Gordiani Tres

It had indeed been my intention, venerable Augustus, to dedicate to your Clemency a separate book for each individual emperor, after the example of many; for I had either seen for myself that many had done this or had gathered it from my reading. But it seemed unfitting either to detain your Piety with a multitude of books or to occupy my own labour with very many volumes. Wherefore I have joined the three Gordians together in this book, consulting both my own labour and your reading, that you might not be compelled, by turning over very many volumes, to read through what is nevertheless almost a single history. But lest I, who have avoided the length of books and the multitude of words, should seem to have run into the very thing which I am taking pains gracefully to avoid, I shall now approach the matter.

The Gordians were not, as certain unskilled writers say, two, but three; and this men have been able to learn from the teaching of Arrian, the writer of Greek history, and likewise from Dexippus, a Greek author, who, even if briefly, yet pursued everything with fidelity. Of these the elder Gordian, that is, the first, was born of his father Maecius Marullus and his mother Ulpia Gordiana. He had his paternal origin from the family of the Gracchi, his maternal from that of the emperor Trajan; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were consuls, his father-in-law, his wife's grandfather, and likewise another of his wife's grandfathers, and two of his wife's great-grandfathers were consuls. He himself was a consul, most wealthy and most powerful, possessing at Rome the house of Pompey, and holding in the provinces as much land as no private man ever held. After the consulship, which he had held with Alexander, he was sent to the proconsulship of Africa by a decree of the senate.

But before I speak of his reign, I shall say a few things about his character. When the Gordian of whom we speak was a young man, he wrote poems, all of which survive, and indeed all those subjects which Cicero treated, that is, "Marius" and "Aratus" and "the Halcyons" and "the Uxorius" and "the Nile." These he wrote to this end, that the poems of Cicero might seem too old-fashioned. He wrote besides, in the way that Vergil wrote the Aeneid, and Statius the Achilleid, and many others the Alexandriad, so he too the Antoniniad, that is, describing in most eloquent verses, in thirty books, the life of Antoninus Pius and Antoninus Marcus, and their wars and their deeds done both publicly and privately. And these things indeed he did as a mere boy. But afterward, when he had grown up, he declaimed controversies in the Athenaeum, with even the emperors of his time listening. He held a most magnificent quaestorship. In the time of his aedileship he gave the Roman people twelve shows, that is, one each month from his own resources, so that he sometimes exhibited five hundred pairs of gladiators, never fewer than a hundred and fifty. On a single day he exhibited a hundred Libyan beasts, on a single day a thousand bears. There survives a memorable representation of his beast-hunt, which is painted in the rostrated house of Gnaeus Pompey, which belonged to himself and his father and his great-grandfather, and which your treasury seized in the times of Philip. In this painting there are even now contained two hundred branch-antlered stags mixed with British ones, thirty wild horses, a hundred wild sheep, ten elk, a hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red-painted Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, a hundred and fifty boars, two hundred ibexes, and two hundred fallow deer; and all these he gave over to the people to be carried off on the day of the show, which was the sixth that he gave.

He held a notable praetorship; after his administration of justice he entered upon his first consulship with Antoninus Caracalla, his second with Alexander. He had two sons: the consular, who was hailed Augustus together with himself, and who perished in war near Carthage in Africa; and a daughter, Maecia Faustina, who was married to Junius Balbus, a man of consular rank. In his consulships he was more distinguished than the consuls of his time, so that Antoninus envied him, admiring now his bordered robes, now his broad stripe, now his circus games beyond the imperial measure. He was the first private Roman to have his own palm-embroidered tunic and painted toga, whereas before that even the emperors received them either from the Capitol or from the Palatine. He distributed, with the emperors' permission, a hundred Sicilian horses and a hundred Cappadocian horses among the factions, and through these he was dear enough to the people, who are always stirred by such things. Cordus says that in all the communities of Campania, Etruria, Umbria, Flaminia, and Picenum he gave at his own expense stage-plays and youth-games for four days. He wrote also, in prose, the praises of all the Antonines who had been before him; and he so loved the Antonines that, as many say, he ascribed to himself too the name Antoninus, or, as very many assert, the name Antonius. And this much is established well enough, that he distinguished his son, Gordian by name, with the cognomen of Antoninus, when, declaring his son before the prefect of the treasury in the Roman manner, he inserted his name in the public records.

