The senate at Rome had recognised the Gordians, an act in which we see nothing of the usual behaviour of the cowardly, unwarlike aristocrats. It appointed twenty commissioners to preside over the armaments; and the prætorians were gained over, who had remained behind at Rome, and who very likely were neglected by Maximin: all the provinces moreover were called upon to declare themselves against the tyrant. The whole of Italy armed itself for a war of despair, and all the towns were fortified, when there came the dismal tidings of the defeat and death of the Gordians. On this, two of the commissioners, Maximus and Balbinus, were elected emperors; whether it was, that it was deemed necessary to have a division of labour; or to moderate the supreme power; or what seems to me most likely, to unite two parties. Balbinus, if in that time we may still draw conclusions from names, was a man of rank, and of the house of the Cælii: his name was D. Cælius Balbinus, and that of his colleague, M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus.[56] Balbinus remained behind at Rome; Maximus went to Ravenna, where he raised an army against Maximin, with which, however, he very wisely did not go out and face him. He ordered all the bridges over the many rivers in Lombardy to be broken down, and Aquileia was strongly fortified and garrisoned. It was defended with the courage of despair, the inhabitants being resolved upon holding out to the last; the country far and wide was abandoned, and every soul was in the town: Maximin, on the other hand, tried all he could to make this base of the enemy his own; the siege was protracted, and he was murdered here with his innocent son by the soldiers, who were already in want of provisions, and suffered greatly from the fevers which had seized them in that damp country. It is remarkable that he had a very amiable and kindhearted wife, and just as excellent a son, who, perhaps, would have become one of the best emperors. With regard to the time when Maximin fell, Tillemont’s and Gibbon’s chronology is impossible. According to the general account, it would seem as if Maximin had, like Sylla, gone on for the whole of a year with the war on the Danube, while Italy was in rebellion: this, however, is incorrect. Maximin had but his army for him. It is very likely that one province after the other fell away from him, which alone accounts for the miscarriage of his expedition: the whole of the Roman world must at last have declared against him. The most undeniable proof of this is to be found in a letter of the consul Claudius Julianus to Maximus and Balbinus, in which he expressly says that all the soldiers had given them adoration; and this letter was written even before the death of Maximin.