View source for Balbinus

{{short description|Roman emperor in 238}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox royalty
| image        = Balbinus Hermitage.jpg
| image_size   =
| alt          = Statue of Balbinus
| caption      = Bust, [[Hermitage Museum]]
| succession   = [[List of Roman emperors|Roman emperor]]
| reign        = April/May – July/August 238<ref>For length stimations see: Rea, J.R. (1972). "[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20180380 O. Leid. 144 and the Chronology of A.D. 238]". ''[[Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik|ZPE]]'' '''9''', 1–19. No contemporary or later sources give any definitive conclusion.</ref>
| predecessor  = [[Gordian I]] and [[Gordian II|II]]
| successor    = [[Gordian III]]
| regent       = [[Pupienus]]
| reg-type     = {{nowrap|Co-emperor}}
| birth_date   = {{circa}} 178<ref>[[Zonaras]] ({{Circa}} 1120) ''[[Epitome]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXGCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT41 xvii.17]. "[Pupienus] Maximus was seventy-four years old, Albinus sixty. According to some they reigned about twenty-two days [referring to [[Gordian I]] and [[Gordian II]]], but according to others not quite three months."</ref>
| regent2      = [[Maximinus Thrax|Maximinus]] (until June)
| reg-type2    = Rival
| birth_place  = 
| death_date   = July/August 238 (aged approx. 60)
| death_place  = [[Rome]], [[Roman Italy|Italy]]
| burial_place = 
| issue        = <!--list children in order of birth. Use {{plainlist}} or {{unbulleted list}} -->
| full name    = Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus
| regnal name  = Imperator Caesar Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus Pius Augustus

}}
{{Year of Six Emperors}}

'''Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus'''<ref>{{cite book |last=Cooley |year=2012 |first=Alison E. |title=The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=497 |isbn=978-0-521-84026-2 |url={{googlebooks|VlghAwAAQBAJ|plainurl=y}} |author-link=Alison E. Cooley |ref={{sfnref|Cooley}}}}</ref> ({{Circa|178}}{{Spaced en dash}}July/August 238 AD) was [[Roman emperor]] with [[Pupienus]] for three months in 238, the [[Year of the Six Emperors]].

== Origins and career ==
Not much is known about Balbinus before his elevation to emperor. It has been conjectured that he descended from [[Publius Coelius Balbinus Vibullius Pius]], the [[Roman consul|consul ordinarius]] of 137, and wife Aquilia. If this were true, he was also related to the family of [[Quintus Pompeius Falco|Q. Pompeius Falco]], which supplied many politicians of consular rank throughout the 3rd century, and to the 1st-century politician, engineer and author [[Sextus Julius Frontinus|Julius Frontinus]]. He was born around 178.<ref name=Handbook>{{cite book|author1=Adkins, Lesley|author2=Adkins, Roy A.|title=Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=New York |year=1994|page=26}}</ref> He was a [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] from birth, and was the son (either by birth or adoption) of Caelius Calvinus, who was legate of [[Cappadocia]] in 184. He was one of the [[Salii]] priests of Mars.<ref>Michael Grant,''The Roman Emperors''</ref> According to [[Herodian]] he had governed provinces, but the list of seven provinces given in the unreliable ''Historia Augusta'', as well as the statement that Balbinus had been both [[Proconsul]] of [[Asia (Roman province)|Asia]] and of [[Africa (Roman province)|Africa]], are likely to be mere invention.{{citation needed|date=November 2012}} He had certainly been twice consul; his first consulate is not certainly known but is believed to have been about 203 or in July 211; he was consul for the second time in 213 as colleague of [[Caracalla]], which suggests he enjoyed that emperor's favour.

== Reign ==
According to [[Edward Gibbon]] (drawing upon the narratives of [[Herodian]] and the ''[[Historia Augusta]]''):

<blockquote>Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of the empire. His birth was noble, his fortune affluent, his manners liberal and affable. In him, the love of pleasure was corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease deprived him of a capacity for business.  (...)  The two colleagues [Pupienus and Balbinus] 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.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717 |title=The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireTable of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) |last1=Gibbon |first1=Edward |last2=Milman |first2=Henry Hart |date=2008-06-07 |editor-last=Widger |editor-first=David |volume=I |pages=225 |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

