus Augustus, may the gods keep you! Honour the present year by being this year's consuls. In the place of Maximinus let Gordian be chosen. " 5 After this, Cuspidius Celerinus,91 being asked for his opinion, spoke thus: "Conscript Fathers, having expunged the name of the Maximini and deified the Gordians, in honour of the victory we decree to our princes Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian statues with elephants, triumphal cars, equestrian statues, and trophies of victory. " 6 After this, the senate being dissolved, supplications were ordered throughout the whole city. 7 The princes betook them victoriously to the Palace, but of their lives we shall write later in another book.
MAXIMINUS THE YOUNGER
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 27 1 The descent of the younger Maximinus92 has been related above. He himself was so beautiful that the more wanton of women loved him indiscriminately, and not a few desired to be gotten with child by him. 2 He gave such promise of height, moreover, that he might have reached his father's stature had he not perished in his twenty-first year, in the very flower of his youth, or, as some say, in his eighteenth. 3 Even so, he was well versed in Greek and Latin p367 letters, for he got his first schooling under the Greek man of letters Fabillus,93 many of whose Greek epigrams are extant today, chiefly on statues of the boy himself. 4 This Fabillus also made Greek verses from those Latin lines of Vergil, meaning to describe this same boy:
"Like to the star of the morning when he, new-bathèd in Ocean,
Raises his holy face and scatters the darkness from heaven,94
So did the young man seem, fair-famed in the name of his father. "
5 Latin grammar he studied under Philemon, jurisprudence under Modestinus,95 and oratory under Titianus, the son of that elder Titianus96 who wrote a very beautiful work on the provinces and was called the ape of his age because he imitated everything. He employed also the Greek rhetorician Eugamius, who was famous in his day.
6 Junia Fadilla,97 the great-granddaughter of Antoninus, was betrothed to him; but afterwards she was espoused by Toxotius, a senator of the same family, who died after serving his praetorship, certain poems of his being extant today. 7 The regal betrothal-gifts that he had presented her with, however, she kept. Junius Cordus, who was an investigator of these things, p369 says that they were such as these: a necklace of nine pearls; a net-work cap with eleven emeralds; a bracelet with a row of four sapphires; and besides these, gowns worked with gold, all of them royal, and other betrothal pledges.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 28 1 The young man Maximinus was most excessively insolent; indeed, when even his father, a very hard man, rose to greet many distinguished men, he remained seated. 2 He was fond of gay living, very sparing in the use of wine, but voracious in respect to food, especially game, eating only boar's flesh, ducks, cranes, and everything that is hunted. 3 The friends of Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian, and particularly the senators, spoke ill of him because his excessive beauty; for they were not willing that his beauty, fallen, as it were, from heaven, should be pure. 4 Indeed, that time when he walked about the walls of Aquileia with his father, asking its surrender, nothing but filthy insinuations were hurled at him,98 — though far removed from his real life. 5 He was very careful of his dress, and no woman was more elegantly groomed. 6 It was monstrous how his father's friends fawned on him, in hopes chiefly of gifts or largess. 7 For he was exceedingly haughty at his levees — he stretched out his hand, and suffered his knees to be kissed, and sometimes even his feet. This the elder Maximinus never permitted; for he said "God forbid that any free man should ever print a kiss on my feet". 8 And while we are speaking of the elder Maximinus we should not forbear to mention this amusing thing: as we have said,99 Maximinus was almost eight and a half feet tall; and certain men deposited a shoe of his, p371 that is, one of his royal boots, in a grove which lies between Aquileia and Arcia,100 because, sooth, they agreed that it was a foot longer than the measure of any foot of man. 9 Whence also is derived the vulgar expression, used for lanky and awkward fellows, of "Maximinus' boot". 10 I have put this down lest any one who reads Cordus should believe that I have overlooked anything which pertained to my subject. But now let me return to the son.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 29 1 Aurelius Alexander101 wished to give him his sister Theoclia in marriage and wrote to his mother Mamaea these words concerning the youth: 2 "Mother, were there not an element of the barbarian in the character of the elder Maximinus — he who is out general, and a very good one, too — I had already married your Theoclia to Maximinus102 the younger. 3 But I am afraid that such a product of Greek culture as my sister could not endure a barbarian father-in‑law, however much the young man himself seems handsome and learned and polished in Greek elegance. This is what I think; 4 but nevertheless I ask your advice. Tell me, do you wish Maximinus, the son of Maximinus, for a son-in‑law, or Messalla, who is a scion of a noble house, a very powerful speaker, very learned, and, if I mistake not, a man who would prove himself gallant on the field if occasion should arise? " 5 Thus Alexander on Maximinus. As for us, we have nothing further to say of him.