After the consulship he was made proconsul of Africa, with all striving for it who wished the rule of Alexander to be reckoned and to be illustrious in Africa too through the dignity of a proconsul. There survives a letter of Alexander himself, in which he gives thanks to the senate for having appointed Gordian proconsul to Africa. The copy of it is this: "You could have done nothing, conscript fathers, more pleasing or more agreeable to me than that you sent Antoninus Gordianus as proconsul to Africa, a man noble, magnanimous, eloquent, just, self-controlled, good," and the rest. From which it appears how great a man Gordian was at that time. He was loved by the Africans as no proconsul before him had been, so that some called him a Scipio, others a Cato, many a Mucius and a Rutilius or a Laelius. There survives an acclamation of theirs, which was set down in writing by Junius. For when on a certain day he was reading some imperial enactment, and had begun with the Scipios, proconsuls, the cry arose, "To the new Scipio, to the true Scipio, to Gordian the proconsul!" These and other things he heard frequently.

And he was indeed of Roman height, comely in his grey hair and of a stately countenance, ruddy rather than fair, with a face well broad, and in his eyes, his mouth, and his brow worthy of reverence. In the quality of his body he was somewhat plump. In his character he was so moderate that you could say nothing that he did either greedily or immoderately or to excess. His own kindred he loved exceedingly, his son and grandson beyond the common measure, his daughter and granddaughter devotedly. To his father-in-law Annius Severus he gave so much deference that he believed he had passed into his family as a son. He never bathed with him; he never sat down in his presence before his praetorship; when he was consul, he either always stayed in his house, or, if in the house of Pompey, he went to him either in the morning or in the evening. He was sparing of wine, most sparing of food, neat in his dress, fond of bathing, so that he bathed even four and five times a day in summer, twice in winter; of much sleep, so that in the dining-rooms, if he chanced to dine among friends, he would even sleep without shame; which he seemed to do by nature, not through drunkenness and luxury.

But his good character profited him nothing; for, venerable for this manner of life, ever in the company of Plato, of Aristotle, of Tullius, of Vergil, and the rest of the ancients, he suffered an end other than he deserved. For when, in the times of Maximinus, a savage and ferocious man, he was governing Africa as proconsul, his son, now of consular rank, having been given to him by the senate as his own legate, and when a certain procurator-of-accounts was raging against very many of the Africans more fiercely than Maximinus himself would allow, proscribing very many, killing many, and claiming everything for himself beyond a procurator's power, and then, rebuffed by the proconsul and the legate, was threatening destruction to noble and consular men themselves, the Africans could not bear injuries so insolent, and first killed that very procurator-of-accounts, with several soldiers joined to them. Then, when he had been killed, since now the whole world was burning with hatred against Maximinus, they began to consider how the sedition that had arisen between the Maximinians and the country-folk or the Africans might be appeased. Then a certain man, Mauritius by name, a decurion powerful among the Africans, spoke near Thysdrus, in a speech afterward most famous, before the common people both of the city and of the country, on his own land, as though haranguing an assembly,

as follows: "Thanks to the immortal gods, citizens, that they have given us an occasion, and indeed a necessary one, of providing for ourselves against that most frenzied man, Maximinus. For we, who have killed his procurator, a man like him in character and life, cannot be safe unless an emperor is made. Wherefore, if it please you, since the most noble man, the proconsul, is not far off, with his son, the consular legate, to both of whom that pest has threatened death, let us, taking the purple from the standards, name them emperors, and confirm them by Roman law with the insignia provided." Then the cry arose, "It is fair, it is just. Gordian Augustus, may the gods preserve you. May you reign happily, may you reign with your son." When these things had been done, they came in haste to the town of Thysdrus, and the venerable old man was found, after his administration of justice, lying on a couch. Surrounded with the purple, he cast himself upon the ground, and, drawing back, was raised up. And since he could do nothing else, for the sake of avoiding the peril which threatened him uncertainly from the Maximinians, and certainly from his supporters, the old man suffered himself to be called emperor.

He was now an octogenarian and had, as we have said, formerly governed very many provinces; he was so commended to the Roman people by his deeds that he seemed worthy of the whole empire. Concerning the killing of the procurator Gordian had known nothing beforehand; but when he learned the matter, being now near death and fearing rather for his son, he preferred to have honourable grounds for dying than to be given over to the chains and prison of Maximinus. So, when Gordian had been hailed emperor, the young men who were the authors of this deed threw down the statues of Maximinus, broke his images, and publicly erased his name. They called Gordian himself "Africanus" too. Some add that the cognomen "Africanus" was given to Gordian not because he had begun to reign in Africa, but because he drew his origin from the family of the Scipios. In very many books I find that both this Gordian and his son were equally hailed emperors and surnamed Antonini, but in others Antonii. After this they came to Carthage with royal pomp and laurelled fasces, and the son, as legate of his father, after the example of the Scipios, as Dexippus the writer of Greek history is the authority, was girt with equal power. Then an embassy was sent to Rome with a letter of the Gordians announcing what had been done in Africa, which was gladly received through Valerian, the leader of the senate, who afterward reigned. Letters were sent also to noble friends, that powerful men might both approve the matter and become more friendly than they had been as friends.

