Gordian II (;In Classical Latin, Gordian's name would be inscribed as MARCVS ANTONIVS GORDIANVS SEMPRONIANVS ROMANVS AFRICANVS AVGVSTVS. c. 192 – 12 April 238) was Roman emperor for 21 days with his father Gordian I in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors.
Seeking to overthrow Emperor Maximinus Thrax, he died in battle outside Carthage.
Since he died before his father, Gordian II had the shortest reign of any Roman emperor in the whole of the Empire's history, at 21 days.
Early life
Born c. 192, Gordian II was the only known son of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus the Elder.
His family were of Equestrian rank, who were modest and very wealthy.
Gordian was said to be related to prominent senators.Birley, pg.
340 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.Birley, pg.
340  Gordian’s cognomen ‘Gordianus’ suggests that his family origins were from Anatolia, especially Galatia and Cappadocia.Peuch, Bernadette, "Orateurs et sophistes grecs dans les inscriptions d'époque impériale", (2002), pg.
128
According to the notoriously unreliable Historia Augusta, his mother was a Roman woman called Fabia Orestilla, born circa 165, who the Augustan History claims was a descendant of Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius through her father Fulvus Antoninus.
Modern historians have dismissed this name and her information as false.Syme, pp.100–101 There is some evidence to suggest that Gordian's mother might have been the granddaughter of the Greek Sophist, consul and tutor Herodes Atticus.Meckler, Gordian II His younger sister was Antonia Gordiana, 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.Syme, pp.
1–16 According to this source, Gordian served as quaestor in Elagabalus' reignHistoria Augusta, The Three Gordians, 18:4 and as praetor and consul suffect with Emperor Alexander Severus.Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 18:5Birley, pg.
341.
An inscription confirming this fact has been found at Caesarea in Palestine.
In 237 or 238, Gordian went to the province of Africa Proconsularis as a legatus under his father, who served as proconsular governor.
300px|thumb|Gordian II on a coin, celebrating his military prowess.
IMP.
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M. ANT.
GORDIANVS AFR.
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S C. Revolt against Maximinus Thrax
Early in 235, Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Avita Mamaea were assassinated by mutinous troops at Moguntiacum (now Mainz) in Germania Inferior.Potter, pg.
167 The leader of the rebellion, Maximinus Thrax, became Emperor, despite his low-born background and the disapproval of the Roman Senate.
Confronted by a local elite that had just killed Maximinus's procurator, Gordian's father was forced to participate in a full-scale revolt against Maximinus in 238 and became Augustus on 22 March.Meckler, Gordian II Due to Gordian I's advanced age, the younger Gordian was attached to the imperial throne and acclaimed Augustus too.Adkins and Adkins, p. 27  Like his father, he too was awarded the cognomen Africanus.Meckler, Gordian II
Father and son saw their claim to the throne ratified both by the SenateHerodian, 7:7:2 and most of the other provinces, due to Maximinus' unpopularity.Potter, pg.
170
Opposition would come from the neighbouring province of Numidia.Potter, pg.
170 Capelianus, governor of Numidia, a loyal supporter of Maximinus Thrax, and who held a grudge against Gordian,Potter, pg.
170 renewed his allegiance to the reigning emperor and invaded Africa province with the only legion stationed in the region, III Augusta, and other veteran units.Herodian, 7:9:3 Gordian II, at the head of a militia army of untrained soldiers, lost the Battle of Carthage and was killed.Meckler, Gordian II According to the Historia Augusta, his body was never recovered.Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians, 16:1 Hearing the news, his father took his own life.Meckler, Gordian II This first rebellion against Maximinus Thrax was unsuccessful, but by the end of 238 Gordian II's nephew would be recognised emperor by the whole Roman world as Gordian III.
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."
Quoted in "From the Editor.
Ambition, Style and Sacrifices", History Today, June 2017, p.
3. Family tree
See also
Villa Gordiani
Sources
Primary sources
Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus
Herodian, Roman History, Book 7
Historia Augusta, The Three Gordians
Joannes Zonaras, Compendium of History extract: Zonaras: Alexander Severus to Diocletian: 222–284
Zosimus, Historia Nova
Secondary sources
Gibbon, Edward, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (1888)
Meckler, Michael L., Gordian II (238 A.D.), Imperatoribus Romanis (2001)
Potter, David Stone, The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395, Routledge, 2004
Syme, Ronald, Emperors and Biography, Oxford University Press, 1971
References
External links
Gordian II coinage
