The Troubled Century : Gordion III

Imperator Caesar Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius Felix Augustus 238 – 244 AD

Born: 20 January 225 AD at Rome
Date of Accession: May 238 AD
Died: Murdered, February 244 AD in Mesopotamia

Governors of Britannia during his reign:

Maecilius Fuscus (or) 238 – 242 AD
Egnatius Lucilianus
Nonius Philippus 242 - 244 AD

Young Gordion, only 13 at the time of accession to power, was proclaimed Emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they had murdered Pupienus and Balbinus, whose fate Herodian records was entirely unwarranted.

Gordion III was grandson of Gordion I whose line still had powerful backing in the senate and among a large number of the people of Rome.
Minor attempts to usurp his reign failed and he was in the main supported by the able senior official Timesitheus .

Gordion III

Gordion was fated to be in power just as the resurgent bellicose Sassanian Persians caused difficulties on the eastern frontiers. It was during campaigning against them that Timesitheus fell ill and died. His role was taken by the Praetorian commander Marcus Iulius Phillipus but from the start he appears to have undermined Gordion. The campaign faltered and versions differ as to the nature of Gordion’s ultimate demise.

The Persians claim he fell in battle against them at Fallujah (Baghdad) while the less reliable later Roman histories on which we have to rely paint a sad picture of a vain appeal for support to the troops from the hustings, an appeal which fell on deaf ears. He was murdered in 244 AD and succeeded by Philipus, now known as Philip the Arab.

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