Gordian III
Gordian III | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Roman emperor | |||||||||
Augustus | c. August 238 – February 244[1] | ||||||||
Predecessor | Pupienus and Balbinus | ||||||||
Successor | Philip the Arab | ||||||||
Caesar | c. May – August 238[2] | ||||||||
Born | 20 January 225[7] Rome, Italy | ||||||||
Died | c. February 244 (aged 19) Zaitha | ||||||||
Spouse | Tranquillina | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Dynasty | Gordian | ||||||||
Father | Junius Balbus | ||||||||
Mother | Antonia Gordiana |
Gordian III (
Rise to power
In 235, following the murder of Emperor
The Senate, showing its hostility towards Maximinus by supporting the Gordiani, elected Pupienus and Balbinus as joint emperors.[15] These senators were not popular men, so the Senate decided to raise Marcus Antonius Gordianus to the rank of Caesar.[16] Maximinus, moving quickly to attack the Senate's newly elected emperors, encountered difficulties marching his army through an Alpine winter.[16] Arriving at Aquileia and short on supplies, Maximinus besieged the city.[16] After four weeks, Maximinus' demoralized army mutinied and the Legio II Parthica murdered him.[17]
The situation for Pupienus and Balbinus, despite Maximinus' death, was doomed from the start with popular riots, military discontent and an enormous fire that consumed Rome in June 238. The next month, Pupienus and Balbinus were killed by the Praetorian Guard and Gordian proclaimed sole emperor.[18]
Reign
Due to Gordian's age, the imperial government was surrendered to the aristocratic families, who controlled the affairs of Rome through the Senate.[19] In 240, Sabinianus revolted in the African province, but he was quickly defeated.[20] In 241, Gordian was married to Furia Sabinia Tranquillina,[21] daughter of the newly appointed praetorian prefect, Timesitheus. As chief of the Praetorian Guard and father in law of the Emperor, Timesitheus quickly became the de facto ruler of the Roman Empire.[22]
During Gordian's reign there were severe earthquakes, so severe that cities fell into the ground along with their inhabitants.[23] In response to these earthquakes Gordian consulted the Sibylline books.[23]
By the 3rd century, the Roman frontiers weakened against the Germanic tribes across the
Part of a series on Roman imperial dynasties |
Year of the Six Emperors |
---|
AD 238 |
|
Gaius Julius Priscus and, later on, his own brother Marcus Julius Philippus, also known as Philip the Arab, stepped in at this moment as the new Praetorian Prefects.[26] Gordian would then start a second campaign. Around February 244, the Sasanians fought back fiercely to halt the Roman advance to Ctesiphon.
The eventual fate of Gordian after the battle is unclear. Roman sources claim that the soldiers proclaimed Philip the Arab emperor, that he made peace with Shapur on "shameful" terms, and that Gordian died as the Roman forces departed for the west.
The deposition of Gordian's body is also a matter of controversy. According to David S. Potter, Philip transferred the body of the deceased emperor to Rome and arranged for his deification.[30] Edwell, Dodgeon, and Lieu state that Philip had Gordian buried at Zaitha after the campaign against the Sasanians had ended in failure.[31][32]
Family tree
|
References
- ISBN 90-5063-034-0.
- ^ Rea, J.R. (1972). "O. Leid. 144 and the Chronology of A.D. 238". ZPE 9, 1–19.
- ^ Furius Dionysius Filocalus, Chronograph of 354, Part 3: "N·GORDIANI·CM·XXIIII".
- ISBN 978-3-534-26724-8.
- ^ Epitome de Caesaribus 27
- ^ Herodian 8.8.
- ^ Gordian's birthday is recorded in the Chronograph of 354.[3] The year is often given as 225 or 226 on the basis of a statement in the Epitome de Caesaribus, which was written around the year 400.[4] The text explicitly states that he was "killed in the twenty-first year of his life", meaning that he was twenty, i.e. born in 224.[5] However, the historian Herodian, who lived during Gordian's reign, states that he was "about thirteen".[6]
- ^ Cooley 2012, p. 497.
- ^ Before this the youngest were Alexander (aged 14) and Nero (aged 16). Later child emperors only ruled one half of the Empire, e.g. Honorius (aged 10) and Valentinian III (aged 6) in the West, and Theodosius II (aged 7) and Michael III (aged 2) in the East.
- ^ a b D’Amato 2020, p. 54.
- ^ Townsend 1934, p. 63.
- ^ Drinkwater 2007, p. 28.
- ^ Drinkwater 2007, p. 29.
- ^ a b Raven 1993, p. 142.
- ^ Drinkwater 2007, pp. 31–32.
- ^ a b c Drinkwater 2007, p. 32.
- ^ Varner 2004, p. 200.
- ^ Drinkwater 2007, p. 33.
- ^ Potter 2004, p. 171.
- ^ Wilhite 2007, p. 31.
- ^ Townsend 1934, p. 84.
- ^ Mennen 2011, p. 34.
- ^ a b c Boin 2018, p. 61.
- ^ Tucker 2010, p. 147.
- ^ Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Potter 2004, p. 236.
- ^ a b c d Shahbazi 2017.
- ^ Brosius 2006, p. 144.
- ^ Potter 2004, pp. 234, 236.
- ^ Potter 2004, p. 238.
- ^ Edwell 2020.
- ^ Dodgeon & Lieu 1991, p. 41.
Sources
- Bland, Roger (2023). The coinage of Gordian III from the mints of Antioch and Caesarea. London: Spink.
- Boin, Douglas (2018). A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity. Wiley. ISBN 978-111-907-681-0.
- Brosius, Maria (2006). The Persians. Routledge.
- ISBN 978-0-521-84026-2.
- D’Amato, Raffaele (2020). Roman Standards & Standard-Bearers (2): AD 192–500. Osprey Publishing.
- Dodgeon, Michael H.; Lieu, Samuel N. C., eds. (1991). The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (AD 226–363): A Documentary History, Part 1. Taylor & Francis.
- Drinkwater, John (2007). "Maximinus to Diocletian and the 'Crisis'". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The crisis of Empire, A.D. 193–337. Vol. XII (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Edwell, Peter (2020). Rome and Persia at War: Imperial Competition and Contact, 193–363 CE. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317061267.
- Mennen, Inge (2011). Power and Status in the Roman Empire, AD 193-284. Brill.
- Potter, David S. (2004). The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395. Routledge.
- Raven, Susan (1993). Rome in Africa (3rd ed.). Routledge.
- Shahbazi, Shapur (2017). "ŠĀPUR I". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
- Townsend, Prescott Winson (1934). The Administration of Gordian III. Yale University Press.
- Tucker, Spencer C., ed. (2010). "241-244:Southwest Asia". A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO.
- Varner, Eric R. (2004). Monumenta Graeca et Romana: Mutilation and Transformation : Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Iperial Portraiture. Brill.
- Wilhite, David E. (2007). Tertullian the African: An Anthropological Reading of Tertullian's Context and Identities. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
External links
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gordian". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 247. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Meckler, Michael, "Gordian III (238–244 A.D.)", De Imperatoribus Romanis
- Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire (AD354-378), 23.5.7
Media related to Gordian III at Wikimedia Commons