Maximini Duo
Maximini Duo Late Antiquity Scriptores Historiae Augustae Latin- Lest it should be wearisome to your Clemency, greatest Constantine, to read each individual prince, or the sons of princes, through separate books, I have used a moderation by which I have gathered into one volume the two Maximins, father and son. I have kept thereafter this order, which your Piety wished to be kept even by Tatius Cyrillus, a Most Distinguished Man, who turned Greek into Latin. And this, indeed, I shall preserve not in one book only but also in very many thereafter, with the exception of the great emperors, whose exploits, being more numerous and more illustrious, require a longer text.
Maximinus the elder rose to prominence under the emperor Alexander, but he began his military service under Severus. He was born in a village of Thrace bordering on the barbarians, of a barbarian father and mother too, of whom the one is reported to have been born of Gothia, the other of the Alani. And his father's name, indeed, is said to have been Micca, his mother's Ababa. But these names Maximinus himself made known in his early days; afterward, however, when he came to the empire, he ordered them to be concealed, lest he should seem an emperor born of two barbarian parents.
And in his earliest boyhood, indeed, he was a shepherd, a chief too among the young men, and one who would lie in wait for robbers and defend his own from their incursions. His first service was in the cavalry. For he was conspicuous in the size of his body, distinguished in valour among all the soldiers, comely in his manly form, fierce in his ways, harsh, proud, contemptuous, yet often just. The first occasion of his becoming known under the emperor Severus was this: on the birthday of Geta, his younger son, Severus was giving military games, with silver prizes set up, that is, armlets, neck-chains, and little belts. This youth, half-barbarian and as yet scarcely able to speak Latin, in almost Thracian fashion publicly asked the emperor to give him leave to contend with those who were now serving in no mean rank. Severus, marveling at the size of his body, first matched him with the camp-followers, but with the strongest of them, lest he should corrupt military discipline. Then Maximinus, in one sweat, vanquished sixteen camp-followers, having received sixteen small prizes, not military ones,
and was ordered to serve. It chanced that on the third day, when Severus had gone forth to the field, he saw Maximinus exulting in the throng in barbarian fashion, and at once ordered the tribune to restrain him and to imbue him with Roman discipline. Then that man, when he understood that the emperor had spoken about him, the barbarian, suspecting that he was both known to the prince and conspicuous among many, came up to the feet of the emperor as he rode. Then Severus, wishing to explore how great he was in running, set his horse to many circuits; and when the old emperor had grown weary, while that man had not ceased from running for many courses, he said to him, "What do you wish, little Thracian? Does it perhaps please you to wrestle after running?" Then he said, "As much as you like, Emperor." After this Severus dismounted from his horse and ordered the freshest and strongest soldiers to be matched against him. Then that man, in his usual way, conquered seven of the strongest in one sweat, and alone of all was presented by Severus, after the silver prizes, with a golden neck-chain, and was ordered always to stand among the bodyguards in the palace. Hence, then, made conspicuous among the soldiers, he became distinguished; he came to be loved by the tribunes, looked up to by his fellow-soldiers, and to obtain from the emperor what he wished; he was helped too by Severus in his military postings, although he was very young, but in the length and vastness of his body and in his form and the size and brightness of his eyes he excelled all.
Moreover, it is established that he often drank a Capitoline amphora of wine in a day, and ate forty pounds of meat, or, as Cordus says, even sixty. And this is established well enough, that he always abstained from vegetables, almost always from cold things, save when there was a necessity of drinking for him. He often caught his own sweat and put it into cups or into a little vessel, so that he would display two or three pints of his own sweat. This man long led centuries under Antoninus Caracalla and often handled the other military dignities. Under Macrinus, because he vehemently hated the man who had killed the son of his own emperor, he left the service and acquired possessions in Thrace, in the village where he had been born, and always carried on trade with the Goths. And he was loved exceedingly by the Getae, as though their fellow-citizen. The Alani, whosoever came to the bank of the river, approved him as a friend, with gifts running back and forth in turn. But when Macrinus had been killed with his son, and he learned that Heliogabalus had been made emperor as though the son of Antoninus, being now of mature age, he came to him and asked that he might himself have what regard his patron Severus had had toward him; but with an impure man he could avail nothing. For Heliogabalus is said to have jested with him most basely, saying, "You are said, Maximinus, to have once tired out sixteen and twenty and thirty soldiers; can you perform thirty times with a woman?" Then he, when he saw the infamous prince begin thus, departed from the service; and yet he was retained by the friends of Heliogabalus, lest this too should be added to his ill repute, that he should remove from his army the bravest man of his time, whom some called Hercules, others Achilles,
others Ajax. He held, then, under that most impure man only the honour of a tribunate, but he never came to his hand, never saluted him, through the whole three years, running hither and thither; he was occupied now with his lands, now with leisure, now with feigned illnesses. When Heliogabalus had been killed, as soon as he learned that Alexander had been named prince, he hastened to Rome. Him Alexander received with wondrous joy, with wondrous congratulation, so that he made these words in the senate: "Maximinus, conscript fathers, a tribune, to whom I have added the broad stripe, has fled to me, who could not serve under that impure beast, who under my deified parent Severus was as great as you learn him to be by report." So at once he gave him the tribunate of the fourth legion, of recruits, which he himself had formed, and advanced him with these words: "Veteran soldiers, my dearest and most beloved Maximinus, I have not for this reason entrusted to you, that I feared lest you should be unable to amend their vices, which had grown up under others. You have recruits; according to your own ways, your own valour, your own labour, make them learn the service thoroughly, that you alone may make for me many Maximins, men to be wished for by the state."