On the news of the Gordians' defeat, the Senate voted Pupienus and Balbinus as co-emperors in April 238, though they were soon forced to co-opt the child [[Gordian III]] as a colleague.<ref name="Handbook" /> Unlike the situation in 161, both emperors were elected as ''[[Pontifex Maximus|pontifices maximi]]'', chief priests of the official cults.<ref>{{cite book|author=Christer Bruun, J. C. Edmondson|title=The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2bDBAAAQBAJ&dq=Pupienus+Balbinus+pontifex+maximus+shared&pg=PA191|year=2015|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-533646-7|page=191}}</ref> This would be unthinkable in Republican times. Balbinus was probably in his early seventies: his qualifications for rule are unknown, except presumably that he was a senior senator, rich and well-connected. While Pupienus marched to [[Ravenna]], where he oversaw [[Siege of Aquileia|the campaign against Maximinus]], Balbinus remained in Rome, but failed to keep public order. The sources suggest that after Pupienus's victorious return following Maximinus' death, Balbinus and Pupienus began to distrust each other. They were soon assassinated by disaffected elements of the [[Praetorian Guard]]; Pupienus attempted to warn Balbinus of the plot, but the latter thought that the guard would instead secure the throne for himself.<ref>''HA'', [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Maximus_et_Balbinus*.html# Life of Maximus and Balbinus]; [[Herodian]] [https://www.livius.org/sources/content/herodian-s-roman-history/herodian-8.8/#8.8.4 8.8.4]</ref>

== Sarcophagus ==
The 'sarcophagus of Balbinus' has earned this Emperor a niche in the history of Roman Imperial art. Presumably while holding the title of Emperor, Balbinus had a marble [[sarcophagus]] made for himself and his wife (whose name is unknown). Discovered in fragments near the [[Via Appia]] and restored, this is the only example of a Roman Imperial sarcophagus of this type to have survived. On the lid are reclining figures of Balbinus and his wife, the figure of the Emperor also being a fine portrait of him. The sarcophagus is held in collection at the ''Museo di Pretastato'' (at the catacombs of [[Vettius Agorius Praetextatus|Praetextatus]]) in the [[Park of the Caffarella]] near the [[Appian Way]] at Rome.

Although in accounts of their joint reign Balbinus is emphasized as the civilian as against Pupienus the military man, on the side of the sarcophagus he is portrayed in full military dress.

==Family tree==
{{Tree chart/start}}
{{Tree chart| Max | | Go1 | | | | | | Pup | | Phi |Max=[[Maximinus Thrax]]<br>Roman Emperor<br>235–238|Go1=[[Gordian I]]<br>Roman Emperor<br>238|Pup=[[Pupienus]]<br>Roman Emperor<br>238|Phi=[[Philip the Arab]]<br>Roman Emperor<br>244–249}}
{{Tree chart| |!| | | |)|-|-|-|.| | | | | | | |!| }}
{{Tree chart| GIV | | Go2 | | AGo | | Bal | | Ph2 |GIV=[[Gaius Julius Verus Maximus]]<br>caesar|Go2=[[Gordian II]]<br>co-emperor<br>238|Bal=[[File:Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg|20px]]<br>Balbinus<br>Roman Emperor<br>238|AGo=[[Maecia Faustina]]|Ph2=[[Philip II (Roman Emperor)|Philip II]]<br>co-emperor<br>247–249}}
{{Tree chart| | | | | | | | | |!| }}
{{Tree chart| | | | | | | | | Go3 |Go3=[[Gordian III]]<br>Roman Emperor<br>238–244}}
{{Tree chart/end}}

==Gallery==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Marble head of Roman Emperor Balbinus.jpg|Portrait of the Roman Emperor Balbinus, dated AD 200–300, from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
File:BalbinusSest.jpg|[[Sestertius]] of Balbinus. Inscription: IMP. CAES. D. CAEL. BALBINVS AVG.
File:Balbinus statue Piraeus.jpg|Statue of Balbinus, [[Archaeological Museum of Piraeus]], [[Greece]].
</gallery>

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070208050946/http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Matthews/Pathetic2.html portrait head from the sarcophagus as an example of Roman 'pathetic' style]
* [https://www.livius.org/articles/person/balbinus/ Livius.org: Balbinus] (last accessed 22 September 2020)
	
{{s-start}}
{{s-reg}}
{{s-bef | before=[[Gordian I]], [[Gordian II]]<br/>[[Maximinus Thrax]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=[[List of Roman emperors|Roman emperor]]
        | years=238
        | with=[[Pupienus]] }}
{{s-aft | after=[[Gordian III]]}}
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef | before= (Gn. Claudius ?) Severanus|before2=[[Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus|(Tib. Claudius ?) Pompeianus]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=[[Roman consul]]|years=213|regent1= [[Caracalla]]}}
{{s-aft | after= [[Lucius Valerius Messalla Apollinaris|L. Valerius Messalla Apollinaris]]|after2=[[Gaius Octavius Appius Suetrius Sabinus|C. Octavius Appius Suetrius Sabinus]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Roman emperors}}
{{Pharaohs}}
{{authority control}}

[[Category:170s births]]
[[Category:238 deaths]]
[[Category:3rd-century murdered monarchs]]
[[Category:3rd-century Roman emperors]]
[[Category:Caelii]]
[[Category:Crisis of the Third Century]]
[[Category:3rd-century Roman consuls]]
[[Category:Roman emperors murdered by the Praetorian Guard]]
[[Category:Ancient Roman poets]]