Pupienus

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the Roman consul see Marcus Pupienus Africanus .

Pupienus

Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus (* around 164; † beginning [?] May 238 in Rome ) was from the end of January or beginning of February (?) 238 until his death a few months later one of two simultaneously ruling Roman emperors .

Life

Career

Little is known about Pupienus' origins, and many details of his career remain in the dark. As an important, but very problematic (and often absolutely unreliable) source, his vita is used in the late antique and heavily controversial Historia Augusta . Most if not almost all of the information about his military career that the Historia Augusta offers was almost certainly fabricated. The work of his contemporary Herodian (Book 8) serves as a further source, but it is also not always reliable and offers few details on Pupienus' career before 238.

Today most historians assume that Pupienus (a very rare name that is only used three times in the whole of Roman history) was initially governor in one of the two Germanic provinces and later perhaps also in Asia Minor. In 234 he held his second consulate (his first, a suffect consulate , is not available, maybe around 205 or 217), from around 234 Pupienus headed the administration of the city of Rome as praefectus urbi . In this honorable position, he allegedly cracked down on security policy particularly hard. Finally, it is certain that Pupienus was a member of a committee for the defense of inner Italy against Maximinus Thrax during the turmoil of the six- emperor's year . After the death of the emperors Gordian I and Gordian II, who were raised against Maximinus , he was appointed emperor by the Senate, together with Balbinus himself. This was a unique process, because normally the Senate only confirmed the elevation of a co-emperor by an existing ruler or the acclamation by the army; it was not intended that the Senate appoint a new Augustus on its own initiative . Probably for this reason, the committee could not agree on a candidate and therefore raised two. For the first time both Augusti were entrusted with the office of Pontifex Maximus . It turned out quickly that this was not the solution.

Domination

Sesterce of Pupienus

The short reign of the two emperors was marked by mutual distrust and the rejection of the urban Roman population towards them, which can perhaps be justified from the time of Pupienus as a tough city prefect. After their appointment, the two had to leave the Capitol , protected by a quickly improvised bodyguard, to protect themselves from popular anger. The plebs apparently preferred the elevation of Gordian I's young grandson to emperor. Pupienus and Balbinus had to bow to the pressure of the street and elevated him to Caesar .

Pupienus, who in his advanced age is described as grumpy and in a bad mood, subsequently took over the leadership of the fight against Maximinus Thrax, while Balbinus organized the affairs of state. But before Pupienus could even raise the necessary troops, the news reached him that Maximinus had been murdered by his own soldiers. He immediately rushed to Aquileia , the scene of the event, and ended the civil war by simply disbanding the armies of both sides and sending the soldiers home. In the following triumphal procession of the two Augustis through the capital, especially Pupienus was cheered frenetically. These ovations were supposedly the reason for the break between the two emperors.

The deeper cause of the conflict, however, was a structural problem: At that time, the Roman Empire was a monarchy in which a multiple empire could only function if (as with Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus ) it was clearly clarified which ruler had the highest rank and had the last word. Caracalla and Geta had already failed because of this problem a few years earlier . And the rivalry between Pupienus and Balbinus also escalated as soon as their common enemy Maximinus was dead. But at first they continued to rule with what appeared to be an agreement.

death

Both emperors seem to have planned to surpass the other in military glory. Pupienus was apparently planning a Persian campaign , while Balbinus wanted to march against the Germanic peoples. However, his undoing was that, since his time as governor in Germania, he had always kept a troop of Teutons as bodyguards. This angered the Praetorians , who already felt sidelined. They apparently benefited from the fact that the two emperors now fundamentally distrusted each other. During a loud argument between the two emperors, the guardsmen broke into the imperial palace. Pupienus is said to have refused to summon the Germanic bodyguard of Balbinus, because he believed that his colleague wanted to assassinate him. Instead, the Praetorians took control of both emperors and brutally killed them.

After her death, power went to Gordian III. about, a nephew of Gordian II and grandson of Gordian I, who, as mentioned, had previously been elevated to Caesar by the Pupienus and Balbinus . The Praetorians proclaimed him the new sole Augustus . The reign of the two senatorial emperors, which lasted only 99 days, had shown that the senate could not assert itself against the military in the struggle for power in the empire and could neither restore the republic nor appoint a ruler.

literature

See also the information in the article Imperial Crisis of the 3rd Century .

• Hartwin Brandt : Commentary on the Vita Maximi et Balbini of the Historia Augusta (= Antiquitas. Series 4, Series 3, Volume 2). Habelt, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-7749-2785-5 .
• Dietmar Kienast , Werner Eck , Matthäus Heil : Roman imperial table. Basic features of a Roman imperial chronology. 6th, revised edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-534-26724-8 , pp. 183-184.

Web links

Commons : Pupienus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Robin Mc Mahon: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).
• Biography from the Historia Augusta (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ See the basic commentary by Hartwin Brandt. The big problem lies in the fact that it is not always possible to separate truth from fictional narratives. Nevertheless, there are also some valuable tips to be found here.
2. ^ HA, Maximi et Balbini 13.5, where Parthians are spoken of anachronistically; see. also Brandt, Commentary , pp. 213f. The statement in the Historia Augusta is also confirmed by coin finds, cf. Hartwin Brandt: Facts and Fictions - the Historia Augusta and the 3rd Century . In: K.-P. Johne et al. (Eds.): Deleto paene imperio Romano. Transformation processes of the Roman Empire and their reception in modern times . Stuttgart 2006, pp. 11-23, here pp. 20f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Gordian I. and Gordian II.	Roman Emperor 238 (with Balbinus )	Gordian III.