6 And yet — lest we seem to have omitted anything at all — I have set down a letter written by his father Maximinus, when he had now become emperor, in p373 which he says that he had proclaimed his son emperor in order to see, either in painting or actuality, what the younger Maximinus would look like in the purple. 7 The letter itself was of this nature: "I have let my Maximinus be called emperor, not only because of the fondness which a father owes a son, but also that the Roman people and that venerable senate may be able to take an oath that they have never had a more handsome emperor". 8 After the fashion of the Ptolemies this youth wore a golden cuirass; he had also a silver one. He had a shield, moreover, inlaid with gold and jewels, and also a gold-inlaid spear. 9 He had silver swords made for him, too, and gold ones as well, everything, in fact, which could enhance his beauty — helmets inset with precious stones and cheek-pieces done in the same fashion.
10 These are the facts which can be known and related of the boy with propriety. But whoever desires to know the rest, about sexual and amorous affairs with which Cordus bespatters him, let him read Cordus; as for us, we make an end of our book here, and hasten on, as though bidden by a public duty, to other things.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 30 1 The omens that he would be emperor were these: A snake coiled about his head as he was sleeping. A grape-vine which he planted produced within a year huge clusters of purple grapes, and grew to an astounding size. 2 His shield blazed in the sun. A small lance of his was split by lightning and in such a manner that the whole of it, even through the iron, was cleft and fell into two halves. And from this the soothsayers declared that from the one house there would spring two emperors of the same name, whose reign would be of no long duration. p375 3 His father's cuirass — many saw it — was stained not with rust, as is usual, but all over with a purple colour. 4 These omens, moreover, occurred for the son: When he was sent to a grammarian, a certain kinswoman of his gave him the works of Homer all written in letters of gold on purple. 5 And while he was yet a little boy, he was asked to dinner by Alexander as a compliment to his father, and, being without a dinner-robe, he wore one of Alexander's. 6 When still an infant, moreover, he mounted up into a carriage of Antoninus Caracalla's that unexpectedly came down the public way, seeing it empty, and sat down; and only with great ado was he routed out by the coachmen. 7 Nor were there lacking then those who told Caracalla to beware of the child. But he said, "It is a far chance that this fellow will succeed me. " For at that time he was of the undistinguished crowd and was very young.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 31 1 The omens of his death were these: When Maximinus and his son were marching against Maximus and Balbinus they were met by a woman with dishevelled hair and woeful attire, who cried out, "Maximini, Maximini, Maximini," and said no more, and died. She wished to add, it seemed, "Help me! " 2 And at their next halting-place hounds, more than twelve of them, howled about his tent, drawing their breath with a sort of sobbing, and at dawn were found dead. 3 Five hundred wolves, likewise, came in a pack into that town whither Maximinus had betaken himself — Emona,103 many say, others Archimea;104 at any rate, it was one which was left abandoned by its inhabitants when Maximinus approached. 4 It is a lengthy business to enumerate all these things; and if anyone desires to know them, let him, as I have p377 often said, read Cordus, who has related them all, to the point of telling idle tales.
