Maximus et Balbinus

1. After the elder Gordian had been slain in Africa along with his son, when Maximinus was coming in fury to the city, to avenge the fact that the Gordians had been hailed Augusti, the senate in great trepidation hurried together into the temple of Concord on the seventh day before the Ides of July, at the Apollinarian Games, seeking a remedy against the fury of that most wicked of men. When, therefore, two consulars — and eminent men indeed — Maximus and Balbinus (of whom Maximus is passed over in silence by most in their history, and in his place the name of Pupienus is brought in, although both Dexippus and Arrianus say that it was Maximus and Balbinus who were chosen against Maximinus after the Gordians), of whom the one was held distinguished for goodness, the other for valour and severity, had entered the Senate-house and showed above all in their faces fear at the coming of Maximinus, while the consul was bringing up other matters, the man who was to give his opinion first began thus: "Lesser things engage you, and we are handling matters almost fit for old women in this most critical time, here in the Senate-house. For what need is there to deal with the restoration of temples, with the adornment of the basilica, with the Baths of Titus, with the building up of the Amphitheatre, when Maximinus is upon us — whom you have, along with me, already declared a public enemy — when the two Gordians, in whom our protection had lain, have been slain, and there is at present no aid by which we may take breath? Come, then, Conscript Fathers, name your princes. Why do you delay? Lest, while you tremble one by one, you be crushed by fear rather than by valour."

2. After this, when all were silent, and Maximus, who was both the elder in years and the more distinguished in merits and in valour and severity, had begun to give an opinion which proposed that two princes should be made, Vettius Sabinus, of the family of the Ulpii, having asked the consul that he might be allowed to speak and to interpose, began thus: "I know, Conscript Fathers, that in a crisis there ought to be this resolution: that counsels must be seized, not sought; and that even very many words must be refrained from, and many opinions, where matters press hard. Let each man look to his own neck, let him think of his wife and children, of the fortunes of his fathers and forefathers — to all which Maximinus is a threat, a man by nature furious, savage, monstrous, and, with a cause that seems to himself just enough, the more savage. He, with his army in square formation, his camps pitched everywhere, is making for the city; you waste the day in sitting and deliberating. There is no need of a long speech: an emperor must be made — nay, princes must be made: one to care for affairs at home, the other for those of war; one to remain in the city, the other to go out with an army to meet the brigands. I name the princes; do you, if it please you, arm them — but if not, show better men: Maximus, then, and Balbinus, of whom the one is so great in military matters that he has covered the obscurity of his birth with the splendour of his valour, the other so distinguished in nobility that he is necessary to the commonwealth both by the gentleness of his character and by the sanctity of his life, which from his earliest years he has always maintained in studies and in letters. You have my opinion, Conscript Fathers — to me perhaps more dangerous than to you, but not safe enough even for you, unless you make either these or others your princes."

After this it was acclaimed with one consent: "It is fair, it is just. We all agree with the opinion of Sabinus. Maximus and Balbinus Augusti, may the gods preserve you. The gods have made you princes, may the gods preserve you. Do you deliver the senate from the brigands; to you we entrust the war against the brigands; let the public enemy Maximinus perish with his son; do you pursue the public enemy. Fortunate are you in the judgment of the senate, fortunate the commonwealth in your rule. What the senate has conferred upon you, carry out bravely; what the senate has conferred upon you, accept gladly."

3. By these and other acclamations Maximus and Balbinus were made emperors. Having gone out, then, from the senate, they first ascended the Capitol and performed a sacrifice, then summoned the people to the Rostra. There, when they had delivered a speech concerning the senate's decision and their own election, the Roman people, together with the soldiers who chanced to be present, acclaimed: "Gordian Caesar — we all ask for him." This was the grandson of Gordian by his daughter, in his fourteenth year, as most say, who was at once seized; and by a new kind of senatorial decree — since on the same day the decree was passed — being brought into the Senate-house, he was hailed Caesar.

4. The first motion, then, of the princes was that the two Gordians should be styled "the deified." Some, however, think that only one was so styled, the elder namely; but I remember having read, in the books which Junius Cordus wrote at great length, that both were enrolled among the gods — since the elder ended his life with a noose, while the younger was consumed in war, who indeed deserves the greater reverence, because war carried him off. After these motions, then, the prefecture of the city was conferred on Sabinus, a man of weight and agreeing with the character of Maximus, and the praetorian prefecture on Pinarius Valens.