So, having received the legion, he at once began to exercise it. Every fifth day he ordered the soldiers to run drills, to wage mock battles among themselves, to inspect daily their swords, breastplates, helmets, shields, tunics, and all their arms; he even looked to their footwear himself, showing himself altogether a father to the soldiers. But when certain tribunes reproached him, saying, "Why do you labour so much, when you are already of such a rank that you can receive a generalship?" he is said to have answered, "I, indeed, the greater I become, so much the more shall I labour." He practised wrestling-matches with the soldiers himself, throwing to the ground five, six, and seven at a time, though now advanced in years. At length, with all envying him, when a certain prouder tribune, of great body, of noted valour and therefore the more fierce, had said to him, "You do no great thing, if as a tribune you conquer your own soldiers," he said, "Do you wish us to engage?" And when his adversary nodded, as he came against him he struck him on the chest with the flat of his hand and threw him on his back, and at once said, "Give me another, but a tribune." He was, besides, as Cordus reports, of such great size that he was said to exceed eight feet by six inches, with a thumb so vast that he used his wife's bracelet for a ring. And those things too are almost set in the common mouth, that he would draw wagons with his hands, move a laden cart alone, knock out a horse's teeth if he gave it a blow with his fist, break its legs if with his heel, crumble tufa stones, split rather tender trees, so that some called him the Milo of Croton, others Hercules, others Antaeus.
This man, conspicuous for these things, Alexander, a judge of great merits, set over the whole army, to his own ruin, with all the tribunes, generals, and soldiers everywhere rejoicing. At length he drew back to his own military discipline the whole of that army which had in great part grown sluggish under Heliogabalus, which was most grievous to Alexander, an excellent emperor indeed, as we have said, but one whose youth could from the beginning be despised. For when he was in Gaul and had pitched his camp not far from a certain city, suddenly, with soldiers sent in, as some say by himself, as others say by the barbarian tribunes, Alexander, fleeing to his mother, was killed, Maximinus being now hailed emperor. And the cause of Alexander's slaying some say was one thing, some another; for some say that Mamaea was the author, that her son, abandoning the German war, should make for the East, and that on this account the soldiers broke out into sedition. Some say it was because he was too stern and had wished to discharge the legions in Gaul as he had discharged them in the East.
But when Alexander had been killed, Maximinus was the first from the body of the soldiery, and not yet a senator, to be hailed Augustus by the army without a decree of the senate, his son being given to him as a partner; concerning whom we shall soon say the few things that are known to us. Maximinus, moreover, was always of such cunning that he ruled the soldiers not only by valour but also rendered them most devoted by rewards and gains. He never took anyone's provisions; he never allowed that any soldier in the army should be a smith or a craftsman of any other thing, as very many are, but frequently exercised the legions only in hunts. But amid these virtues he was so cruel that some called him a Cyclops, others a Busiris, others a Sciron, some a Phalaris, many a Typhon or a Gyges. The senate so feared him that the women too, with their children, made vows in the temples both publicly and privately, that he might never see the city of Rome; for they heard that some were raised on the cross, some shut up in animals lately killed, some thrown to wild beasts, some struck down with cudgels, and all these things without distinction of rank, when he seemed to wish to rule military discipline, by the example of which he wished to correct civil matters too, which does not befit a prince who wishes to be loved. For he was persuaded that the empire could not be held save by cruelty; and at the same time he feared lest, on account of the lowness of his barbarian birth, he should be despised by the nobility. He remembered, besides, that at Rome he had been despised even by the slaves of the nobles, so that he was not even looked upon by their procurators; and, as foolish opinions are wont, he expected them to be such toward him, now that he was emperor; so much does the consciousness
of a degenerate spirit avail. For, to cover his obscurity, he killed all who were privy to his birth, some friends too, who had often, out of pity for his poverty, given him very many things. For there was no crueller creature on earth, placing everything thus in his strength as though he could not be killed. At length, when he almost believed himself immortal on account of the size of his body and his valour, a certain mime in the theatre, in his presence, is said to have spoken some Greek verses, of which this was the Latin sense:
And he who cannot be killed by one, is killed by many. The elephant is huge, and is killed; the lion is brave, and is killed; the tiger is brave, and is killed; beware the many, if you do not fear the few.
