108 - Gordian's Knot

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Hello and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 108, Gordian's Knot. Last week, we left the upstart senatorial regime of Poupianus and Balbinus preparing for a showdown with Maximinius Thrax and his veteran Danube legions. While Balbinus kept an eye on Rome, Poupianus had ridden north to Ravenna to lead the defense of Italy. But when the final showdown came, neither of the senatorial emperors were there to witness Maximinius' fall. Neither was 13-year-old Gordian III, who was destined to outlast them all.

When they emerged from the Julian Alps into Italy, Maximinius and his legions found the Po Valley deserted. Fearing the wrath of the Thracian general, the local inhabitants had fled to the various walled cities of northern Italy, where they hoped to at least ride out the storm. Luckily for the frightened Italians, the storm didn't make it very far before dissipating. The first major city in Maximinius' path was Aquileia, and when he arrived in April 238, he demanded the Aquileans throw open the gates for their lawful sovereign. But the citizens refused, and, led by two of the senators who had been appointed in the opening days of the revolt to serve on the emergency defense committee, prepared to make a stand. Enraged by this disobedience, Maximinius set siege to the city, and planned to make an example of it to the rest of Italy. But Aquileia was well fortified, and managed to repulse Maximinius' initial attacks.

This, as you can imagine, sent the emperor into an even deeper rage. It was right around this point that the stern discipline of Maximinius, which had always been one of the main reasons his men respected him, began to become instead one of the main reasons why they hated him. He flew off the handle with the slightest provocation, issued punishments far in excess of crimes, and generally put everyone on edge. Blinded by the fury of all this defiance, Maximinius quickly drove his men from love to hate. Further degrading the morale of the troops was the paucity of supplies they were able to scrounge up in the countryside. Most everything edible had been carted behind the walls of the city, so it was the besiegers, as much as the besieged, who found themselves afflicted by hunger, thirst, and exhaustion.

Encamped miserably outside of a city that refused to yield, Maximinius' army began to question the judgment of their emperor, especially as he was rampaging around the camps ordering executions for the slightest infraction. Once they began to question Maximinius' judgment, they began to question their own loyalty to him. After all, what were they doing, besieging a city they had been sworn to protect? How did that make sense? In the ranks of the Praetorian Guard, these doubts took on a murderous tone. Maybe if they took out Maximinius, they would be pardoned for their involvement in his regime, and allowed to just go back to work. At the end of April 238, a group of officers agreed to do what was necessary. They surprised Maximinius in his tent, and killed both the emperor and his son. Then they posted the head of their dead leader on a spike, and stuck it in front of the gates of Aquileia, signaling to the city that the siege was over.

Maximinius Thrax was sixty-five years old, and had ruled the empire for just over three years. Though he had provided for a vigorous defense of the frontier, his single-minded support for the legions, at the expense of every other aspect of Roman society, got the ball really rolling on the crisis of the third century. When the inhabitants of Aquileia saw the disembodied head of Maximinius sitting atop a spike, they immediately raised a cheer and opened the gates of their city to the weary legions camped outside. Soldiers and citizens mixed freely, and provided comfort to one another. Agreeing that it was only the madness of the barbarian emperor that had made them enemies.

It was a really touching scene that would have been even more touching had it had any lasting impact at all, had this actually been a defining moment, where the soldiers realized that their job was the protection of the empire, not the acquisition of immense wealth at the expense of the empire. But this touching moment of contrition was made possible only by the fact that the soldiers had lost. Had Aquileia's defenses been just a little less staunch, or had there been just a little more food to eat, the soldiers of Maximinius' army would have been more than happy to go on and sack Rome itself. But the going got tough, so they abandoned their general and begged for mercy. This is a cycle that will play out again and again in the years to come. When the legions are up, they will demand gold and obedience, and when they are down, they will demand forgiveness and charity. Sometimes it will take a little while for a particular set of legions to follow through on the full cycle, from arrogance to contrition and back to arrogance again. But sometimes they flip back just as soon as they were out of immediate danger. The men of Maximinius' praetorian guard, for example, who had organized his assassination, for the good of the empire, were just months from assassinating his successors, for the good of the empire.