But the senate received with such great rejoicing that they had been made emperors against Maximinus that they not only approved these deeds but also chose twenty men, among whom were Maximus, or Pupienus, and Clodius Balbinus, who were both created emperors after the two Gordians had been killed in Africa. The senate had created those twenty for this purpose, that they might divide among them the regions of Italy to be defended against Maximinus on behalf of the Gordians. Then embassies came to Rome from Maximinus, promising an abolition of all that was past. But the embassy of the Gordians prevailed, which promised every good thing, so that it was believed when it promised both a huge stipend to the soldiers and lands and largesses to the people. And so much more credit was given to the Gordians than to the Maximinians, that a certain Vitalianus, who was in command of the praetorian soldiers, was killed by most daring men, by a quaestor and soldiers at the senate's bidding, because he had previously acted cruelly, and his savagery was then the more feared, friendly and akin in character to Maximinus. About his death this little tale is told: a letter of Maximinus was forged, sealed as though with his own ring, and soldiers were sent with the quaestor to carry it, adding that certain things, besides the letter, were to be said in secret. So they sought out a long portico, and while he was inquiring after the things that were to be said to him in secret, when they urged that he should first inspect the seal of the letter, while he considered it, he was slain. The soldiers were then persuaded that Vitalianus had been slain by order of Maximinus. And when the matter was accomplished, both the letter and his head were displayed in the Camp of the Gordians.

It is of interest that the decree of the senate, by which the Gordians were hailed emperors and Maximinus a public enemy, should be handed down in writing. On a day not lawful but appointed for the senate, the consul, already met at his house with the praetors, aediles, and tribunes of the plebs, came into the Senate-house. The prefect of the city, to whom something I know not what had got wind, and who had not received the public letters, kept away from the meeting. But it was to his profit; for the consul, before the usual acclamations, before anything auspicious was said against Maximinus, said: "Conscript fathers, the two Gordians, father and son, both of consular rank, the one your proconsul, the other your legate, have been hailed emperors by the great council of the Africans. Let us therefore give thanks to the youth of Thysdrus, thanks to the people of Carthage, ever loyal to our wishes; from a monstrous beast, from that wild creature, they have delivered us. Why do you listen timidly? Why do you look around you? Why do you hesitate? This is what you have always wished for. Maximinus is a public enemy; may the gods bring it about that he soon cease to be one, and may we joyfully prove the good fortune and prudence of the old Gordian, the valour and steadfastness of the young." After this he read the letters of the Gordians sent to the senate and to himself. Then the senate cried out: "Gods, thanks to you, we are freed from our enemies; so may we be wholly freed. We all judge Maximinus a public enemy. Maximinus, with his son, we devote to the gods among the wild beasts. We hail the Gordians as Augusti. We acknowledge the Gordians as our princes. May the gods preserve emperors taken from the senate; may we see our emperors noble and victorious; may Rome see our emperors; whoever kills the public enemies deserves a reward."

Junius Cordus says that the decree of the senate was a "silent" one; and what this is, or why it is so called, I shall briefly explain. There is altogether no example of a silent decree of the senate today other than this, that your Clemency, when the chief men have been called to the inner chambers, arranges those things which are not to be made public to all. Concerning these you are even wont to bind men by oath, that no one should either hear or learn anything before the matter is completed. This custom the public necessities discovered among the men of old, so that, if perchance some force should threaten from the enemy, which compelled either the taking of secret counsels or the deciding of some things which it was not fitting should be spoken before they were done, or if they did not wish certain things to leak out to their friends, a silent decree of the senate was made, in such a way that neither the scribes nor the public slaves nor the census-clerks took part in those proceedings, but the senators received them, and the senators filled all the offices of the census-clerks and scribes, lest perchance anything should be betrayed. So a silent decree of the senate was made, that the matter might not reach Maximinus.

But at once, as the minds of men are, of those at least who blush that they are not known by themselves to know what they know, and who think themselves lowly if they do not betray things entrusted to them, Maximinus learned everything, so that he received a copy of the silent decree, a thing which had never before been done. There survives, finally, a letter of his to the prefect of the city, such as this: "I have read the silent decree of those princes of ours, which you, prefect of the city, perhaps do not know to have been made, for you were not present at it. A copy of it I have sent to you, that you might know how to govern the Roman state." But it cannot be told what the agitation of Maximinus was when he heard that Africa had revolted against him; for, on learning the authority of the senate, he ran against the walls, tore his clothes, snatched up his sword, as though he could kill them all, and seemed plainly to rave. The prefect of the city, when he had received the rather sharp letter, addressed the people and the soldiers, saying that Maximinus was now killed; whence there was the greater joy, and at once the statues and images of him who had been judged a public enemy were thrown down. The senate, indeed, while the war was pending, made use of the power which it ought; for it ordered the informers, the calumniators, the procurators, and all that dregs of the Maximinian tyranny to be killed, and it was too little that the senate had judged this: it was a judgement of the people that those killed were broken up and thrown into a sewer. Then too the prefect of the city, Sabinus, a man of consular rank, struck down with a cudgel, was killed and left in the public street.