5 They have no tombs. For their corpses were cast into running water and their heads, while the mob capered, were burned in the Campus Martius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 32 1 Aelius Sabinus105 has written, and we must not omit it, that such was the beauty of the son's face that even in death his head, now black, and dirty, shrunken, and running with putrid gore, seemed still the shadow, as it were, of a beautiful face. 2 And indeed, though there was great joy at seeing the head of Maximinus, there was almost equal grief when the son's head was carried with it. 3 Dexippus106 says that Maximinus was hated so thoroughly that when the Gordians perished the senate elected twenty men to oppose him. 107 Among these were Maximus and Balbinus, and these two they made emperors against him. 4 This same Dexippus says also that Maximinus' prefect of the guard and his son were slain before their eyes, after his soldiers had deserted him. 5 And there are not lacking historians who say that Maximinus also, after he had been deserted and had seen his son slain before his eyes, killed himself with his own hand,108 that nothing womanish might attach to him.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 33 1 Nor can we fail to mention the extraordinary loyalty displayed by the Aquileians in defending the senate against Maximinus. For, lacking bow-strings with which to shoot their arrows, they made cords of the women's hair. 109 2 It is said that this once happened at Rome as well, whence it was that p379 the senate, in honour of the matrons, dedicated the temple of Venus Calva. 110
We can by no means be silent about the following point. For although Dexippus, Arrianus,111 and many other Greek writers have said that Maximus and Balbinus were set up as emperors against Maximinus, and that Maximus, being sent out with the army, prepared for war at Ravenna, and did not see Aquileia until after he was victorious,112 Latin writers have said that it was not Maximus but Pupienus who fought Maximinus at Aquileia and beat him. 3 Whence this error arose I cannot say, unless it be that Maximus and Pupienus were one and the same.
113 4 At any rate, I have set this statement down with its authorities, in order that no one may believe that I did not know it — which indeed would cause great wonder and amazement!
The Three Gordians
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] It had been my plan, revered Augustus, following the example of many writers, to present each separate emperor to Your Clemency, each in a separate book. 2 For I have either seen for myself that many writers have done this, or I have so understood from my reading. 3 It did not seem proper, however, either to perplex Your Piety with a multitude of books or to expend my labour on many volumes. 4 For this reason in this book I have bound the three Gordians together, having a care both for my own labour and for your reading, lest you be compelled to unroll many volumes and yet read scarcely one story. 5 But let not me, who have always fled long books and many words, seem to run into the very thing I pretend cleverly to avoid; and so to my subject!
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 2 1 There were not, as certain uninformed writers maintain, two Gordians, but three. 1 These writers might have learned this from Arrianus,2 the writer of Greek history, and likewise from Dexippus,3 the p383 Greek writer, both of whom have investigated the whole question, briefly perhaps, but still conscientiously. 2 Of the three, Gordian the elder,4 that is the first, was the son of Maecius Marullus and Ulpia Gordiana. On his father's side he traced his descent from the house of the Gracchi, on his mother's from the Emperor Trajan. His own father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, his wife's father and grandfather, and likewise another of his wife's grandfathers and two of her great-grandfathers, were consuls. 3 He himself as consul was most rich and powerful; at Rome he owned the House of Pompey,5 and in the provinces more land than any other subject. 4 After his consulship, which he served with Alexander,6 he was sent out as proconsul to Africa by decree of the senate.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 3 1 But before I tell of his rule, I shall speak a little of his character. 2 When the Gordian of whom we are speaking was a young man, he wrote poetry, all of which has been preserved. 7 As a matter of fact, all the subjects were those which Cicero also treated, that is, Marius, Aratus, Alcyonae, Uxorius and Nilus. 8 And he wrote these in order that Cicero's poems might seem out of date. 3 Besides these, just as p385 Vergil wrote an Aeneid, Statius an Achilleid, and many others Alexandriads, he wrote an Antoniniad — the lives, that is, of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Antoninus, most learnedly versified in thirty books, wherein he recounted their wars and other doings both public and private. 9 4 And all this he did as a young boy. Later on, when he grew to manhood, he declaimed and disputed at the Athenaeum,10 at times in the presence of his emperors.