But before I speak of their acts, it is fitting that something be said of their characters and lineage — not in the way in which Junius Cordus followed up everything, but in that of Suetonius Tranquillus and Valerius Marcellinus — although Curius Fortunatianus, who wrote out this whole history, touched on but few matters, while Cordus indeed wrote out so many that he recorded most things even of a less reputable kind.

5. The father of Maximus was Maximus, a man of the plebs, as some say a blacksmith, as others a maker of carriages for hire. He begot him of a wife named Prima, to whom there had been four boys, brothers, and four girls, who all died before reaching maturity. When Maximus was born, an eagle is said to have thrown beef — and a great deal of it — into the inner room of their house, which opened onto a narrow skylight; and, when it lay there and no one dared to touch it from religious fear, to have taken it up again and carried it to a nearby shrine, which was that of Jupiter the Protector. At that time this seemed to have no portent in it, but the event proved it had been done not without cause.

He spent his whole boyhood in the house of his kinsman Pinarius, whom he at once advanced to the praetorian prefecture when he became emperor. He gave no great attention to the teacher of grammar and of rhetoric, since he always devoted himself to military valour and to severity. And at length he was a military tribune and commanded many units, and afterwards held the praetorship, at the expense of Pescennia Marcellina, who took him in place of a son and reared him. From there he held the proconsulship of Bithynia, and afterwards of Greece, and a third time of Narbonne. Sent moreover as legate, he crushed the Sarmatians in Illyricum, and, transferred from there to the Rhine, conducted affairs against the Germans successfully enough. After this he was approved as prefect of the city, most prudent, most able, and most severe. Wherefore the senate conferred the empire upon him, a man of a new family, as though noble — a thing not permitted — all confessing at that time in the senate that there was no man more fit to receive the name of prince.

6. And since most desire even the lesser details: he was eager for food, most sparing of wine, very rarely given to the pleasures of love, at home and abroad always severe, so that he received even the surname "the gloomy." He was of a most grave and stern countenance, tall in stature, of most sound bodily constitution, of forbidding manners, and yet just, and never, up to the conclusion of his affairs, either inhuman or harsh. Asked, he always pardoned, and was not angry save where it befitted him to be angry. To factions he never lent himself; he held tenaciously to his judgment, and trusted himself rather than others. Wherefore he was both much loved by the senate and held in fear by the people, since the people knew his censorial prefecture, which they saw could grow yet more vigorous under the empire.

7. Balbinus was most noble and twice consul, ruler of countless provinces; for he had governed Asia, Africa, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, the Thracian regions, and the Gauls in civil administrations, sometimes leading an army, but he had been less in military affairs than in civil. Yet by his goodness, his great sanctity, and his modesty he had won for himself an immense love. He was of a most ancient family, as he himself used to say, deriving his origin from Balbus Cornelius Theophanes, who had earned citizenship through Gnaeus Pompey, being most noble in his own native land and likewise a writer of history.

He was equally tall in stature, conspicuous in bodily constitution, excessive in his pleasures — which indeed an abundance of riches helped him to indulge, for he was rich from his ancestors and had himself gathered much by inheritances. He was distinguished in eloquence, foremost in verse among the poets of his time, eager for wine, food, and the pleasures of love, refined in dress; nor was there anything wanting that should render him not commendable to the people. He was beloved too by the senate.

These things we have learned concerning the life of each. In short, some thought that, just as Sallust compares Cato and Caesar, so these two also should be compared: the one severe, the other merciful; the one good, the other steadfast; the one bestowing nothing, the other abounding in all resources. So much concerning their characters and lineage.

8. When, therefore, all the imperial honours and insignia had been decreed, and they had received the tribunician power, the proconsular right, the office of pontifex maximus, and the title also of father of his country, they entered upon the empire. But while they were performing a sacrifice on the Capitol, the Roman people opposed the rule of Maximus; for the common people feared his severity, which they believed to be most acceptable to the senate and most hostile to themselves. Wherefore it came about, as we have said, that they asked for the youth Gordian as prince, who was at once made so. Nor were the emperors permitted to go to the Palatium, escorted by armed men, before they had named the grandson of Gordian by the title of Caesar. When these things were done and the sacrifices celebrated, and stage-plays and games of the circus given, and a gladiatorial show besides, Maximus, his vows undertaken on the Capitol, was sent to the war against Maximinus with a huge army, the praetorians remaining at Rome.