When Maximinus learned these things, he at once exhorted the soldiers with this kind of harangue: "Consecrated fellow-soldiers, nay rather, my comrades in consecration, with most of whom you truly serve along with me, while we defend the Roman majesty from Germany, while we deliver Illyricum from the barbarians, the Africans have shown Punic faith; for they have made emperors for us two Gordians, of whom the one is so broken by age that he cannot rise, the other so ruined by luxury that he has infirmity in place of old age. And, as if this were too little, that noble senate has acknowledged the deed of the Africans, and these men, for whose children we bear arms, have set up twenty men against us and have passed all their sentences as though against public enemies. Nay rather, act as becomes men; we must hasten to the city, for twenty consular men too have been chosen against us, whom we must resist, while we act bravely and you fight with success." The slow minds of the soldiers and their spirits, less eager, Maximinus himself perceived from this harangue. So he at once wrote to his son, who was following far behind, to hasten, lest the soldiers should plot anything against him in his absence. The copy of the letter Junius Cordus published as follows: "My attendant Tynchanius is reporting to you what I have learned to be done either in Africa or at Rome, and what the minds of the soldiers are. I beg you to hasten as much as you can, lest the soldiery, as is its wont, do more than it should. What I fear you shall hear from the man whom I have sent to you."

While these things were being done, in Africa against the two Gordians a certain Capelianus, always hostile to Gordian even in his private life, and discharged as a veteran by the emperor himself when he governed the Moors at Maximinus's command, having collected the Moors and a hastily-gathered band, and having received a successor from Gordian, made for Carthage, toward whom the whole people of the Carthaginians, with Punic faith, inclined. Gordian, however, desiring to try the fortune of war, sent against Capelianus and the Maximinians his son, now older in years, forty-six years of age, whom he had at that time, as we have said, in the place of a legate, a man of whose character we shall speak in his own place. But since in military matters Capelianus was both bolder, and Gordian the younger was not so practised, being indeed hindered by the delights of his nobility, the battle was joined, and he was conquered and killed in that same war.

Moreover, so great a multitude of Gordian's party is said to have fallen in the battle that, although the body of Gordian the younger was long sought, it could not be found. There was, besides, a great storm, such as is rare in Africa, which so scattered Gordian's army before the battle that the soldiers became less fit for the fight, and so the victory of Capelianus was easy. When the elder Gordian learned these things, since there was no garrison in Africa, and much fear from Maximinus and the Punic faith pressed upon him, and Capelianus pressed on most fiercely, and then grief wearied his mind and spirit, he ended his life with a noose. This was the end of the two Gordians, both of whom the senate hailed as Augusti and afterward enrolled among the gods.

This son of the elder Gordian, proconsul of Africa, who together with his father was hailed Augustus both by the Africans and by the senate, was distinguished in letters and character, besides his nobility, which, as some say, he derived from the Antonines, as very many say, from the Antonii. For some wish this to be the argument for proving the quality of his lineage, that the elder Gordian was called Africanus, the cognomen of the Scipios; that he had the house of Pompey in the city; that he was always named with the cognomen of the Antonines; that he himself wished his son to be designated as Antonius in the senate; which several things seem to designate the families. But I follow Junius Cordus, who says that out of all these families the nobility of the Gordians had grown together. He, then, the firstborn to his father from Fabia Orestilla, the great-granddaughter of Antoninus, whence he seemed to touch also the family of the Caesars, was, in the first days of his birth, called Antoninus; soon the name Antonius was given out in the senate; then he began to be commonly called Gordian.

In his studies he was of a most weighty reputation, conspicuous in form, of singular memory, and of remarkable goodness, so much so that always in the schools, if any of the boys was beaten, he could not hold back his tears. He was exceedingly accepted and dear to Serenus Sammonicus, who was a most intimate friend of his father and was his own teacher, so much so that that man, dying, left to the younger Gordian all the books of his father, Serenus Sammonicus, which were reckoned at about sixty-two thousand. This raised him to the heavens, since, endowed with the abundance and splendour of so great a library, he came into the renown of men through the glory of letters. He earned the quaestorship on the recommendation of Heliogabalus, for this reason, that to that luxurious emperor the playfulness of the young man, not however luxurious or infamous, was reported. He held the urban praetorship on the recommendation of Alexander, in which he was of such great favour, owing to his administration of justice, that he at once earned the consulship, which his father had received late. In the times of Maximinus, or of the same Alexander, sent as legate to his father's proconsulship, he complied; and there those things which were said above came to pass.