5 He served his quaestorship most splendidly. When he was aedile he gave the Roman people twelve exhibitions, that is one for each month, at his own expense; at times, indeed, he provided five hundred pairs of gladiators, and never less than a hundred and fifty. 6 He produced a hundred wild beasts of Libya11 at once, and likewise at one time a thousand bears. There exists also today a remarkable wild-beast hunt of his, pictured in Gnaeus Pompey's "House of the Beaks";12 this palace belonged to him and to his father and grandfather before him until your privy-purse took it over in the time of Philip. 13 7 In this picture at the present day are contained two hundred stags with antlers shaped like the palm of a hand, together with stags of Britain, thirty wild horses, a hundred wild sheep, ten elks, a hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, a hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred chamois, and two hundred fallow deer. 8 And all these he handed over to the people to be killed on the day of the sixth exhibition that he gave.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 4 1 He served a famous praetorship. Then, after administering the law, he entered upon his first p387 consulship with Antoninus Caracalla, his second with Alexander. 14 2 ºHe had two children, one the son who attained consular rank and was named Augustus with himself15 and perished in the war in Africa near Carthage,16 the other a daughter, Maecia Faustina by name17 who was married to Junius Balbus, a man of consular rank. 3 His consulships were more brilliant than that of any other man of his time; even Antoninus envied him, admiring now his togas, now his broad stripe,18 and now his games, which surpassed the imperial games themselves. 4 He was the first Roman subject to possess for his own a tunic embroidered with palms19 and a gold-embroidered toga; for previously even the emperors had gotten theirs either from the Capitol or the Palace. 20 5 With the emperors' permission he distributed a hundred Sicilian and a hundred Cappadocian horses among the factions. 21 And he endeared himself greatly to the people, who are always touched by acts of this nature. 6 Cordus22 says that he gave stage-plays and Juvenalia23 in all the cities of Campania, Etruria, Umbria, Flaminia, and Picenum, for four days at his own expense. 7 He wrote prose eulogies also of all the p389 Antonines who had preceded him. He admired the Antonines marvellously;24 many say that he himself assumed the name Antoninus or, as more declare, Antonius. 25 8 And certainly there is no doubt that he embellished his son with the name Antoninus, when, after the Roman custom, he acknowledged him before the prefect of the Treasury and entered his name in the public records. 26
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 5 1 After his consulship he was appointed proconsul of Africa27 through the efforts of all those who desired Alexander's reign to seem and to be brilliant in Africa through the splendour of its proconsul. 2 Indeed there still exists a letter of Alexander's in which he thanks the senate for electing Gordian proconsul for Africa. 3 It runs in this style: "You could have done nothing more pleasing or agreeable to me, Conscript Fathers, than to send Antoninus28 Gordian as proconsul to Africa, for he is well-born, high-minded, eloquent, just, moderate, virtuous," and so on. 4 It is clear from this how great a man Gordian was even at that time. 5 He was beloved by the Africans as no other proconsul had ever been before; some called him Scipio, others, Cato, and many, Mucius,29 Rutilius,30 and Laelius. 31 6 An acclamation of theirs which Junius32 noted down has been preserved. 7 For when on one occasion he was p391 reading an imperial act and began with the mention of the proconsuls Scipio, the people shouted, "The new Scipio, the true Scipio, the proconsul Gordian". He was often greeted with these and similar acclamations.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 6 1 In height he was characteristically Roman. He was becomingly gray, with an impressive face, more ruddy than fair. His face was fairly broad, his eyes, his countenance, and his brow such as to command respect. His body was somewhat stocky. 2 In character he was temperate and restrained; there is nothing you can say that he ever did passionately, immoderately, or excessively. 3 His affection for his kin was remarkable, for his daughter and granddaughter most devoted. 4 He was as deferential to his father-in‑law Annius Severus33 as though he considered that he had passed over into his family as a son; he never washed himself in his company, he never sat in his presence until he became praetor. 5 And when he was consul either he always remained at the old man's house, or, if he stayed at the House of Pompey, he went either at morning or evening to see him. 6 He was sparing in the use of wine, very sparing in the use of food. His dress was elegant. He was fond of bathing; indeed, during the summer, he would bathe four or five times a day, in the winter twice. 7 His love of sleep was enormous; he would doze off even at table, if he were dining with friends, and without any embarrassment. This he seemed to do at nature's bidding and not because of intoxication or wantonness.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 7 1 But all his virtuous behaviour profited him nothing. For this old man, worthy of respect as such a life had made him, who passed his days with Plato p393 and Aristotle, Cicero and Vergil, finally suffered an end other than that he deserved.
