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The Senate confirmed the Gordians, who fixed their court at Carthage, but Maximin suppressed the insurrection, and proceeded to Rome to satisfy his vengeance. The Senate, in despair, conferred the purple on two members of their own body, Maximus, an able soldier, and Balbinus, a poet and orator. The prætorians supported their claims, and Maximin was assassinated in his tent, A.D. 238.
The licentious multitude neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear the mild and humane Balbinus.
With Philip ends, according to our distribution, the second series of the Caesars, comprehending Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, Maximin, the two Gordians, Pupienus and Balbinus, the third Gordian, and Philip the Arab.
At the head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order, Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones, drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both parties.
Rebellion In Africa And Italy, Under The Authority Of The Senate. Civil Wars And Seditions. Violent Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The Three Gordians. Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip. Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
Balbinus answered it without hesitation "The love of the senate, of the people, and of all mankind." "Alas!" replied his more penetrating colleague "alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers, and the fatal effects of their resentment." His apprehensions were but too well justified by the event.
Nearly three centuries after that, A.D. 237, a descendant of Balbus was chosen as Emperor, under the name of Balbinus, and is spoken of by Gibbon with eulogy. I know no work on Cicero written more pleasantly, or inspired by a higher spirit of justice, than that of Gaston Boissier, of the French Academy, called Cicéron et ses Amis.
The jealousy of power was soon exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was understood rather than seen; but the mutual consciousness prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp.
Maximin and his son were murdered by their disappointed troops in front of Aquileia. Three months later, Maximus and Balbinus, on July 15, 238, fell victims to their own virtues at the hands of the Prætorian guard, Gordian became emperor.
They did not, however, despair: substituting the two governors of Rome, Pupienus and Balbinus, and associating to them the younger Gordian, they resolved to make a stand; for the severities of Maximin had by this time manifested that it was a contest of extermination.
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