He was rather fond of wine, yet always spiced from one source or another, now with rose, now with mastic, now with wormwood and the other things with which the palate is especially delighted. He was sparing of food, so that within a point of time he would finish either his lunch, if he lunched, or his dinner. He was most desirous of women; for he is said to have had twenty-two concubines decreed to him, from all of whom he left three and four children apiece; and he was called the Priam of his time, whom, joking commonly, because he was by nature rather inclined, they often called Priapus, not Priam. He lived amid delights, in gardens, in baths, in most pleasant groves; nor did his father despise him, very often saying that he would one day, at the height of his renown, die quickly. Yet he never degenerated by his manner of life from his bravery among good men, and was always among the most illustrious citizens, nor was he wanting to the state for counsel. At length the senate too most gladly hailed him as Augustus and placed in him the public hope. He was most elegant in dress, dear to his slaves and to all his household. Cordus says that he never wished to have a wife; against this, Dexippus thinks that the third Gordian was his son, who after this, with Balbinus and Pupienus, or Maximus, obtained the empire as a mere boy.

When the elder Gordian once consulted an astrologer about this man's nativity, that man is said to have answered that he would be both the son of an emperor and the father of one, and himself an emperor. And when the elder Gordian laughed, the astrologer, they say, showed the constellation and dictated from old books, so that he proved he had spoken truly; and he indeed foretold, with obstinate firmness from the truth, both the day and the manner of death and the places in which the old man and the young man would perish; all of which the elder Gordian afterward, when he was now emperor in Africa and feared nothing, is reported to have related, even telling of his own death and his son's, and of the manner of death. The old man, moreover, used to sing these verses, when he had seen his son Gordian, very often: "The fates shall but show this man to the earth, nor suffer him to be longer. Too powerful, ye gods above, did the Roman stock seem to you, had these gifts been its own to keep." There survive sayings of the younger Gordian both in prose and in verse, which today are repeated by his kinsmen, neither great nor very small but middling, and such as appear to be those of a man of talent, but one running riot and deserting his own genius.

He was most avid of fruits and vegetables, so that, most sparing in the rest of his kinds of food, he would always devour some fresh fruit. He was very fond of cold drinks, and during the summer he could not easily drink anything but cold drinks, and those as many as possible; and he was of a huge body, wherefore he was the more driven to cold drinks. These things worthy of mention we have learned about the younger Gordian; for we must not tell such things as Junius Cordus composed ridiculously and foolishly about domestic pleasures and other lowest matters, which whoever wishes to know, let him read Cordus himself, who tells both what slaves each of the principes had, and what friends, and how many rain-cloaks or how many military cloaks. The knowledge of which is of no use to anything, since those things ought to be set down in history by historians which are either to be shunned or to be followed. Indeed, what I judged ought not to be passed over, because it seemed remarkable, having read it in Vulcatius Terentianus, who himself also wrote a history of his own time, I have committed to writing: that the elder Gordian so represented the countenance of Augustus that he seemed to show his voice and manner and stature too; the son was seen to be most like Pompey, although Pompey is denied to have been of a fat body; the grandson, however, whose images we still see now, bore the face of Scipio Asiaticus; which, out of admiration for him, I did not believe ought to be kept silent. GORDIAN THE THIRD.

After the death of the two Gordians, the senate, anxious and fearing Maximinus more vehemently, out of the twenty men whom it had chosen to defend the state, hailed Pupienus, or Maximus, and Clodius Balbinus as Augusti, both of consular rank. Then the people and the soldiers asked that the little Gordian, being, as very many assert, eleven years of age, as some say thirteen, as Junius Cordus says sixteen (for he asserts that he perished in his twenty-second year), should be called Caesar; and, snatched off to the senate and thence set before an assembly, covered with the imperial garment, he was named Caesar. This man was born, as very many assert, of Gordian's daughter; as one or two say (for I could find no more), of his son, who perished in Africa. Gordian, having been made Caesar, was brought up with his mother; and when, the Maximini being destroyed, Maximus too and Balbinus had been killed in a military mutiny, who had reigned for two years, Gordian the youth, who had thus far been Caesar, was hailed Augustus by the soldiers and the people and the senate and all nations, with immense love, immense zeal and favour. And he was loved deservedly on account of his grandfather and his uncle, or father, who both took up arms on behalf of the senate and the Roman people against Maximinus and perished by a soldier's death or necessity. After this, veterans came to the Senate-house to learn what had been done; of whom two, having entered the Capitol while the senate was meeting there, were killed before the very altar by Gallicanus, a consular, and Maecenas, one of the generals; and a civil war arose, since even senators were armed, while the veterans were ignorant that Gordian the youth alone held the empire.