2 For, in the time of Maximinus, a grim and savage man, he was ruling Africa as proconsul,34 and his son was with him as his legate, having been so appointed by the senate from among the consuls. Now there was a certain agent of the privy-purse,35 who ran riot against a great number of Africans even more violently than Maximinus himself allowed. He outlawed a great many, he put many to death, he assumed all powers in excess even of a tax-gatherer's; and when he was finally restrained by the proconsul and legate he threatened those noble consular men with death. The Africans at length were unable to suffer these unwonted injuries any longer, and so, with the aid of a number of soldiers, they first killed him. 3 Then, after he was killed and while the whole world was blazing with hatred of Maximinus, his slayers began to take counsel how this conflict which had arisen between the agents of Maximinus and the peasants, or rather the Africans, might go unpunished. 4 Then a certain fellow, Mauritius36 by name, a municipal councillor,37 who had great influence with the Africans, held a sort of assembly on his farm near Thysdrus38 and made a most notable oration to the people of the town and the country, saying: [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 8 1 "Let us give thanks to the immortal gods, citizens, that they have given us a chance, and truly a needed one, of protecting ourselves against that madman Maximinus. 2 We have slain a tax-gatherer of his, one patterned after himself in character and conduct, and unless we make an emperor of our own we are lost. 3 Wherefore, since p395 not far off there is a man of noble blood, a proconsul, and with him his son, a consular legate, both of whom that pest has threatened with death, we shall hail them emperors, if it please you, taking the purple from the standards, and giving them their proper trappings make them secure by Roman law. " 4 Whereupon they shouted, "It is good, it is right. Gordian Augustus, may the gods keep you safe! Rule happily, rule with your son. "
5 Upon this, they came hastily to the town of Thysdrus, and there they found the venerable old man returned from the law-courts and lying on a couch. They girt him straightway with the purple, but he would have none of it and cast himself on the ground; and they lifted him up still refusing. 6 But when he saw that he could do nothing else, for the sake of escaping from a danger which threatened him for certain at the hands of his supporters and only doubtfully from the Maximinians, the old man suffered himself to be acclaimed emperor. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 9 1 He was then eighty years of age,39 and, as we have said,40 had ruled many provinces before; and he had so commended himself to the Roman people by his conduct in these that they thought him worthy of ruling the whole empire. 2 With regard to the killing of the agent, Gordian had had no previous knowledge. But when he learned of the fact, being now near to death and fearing greatly for his son, he preferred to die honourably rather than be handed over to the chains and prison-cell of Maximinus.
3 However, having now acclaimed Gordian emperor, the young men who were the authors of the deed proceeded to cast down the statues of Maximinus, break his busts, and publicly erase his name. p397 They also gave Gordian the name Africanus. 41 4 Some add that he was granted this honorary name, not because he became emperor in Africa, but because he was descended from the family of the Scipios. 42 5 In most books, moreover, I find that Gordian and his son were declared emperors with equal rank and both given the name Antoninus: certain other books, however, say that they were given the name Antonius. 43
6 After this, with kingly pomp and laurelled fasces, they came to Carthage, and there his son — who, after the example of the Scipios,44 as Dexippus the writer of Greek history says, was his father's legate — was invested with equal power. 7 Upon this an embassy was despatched to Rome, bearing letters from the Gordians to announce all that had taken place in Africa, which was received by Valerian, the chief of the senate (who was afterwards emperor),45 with rejoicing. Letters were sent also to their noble friends, in order that powerful men might support their action and from friends might become still greater friends.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 10 1 But the senate received them so joyfully as emperors against Maximinus that not only did it ratify all that had been already done but further elected twenty men46 — including Maximus, known also as Pupienus,47 and Clodius Balbinus,48 both of whom were made emperors after the two Gordians were slain in p399 Africa49 — 2 among whom the districts of Italy were portioned out to be guarded for the Gordians against Maximinus. 3 Embassies then came to Rome from Maximinus50 promising to redress the past. 4 For they promised all good things; they promised a huge bounty to the soldiers and fields and a largess to the people, and they were trusted. 