political

Year of the Six Emperors; Child Gordian III Elevated

Date

238

Part of

political

In 238, six claimants jostled for the purple as senate and soldiers fought for control, ending with the elevation of Gordian III, a boy “about thirteen” [1]. Trumpets blared in Rome while dispatches flew from Carthage to the Rhine. Succession had broken in public, and everyone could count the pieces [1][18].

What Happened

Three years after an army murdered its emperor on the Rhine, the disease spread to Rome itself. In January 238, elites in Africa Proconsularis hailed Gordian I and his son Gordian II at Carthage. Both fell swiftly. The senate, desperate to counter Maximinus Thrax, named Pupienus and Balbinus in Rome. The Praetorians, guardians of the city, bristled. Out on the frontiers, legions watched and waited [1][18].

Herodian, who lived through the chaos, paints the picture: streets humming, the purple changing shoulders in days, and, amid it all, a child lifted as symbol. Gordian III—“about thirteen”—was presented to the people. Boys do not negotiate with Danubian legions. But boys can unify factions, if only for a time [1]. The Tiber reflected banners in imperial purple while the Curia’s doors thudded shut for hasty votes.

Maximinus marched toward Italy, roaring through Sirmium toward Aquileia. The senate ordered defenses, and city gates from Ravenna to Rome turned bronze and stubborn. Pupienus, a tough ex-prefect, assumed military command; Balbinus managed the city. The sound in the capital was clash and clamor—Praetorians at drill, citizens cheering the boy Gordian to drown out fear. Then news arrived: the army of Aquileia held; Maximinus’ own troops killed him. Relief surged, and the power struggle that followed turned inward [1][18].

The Praetorians resented the senatorial emperors. In the heat of summer, they stormed the imperial palace on the Palatine, seizing Pupienus and Balbinus. Their screams echoed through marble halls before steel silenced them. In the aftermath, the Praetorians and senate converged on a single expedient: crown the child. The boy emerged in imperial shoes too large to fill, the purple draped over small shoulders, the crowd roaring approval because nothing else could bring the factions to quiet [1].

For frontier officers like Gallienus, then rising in rank, the lesson was clinical: urban politics had devolved into mob and guard. For soldiers on the Rhine at Colonia Agrippinensis and on the Danube at Naissus, it confirmed what the winter of 235 had taught: emperors were only as secure as their last acclamation and next payment [18].

Gordian III’s youth ended the immediate brawl but solved nothing. The coin presses at Rome and Lugdunum clinked overtime to fund donatives. The Empire’s enemies, listening from Antioch and along the Danube, heard the same trumpet calls—and the strain beneath them.

Why This Matters

Directly, 238 replaced two murdered emperors with a teenager, lowering the threshold for future bids. It empowered the Praetorian Guard—able to kill Pupienus and Balbinus inside Rome—and confirmed the senate’s reliance on a symbolic figure to calm a city in arms [1][18]. Pay promises multiplied, pulling the mint toward heavier use of the antoninianus.

The event crystallizes Army as Kingmaker. Six claimants in one calendar year taught every provincial commander how thin legitimacy had become. Political authority turned transactional: win the Praetorians, pacify the urban plebs, and send donatives to the Rhine and Danube. The treasury and coin supply bore the cost [1][18].

In the larger arc, the Year of the Six Emperors is the public confession that succession had broken. It leads straight to the debasement of coinage in the 240s, to mounting strain as the Plague of Cyprian hit in 249–262, and to the vulnerabilities Shapur I exploited in 260. A child’s reign bridged factions but left generals pondering their own chances.

Historians study 238 for its anatomy of collapse: multiple centers asserting legitimacy—senate, Praetorians, frontier legions—without a shared mechanism. Herodian’s line about a thirteen‑year‑old emperor has become shorthand for systemic failure [1].