And these things were spoken with the emperor himself present. But when he asked his friends what the hostile buffoon had said, it was said to him that he was singing some old verses written against harsh men; and he, as he was a Thracian and a barbarian, believed it. He suffered no noble man about him, so that he reigned plainly after the example of Spartacus or Athenion. Besides, he killed all the ministers of Alexander in various ways and envied his arrangements; and while he held his friends and ministers suspect, he became crueller still.
Being thus disposed, so that he lived after the manner of wild beasts, he became more sullen and more savage through a faction prepared against him by a certain Magnus, a man of consular rank, who, with many soldiers and centurions, had entered into a plan to stab him, since he wished to transfer the empire to himself. And the kind of faction was this: when Maximinus wished to cross over against the Germans by a bridge that had been joined, it had been resolved that the conspirators should cross with him, that the bridge should afterward be broken up, that he, surrounded in the barbarians' country, should be killed, and that Magnus should seize the empire. For he had begun to wage all his wars, and indeed most bravely, as soon as he was made emperor, being skilled, as it were, in military matters, wishing to keep the estimation that was held of him and, before all things, to surpass the glory of Alexander, whom he himself had killed. Wherefore, as emperor, he daily kept the soldiers at exercise too, and was himself in arms, always showing the army many things by his hand and his body. And this faction Maximinus himself is reported to have feigned, that he might increase the material of his cruelty. At length, without trial, without accusation, without informer, without defender, he killed them all, took away the goods of all, and, with more than four thousand men killed, could not sate himself.
There was also under him a faction, with the Osrhoenian archers revolting from him on account of their love and longing for Alexander, whom it was established had been killed among them by Maximinus, nor could they be persuaded of anything else. At length they themselves made Titus, one of their own, their leader and emperor, whom Maximinus had already dismissed as a private man; and indeed they surrounded him with the purple, adorned him with royal apparel, and hedged him about as his own soldiers, against his will indeed. But this man, as he slept in his own house, was killed by one of his own friends, who grieved that the other had been set over him, Macedonio by name, who betrayed him to Maximinus and who carried his head to the emperor. But Maximinus at first gave him thanks, yet afterward held him in hatred as a traitor and killed him. By these things he became day by day more savage, after the manner of wild beasts, which, when wounded, are the more exasperated. After this he crossed into Germany with his whole army, and with the Moors and Osrhoenians and Parthians and all whom Alexander had been leading with him to the war; and on this account especially he dragged the Eastern auxiliaries with him, because none avail more against the Germans than light-armed archers. And Alexander had a wonderful apparatus of war,
to which Maximinus is said to have added much. So, having entered Transrhenane Germany, he burned villages over thirty or forty miles of barbarian soil, drove off the flocks, carried off the spoils, killed very many of the barbarians, brought the soldiery back rich, took countless captives; and had not all the Germans fled to the marshes and woods, he would have reduced all Germany into Roman dominion. He himself, besides, did many things with his own hand; for, having even entered a marsh, he was surrounded by the Germans, had not his men freed him as he stuck fast with his horse. For he had this of barbarian rashness, that he thought an emperor should always lend his own hand too. At length he made, as it were, a kind of naval battle in the marsh and there killed very many. So, Germany being conquered, he sent to Rome, to the senate and people, a letter composed at his own dictation, the purport of which was this: "We cannot speak as much, conscript fathers, as we have done. Over forty or fifty miles we have burned the villages of the Germans, led off the flocks, dragged away the captives, killed the armed men, fought in the marsh. We should have come to the woods, had not the depth of the marshes not permitted us to cross." Aelius Cordus says that this was wholly his own speech; and it is credible. For what is there in it that a barbarian soldier could not do? And he wrote to the people also with a like purport, but with greater reverence, for this reason, that he hated the senate, by which he much believed himself despised. He ordered, besides, panels to be painted just as the war itself had been waged, and to be set up before the Senate-house, that the painting of his deeds might speak; which panels, indeed, after his death, the senate ordered both to be taken down and to be burned.