5 In fact, so much more trust was placed in the Gordians than in the Maximini, that Vitalianus, the prefect of the guard, was put to death at the senate's command, a quaestor and some soldiers performing the deed with great daring. This Vitalianus had conducted himself with great cruelty before; and now they feared some greater piece of savagery pleasing and agreeable to one of Maximinus' character. 6 The following story is related about his death. 51 A forged letter, purporting to come from Maximinus and sealed as if with his ring, was brought to Vitalianus by soldiers in charge of a quaestor, who added that there was further information, not in the letter, to be imparted in secret. 7 They retired, therefore, to a distant portico, where he inquired what it was that was to be told him secretly. 8 But first they urged him to look at the seal on the letter, which he did. And while he was regarding it, they cut him down, and then persuaded the soldiers that he had been slain by command of Maximinus. And when this affair had been settled, the letters and images of the Gordians were displayed in the Camp.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 11 1 I think it my duty to set down in writing the decree of the senate in which the Gordians were p401 declared emperors and Maximinus a public enemy. 52 2 On an extraordinary, not a regular, day for the meeting of the senate, the consul, having foregathered at his own home with the praetors, the aediles, and the tribunes of the people, came to the Senate-house. 3 The prefect of the city, who had somehow got wind of something and had not received the official notice, kept away from the meeting. But as it turned out, that was as well, for before the usual acclamations were made or anything was said favourable to Maximinus, the consul53 cried: 4 "Conscript Fathers, the two Gordians, father and son, both ex-consuls, the one your proconsul, the other now your legate, have been declared emperors by a great assembly in Africa. 5 Let us give thanks, then, to the young men of Thysdrus, and thanks also to the ever loyal people of Carthage; they have freed us from that savage monster, from that wild beast. 6 Why do you hear me with quaking? Why do you look around? Why do you delay? This is what you have always hoped for. 7 Maximinus is our enemy; the gods shall now bring it to pass that he may now cease to be, and that we with joyful hearts may enjoy the happy sagacity of the elder Gordian, the intrepid virtue of the younger. " 8 After this he read the letters which the Gordians had sent to the senate and to himself. And then the senate cried aloud:54 "We thank you, O gods. We are freed from our enemies; so may we be wholly freed! 9 ºWe adjudge Maximinus an enemy. We consign Maximinus and his son to the gods below. 10 We call the Gordians Augusti. We recognize the Gordians as princes. May the gods keep safe the senate's p403 emperors, may we see our noble emperors victorious, may Rome see our emperors! Whoever shall kill the public enemies shall get a reward. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 12 1 Junius Cordus says that this was a secret decree of the senate. 55 Just what this is, and why it is so called, I shall briefly explain. 2 Today the equivalent of a secret decree of the senate is, in general, nothing more than the action of those inner councils of elders by which Your Clemency settles those affairs which are not to be published abroad. You are accustomed to take oath when discussing these matters, moreover, that no one shall hear or know anything of them until the business is completed. 3 But among the ancients the custom was introduced in the interests of the state, that, if by any chance violence threatened at the hands of their enemies, which forced them either to adopt ignoble counsels or resolve on things which should not be disclosed until they were ready to be put into effect, or if they were unwilling for certain measures to be divulged to friends, the senate passed a secret decree. At these sessions not even the clerks or public servants or officers of the Census56 were present; the senators took over and the senators performed the duties of all the clerks and officers of the Census, lest anything by any chance should be betrayed. 4 To prevent news of it reaching Maximinus, therefore, this decree of the senate was made secret.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 13 1 But as is the way with the minds of men — of such of them, at least, as blush if any knowledge of theirs does not become known and consider it abject not to betray a trust — Maximinus straightway learned everything. Indeed, he got a copy of the senate's secret p405 decree — a thing that had never previously occurred. 2 There is a letter of his to the city-prefect which says: "I have read the senate's secret decree about those emperors of ours; perhaps you, being city-prefect, did not know it had been passed, for you were not present on that occasion. I have sent you a copy, however, hoping that you may learn how to rule the commonwealth of Rome. " 3 The fury that shook Maximinus when he learned that Africa had revolted from him is impossible to describe. 57 4 For when he finally comprehended the decree of the senate, he dashed himself against the walls, he rent his garments, he snatched his sword as though he could slay them in a body, he seemed, indeed, to go wholly mad.