Whence the custom was derived that emperors setting out to war should give a gladiatorial show and a hunt, must be briefly stated. Many say that among the ancients this was a devotion made against the enemy, so that, citizens' blood being offered, Nemesis (that is, a certain force of Fortune) might be sated under the appearance of combats. Others record this in writing, which I believe more like the truth: that the Romans, about to go to war, ought to see combats and wounds and the sword and naked men closing with one another, lest in war they should fear armed enemies or shudder at wounds and blood.

9. And when Maximus had set out to war, the praetorians remained at Rome; and between them and the people there was so great a sedition that it came to civil war, the greatest part of the city of Rome was set on fire, the temples were defiled, all the streets were polluted with blood, while Balbinus, a gentler man, could not quell the sedition. For when he came out into public and stretched out his hands to every man, he almost suffered the blow of a stone, and, as others say, was even struck with a cudgel. Nor would he have quelled the tumult, had he not brought forth the infant Gordian, clad in purple, before the people, set upon the neck of a very tall man. At the sight of him the people and the soldiers were so far appeased that for love of him they returned to concord; nor was anyone ever, at that age, so loved, by the merit of his grandfather and his great-uncle, who had ended their lives in Africa for the Roman people against Maximinus. So much does the memory of good deeds prevail among the Romans.

10. When, therefore, Maximus had set out to war, the senate sent through all the regions consular, praetorian, quaestorian, aedilician, and tribunician men, so that every city should make ready grain, arms, ramparts, and walls, so that Maximinus might be wearied out city by city. It was then ordered, moreover, that everything should be collected from the fields into the cities, lest the public enemy should find anything. It was written, besides, to all the provinces, agents being sent, and it was ordered that whoever should help Maximinus should be reckoned in the number of the enemy.

Meanwhile at Rome seditions arose again between the people and the soldiers. And when Balbinus posted a thousand edicts and was not heeded, the veterans betook themselves into the Praetorian Camp together with the praetorians themselves, whom the people began to besiege; nor would they ever have been brought to friendship, had not the people cut the water-pipes. But in the city, before it was said that the soldiers were coming pacified, both tiles were thrown from the roofs and all the vessels that were in the houses were hurled down; and on that account the greater part of the citizenry perished, and the wealth of many; for brigands mingled themselves with the soldiers in order to lay waste those things which they knew where to find.

11. While these things were being done at Rome, Maximus, or Pupienus, was preparing for war at Ravenna with vast equipment, fearing Maximinus most vehemently, of whom he very often said that he was waging war not against a man but against a Cyclops. And Maximinus indeed was so defeated at Aquileia that he was slain by his own men, and his head and his son's were carried to Ravenna, which was sent on from Maximus to Rome. The devotion of the people of Aquileia for the Romans is not to be passed over in this place, who are said even to have shorn off the hair of their women to serve as bowstrings for shooting arrows.

So great indeed was the joy in Balbinus, who feared the more, that he made a hecatomb as soon as the head of Maximinus was brought. Now a hecatomb is a sacrifice of this kind: a hundred altars of turf are built up in one place, and at them a hundred swine and a hundred sheep are slaughtered. Then, if it be an imperial sacrifice, a hundred lions, a hundred eagles, and the rest of such animals are struck down by hundreds. This indeed the Greeks too are said once to have done when they were afflicted by a pestilence, and it is established that it was performed by many emperors.

12. When these things, then, had been accomplished, Balbinus with the highest congratulation awaited Maximus returning from Ravenna with his army whole and his forces intact — since Maximinus had been defeated by the townsmen of Aquileia and the few soldiers who were there, and by Crispinus and Menophilus, men of consular rank, who had been sent by the senate. But Maximus himself had gone to Aquileia for this purpose, that he might leave everything safe and intact as far as the Alps, and might check whatever remnants there were of the barbarians who had favoured Maximinus. At length twenty senators were sent to him as envoys, whose names are in Cordus (among them four consulars, eight praetorians, eight quaestorians), with crowns and a senatorial decree in which gilded equestrian statues were decreed to him. At this Balbinus was somewhat angered, saying that Maximus had laboured less than himself, since he himself had at home suppressed so great wars, while the other had sat idle at Ravenna. But the mere wish prevailed so far that even a victory was decreed to Maximus, because he had set out against Maximinus — a victory which, when it was won, he himself did not know of. Having taken over the army of Maximinus, then, Maximus came to the city with great pomp and a great multitude, the soldiers grieving that they had lost the emperor whom the gods themselves had given them and had those whom the senate had chosen. Nor could the grief be hidden, which appeared on the faces of each; and indeed words too were not now refrained from, although Maximus had often said even among the soldiers that there ought to be forgetting of the past, and had given great donatives and had sent auxiliaries to those places which they had chosen. But the minds of soldiers, once steeped in hatred, cannot be reined in. In short, when they heard the acclamations of the senate which touched the soldiers, they grew the fiercer against Maximus and Balbinus, daily considering among themselves whom they ought to make emperors.

