Gordian II

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox royalty Template:Year of Six Emperors Gordian II (Template:Langx; Template:Circa 192 – April 238) was briefly Roman emperor with his father Gordian I in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors. Seeking to overthrow Maximinus Thrax, he died in battle outside Carthage. Since he died before his father, Gordian II had the shortest recorded reign of any Roman emperor, at about 22 days.<ref>Possibly second only to Quintillus, who, according to some sources, reigned for just 17 days. However, sources of his reign are contradictory, and Quintillus more likely ruled at least one month. Template:Cite book</ref>

Early lifeEdit

Born Template:Circa 192, Gordian II was the only known son of Gordian I, who was said to be related to prominent senators.Template:Sfn His praenomen and nomen Marcus Antonius suggest that his paternal ancestors received Roman citizenship under the triumvir Mark Antony, or one of his daughters, during the late Roman Republic.Template:Sfn Gordian's cognomen "Gordianus" suggests that his family origins were from Anatolia, especially Galatia and Cappadocia.<ref>Peuch, Bernadette, "Orateurs et sophistes grecs dans les inscriptions d'époque impériale", (2002), pg. 128</ref>

According to the notoriously unreliable Historia Augusta, his mother was a Roman woman called Fabia Orestilla,<ref name="Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 17:4"/> born circa 165, who the Historia claims was a descendant of emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius through her father Fulvus Antoninus.<ref name="Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 17:4"/> Modern historians have dismissed this name and her information as false.Template:Sfn There is some evidence to suggest that Gordian's mother might have been the granddaughter of the Greek Sophist, consul and tutor Herodes Atticus.Template:Sfn His younger sister was Maecia Faustina, who was the mother of Emperor Gordian III.

Although the memory of the Gordians would have been cherished by the Senate and thus appear sympathetic in any senatorial documentation of the period, the only account of Gordian's early career that has survived is contained within the Historia Augusta, and it cannot be taken as an accurate or reliable description of his life story prior to his elevation to the purple in 238.Template:Sfn According to this source, Gordian served as quaestor in Elagabalus' reign<ref>Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 18:4</ref> and as praetor and consul suffect with Emperor Severus Alexander.<ref>Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 18:5</ref>Template:Sfn In 237 or 238, Gordian went to the province of Africa Proconsularis as a legatus under his father, who served as proconsular governor.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Revolt against Maximinus ThraxEdit

Early in 235, Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Avita Mamaea were assassinated by mutinous troops at Moguntiacum (now Mainz) in Germania Inferior.Template:Sfn The leader of the rebellion, Maximinus Thrax, became Emperor, despite his low-born background and the disapproval of the Roman Senate.Template:Sfn Confronted by a local elite that had just killed Maximinus's procurator,Template:Sfn Gordian's father was forced to participate in a full-scale revolt against Maximinus in 238, probably at the end of March.Template:Sfn Due to Gordian I's advanced age, the younger Gordian, said to be 46 years old,<ref>Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 15:2</ref> was attached to the imperial throne and acclaimed augustus too. Like his father, he too was awarded the cognomen "Africanus".Template:Sfn

Father and son saw their claim to the throne ratified both by the Senate<ref>Herodian, 7:7:2</ref> and most of the other provinces, due to Maximinus' unpopularity.Template:Sfn

Opposition would come from the neighbouring province of Numidia.Template:Sfn Capelianus, governor of Numidia, a loyal supporter of Maximinus Thrax, and who held a grudge against Gordian,Template:Sfn renewed his allegiance to the reigning emperorTemplate:Sfn and invaded Africa (province) with the only legion stationed in the region, III Augusta, and other veteran units.<ref>Herodian, 7:9:3</ref> Gordian II, at the head of a militia army of untrained soldiers, lost the Battle of Carthage and was killed.Template:Sfn According to the Historia Augusta, his body was never recovered.<ref>Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 16:1</ref> Hearing the news, his father killed himself.Template:Sfn The Gordians ruled only 22 days.<ref>Filocalus, Chronograph of 354, Part 16: "The two Gordians ruled for 20 days. They died in Africa."</ref><ref>Laterculus Imperatorum Malalianus (7th century): "Gordian ruled 22 days."</ref><ref>Zonaras (Template:Circa 1120) Epitome xvii.17: "According to some they reigned about twenty-two days, but according to others not quite three months". He confuses the Gordians with Balbinus and Pupienus.</ref> This first rebellion against Maximinus Thrax was unsuccessful, but by the end of 238 Gordian II's nephew, Gordian III, would be recognised as emperor by the whole Roman world.Template:Sfn

According to Edward Gibbon, in the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–89), "Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested to the variety of [Gordian's] inclinations; and from the productions that he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation."<ref>Quoted in "From the Editor. Ambition, Style and Sacrifices", History Today, June 2017, p. 3.</ref>