5 The prefect of the city now got even more violent letters and made an address to the people and the soldiers, wherein he said that Maximinus had been slain. 58 6 Upon this great rejoicing arose and the statues and portraits of the public enemy were immediately cast down. 7 The senate, moreover, employed the powers which belonged to it for impending war. Informers, false accusers, personal agents, in fact all the filth of the Maximinian despotism, it ordered to be put to death. 59 8 But this, the senate's decision, was not enough; the people decided that after they were put to death they should be dragged about and cast into the sewer. 9 Then also Sabinus, the prefect of the city and a man of consular rank, was beaten with a club and slain; his corpse was left lying in the streets.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 When Maximinus learned of these last measures he at once assembled his troops and harangued them in the following manner:60 "Consecrated fellow-soldiers, or rather partakers of my consecration, p407 who have, most of you, fought with me wars that were wars indeed, when we defended the majesty of Rome from Germany, when we redeemed Illyricum from the barbarians, the Africans have kept Punic faith. 61 2 They have acclaimed the two Gordians emperors; one of whom is so broken with old age that he cannot rise, the other so wasted with debauchery that exhaustion serves him for old age. 3 And lest this be not enough, that glorious senate of ours has approved what the Africans have done. They for whose children we bear arms have set up twenty men against us, and passed all such decrees against us as are passed against a foe. 4 Up! then, as men should; we must hasten to the city. For against us twenty men, all of consular rank, have been chosen; they must be withstood, we bravely leading, you happily fighting. " 5 But that this harangue left his soldiers with indifferent feelings, and not with quickened spirits, even Maximinus himself realized. 6 In fact, he at once wrote to his son, who was following at a distance behind, to hasten speedily, lest the soldiers devise some plot against him in his absence. 7 Junius Cordus gives the purport of the letter thus: "My attendant Tynchanius is coming to tell you my last advices on what has taken place in Africa and Rome, and also how the soldiers feel. 8 I beseech you, hasten as fast as you can, lest this mob of soldiers take further measures, as soldiers are wont to do. What I fear, you will learn from him whom I have sent you. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 15 1 But while all this was taking place, the Gordians were attacked in Africa by a certain Capelianus. 62 He had always been hostile to Gordian even in private life, and now the Emperor himself dismissed him when, as an old soldier, he was governing the Moors p409 by Maximinus' appointment. And so when Gordian dismissed him, he gathered the Moors together and with an irregular force of them came up to Carthage, the people of which, with typical Punic faith, came over to him. 2 None the less, Gordian desired to hazard the chances of war, and sent against them his son, now well advanced in years (he was then forty-six years old), and at that time his father's legate; we shall give a resumé of his character in its proper place. 63 3 But in military affairs not only was Capelianus the bolder man, but the younger Gordian was less well trained, placed at a disadvantage, as he was, by the luxurious life of the nobility. When they joined battle, accordingly, he was beaten, and in the same campaign slain.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 16 1 Such a host of Gordian's party fell in this campaign, it is said, that the body of the younger Gordian, although it was long searched for, could not be found. 2 There was a great storm, moreover, — a rare thing in Africa — which scattered Gordian's army before the battle and also made the soldiers less fit for the fight, and on this account Capelianus' victory was the easier. 64
3 And when the elder Gordian learned of this, seeing there was no aid in Africa, and being distressed with a great fear of Maximinus and by knowledge of Punic faith, also because Capelianus was assailing him very sharply, and because in the end the struggle had wearied him in mind and soul, he took a rope and hanged himself.
4 This was the end of two of the Gordians. 65 Both of them were named Augusti by the senate and afterwards placed among the gods. 66 p411
GORDIAN THE SECOND.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 17 1 This was the son of the old Gordian, the proconsul of Africa. He too was named Augustus by the Africans and the senate at the same time as his father, and he was illustrious in culture and character as well as in battle rank; the last, according to many writers, he derived from the Antonines, although most say from the Antonii. 67 2 Others adduce the following facts as evidence to show the high quality of his family — that the elder Gordian was called Africanus, the honorary surname of the Scipios;68 that he possessed the House of Pompey in the city;69 that he was always given the surname of the Antonines; and that he himself expressed a desire in the senate that his son should be known as Antonius. Each of these, they believe, represents a family connection. 3 I, however, follow Junius Cordus, who says that the nobility of the Gordians was derived from all these families. 4 At any rate, he was the first offspring of his father, Gordian, and Fabia Orestilla, the great-granddaughter of Antoninus,70 through whom he seemed also to be lined with the family of the Caesars. 5 A few days after his birth he was given the name Antoninus; later, in the senate, he was publicly named Antonius; and the people finally began to call him Gordian.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 18 1 He took his studies very seriously. In person he was remarkably good looking; his memory was extraordinary. He was very kind of heart; indeed, when any of the boys was flogged at school, p413 he could not restrain his tears. 2 Serenus Sammonicus,71 a great friend of his father's, was his tutor, and a very beloved and agreeable one he was; in fact, when he died, he left the young Gordian all the books that had belonged to his father, Serenus Sammonicus, and these were estimated at sixty-two thousand. 3 And this raised him to the seventh heaven, for being now possessed of a library of such magnitude and excellence, thanks to the power of letters he became famous among men.