13. Of the senatorial decree, by which they were stirred, this is the form: when, as Maximus entered the city, Balbinus and Gordian and the senate and the Roman people had gone out to meet him, there were first public acclamations which touched the soldiers. Thence they went to the senate, where, after the customary festal words, it was said: "Princes wisely chosen act thus; princes chosen by the ignorant perish thus;" since it was established that Maximinus had been made emperor by the soldiers, but Balbinus and Maximus by the senators. On hearing this, the soldiers began to rage the more grievously, against the senate especially, which seemed to itself to be triumphing over the soldiers.

And Balbinus indeed, with Maximus, governed the city with great moderation, the senate and the Roman people rejoicing; the utmost deference was paid to the senate; they framed excellent laws, heard cases with moderation, and arranged military affairs most admirably. And when it had already been prepared that Maximus should set out against the Parthians, Balbinus against the Germans, while the boy Gordian should remain at Rome, the soldiers, seeking an occasion for killing the princes, since at first they could scarcely find one, because Germans guarded Maximus and Balbinus, grew daily more pressing.

14. And there were indeed discords between Balbinus and Maximus, but silent ones, and such as were perceived rather than seen, since Balbinus despised Maximus as low-born, and Maximus trampled on Balbinus as feeble. By this an occasion was given to the soldiers, who understood that princes at discord could easily be killed. At length, at the stage-plays, when many both of the soldiers and of the courtiers were occupied, and the princes alone with the Germans had remained in the Palatium, they made an attack upon them. While the soldiers, then, were creating an uproar, when it was first announced to Maximus that that tumult and storm could scarcely be escaped unless men were sent to the Germans, and the Germans chanced to be in another part of the Palatium with Balbinus, Maximus sent to Balbinus, asking that he send him a guard. But the other, suspecting that he was asking for them against himself, whom he thought to be aiming at sole rule, first put him off, and then it came even to a quarrel. In this dissension, however, while they contended, the soldiers came upon them and led both of them, stripped of their royal garments, out of the Palatium with insults, and wished to drag them through the midst of the city to the Camp, having for the most part torn them. But when they learned that the Germans were coming to their defence, they killed both and left them in the middle of the road. Meanwhile Gordian Caesar was taken up by the soldiers and hailed emperor (that is, Augustus), because there was no other at present, the soldiers insulting the senate and the people, and at once betook themselves into the Camp. The Germans indeed, lest they should fight without cause, their emperors being already slain, betook themselves outside the city, where they had their own people.

15. This end the good emperors had — unworthy of their lives and characters; for there was nothing braver than Maximus, or Pupienus, nor anything kinder than Balbinus, which can be perceived in the very fact; for the senate, when it had the power, would not choose bad men. To this is added that they were tested by many honours and powers, since the one, twice consul and prefect, the other, consul and prefect, came to the empire in old age, beloved by the senate and even by the people, who already feared Maximus but lightly. These are the things which we have for the most part gathered concerning Maximus from Herodian, a Greek writer.

But many have said that Maximinus was defeated at Aquileia not by Maximus but by the emperor Pupienus, and that he himself was killed along with Balbinus, so that they pass over the name of Maximus. So great, however, is the ignorance, or the misappropriation, of historians contending with one another, that many would have the same Maximus called Pupienus, although Herodian, the writer of the times of his own life, says Maximus, not Pupienus; and although Dexippus too, a writer of the Greeks, says that Maximus and Balbinus were made emperors against Maximinus after the two Gordians, and that Maximinus was defeated by Maximus, not by Pupienus. To this is added the ignorance of the writers, by which they say that the little Gordian was praetorian prefect, many being ignorant that he was often carried on a man's neck, that he might be shown to the soldiers.