Dexippus indeed affirms that the third Gordian was born of Gordian's son. But after it was established among the veterans too that Gordian alone reigned, peace was strengthened between the people and the soldiers and the veterans, and this was the end of the civil war, when the consulship had been conferred on the boy Gordian. But this was a sign that Gordian would not reign long, that an eclipse of the sun took place, so that it was believed to be night, and nothing could be done save with lights kindled. After this, however, the Roman people gave themselves to pleasures and delights, that it might soften the things which had been harshly done. In the consulship of Venustus and Sabinus a faction arose in Africa against the third Gordian, under the leadership of Sabinianus; whom Gordian, besieged by the conspirators through the governor of Mauretania, so crushed that all came to Carthage to hand him over, both confessing their crimes and asking pardon for their misdeeds. When, therefore, the disquiet in Africa was ended, in the consulship of Gordian, now for the second time, and of Pompeianus, the Persian war arose; when too the youth Gordian, before he set out for the war, both took to wife the daughter of Misitheus, a most learned man, whom, on account of his eloquence, he thought worthy of his kinship, and at once made prefect; after which the empire no longer seemed boyish and contemptible, since it was both aided by the counsels of an excellent father-in-law, and he himself for his part had somewhat of wisdom, nor was sold through the eunuchs and palace ministers by the ignorance or connivance of his mother.

There survives, finally, both a letter of his father-in-law to him and one of Gordian himself to his father-in-law, from which it is understood that his reign was made more amended and more careful by his father-in-law's aid. The copy of them is this: "To his lord, son, and Augustus, Misitheus, father-in-law and prefect: that we have escaped the grievous stain of the times, by which, through the eunuchs and through those who seemed to you friends (but were vehement enemies), everything was being sold, is a delight to me, and the more so as the amendment is the more pleasing to you, so that, if there were any vices, it is established well enough that they were not yours, my venerable son. For no one could endure that prefectures of soldiers were given on the suffrage of eunuchs, that reward was denied to labours, that men were killed or freed at pleasure and for money who did not deserve it, that the treasury was emptied, that by those who daily, most insidiously, frequented the court, factions were formed, so that you might be deceived, since the worst men had among themselves, before counsels were to be suggested to you, conferences about the goods, drove away the good, insinuated the detestable, and finally sold all your secrets. Thanks therefore to the gods, that, with you yourself willing it, the matter is amended. It delights me, indeed, to be the father-in-law of a good prince, and of one who inquires into everything and wishes to know everything, and who has driven away the men through whom before you were, as it were, put up at auction and sold." 25. Likewise, the letter of Gordian to him: "The emperor Gordian Augustus to Misitheus, his father and prefect: had not the omnipotent gods watched over the Roman empire, even now we should be sold, through bought eunuchs, as though put up for auction. So now at last I understand that neither ought the Feliciones to have been set over the praetorian cohorts, nor ought the fourth legion to have been entrusted to Serapammon; and, to dispense with reckoning everything, that many things ought not to have been done which I did. But thanks to the gods, that, at your suggestion, who sell nothing, I have learned those things which, shut in, I could not know. For what could I do, when both my mother sold us, and, having held counsel with Gaudianus and Reverendus and Montanus, would either praise some or blame them, and by their agreement, as of witnesses, prove what she had said? My father, I would that you hear the truth: wretched is the emperor from whom the truth is kept back, who, since he himself cannot walk abroad in public, must needs hear, and confirm either what he has heard or what is strengthened by very many." From these letters it was understood that the youth was amended and corrected by his father-in-law's counsels. And some say that Misitheus's letter was in Greek, but to this effect. But his weight and sanctity availed so much that, out of one most obscure save for his nobility, he made Gordian, by his deeds, an illustrious prince.

There was an earthquake so grievous, while Gordian reigned, that cities even perished with their peoples by the gaping of the earth. On account of which great sacrifices were celebrated throughout the whole city and the whole world. And Cordus indeed says that, the Sibylline books having been inspected and all the things which seemed to be there commanded having been celebrated, the worldwide evil was allayed. When the earthquake was allayed, in the consulship of Praetextatus and Atticus, Gordian, having opened the twin gates of Janus, which was a sign of a declared war, set out against the Persians with a huge army and with so much gold that he could easily overcome the Persians either with auxiliaries or with soldiers. He made his march into Moesia, and in the very campaign destroyed, put to flight, drove out, and removed whatever of the enemy was in the Thracias. Thence, through Syria, he came to Antioch, which was already held by the Persians; there he fought in frequent battles and conquered, Sapor, the king of the Persians, being driven off. And afterward he recovered Artaxata and Antioch and Carrhae and Nisibis, all of which

