Gordianus

the name of three Roman Emperors, father, son, and grandson. Marcus Antonius Gordianus , surnamed African us, rose to be an ædile, consul twice, and subsequently became proconsul of Africa; on the deposition of the Emperor Maximin us in 238, he, then in his eightieth year, was proclaimed emperor, his son ( b . A.D. 192) being a ociated with him in the imperial office; grief at the death of his son, killed in battle, caused him to commit suicide a month after he had a umed the purple; he was a man of refined and generous nature. Marcus Antonius Gordianus , grandson of preceding, was early raised to the dignity of Cæsar, and in 238 rose to the rank of August us; his most important achievement was his driving back of the Persians beyond the Euphrates and his relief of Antioch; he was a a inated in 244 by his own soldiers while preparing to cro the Euphrates.