From his headquarters in Ravenna, Poupianus ordered the Danube legions back to their camps in the north, and, when it seemed like everything was hunky-dory again, he returned to Rome. The last few months had been a whirlwind, but it seemed like the upshot of it all would be that he and Balbinus, appointed in haste at a moment of crisis, would now be rulers of the Roman empire. Who knows, with their reign setting a new precedent, the senate might find itself recovering some of its old power. The armies were humbled, and the praetorians were in their corner. A new day was dawning. But it would prove to be a false dawn.

Back in Rome, the scene was ugly and getting uglier. Balbinus had taken charge of the capital following his elevation to the purple, and though he was a master jurist and poet and orator, he turned out to be in over his head as an administrator. The political upheavals of 238 had caused numerous disruptions to the services that most Romans took for granted, and Balbinus had been unable to sort it all out and get things running smoothly again. Adding to his heartburn was the fact that rabble-rousing demagogues were using the uncertainty to argue that the people ought to recover some of their old power as well. After all, would defeating Maximinius really deliver them from tyranny, if the senate, and the senate alone, reaped the political benefits? Riots broke out, and street fighting became distressingly common.

Pubienus returned home to find Rome even more chaotic than it had been when he left, and immediately he blamed his colleague for the mess. The new ascendancy of the senate might have stood a chance, had the men they put in power gotten along, but it quickly became apparent that Pubienus and Balbinus had neither love nor respect for one another. Pubienus saw Balbinus as a soft aristocrat who knew nothing about the realities of the world, and Balbinus saw Pubienus as little more than an uneducated soldier who, well, knew nothing about the realities of the world either. When the immediate crisis passed, whatever unified front the two emperors presented was shattered. Adding to the general chaos, in June a hugely destructive fire broke out in Rome. Now fires in Rome were nothing new, nor were they anything you could just snap your fingers and put out, but the population took the opportunity to rail against the new emperors and their ineffectual response anyway. The new emperors then decided that the best way to react to all this railing was to simply blame each other for everything.

By July of 238, Pubienus and Balbinus had divided up the imperial palace like Caracalla and Ghetta before them, and were barely on speaking terms. In case you were wondering, no, this does not end well. The new senatorial regime would finally come toppling down at the hands of that old imperial boogeyman, the Praetorian Guard. Since a few of their members had so helpfully assassinated Maximinius just a few months before, the Praetorians had been kept largely intact after power was transferred from Maximinius to Pubienus and Balbinus, which turned out to be a huge mistake. When everything shook out, the same officers who had so willingly carried out Maximinius' commands were still in charge, and despite their recent regicide, they were still gripped more or less by the same worldview, namely, that the Praetorian Guard was at the center of the universe, and everyone else revolved around them.

But the Senate and the new emperors didn't see it that way, and not only did they not see it that way, but they actively tried to prove the Praetorians wrong. So rather than being rewarded for delivering the empire from tyranny, the Guard found themselves cut out of the loop, their bonus demands ignored, and their egos generally trampled on. It didn't take long for the Guard to decide that it was high time they reminded everyone who was really at the center of the universe. On July 29, one of the prefects led a group of murderous soldiers to the palace where they planned to reassert the authority of the Praetorian Guard. Luckily for the assassins, the co-emperors, holed up in their respective wings of the imperial residence, each assumed that the attack had been instigated by the other. They were so busy with their own rivalry that it never occurred to them that some third party might target them both. United they might have stood a chance, but divided they both fell to the quick assault. Within the hour, both Poupianus and Balbinus lay dead. Both were in their mid-sixties and had ruled the empire for just about four months.

The sudden murder of the two emperors came as a complete shock to the Senate, the people, and the armies of Rome. But it came as the greatest shock of all to young Gordian III, safely ensconced in his own house in the city. The Praetorians had not rushed into their assassination plot without thinking things through, and Gordian's position as Caesar and heir seemed like the perfect cover for their crime. As I mentioned last week, the boy was in place because the people had demanded his inclusion in the new regime. So all the Praetorians had to do was leave the kid untouched and everything would just work itself out naturally. Young Gordian was already in the people's favor, so the guard wouldn't have to worry about a popular backlash, and since the new emperor was also only thirteen years old, they wouldn't have to worry about him having too much of a mind of his own either. In Gordian, they saw the potential for a popular puppet who they could make dance whatever dance they saw fit.

