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Message:: [QUOTE="GinoLR, post: 26141327, member: 128351"]Maximinus Thrax (could've been called Max the Thrax). He was born in the province of Thrace - hence his origo. He enlisted in the army and had a brilliant career. He accessed to the equestrian order and even commanded garrisons of the limes. Under Severus Alexander he was responsible for recruiting new soldiers and training them. He had the reputation of being a tough instructor, but became a charismatic commander. [ATTACH=full]1668701[/ATTACH] During a war in Germany in 235, his men assassinated the emperor Severus Alexander and his mother Julia Mamaea, and he was immediately proclaimed Augustus by the troops. For the first time a man from humilior origin became an emperor. He never went to Rome, and spent all his short reign fighting the Germans. His politics were all in favor of the military : he raised the taxes to raise the soldiers' pay. In 238, in Rome, the senators revolted. They elected Gordianus, the proconsul of Africa, as new Augustus. There was a civil war, All his competitors (Gordianus I, Gordianus II, Balbinus and Pupienus) were defeated and assassinated. The last emperor proclaimed by the senate against Maximinus was a child, Gordian III. Maximinus marched to Rome but was assassinated too, and his head displayed on a pole. In the British Museum there is an interesting sestertius defaced by some opponent to celebrate the beheading of Maximinus : [ATTACH=full]1668713[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]