In fact Pupienus was part of the aristocracy, albeit a minor member, and his family had possibly been elevated only recently.[7] Hailing from theEtruscan city ofVolterra,[8] 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 theSenate, and wife Clodia Pulchra.[9]
The claim in theHistoria Augusta that Pupienus held three praetorianproconsular governorships is unlikely. For one thing, as Bernard Rémy points out, during Pupienus' lifetime the province of Bithynia et Pontus was an imperial one, governed by an imperiallegatus. Remy points out another problem: that being awarded three praetorian proconsular governorships violates what is known of Roman practice, and lacks any similar cases. Remy pointedly quotes the opinion ofAndré Chastagnol, who recommended "to admit an information provided by theAugustan 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."[10]
After his consulship (around the year 222), hiscursus honorum is much more reliable. Pupienus was later assigned asimperial legate to one of theGerman provinces, most probably after his firstsuffect consulship, circa 207 AD.[11] While governor he scored military victories over theSarmatians and German tribes. At some point after he concluded his duties in the German province, thesortition awarded him proconsular governorship ofAsia.[12]
In 234, during the last years ofSeverus Alexander's reign, he was installed as consul for the second time. In that same year he was also appointedUrban Prefect of Rome and gained a reputation for severity, to the extent that he became unpopular with the Roman mob.[13]
WhenGordian I and hisson were proclaimed emperors in Africa, the Senate appointed a committee of twenty men, including the elderly senator Pupienus, to co-ordinate operations againstMaximinus Thrax until the arrival of the Gordians.[14] On the news of the Gordians' defeat and deaths, however, the Senate met in closed session in theTemple of Jupiter Capitolinus and voted for two members of the committee to be installed as co-emperors: Pupienus andBalbinus.[11] Unlike the situation in 161, both emperors were elected aspontifices maximi, chief priests of the official cults.[15]
According toEdward Gibbon (drawing on the narratives of Herodian and theHistoria Augusta), the choice was sensible, as:
the mind of Maximus [Pupienus] was formed in a rougher mould [than that of Balbinus]. 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.[16]
Denarius of Pupienus. Inscription: "IMP C M CLOD PUPIENUS AUG"
However, factions within the Senate who had hoped to profit from the accession of the Gordians manipulated the people and thePraetorian Guard to agitate for the elevation ofGordian III as their imperial colleague.[17] Leaving his senior colleague Balbinus in charge of the civil administration at Rome, sometime during late April, Pupienus marched toRavenna, where he oversaw the campaign against Maximinus, recruiting German auxiliary troops who had served under him whilst he was in Germania.[11] After Maximinus wasassassinated by his soldiers just outside Aquileia, Pupienus dispatched both Maximinus' troops and his own back to their provinces (along with a considerable donative) and returned to Rome with his newly acquired German bodyguard.[18]
Balbinus, in the meantime, had failed to keep public order in the capital. The sources suggest that Balbinus suspected Pupienus of using his German bodyguard to supplant him, and they were soon living in different parts of the Imperial palace.[19] This meant that they were at the mercy of disaffected elements in the Praetorian Guard, who resented serving under Senate-appointed emperors, and now plotted to kill them.[20] Pupienus, becoming aware of the threat, begged Balbinus to call for the German bodyguard. Balbinus, believing that this news was part of a plot by Pupienus to have him assassinated, refused, and the two began to argue just as the Praetorians burst into the room. Both emperors were seized and dragged back to thePraetorian barracks where they were tortured and hacked to death in the bath house.[11] They only ruled 99 days.[21][22][23]
Three individuals have been identified as his children.Titus Clodius Pupienus Pulcher Maximus,consul suffectus c. 235, andpatron of the town ofTibur outside Rome, has been identified as his oldest son.[24]Marcus Pupienus Africanus Maximus,consul ordinarius in 236 as the colleague of the EmperorMaximinus Thrax, has been identified as his youngest son.[25] These consulships in the family, across the reigns of Severus Alexander and Maximinus Thrax, suggest that the family was influential and in high favour. Pupienus also had a daughter, named Pupiena Sextia Paulina Cethegilla, wife ofMarcus Ulpius Eubiotus Leurus.[26]
^Zonaras (c. 1120)Epitomexvii.17. "[Pupienus] Maximus was seventy-four years old, Albinus sixty. According to some they reigned about twenty-two days [referring toGordian I andGordian II], but according to others not quite three months."
^John Drinkwater,Maximinus to Diocletian and the crisis, inThe Cambridge ancient history: The crisis of empire, A.D. 193–337 (ed. Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey,Averil Cameron) (2005), p. 32
^Michel Christol,L'empire romain du IIIe siècle: histoire politique (1997), p. 114
^Christian Settipani,Continuité gentilice et continuité familiale dans les familles sénatoriales romaines à l'époque impériale: mythe et réalité (2000), pg. 120 – Note that this speculation is based upon onomastic similarities and probabilities
^John Drinkwater,Maximinus to Diocletian and the crisis, inThe Cambridge ancient history: The crisis of empire, A.D. 193–337 (ed. Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Averil Cameron) (2005), pgs. 33
^McMahon,Pupienus (238 A.D.) and Balbinus (238 A.D.); Southern, pg. 67
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