There were under him very many other wars too and battles, from which he always returned the first victor, and with huge spoils and captives. There survives a speech of his sent to the senate, the copy of which is this: "In a short time, conscript fathers, I have waged as many wars as none of the men of old, I have brought as much booty onto Roman soil as could not be hoped for, I have brought back so many captives that the Roman lands alone scarcely suffice." The rest of the speech is not necessary to this matter. Germany being pacified, he came to Sirmium, preparing to make war on the Sarmatians and desiring in his spirit to reduce the northern parts, even to the Ocean, into Roman dominion; which he would have done, had he lived, as Herodianus, a Greek writer, says, who, as far as we see, much favoured him out of hatred for Alexander. But since the Romans could not bear his cruelty, in that he summoned informers, set on accusers, fabricated charges, killed the innocent, condemned all, whosoever had come into court, made the poorest out of the richest men, and sought money from no other source than another's harm; and then killed without offence consular men and many generals, exhibited some on dry crosses, kept others in custody, and in short omitted nothing that seemed to work toward cruelty—against him they prepared a defection. And not the Romans only, but, because he raged against the soldiers too, the armies that were in Africa, by a sudden and great sedition, made Gordian the elder, a most weighty man, who was proconsul, emperor; the order of which faction was this.
There was a procurator of the treasury in Libya, who had despoiled all men out of zeal for Maximinus; this man was killed by the country common folk, and then by certain soldiers too, overcoming those who defended the procurator-of-accounts in honour of Maximinus. But when the authors of his slaying saw that they must come to their own aid by sharper remedies, they compelled Gordian the proconsul, a man, as we have said, venerable, advanced in years, flourishing in every kind of virtue, sent to Africa from Alexander by a decree of the senate, as he cried out against it and cast himself upon the earth, to reign, covered with the purple, pressing on him with swords and with every kind of weapon. And at first, indeed, Gordian had taken up the purple unwilling; but afterward, when he saw that this was safe neither for his son nor for his family, he willingly assumed the empire, and was hailed Augustus by all the Africans, with his son, at the town of Thysdrus. Thence he came in haste to Carthage with royal pomp and with protectors and laurelled fasces, whence he sent letters to Rome, to the senate, which, Vitalianus, the commander of the praetorian soldiers, having been killed, were gladly received out of hatred for Maximinus. And both Gordian the elder and Gordian the younger were hailed
Augusti by the senate; then all the informers, all the accusers, all the friends of Maximinus were killed. Sabinus the prefect of the city was killed, struck down among the people. When these things had been done, the senate, fearing Maximinus the more, openly and freely called Maximinus and his son public enemies; then it sent letters to all the provinces, that they should come to the aid of the common safety and liberty; which were heard by all. At length everywhere the friends and administrators and generals, the tribunes and soldiers of Maximinus were killed; a few cities kept faith with the public enemy, which, having betrayed those who had been sent to them, quickly reported them to Maximinus through informers. The copy of the senate's letter was this: "The senate and people of Rome, having begun to be freed from a most sorrowful beast through the Gordians, our princes, send to the proconsuls, governors, legates, generals, tribunes, magistrates, and to the individual cities and municipalities and towns and villages and forts, that safety which now for the first time they have begun to recover. With the gods favouring, we have gained Gordian the proconsular, a most holy man and most weighty senator, as our prince, we have hailed him Augustus, and not him alone, but also, for the support of the state, his son Gordian, a noble youth. It is now yours to consent to obtain the safety of the state, and to ward off the crimes, and to pursue that beast and his friends, wheresoever they shall be. By us too Maximinus, with his son, has been judged a public enemy."
And the decree of the senate was this: When men had come into the Temple of the Castors on the sixth day before the Kalends of July, Junius Silanus the consul read out the letters received from Africa from Gordian the emperor, father of his country, the proconsul: "Against my will, conscript fathers, the young men to whom the defense of Africa was committed have called me to the empire. But out of regard for you I willingly bear the necessity. It is yours to judge what you wish; for I, until the judgement of the senate, shall waver, uncertain and changeable." When the letters had been read, at once the senate cried out: "Gordian Augustus, may the gods preserve you. May you reign happily; you have freed us. May you reign in safety; you have freed us. Through you the state is safe. We all give you thanks." Likewise the consul put the question: "Conscript fathers, concerning the Maximini, what is your pleasure?" The answer was: "Enemies, enemies; whoever kills them will deserve a reward." Likewise the consul said: "Concerning the friends of Maximinus, what seems good?" The cry arose: "Enemies, enemies; whoever kills them will deserve a reward." Likewise the cry arose: "Let the enemy of the senate be raised on the cross; let the enemy of the senate be struck down wheresoever he is. Let the enemies of the senate be burned alive. Gordians Augusti, may the gods preserve you; may you both act happily, may you both reign happily. To the grandson of Gordian we decree the praetorship; to the grandson of Gordian we pledge the consulship. Let the grandson of Gordian be called Caesar; let the third Gordian receive the praetorship."
