Maximinus Thrax, the empire seized by the army
In 235 the Rhine legions proclaimed an officer risen from the ranks. He never set foot in Rome in his three years of rule. That was the day the principate stopped being a senatorial affair.
A man without ancestors
Maximinus came from Thrace, from modest origins, and had climbed through the military ranks. When Severus Alexander was murdered by his own soldiers, unhappy with a policy they judged too conciliatory towards the Germans, the army chose one of its own.
The Senate confirmed him without enthusiasm. The precedent was set: from then on, whoever held the legions held the empire, and fifty years of instability followed.
Governing from the front
Maximinus stayed on the limes, campaign after campaign. Rome did not see him, but Rome paid for him: military needs meant heavy levies, which fed senatorial hostility and brought about the African revolt of the Gordians in 238, and then the year of the six emperors.
A portrait that changes everything
The coinage records the break with striking clarity. The sestertii of Maximinus show an angular face, strong-nosed and heavy-chinned, with no Greek idealisation at all. The reverses speak of German victories and of the loyalty of the troops.
That hard, almost brutal style became the norm for imperial portraits in the third century. It is one of the cases where a political development can be seen translating immediately into an artistic one, and the sestertii of this reign remain among the most expressive of the period.
Further reading
Herodian, History of the Roman Empire, books VI and VII.
K. Dietz, Senatus contra principem, Munich, 1980, on the crisis of 238.