Pupienus - Roman Emperor 238 A.D. with Balbinus
Biography History and Ancient Coins For Sale
Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus (born c. 164/178 29 July
238) was
Roman Emperor with
Balbinus for three months in 238, the
Year of the Six Emperors. The sources
for this period are scant, and thus knowledge of the emperor limited. In
most contemporary texts Pupienus is referred to, incorrectly, as 'Maximus'
rather than by his family name of Pupienus.
Origins,
career and family
The
Historia Augusta, whose testimony
is not to be trusted unreservedly, paints Pupienus as an example of
ascension in the Roman hierarchical system due to military success. It
claims he was the son of a
blacksmith, who started his career as a
Centurio
primus pilus and became a
Tribunus Militum, and then
Praetor. In truth, he was the son of
Marcus Pupienus Maximus, a Senator, and
wife Clodia Pulchra.[citation
needed] Probably his father wasn't yet a Senator
when he started his career. It further claims he was adopted by one
Pescennia Marcellina (otherwise unknown), and served as
Proconsul of
Bithynia et Pontus, then of
Achaea, and then
Gallia Narbonensis before serving as a
special
Legatus in
Illyricum and subsequently governing
one of the
German provinces. It is likely most of
this is fiction: only the last post probably the troublesome
Germania Inferior is independently
attested (by
Herodian). It was presumably then that
Pupienus gained the personal bodyguard of Germans which is mentioned by
Herodian as remaining with him when he became Emperor.
What is certain is that Pupienus, though he may not have been born a
Patrician, was a leading member of the
senatorial class during the latter half
of the Severan dynasty. He may have come from the
Etruscan city of
Volterra, where inscriptions relating
to his daughter, who carried the highly aristocratic name Pupiena Sextia
Paulina Cethegilla, wife of
Marcus Ulpius Eubiotus Leurus, show
that Pupienus (and his father, needed not have been the blacksmith
claimed by the Historia Augusta) married into the ancient Roman
noble family of the Sextii, with his second cousin Sextia Cethegilla,
born c. 170, daughter of
Titus Sextius Africanus and wife
Cornelia. He was twice
Consul the date of his first
consulship is unknown, but was probably about 213, maybe as a Suffectus
in July 205 or Ordinarius in 217. His second consulship was in 234 and
in that year or c. 230 he was
Praefectus Urbi of Rome and gained a
reputation for severity, to the extent that he became unpopular with the
Roman mob. In addition to his daughter, Pupienus had two sons,
Tiberius Clodius Pupienus Pulcher Maximus,
who was a Consul Suffectus about 224 or 226 or July 235, and
Marcus Pupienus Africanus Maximus,
Consul Ordinarius in 236 as colleague of the Emperor
Maximinus Thrax. The second consulship,
the city prefecture, and the son as consul of the year with the reigning
Emperor, are all signs that the family was influential and in high
favour. Evidently they owned property in
Tibur outside Rome, where Pupienus
Pulcher Maximus was a
Patron of the town.
Reign
According to Edward Gibbon (drawing on the narratives of Herodian and
the Historia Augusta):
The mind of Maximus [Pupienus] was formed in a rougher mould
[than that of Balbinus]. By his valour and abilities he had raised
himself from the meanest origin to the first employments of the
state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the Germans,
the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of his justice
whilst he was prefect of the city, commanded the esteem of a people
whose affections were engaged in favour of the more amiable Balbinus.
The two colleagues had both been consul (Balbinus had twice enjoyed
that honourable office), both had been named among the twenty
lieutenants of the senate; and, since the one was sixty and the
other seventy-four years old, they had both attained the full
maturity of age and experience.
When the
Gordians were proclaimed Emperors in
Africa, the Senate appointed a committee of twenty men, including the
old Senator Pupienus, to co-ordinate operations against Maximinus. On
the news of the Gordians' defeat, the Senate met in closed session in
the Temple of Jupiter and voted Pupienus and Balbinus as co-emperors,
though they were soon forced to co-opt
Gordian III as a colleague. Pupienus
marched to
Ravenna, where he oversaw the campaign
against Maximinus; after the latter was assassinated by his soldiers
just outside
Aquileia he despatched both Maximinus's
troops and his own back to their provinces and returned to Rome with
just the
Praetorian Guard and his German
bodyguard. Balbinus had failed to keep public order in the capital. The
sources suggest that Balbinus suspected Pupienus of wanting to supplant
him, and they were soon living in different parts of the Imperial
palace, where they were later assassinated by disaffected elements in
the Praetorians, who resented serving under Senate-appointed emperors.
Scipio
connection
Through his mother's family, Pupienus has a link to the great Roman
General Publius Cornlius Scipio Africanus. As a descendant of Fulvia,
through her marriage to popularis Publius Clodius Pulcher, the great
granddaughter of Africanus; he could claim to be first Imperator of Rome
to be a direct descendant of the Second Punic War Hero. On a side note,
his grandson who was also a consul was a direct descendant of Augustus
on his mother's side. | 