When Maximinus received this decree of the senate, a man fierce by nature, he so blazed up that you would have thought him not a man but a beast. He threw himself against the walls, sometimes cast himself upon the ground, cried out wildly, snatched up his sword, as though he could kill the senate, tore his royal robe, beat the courtiers; and, had he not withdrawn from their midst, as certain authorities have it, he would have torn out the eyes of his young son. The cause of his anger against his son was this, that he had ordered him to go to Rome as soon as he was made emperor, and the son, out of too great love for his father, had neglected it. For he thought that, if he had been at Rome, the senate would have dared nothing. So, burning with anger, his friends received him within his bedchamber; but since he could not contain his fury, that he might receive forgetfulness of the thought, he is said on the first day to have overwhelmed himself with wine to such a degree that he did not know what had been done. On another day, having admitted his friends, who could not look at him but were silent and silently praised the deed of the senate, he held a council as to what need be done; and from the council he went forth to an assembly, in which assembly he said many things against the Africans, many against Gordian, more against the senate, and exhorted the soldiers to avenge the common injuries.
The whole harangue, finally, was a military one, of which this is the copy: "Fellow-soldiers, we bring before you a matter known to you. The Africans have broken faith; for when have they kept it? Gordian the elder, feeble and near to death, has assumed the empire. And those most holy conscript fathers, who killed both Romulus and Caesar, have judged me a public enemy, though I fought for them and conquered for them themselves, and not me alone but you too and all who think with me, and they have called the Gordians, father and son, Augusti. Therefore, if you are men, if you have strength, let us go against the senate and the Africans, whose goods, all of them, you shall have." So, having given a stipend, and indeed a huge one, he began to set out toward Rome with his army.
But Gordian in Africa began first to be harassed by a certain Capelianus, to whom, as he governed the Moors, he had given a successor; and when he had sent his young son against him, in a most fierce battle his son was killed, and he himself ended his life with a noose, knowing that there was much strength in Maximinus and no force in the Africans, nay rather much perfidy. Then Capelianus, the victor, on Maximinus's behalf, killed and proscribed all of the party of the dead Gordian in Africa, and spared no one, plainly so that he might seem to do these things from Maximinus's heart. At length he subdued the cities, plundered the shrines, distributed the temple-offerings to the soldiers, cut down the common folk and the chief men of the cities; and he, besides, was conciliating the spirits of the soldiers to himself, making a prelude to the empire, if Maximinus should perish.
When these things were announced at Rome, the senate, fearing both the natural and now the necessary cruelty of Maximinus, the two Gordians being dead, created as emperors Maximus, a former prefect of the city, who had especially held very many dignities, ignoble in birth but distinguished in virtues, and Balbinus, somewhat more delicate in his ways. When these had been hailed Augusti by the people, through the soldiers and the same people the little grandson of Gordian too was called Caesar. So the state was propped up by three emperors against Maximinus. Of these, however, Maximus was sterner in life, weightier in prudence, more constant in virtue. At length both the senate and Balbinus entrusted the war against Maximinus to him. So, Maximus having set out for the war against Maximinus, Balbinus at Rome was hard pressed by civil wars and domestic seditions, especially . . . having been killed by the people, Gallicanus and Maecenas. And this people indeed was torn to pieces by the praetorians, when Balbinus could not sufficiently resist the seditions; at length a great part of the city was burned. And Maximinus had indeed been refreshed in spirit, as emperor, on hearing of the death of Gordian and his son and of Capelianus's victory; but when he received another decree of the senate, by which Maximus and Balbinus and Gordian were hailed emperors, he understood that the senate's hatreds were perpetual, and that he was truly held an enemy in the judgement of all.
So he entered Italy the more fiercely. And when he had learned that Maximus had been sent against him, raging the more vehemently, he came in square formation to Emona. But the plan of all the provincials was this, that, all things which could afford sustenance being removed, they should withdraw within the cities, so that Maximinus with his army might be hard pressed by hunger. At length, as soon as he pitched his camp in the plain and found nothing of provisions, his army, kindled against him because it laboured with hunger in Italy, in which it had believed it could refresh itself after the Alps, began first to murmur, then even to say some things freely. When he wished to punish this, the army blazed up much, but put off its silent hatred for a time, which it betrayed at once in its own place. Very many, indeed, say that Emona itself was found empty and deserted by Maximinus, who foolishly rejoiced as though the whole city had yielded to him. After this he came to Aquileia, which, with armed men disposed around the walls, closed its gates against him; nor was the defense wanting, with Menophilus and Crispinus, men of consular rank, as its authors.