As soon as Poupianus and Balbinus were dead, the guard made a great show of acknowledging Gordian III as their sovereign. The people cheered, the Senate groaned, and life went on. Like the recently deceased Alexander Severus, young Gordian III found himself declared emperor before he had the education or the experience necessary to rule properly. It was thus left to his mother, Antonia Gordiana, who was the daughter of Gordian I and the sister of Gordian II, to navigate her son through the snake pit of Roman politics. As wily a politician as Julia Mamia had been, Gordiana somehow managed to play the Praetorians and the Senate off each other, and while the former wielded considerable influence, they found themselves still answering to a cadre of senators who formed the de facto governing council that controlled the empire during the first few years of Gordian's reign. The Praetorians had not become the puppet masters they dreamed of being, but neither were their sensitive egos trampled to the point that they really wanted to do something about it. Plus, the murders of Poupianus and Balbinus had been made possible in part by the existence of the popular Gordian waiting in the wings. If they killed Gordian, well, that wouldn't trigger thankful applause so much as it would trigger vengeful riots.

Thus, an uneasy peace took hold in the city. The people were happy with their young prince, the Praetorians were temporarily held at bay, and the Senate kept a watch on daily administration. But everyone had an eye on everyone else, and they were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. But when the other shoe finally dropped, it wasn't to shatter the peace, but rather to cement it. In 240, a brief revolt broke out in the province of Africa, led by an aristocrat named Sabinianus. He sought to use the same revolutionary spirit that had animated his countrymen two years before to his own advantage. But Sabinianus tried to simply declare revolution, rather than riding some pre-existing momentum, and his revolt quickly petered out.

Though Gordian's regime was never in any danger, it was a reminder to those closest to the young emperor that another rebellion could break out at any time. But rather than being led by some nut with delusions of grandeur, it could be led by some provincial general whose delusions of grandeur were not delusions at all. Or it could be led by a Praetorian prefect. It's not like these things haven't happened before. So Gordiana and her associates looked around for a way to marry the disparate factions of the empire together so that their purposes would be united. And they hit upon a brilliant solution, a literal marriage to bring them all together.

In 241, Gordian appointed a new Praetorian prefect named Gaius Furius Sabinianus Aquila Timositheus, and shortly thereafter married his new prefect's daughter, Tranquilina. The combined weight of their promotion and the marriage instantly made Timositheus the most powerful man in the empire, and for the rest of his life he would be the de facto emperor of Rome, which was just fine with practically everyone. Timositheus had been born around 190 BC into an equestrian family, and had begun his public career in earnest during the reign of Elagabalus. Through the emperorships of Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and Maximinius Thrax, Timositheus had served in posts both civilian and military, and all across the empire he had established a reputation for being honest, efficient, and capable. When Gordian ascended to the throne, Gordiana brought Timositheus into her son's inner circle, and obviously he impressed them enough that they basically gave him the keys to the empire a few years later.

The appointment was a masterstroke. Timositheus was loyal to the emperor, respected by the senate and the provincial legions, and most important of all, served officially as prefect of the praetorian guard. Everyone felt that in Timositheus they could trust. As an unexpected bonus, the marriage between Gordian and Tranquilina proved to be a happy one, and as 241 AD came to a close, the reign of Gordian III looked like it was shaping up to be a long and prosperous one. But just as the empire was uniting internally, it was suddenly presented with an external threat that would help undo all the goodwill that had just begun to coalesce.

Since the ceasefire with Alexander Severus in 233, the Sassanid king, Ardashir, had mostly pulled back from his western dominions and focused his attention on solidifying control over the east. But in the late 230s, he renewed his ambition to push the Romans back across the Hellespont. But by this point, Ardashir was an old man, and he knew that he would not live to see his dreams fulfilled. So around 240, he elevated his 25-year-old son to serve as co-regent. Two years later, Ardashir would be dead, and the ambitions of the Sassanids would pass fully to Sharpur, who in time would become one of the most notorious of all the enemies of Rome. He would lead the Sassanids with a martial vigor that would turn the eastern empire into a perpetual war zone, and cause the distracted and divided Romans to become even more distracted and divided. The culmination of his war with Rome, of course, came in 260, when he would deal the Romans a humiliating blow by capturing the Emperor Valerian alive. But that is for a later episode.

