Pupienus (c168 - 238). Pupienus was Roman Emperor with Balbinus for three months in 238, during the Year of the Six Emperors. The sources for this period are scant, and thus knowledge of the emperor is limited. In most contemporary texts Pupienus is referred to by his cognomen Maximus rather than by his second nomen Pupienus. The Historia Augusta, whose testimony is not to be trusted unreservedly, paints Pupienus as an example of advancement through the cursus honorum due to military success. It claims he was the son of a blacksmith, was adopted by one Pescennia Marcellina, and who started his career as a Centurio primus pilus before becoming a Tribunus Militum, and then a Praetor. Pupienus's career was allegedly impressive, serving a number of important posts during the reign of the Severan dynasty throughout the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries. This included assignment as Proconsul of the senatorial propraetorial provinces of Bithynia et Pontus, Achaea, and Gallia Narbonensis. In fact Pupienus was part of the aristocracy, albeit a minor member, and his family had possibly been elevated only recently. Hailing from the Etruscan city of Volterra, it has been speculated that Pupienus was the son of Marcus Pupienus Maximus, a Senator who was the first member of his family to enter the Senate, and wife Clodia Pulchra. The claim in the Historia Augusta that Pupienus held three praetorian proconsular governorships is unlikely. For one thing, as Bernard Remy points out, during Pupienus' lifetime the province of Bithynia et Pontus was an imperial one, governed by an imperial legatus. Remy points out another problem: that being awarded three praetorian proconsular governorships violates what we know of Roman practice, and lacks any similar cases. Remy pointedly quotes the opinion of Andre Chastagnol who recommended to admit an information provided by the Augustan History only if it is confirmed by another document and considers that, faced with such an unreliable source, one must permit methodical doubt and hypercritical attitude to prevail. No fasti or list of governors of any of the three provinces to which the Historia Augusta assigns Pupienus includes him as a governor. After his consulship, his cursus honorum is much more reliable. Pupienus was later assigned as imperial legate to one of the German provinces, most probably after his first suffect consulship, circa 207 AD. While governor he scored military victories over the Sarmatians and German tribes. At some point after he concluded his duties in the German province, the sortition awarded him proconsular governorship of Asia. In 234, during the last years of Severus Alexander's reign, he was installed as Consul for the second time. In that same year he was also appointed Urban Prefect of Rome and gained a reputation for severity, to the extent that he became unpopular with the Roman mob. When Gordian I and his son were proclaimed Emperors in Africa, the Senate appointed a committee of twenty men, including the elderly Senator Pupienus, to co-ordinate operations against Maximinus until the arrival of the Gordians. On the news of the Gordians' defeat and deaths, however, the Senate met in closed session in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and voted for two members of the committee to be installed as co-emperors-Pupienus and Balbinus. Unlike the situation in 161 with Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, both emperors were elected as pontifices maximi, chief priests of the official cults. According to Edward Gibbon, the choice was sensible, as: the mind of Maximus was formed in a rougher mould. 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. and, since the one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, they had both attained the full maturity of age and experience. However, factions within the Senate who had hoped to profit from the accession of the Gordians manipulated the people and the Praetorian Guard to agitate for the elevation of Gordian III as their imperial colleague. Leaving his senior colleague Balbinus in charge of the civil administration at Rome, sometime during late April Pupienus marched to Ravenna, where he oversaw the campaign against Maximinus, recruiting German auxiliary troops who had served under him whilst he was in Germania.