So when Maximinus was besieging Aquileia in vain, he sent envoys into that same city, to whom the people had almost consented, had not Menophilus with his colleague resisted, saying too that the god Belenus had answered through the soothsayers that Maximinus was to be conquered. Whence afterward, too, the Maximinian soldiers are said to have boasted that Apollo had been bound to fight against them, and that that victory had been not that of Maximus or the senate but of the gods; which some say was for this reason feigned by them, because they were ashamed, armed men, to have been thus almost conquered by the unarmed. So, a bridge having been made of casks, Maximinus crossed the river and began to besiege Aquileia from close at hand. But there was then a great assault and crisis, when the citizens defended themselves from the soldiers with sulphur and flames and the other defenses of this kind; of whom some were stripped of their arms, the clothes of others were set on fire, the eyes of others were destroyed; the engines too were demolished. Meanwhile Maximinus, with his young son, whom he had called Caesar, went round the walls, as far as he could be safe enough from the cast of a weapon, now begging his own men with words, now the townsmen. But he profited nothing, for many reproaches were heaped up both against him, on account of his cruelty, and against his son, who was most handsome.
Wherefore Maximinus, supposing that the war was being dragged out by the cowardice of his own men, killed his generals, at the time when it was least fitting; whence he rendered the soldiers even more angry with him. To this was added that he was being failed in provisions, because the senate had given letters to all the provinces and to the guardians of the ports, that nothing of provisions should come into Maximinus's power. It had sent, besides, through all the cities, men of praetorian and quaestorian rank, who should everywhere keep watch and defend everything against Maximinus. At length it was brought about that the besieger himself, besieging, suffered the straits of the besieged. Meanwhile it was announced that the whole world had agreed in hatred of Maximinus. Wherefore the soldiers, fearing—whose affections were on the Alban mount—at midday, it chanced, when there was a rest from the battle, killed both Maximinus and his son as they lay in their tent, and showed their heads, fixed on pikes, to the Aquileians. So in the neighbouring town the statues and images of Maximinus were at once thrown down, and his praetorian prefect was killed with his more distinguished friends. Their heads too were sent to Rome.
This was the end of the Maximini, worthy of the father's cruelty, unworthy of the son's goodness; at whose deaths there was immense joy of the provincials, and most grievous grief of the barbarians. But the soldiers, the public enemies having been killed, were received by the townsmen as they begged, and first on this condition, that before the images of Maximus and Balbinus and Gordian they should do reverence, while all said that the earlier Gordians had been enrolled among the gods. After this an immense supply was speedily brought over from Aquileia into the camp, which was labouring with hunger; and the soldiers being refreshed, on another day they came to an assembly, and all swore allegiance to Maximus and Balbinus, calling the earlier Gordians divine. It can scarcely be told how great was the joy when the head of Maximinus was carried through Italy to Rome, with all running to meet it for the public joy. And Maximus, indeed, whom many think to be Pupienus, was preparing the war at Ravenna by means of German auxiliaries; who, when he learned that the army had agreed with himself and his colleagues, and that the Maximini had been killed, at once, the German auxiliaries which he had prepared for himself against the enemy being dismissed, sent laurelled letters to Rome, which made immense joy in the city, so that all gave thanks throughout the altars and temples and chapels and holy places. But Balbinus, a man more timid by nature, and one who, when he heard the name of Maximinus, even trembled, made a hecatomb and ordered supplication to be made with equal sacrifice throughout all the cities. Then Maximus came to Rome, and, having entered the senate, when thanks had been given to him, held an assembly; and from there, with Balbinus and Gordian, the victors withdrew into the Palatine.
It is of interest to know what the decree of the senate was, or what the day of the city was, when Maximinus was announced as slain. Now first, he who had been sent from Aquileia to Rome ran with such impetus, his beasts being changed, that on the fourth day he came to Rome, although he had left Maximus at Ravenna. And it chanced to be a day of games, when suddenly, as Balbinus and Gordian sat, a messenger entered the theatre, and, before anything was announced, all the people cried out, "Maximinus is killed." So both the messenger was forestalled, and the emperors who were present indicated the public joy by their nod and assent. So, the spectacle being broken up, all at once flew to their religious rites; and from there the chief men ran to the senate, the people to an assembly.