In the early 240s, the ambition of father-son still focused on the limited objective of winning back control of Mesopotamia. In 240 and 241, they led their forces in a series of invasions that saw the Sassanids win back control of Cary, Nisbis, and Hatra, all three of which had been lost to the Romans while the Parthians had been distracted by the fall of their empire. From these fortified positions, the Sassanids then began to press across the frontier into Syria, which caused all sorts of alarm bells to ring out across the empire. Back in Rome, the news sparked immediate preparations for war, and in 242, Timositheus marched east to personally lead the Roman response. Though the Sassanids had enjoyed an unchecked string of successes, their victories were the result more of Roman complacency than superiority of arms. When Timositheus arrived in Syria, complacent Rome transformed into aggressive Rome, and I think we all know what happens when that happens.

At some point in 242, Ardashir died, leaving Sharpur to deal with the Roman counterattack by himself. It would be an experience he would not soon forget. In 243, Timositheus led his army out to meet the Sassanids on the plain of Racina, and the professional legions triumphed over the amateur Sassanid forces. Harry and Nisbis were retaken, but in their conquest of Hatra, the Sassanids had destroyed the city, so there was nothing left but rubble to reclaim. Sharpur was driven back to lick his wounds, but Timositheus was not planning on granting the Sassanid king much of a respite. The de facto emperor of the Roman Empire wanted to prove to the Sassanids once and for all that poking at Rome was just about the dumbest thing they could ever possibly do. But, ever loyal to Gordian, he requested the true emperor of Rome come east to oversee the subsequent campaigns and share in the glory Timositheus had planned for the empire, and by the fall of 243, Gordian was situated in Syria with a front row seat for the coming humiliation of the Sassanids.

But the humiliation would never come. While in camp, plotting out what his next moves would be, Timositheus was overcome by an unknown illness and died shortly thereafter. The political balance that had been established when he simultaneously became Praetorian prefect and father-in-law of the emperor, died with him. Without his best advisor to rely on, Gordian decided to pull up short and declare that driving the Sassanids out of Mesopotamia was victory enough for now. In reality, he had more pressing concerns, like whether he could find someone to serve as Praetorian prefect who would prove as capable and as loyal as Timositheus. After some soul searching and more than a little behind the scenes nudging, 18 year old Gordian finally decided to appoint Marcus Julius Philippus to fill the vacant prefecture. This would prove to be the worst decision Gordian III ever made. That Philip the Arab would soon be emperor of Rome should give you some indication as to why.

Philip had been born about 50 miles south of Damascus in 204 into a prominent family of emigrated Arabs, hence the Arab part of Philip the Arab. And though we know very little about his early life, it later became rumored that he spent his life as something of a brigand. It seems unlikely given the status of his family, but the story of his unsavory beginnings fill out a part of the legend of Philip the Arab, and so I offer it to you with all the relevant qualifiers. What is interesting about Philip is that he was not the driving force behind his own ambitions. Rather it was his brother, Gaius Julius Priscus, who dreamed of empire. After serving in a number of important posts, including a second-in-command spot in Egypt, Gaius got himself appointed to the Praetorian Guard after the ascension of Gordian, and shortly thereafter got his brother a spot in the guard as well. The charismatic and ambitious Gaius soon won the ear of young Gordian, and when Timositheus died in 243, Gaius pushed to have his brother Philip declared prefect in his place.

I haven't seen any particularly definitive answer as to why Gaius chose to have his brother elevated instead of taking the job himself, and it may be that Gaius was simply one of those ambitious men who preferred to rule from the shadows rather than wielding power right out in the open, where it is most dangerous. Whatever the reason, Philip was declared prefect, and the Arab brothers found themselves filling the power vacuum left by Timositheus. Whether they were already planning what would come next is another open question, but what is not an open question is that less than a year later, Gordian will be dead, Philip will be emperor, and Gaius will become his de facto colleague.

Next week, we'll deal with the murder of Gordian III and the elevation of Philip the Arab to the throne. Next week will also mark a pretty heavy milestone in the history of Rome, because four years after his ascension, Philip will find himself ruling Rome on the occasion of her 1,000th birthday. Founded, as we all know, in 753 BC, the year 248 AD marked year 1,000 on the Roman calendar, and to celebrate, Philip would throw a party that would go down as one of the greatest the empire had ever seen.