Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

Maximin. His cruelties.

The savage, Maximin, who now governed the empire, ruled like a barbarian, as he was, disdaining all culture, and hostile to all refinements. Confiscations, exile, or death awaited the few illustrious men who adorned the age. Only brute force was recognized as a claim to imperial favor. The sole object of Maximin was to secure the favor of the soldiers, barbarians like himself, whom he propitiated with exorbitant donations, extorted by fines and confiscations, and derived from the sack of temples. He lived in the camp, and knew nothing of the cities he ruled.

Gordianus. Death of Maximin. Philip.

Such outrages of course provoked rebellion, and M. Antonius Gordianus, the proconsul of Africa, a descendant of the Gracchi and of Trajan, distinguished for wealth and culture, was proclaimed emperor, at the age of eighty, who associated with him, in the government, his son. 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. But the new emperors had scarcely given promise of a wise administration, before they in turn were assassinated by the prætorians, and Gordian, a grandson of the first of that name, was elevated to the imperial dignity. He, again, was soon murdered in a mutiny of the soldiers, who elected Philip as his successor, A.D. 244. This emperor, whose reign was marked by the celebration of the secular games with unwonted magnificence, to commemorate the one thousand years since Rome was founded, was put to death by the prætorian guards the [pg 611] following year, and the dignity of Augustus was conferred on Decius.

Persecution of the Christians. Ravages of the Goths.

His reign is memorable for a savage persecution of the Christians, and the victories of the Goths, who, in the preceding reign, had penetrated to Dacia, and conquered Mœsia. The next twenty years were mournful and disgraceful. The emperor marched against these barbarians in person, but was defeated by them in Thrace, and lost his life at a place called Abrutum, A.D. 251. The Goths continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine, and made themselves masters of the Crimea. They then sailed, with a large fleet, to the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityus and Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities of the Thracian Bosphorus, conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden with spoil. The next year, with five hundred boats, they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the Ægean, landed at Athens, plundered Thebes, Argos, Corinth and Sparta, advanced to the coasts of Epirus, and devastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In their ravages they destroyed the famous temple of Ephesus, and, wearied with plunder, returned through Mœsia to their own settlements beyond the Danube.

Successive emperors. Gallienus.

During this raid, the son of Decius, Hostilianus, reigned in conjunction with Gallus, one of the generals of Decius, but were put to death by Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mœsia, who had succeeded in gaining a victory over the new and terrible enemy. He was in turn overthrown by Valerianus—a nobleman of great distinction, who signalized himself by considerable military ability, and who associated with himself in the empire his son, Gallienus, A.D. 253, whose frivolities were an offset to the virtues of his father. Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, and shortly after died, and the Roman world relapsed under the sway of his son, and at a time of great calamity, memorable for the successes of the Goths, and the direst pestilence which had ever visited the empire. Gallienus—not [pg 612] without accomplishments, but utterly unfit to govern an empire in the stormy times which witnessed the fierce irruptions of the Goths—was slain by a conspiracy of his officers, A.D. 268.

Gothic invasions. Defeat of the barbarians.

The empire was now threatened by barbarians, and wasted by pestilence, and distracted by rebellions and riots. It was on the verge of ruin; but the ruin was averted for one hundred years by a succession of great princes, who traced their origin to the martial province of Illyricum. The first of these emperors was Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, and was fifty-four years of age when invested with the purple. He led the armies of the waning empire against the Alemanni, who had invaded Italy, and drove them beyond the Alps. But a fiercer tribe of Germanic barbarians remained to be subdued or repelled—those who had devastated Greece—the Goths. They again appeared upon the Euxine with a fleet, variously estimated from two thousand to six thousand vessels, carrying three hundred and twenty thousand men. A division of this vast, but undisciplined force, invaded Crete and Cyprus, but the main body ravaged Macedonia, and undertook the siege of Thessalonica. Claudius advanced to meet them, and gained at Naissus a complete victory, where fifty thousand of the barbarians perished. A desultory war followed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Mœsia, which resulted in the destruction of the Gothic fleet, and an immense booty in captives and cattle.