The decree of the senate was this: When the letters had been read in the senate by Balbinus Augustus, the senate cried out: "The gods pursue the enemies of the Roman people. Best Jupiter, thanks to you. Venerable Apollo, thanks to you. Maximus Augustus, thanks to you. Balbinus Augustus, thanks to you. To the deified Gordians we decree temples. The name of Maximinus, once erased, is now to be erased from our minds. Let the head of the public enemy be cast into the running stream. Let no one bury his body. He who threatened death to the senate, as he deserved, has been killed. He who threatened chains to the senate, as he ought, has been slain. Most holy emperors, we give you thanks. Maximus, Balbinus, Gordian, may the gods preserve you. We all long for you as conquerors of the enemies; we all long for the presence of Maximus. Balbinus Augustus, may the gods preserve you. May you adorn the present year as consuls. In the place of Maximinus let Gordian be substituted." Afterward, asked his opinion, Cuspidius Celerinus spoke these words: "Conscript fathers, the name of the Maximini being erased and the Gordians being hailed divine, on account of the victory we decree to our princes Maximus, Balbinus, and Gordian statues with elephants, we decree triumphal chariots, we decree equestrian statues, we decree trophies." After this, the senate being dismissed, supplications were decreed throughout the whole city; the victorious princes withdrew into the Palatine, of whose life we shall speak thereafter in another book. MAXIMINUS THE YOUNGER.
Of this man's birth it was said above. He himself, however, was of such great beauty that he was loved everywhere by the more forward women, and some even desired to conceive by him. He seemed able to be of such height as to reach his father's stature, since indeed he perished in his twenty-first year, in the very flower of his youth, or, as some say, in his eighteenth, imbued in his first schooling with letters both Greek and Latin. For he used as his teacher Fabillus, a Greek man of letters, of whom many Greek epigrams survive, especially on the images of the boy himself, who made Greek verses from those Latin ones of Vergil, when he was describing the boy himself: "As when the morning-star, bathed in the wave of Ocean, has raised its sacred face to heaven and dissolved the shadows, such was the youth, distinguished under his father's name." He used as his Latin grammarian Philemon, as his jurist Modestinus, as his orator Titianus, the son of the elder Titianus, who wrote most beautiful books of the provinces, and who was called the ape of his time, because he had imitated everything. He had too a Greek rhetorician, Eugamius, distinguished in his time. There had been betrothed to him Junia Fadilla, the great-granddaughter of Antoninus; whom afterward Toxotius received, a senator of the same family, who perished after the praetorship, and whose poems too survive. But the royal pledges remained with her, which are said (as Junius Cordus relates, who is a pursuer of these matters) to have been such as these: a necklace of nine white pearls, a hair-net with eleven emeralds, a bracelet with a little rib of four hyacinths, besides gilded garments and all the royal ones and the other insignia of the betrothal.
The young Maximinus himself, however, was of a most insolent pride, so that even when his father, a most cruel man, rose up for very many men of honour, he would remain seated. He was of a merrier life, most sparing of wine, greedy of food, especially game, so that he ate nothing but boar, ducks, cranes, and all wild creatures. The friends of Maximus and Balbinus and Gordian, and especially the senators, defamed him on account of his excessive beauty, who would not have that beauty, as though fallen from heaven, remain incorrupt. At length, at that time when, going round the walls about Aquileia with his father, he sought the surrender of the city, nothing else was cast against him but filthiness, which was far from his manner of life. He was so neat in his garments that no woman in the world was more elegant. To his father's friends he was wonderfully obsequious, but in order to give and bestow. For in his levees he was most proud and would stretch out his hand and suffer his knees to be kissed, sometimes even his feet; which the elder Maximinus never suffered, who used to say, "May the gods forbid that any freeborn man should fix a kiss on my feet." And since we have returned to the elder Maximinus, a pleasant matter must not be passed over. For since Maximinus was, as we have said, eight feet and almost a half, certain men placed his footwear, that is, his royal boot, in a grove which is between Aquileia and Arcia, because it was established to have been a foot larger than the measure of a man's footprint; whence too it became proverbial, when men spoke of long and inept men, to say "the boot of Maximinus." Which I have inserted for this reason, lest anyone who read Cordus should believe that I had passed over anything that pertained to the matter. But let me return to the son.