4 He won his quaestorship upon the recommendation of Elagabalus; for the wildness of the young man, which was nevertheless neither extravagant nor depraved, had found him favour with that extravagant emperor. 5 He held the city-praetorship on the recommendation of Alexander, and did so well in this office, chiefly in administering the law, that he was immediately given the consulship,72 which his father had won late in life. 6 And in the time either of Maximinus or of this same Alexander, being sent to his father's proconsular command, he served as his legate, and then happened what has been related above. 73
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 19 1 He was somewhat fond of wine, but always, however, of wine in some way spiced, at one time with roses, again with mastic, again with wormwood and various other herbs — all of which are most pleasing to the palate. 2 He ate sparingly; indeed he finished his luncheon — if he lunched at all — or his dinner in an instant. 3 He was very fond of women; indeed, it is said that he had twenty-two concubines decreed him, from all of whom he left three or four children apiece. 4 He was nicknamed, in fact, the Priam74 of his age, but often the crowd jestingly called him not Priam but Priapus,75 as being nearer to his character. p415 5 He lived in revelry — in gardens, in baths, and in most delightful groves. Nor did his father ever rebuke him, but on the contrary very often said that sometime soon he would die in the greatest eminence. 6 Yet in his manner of life he never was inferior to the good in bravery, and he was ever among the most distinguished of citizens and never failed the commonwealth with advice. 7 And the senate, finally, entitled him Augustus with the greatest joy and laid on him the hopes of the state. 8 He was very elegant in his dress, and beloved by his slaves and entire household. 9 Cordus says that he was never willing to have a wife, but Dexippus thinks that the third Gordian was his son76 — the boy, that is, who was afterwards made emperor with Balbinus and Pupienus (or Maximus).
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 20 1 At one time the elder Gordian consulted an astrologer about his son's nativity, and the astrologer, it is said, answered that the child would be both son and father of an emperor, and that he also would be emperor. 2 Gordian laughed; but then, they say, the astrologer pointed out the constellationa and read from ancient books until he proved that he had spoken the truth. 3 ºThis same astrologer, moreover, predicted truthfully the day and the manner of the deaths of both father and son, and the places where they would die, all with stubborn firmness. 4 In after days, it is said, the elder Gordian recounted all of this in Africa, at a time when he was emperor and had nothing to fear — indeed, he spoke of his own death and his son's and of the manner in which they would die. 5 Often, too, the old man recited these verses when he saw his son:77 p417
"Him the fates only displayed to the circle of lands, and no longer
Suffered to be. Too great, too great did Rome's generations
Seem to you else, O Gods, had this figure really been granted. "
6 There are still in existence various things written by the younger Gordian in both prose and verse,78 which are often quoted by his kinsmen today. These are neither good nor yet very bad, but rather mediocre. They seem, in truth, the work of one who was really talented but gave himself over to pleasure and wasted his genius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 21 1 He was extremely fond of fruit and greens; in fact, though very abstemious in his use of other kinds of food, he was continually eating fresh fruit. 2 He had a craving for cold drinks, and passed the summer with great difficulty unless he drank cold drinks and a great many of them. He was of huge size, as a matter of fact, and this somewhat stimulated his longing for cold drinks.
3 This is what we have discovered about the younger Gordian that is worthy of mention. For we do not think we need recount absurd and silly tales such as Junius Cordus has written concerning his domestic pleasures and petty matters of that sort. 4 If any desire to know these things, let them read Cordus; Cordus tells what slaves each and every emperor had and what friends, how many mantles and how many cloaks. Knowledge of this sort of thing does no one any good. It is the duty of historians, rather, to set down in their histories such things as are to be avoided or sought after.
p419 5 But truly I have decided that I must not omit this, which I read in Vulcatius Terentianus,79 who wrote a history of his time, because it seems a marvellous thing. So I write it down.