Now Maximus and Balbinus reigned for one year, while Maximinus had reigned with his son, as some say, for three years, as others for two.

16. The house of Balbinus is even now shown at Rome on the Carinae, great and powerful and possessed by his family up to this time. Maximus, whom most think to be Pupienus, was of the utmost slenderness of means but of the amplest virtue.

Under these emperors there was fighting by the Carpi against the Moesians. There was also the beginning of the Scythian war; there was too at that time the destruction of Istria — or, as Dexippus says, of the city of Istria.

Dexippus praises Balbinus sufficiently, and says that he met the soldiers with a brave spirit and was killed in such a way that he did not fear death; and he says that he was instructed in all disciplines. But he denies that Maximus was such a man as most of the Greeks have declared; he adds, moreover, that the hatred of the people of Aquileia against Maximinus was so great that they made bowstrings of the hair of their women and so shot arrows. Dexippus and Herodian, who followed up this history of the princes, say that Maximus and Balbinus were emperors, chosen by the senate against Maximinus after the destruction of the two Gordians in Africa, along with whom a third, the boy Gordian, was also chosen. But among the Latin writers, in most of them, I do not find the name of Maximus, and I find Pupienus as emperor along with Balbinus, to such a degree that the same Pupienus is said to have fought with Maximinus at Aquileia, although by the historians I have mentioned it is shown that Maximus did not even fight against Maximinus, but remained at Ravenna and there heard that the victory was won — so that it seems to me that Pupienus is the same as he who is called Maximus.

17. Wherefore I have appended also a congratulatory letter, which was written by a consul of their time concerning Pupienus and Balbinus, in which he rejoices that the commonwealth has been restored by them after wicked brigands: "To Pupienus and Balbinus, Augusti, Claudius Julianus. As soon as I had learned that, by the judgment and consent of Jupiter Best and Greatest and of the immortal gods and of the senate, and by the agreement of the human race, you had undertaken the commonwealth, to be saved from the crime of an abominable brigand and governed by Roman laws — most holy and most invincible lords, Augusti — although not yet from a divine letter, but nevertheless from the senatorial decree which my colleague, the most renowned Celsus Aelianus, had transmitted to me, I congratulated the city of Rome, for whose safety you have been chosen; I congratulated the senate, to which, in accordance with the judgment it held concerning you, you have restored its former dignity; I congratulated Italy, which at this very moment you are defending from the devastation of the enemy; I congratulated the provinces, which, torn by the insatiable avarice of tyrants, you are leading back to the hope of safety; in short, the legions themselves and the auxiliaries, which everywhere on earth now adore your countenances, because, the former disgrace being laid aside, they have now, under your name, received the worthy appearance of the Roman principate. Wherefore no voice has ever been so strong, no speech so happy, no genius so fertile, as could worthily express the public felicity — how great it is and of what kind we have been able to perceive already at the very outset of your principate, you who have brought back the Roman laws and equity that had been abolished, and clemency, which was now no more, and life and morals and liberty and the hope of successions and heirs. These things it is difficult to enumerate, much less to follow up with a fitting dignity of speech; for that life has been restored to us through you — life which the wicked brigand so sought, with executioners sent out far and wide through the provinces, that he professed himself wrathful at the order — how shall I tell or follow it up? Especially since my mediocrity can express not only not the public felicity, but not even the private joy of my own mind, when I see those Augusti and princes of the human race, by whose perpetual cultivation hitherto I desired that my own morals and modesty should be approved, as by my old censors; and so that I may be confident that these qualities exist in me from the testimonies of former princes, yet that I may glory in your judgments as in weightier ones. May the gods grant — and they will grant — this felicity to the Roman world. For when I look to you, I can wish nothing else than what the conqueror of Carthage is said to have prayed before the gods: namely, that they should preserve the commonwealth in that state in which it then was, because none better could be found. So do I pray, that they may preserve the commonwealth for you in that state in which you have placed it, hitherto tottering."

18. This letter proves that Pupienus is the same as he who is by most called Maximus; since through these times among the Greeks Pupienus is not easily found, and among the Latins Maximus is not easily found, and the things which were done against Maximinus are said to have been performed now by Pupienus, now by Maximus.