About this youth Aurelius Alexander writes to his mother Mamaea, desiring to give him his own sister Theoclia, in these words: "My mother, if Maximinus the elder, our general and indeed an excellent one, did not contain something of the barbarian in himself, I should already have given your Theoclia to Maximinus the younger. But I fear lest my sister, trained in Greek refinements, should be unable to bear a barbarian father-in-law, although the young man himself seems to be both handsome and scholarly and trained in Greek refinements. These things, indeed, I consider; but yet I consult you, whether you wish Maximinus, the son of Maximinus, for a son-in-law, or Messalla, of a noble family, a most powerful orator and the same most learned, and, unless I am deceived, in military matters, if he be applied to them, a man who will prove brave." These things Alexander writes about Maximinus, concerning whom we have nothing further to say. Indeed, lest anything should seem to have been passed over, I have inserted too a letter of the father Maximinus, now made emperor, who says that he had for this reason called his son too emperor, that he might see, either in painting or in truth, what the younger Maximinus was like in the purple. And the letter was such as this: "I, both on account of the affection which a father owes a son, have permitted my Maximinus to be called emperor, and also that the Roman people and that ancient senate might swear that they had never had a more beautiful emperor." And the same young man used a golden cuirass too, after the example of the Ptolemies, used also a silver one, used too a double gilded shield and a gilded spear; he made also silver swords, made too golden ones, and in short whatever could aid his beauty; he made too jeweled helmets, made too cheek-pieces. These are the things which it was fitting to know and tell about the boy; the rest, whoever wishes to know about the matters of Venus and love, with which Cordus besprinkles him, let him read the same; for we shall here make an end of the book, hastening to other things, as we are bidden as though by public law.
The omens of his empire were these: a serpent encircled his head as he slept; a vine planted by him, within a year, bore huge purple grapes and grew to a wonderful size; his shield burned beneath the sun; his little lance was so split by a thunderbolt that it was cleft entirely, even through the iron, and made two parts—when the soothsayers said that two emperors, not long-lasting, of the same names, would come from one house; the cuirass of his father was seen by very many not, as is usual, dyed with rust, but wholly with a purple colour. To his son, however, these were the omens: when he was given to the grammarian, a certain kinswoman of his gave him all the books of Homer, written in purple with golden letters; he himself, as a little boy, when he was invited to dinner by Alexander in honour of his father, because dining-clothes were lacking to him, received those of Alexander himself; when he was an infant, he suddenly climbed up and sat in the carriage of Antoninus Caracalla, which came empty through the public street, and was scarcely and with difficulty thrown out by the carriage-drivers. Nor were there wanting those who said that the infant should be guarded against, in regard to Caracalla. Then he said, "It is far off, that this fellow should succeed me." For at that time he was among the ignoble and too small.
The omens of his death were these: as Maximinus came with his son against Maximus and Balbinus, a certain woman with disheveled hair ran to meet him in mourning garb and cried out, "Maximini, Maximini, Maximini," nor said anything further, and died; for she seemed to have wished to say "Help." The dogs around his tent, at his second halt, howled more than twelve and laid down their lives as though weeping, and at first light were found dead. Five hundred wolves entered at once into that city to which Maximinus had betaken himself—very many say Emona, others Archimea—certainly the one which, deserted by its citizens, lay open to Maximinus as he came. It is long to pursue everything, which whoever desires to know, I would have him, as I have often said, read Cordus, who wrote all these things even to a little tale. Their tombs are nowhere to be found, for their corpses were cast into the running stream, and their heads were burned in the Campus Martius with the people insulting them.
Aelius Sabinus writes, what was not to be passed over, that there was so great a beauty of face in the son that even his head, now dead, now black, now foul, now wasted, with the gore flowing away, seemed like the shadow of a beautiful face. At length, when there was immense joy that the head of Maximinus was seen, there was almost equal mourning that the son's head too was carried along. Dexippus added that the hatred of Maximinus was so great that, the Gordians being killed, the senate created twenty men whom it might set against Maximinus; among whom were Balbinus and Maximus, whom they made princes against him. The same author added that, in the sight of Maximinus, now deserted by the soldiers, both his praetorian prefect and his son were killed; nor are there wanting historians who say that Maximinus himself, when he was deserted and when he saw his son killed before his own eyes, killed himself with his own hand, lest anything womanish should befall him.
Not even this is to be passed over, that the Aquileians were on the side of the senate against Maximinus with such great fidelity that they made cords of women's hair, when sinews were lacking for shooting arrows. Which is said to have been done once at Rome too, whence, in honour of the matrons, the senate dedicated a temple to Venus the Bald. Indeed, what is to be kept silent in no place: since both Dexippus and Arrian and many other Greeks have written that Maximus and Balbinus were made emperors against Maximinus, but that Maximus was sent with an army and prepared the war at Ravenna, and did not see Aquileia save as a victor; the Latin writers have said that not Maximus but Pupienus fought against Maximinus at Aquileia and that the same man conquered. Whence this error arose, I cannot know, unless perchance Pupienus is the same as Maximus; which I have therefore set down attested, lest anyone should believe that I did not know this, which in truth would create great astonishment and wonder.