280
WARS OF MAXIMINUS.
have been followed by happy consequences. While on the
Rhine, Alexander, as I have already remarked, excited the
discontent of the soldiers by his awkwardness and neglect, and
the noble emperor, who certainly deserved a better fate, was
murdered in A. D. 235, together with his mother, who accom-
panied him everywhere, in order to rule in his name.11
The year A. D. 235 was the beginning of a frightful period,
after the mild and happy government of Alexander Severus. It
is evident that Maximinus acted with a truly revolutionary hatred
of all persons of refined manners and distinction, just like the
terrorists in France. The senators, therefore, were the main
objects of his hatred and persecutions, and that for no reason
but because they were noble and wealthy persons. At that time,
however, the senate was very far from being a venerable body
of men, and I fear that the picture which Ammianus Marcel-
Iinus12 draws of it is but too applicable to the period of which
we are now speaking; but this is no excuse for cruelty.
Maximinus disdained going to Rome, which was a blessing for
the city ; for had he gone thither he would undoubtedly have
caused a massacre there like that of Caracalla at Alexandria.
There is no doubt that Maximinus carried on the war on
the Rhine, and that on the upper and lower Danube, with
success, though it may be questioned whether, he gained per-
manent possessions north of the limes. He delivered Dacia
from the barbarians, and commenced a war against the Sarma-
tians. The history of those wars, as it has come down to us,
is comprised in a few words13, and our knowledge of that period
is altogether scanty; we do not even know whether the Sar-
matians inhabited the country on the lower or on the middle
Danube. Maximinus spared no one ; the first suspicion was
enough for him to pronounce sentence of death upon a person.
Such conduct led to general despair; and the consequence was
an insurrection in Africa, which broke out in the provincial
town of Thysdrus, where the agents of the tyrant were
murdered, and two Romans of rank of the name of Gordian,
father and son, both very able officers, were proclaimed
Augustus and Caesar. Gordian, the father was already eighty
years old.
11 ThehibtoryofAlexanderSeverusin the “ Historia Augusta,” is a pane-
gyric full of falsehood.- -N
12 xiv. 6. 13 Herodian, vii 1, foil,; J. Capitolin. Maximin. 12.
THE GORDIANS.
281
This insurrection, however, was of a very short duration,
and Mauretania took no part in it. Capellianus, the governor
of Mauretania, remained faithful to Maximinus; he therefore
quickly assembled an army of Mauretanians,who had never been
entirely subject to Rome, and uniting them with the cohoιts
under his command, he marched towards Carthage, where the
Gordians were staying. Nothing was easier than to induce
those mountaineers of Mauretania to join in an expedition,
provided the hope of rich plunder was held out to them.1* The
two Gordians had not made proper use of their time, and
although they had only a very inconsiderable army, yet the
younger Gordian ventured to march out against the enemy.
His untrained soldiers were defeated, and he and his father
lost their lives. The fate of Carthage, as well as the whole
course of the insurrection, is buried in obscurity. Eckhel has
investigated the history of those occurrences, and the results
at which he has arrived appear to me to be true : he has made
out that events down to the death of Maximinus and Balbinus
must be compressed into the short period from the beginning
of March till the end of August. Gibbon’s chronology of the
same events contains impossibilities, and is certainly incorrect.
Eckhel does not allow himself to be misled by detached his-
torical testimonies; but there arc still considerable difficulties,
which may perhaps one day be cleared up by the help of
monuments and coins; but until that is done we cannot do
better than follow Eckhel.
The Roman senate had had the desperate courage to recog-
nise the Gordians, a resolution of which one would scarcely
have thought the cowardly and unwarlike nobles of that time
capable. Twenty commissioners had been appointed by the
senate to conduct the preparations against Maximinusls, and
the praetorian cohorts, which had remained at Rome, and seem
to have been neglected by Maximinus, were gained over. The
senate had further called upon all the provinces to rise against
the tyrant. All Italy prepared for a desperate war, the towns
were fortified, and the necessary preparations were going
on, when intelligence of the unfortunate issue of the African
14 The Mauretanians, as early as the time of the Antonines, had been in such
a state of commotion, that they crossed the sea and ravaged Baetica in Spain.__
N, (J. Capitolin. M. Antonin. Phil. 21.)
16 J. Capitolin. Gordian. 10.