were under the Persians' rule. The king of the Persians, indeed, so feared Gordian as prince that, although he was furnished both with his own forces and with ours, yet he himself of his own accord withdrew his garrisons from the cities and gave them back whole to his own citizens, so that he defiled nothing that pertains to their fortunes. But all these things were done through Misitheus, the father-in-law of Gordian and the same his prefect. It was brought about, finally, that the Persians, who were already feared in Italy, returned into their own kingdom, with Gordian fighting, and that the Roman state held the whole East. There survives a speech of Gordian to the senate, in which, writing of his exploits, he gives immense thanks to Misitheus, his prefect and father-in-law. A part of it I have inserted, that from it you might learn the truth: "After these things, conscript fathers, which, while we were making our march, were done, and which everywhere were performed worthy of single triumphs, we have removed even the Persians, to gather much briefly, from the necks of the Antiochenes, which they already bore bound with Persian iron, both the kings of the Persians and their laws. Then we gave back Carrhae and the other cities to the Roman empire. We have come even to Nisibis, and, if the gods favour, we shall come even to Ctesiphon. May only Misitheus the prefect and our father fare well, by whose leadership and arrangement we have accomplished both these things and shall accomplish the rest. It is yours, therefore, to decree thanksgivings, to commend us to the gods, to give thanks to Misitheus." When these things had been read in the senate, four-horse chariots of elephants were decreed to Gordian, inasmuch as he had conquered the Persians, that he might triumph with a Persian triumph; but to Misitheus a chariot of six horses and a triumphal car, and a title of this kind: "To Misitheus, eminent man, parent of the princes, praetorian prefect and prefect of the whole city, guardian of the state, the senate and people of Rome have rendered recompense."

But that good fortune could not be longer; for Misitheus, as very many say, by the arts of Philip, who after him was made praetorian prefect, or, as others say, by disease, was destroyed, with the Roman state as his heir, so that whatever had been his might be added to the revenues of the city. The arrangement of this man in the state was so great that there was never any frontier city more well-supplied, or more able to support the army of the Roman people and the prince, than that which had not stored up for a whole year a supply in vinegar, grain, bacon, barley, and chaff; while the smaller cities, some had a thirty-days' supply, some forty, some two months', that which had the least, fifteen days'. The same man, when he was prefect, always inspected the arms of the soldiers; he suffered no old man to serve, no boy to receive rations; he went round all the camps and their ditches; by night too he very often kept the watches. And he was loved by all, because he thus loved both the state and the prince. The tribunes and generals so feared and loved him that they neither wished to do wrong nor did wrong in any part. Philip is said to have feared him vehemently on account of very many things, and on this account to have prepared a plot against his life through physicians, and indeed in this manner: when Misitheus was suffering from a flux of the bowels, and was ordered by the physicians to take a draught for the sake of staying his bowels, the things which had been prepared having been changed, that is said to have been given by which he might be the more loosened; and so he was destroyed.

When he was dead, in the consulship of Arrianus and Papus, Philip the Arab was made praetorian prefect in his place, born of humble stock but proud, who did not contain himself in the newness and excess of his fortune, so that at once he made a plot, through the soldiers, against Gordian, who had admitted him into the place of a parent, which was of this kind. Misitheus had had everywhere, as we have said, so much in store that the Roman arrangement could not waver; but by the arts of Philip first the grain-ships were turned aside, then the soldiers were led into those places in which they could not be provisioned. Hence he at once rendered the soldiers hostile to Gordian, they not understanding that the youth had been deceived by the arts of Philip. But Philip added this too, that he spread a rumour among the soldiers that Gordian was a youth, that he could not govern the empire, that it was better that he should rule who governed the soldiery, who knew the state. He corrupted besides even the chief men, and it was brought about that Philip was openly demanded for the empire. The friends of Gordian at first resisted most vehemently, but when the soldiers were overcome by hunger, the empire was committed to Philip, and it was ordered by the soldiers that Philip, as his guardian, should reign equally together with this same Gordian.

So, when he had taken up the empire, since Philip both bore himself most proudly against Gordian, and the latter recognized himself as emperor and the offspring of emperors and a man of a most noble family, and could not bear the wickedness of an ignoble man, before the generals and soldiers, with the prefect Maecius Gordianus, his kinsman, standing by, he complained on the tribunal, hoping that the empire could be taken away from Philip; but by this complaint he accomplished nothing, though he had accused him of being, unmindful of his benefits, less grateful to him. And when he had asked the soldiers, when he had openly canvassed the generals, by the faction of Philip he was less among them all. At length, when he saw himself held the lesser, he asked that at least the empire might be equal between them, and did not obtain it. Then he asked that he might be held in the place of a Caesar, and did not obtain that. He asked even that he might be in the place of a prefect to Philip, which also was refused. His last prayers were that Philip should hold him in the place of a general and suffer him to live; to which indeed Philip had almost consented, himself silent but doing everything through friends by nods and counsels. But when he considered with himself the love of the Roman people and the senate toward Gordian, and of all Africa and Syria and the whole Roman world, since he was both noble and the grandson and son of emperors and had freed the whole state from grievous wars, that it could come to pass that, the will of the soldiers being at some time turned, the empire might be given back to Gordian when he sought it again, since the wrath of the soldiers against Gordian, on account of the famine, was vehement, he ordered him, as he was crying out, to be led from his sight and stripped and killed; which, when at first it was put off, afterward, as he ordered, was carried out. So Philip impiously, not by right, obtained the empire.

Gordian reigned six years. And while these things were being done, Argunt, king of the Scythians, neighbouring peoples, was laying waste the kingdoms, especially because he had learned that Misitheus, by whose counsel the state had been governed, had perished. But Philip, that he might not seem to have got the empire from cruelty, sent a letter to Rome, in which he wrote that Gordian had perished by disease, and that he himself had been chosen by all the soldiers; nor was it wanting that the senate should be deceived about these matters, which it did not know. So, when Philip had been hailed prince and named Augustus, he enrolled the youth Gordian among the gods. He was a youth merry, beautiful, lovable, pleasing to all, agreeable in life, noble in letters, so that, in short, nothing was wanting to him for the empire save his age. He was loved by the people and the senate and the soldiers, before the faction of Philip, as no prince was. Cordus says that all the soldiers called him their son, that he was called son by the whole senate, that the whole people called Gordian their darling. At length Philip, when he had killed him, neither removed his images nor took down his statues nor erased his name, but, always calling him divine even among the very soldiers with whom he had made the faction, venerated him with serious mind and outlandish cunning.

The house of the Gordians stands even now, which this Gordian adorned most beautifully. There is a villa of theirs on the Praenestine Way having two hundred columns in a tetrastyle, of which fifty are of Carystian, fifty of Claudian, fifty of Synnadic, and fifty of Numidian marble, of equal measure; in which there are three basilicas a hundred feet long, and the rest suited to this work, and baths such as nowhere in the world, as then, outside the city. For the family of Gordian the senate decreed this, that his descendants should always be exempt from guardianships and from embassies and from public obligations, unless they wished otherwise. There survive at Rome no works of Gordian save certain fountains and baths. But the baths belonged to private men and were adorned by him for private use. He had set up a portico in the Campus Martius beneath the hill, a thousand feet long, so that on the other side an equally thousand-foot portico might be made, and between them an equal space of five hundred feet should lie open; on this side and that of which space there should be pleasure-gardens, thick with laurel, myrtle, and box, but the middle a paved walk, with small columns set on either side and statues, for a thousand feet, which should be a promenade, so that at the head there should be a basilica five hundred feet long. He had thought, besides, with Misitheus, to make behind the basilica summer baths of his own name, so that he might place the winter ones at the beginning of the porticoes, that neither the gardens nor the porticoes might be without use. But all these things are now occupied by the possessions and gardens and buildings of private men.

There were under Gordian at Rome thirty-two elephants, of which he himself had sent twelve, Alexander ten; ten elk, ten tigers, sixty tame lions, thirty tame leopards, ten belbi, that is, hyenas, a thousand pairs of treasury gladiators, six hippopotami, one rhinoceros, ten wild lions, ten giraffes, twenty wild asses, forty wild horses, and the rest of animals of this kind, innumerable and various; all of which Philip either gave or killed at the Secular Games. All these beasts, both tame and besides wild, he was preparing for the Persian triumph; which public vow availed nothing, for Philip displayed all these at the Secular Games and shows and circus games, when he celebrated the thousandth year in his own consulship and his son's. What has been handed down to memory concerning Gaius Caesar, this too Cordus records came to pass concerning Gordian; for all, whosoever assailed him with the sword (who are said to have been nine), afterward, when the Philippi had been killed, are said to have killed themselves with their own hand and their own swords, and the very ones with which they had struck him.

This, then, was the life of the three Gordians, all of whom were hailed Augusti, two being killed in Africa, the third in the borders of Persia. For Gordian the soldiers made a tomb at the fort of Circesium in the borders of Persia, adding a title of this kind in Greek and Latin and Persian and Jewish and Egyptian letters, that it might be read by all: "To the deified Gordian, conqueror of the Persians, conqueror of the Goths, conqueror of the Sarmatians, queller of Roman seditions, conqueror of the Germans, but not conqueror of the Philippi." Which seemed to be added for this reason, because in the plains of Philippi he had withdrawn, conquered by the Alani in a hasty battle, and at the same time because he seemed to have been killed by the Philippi. This title Licinius is said to have overthrown at the time when he got the empire, since he wished to seem to draw his origin from the Philippi. All which things, greatest Constantine, I have pursued for this reason, that nothing might be wanting to your knowledge which seemed worthy of being known.