May, 238 AD.

It was another day, and Quintus Cinna Cocceius quietly stood near the north gate of the Via Flaminia as he took everything in with the thousands of other citizens.

While Pupienus Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the Emperor Maximinus, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled every senator carried either open or concealed arms.

Though only a few days ago Maximus had arrived privately into Rome with a small group of soldiers, this morning was a different event. The official return of Maximus was with a triumphal procession. His colleague, Balbinus, and the boy Gordianus went out to meet him, and the three princes made their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the unfeigned acclamations of the senate and wealthy, who persuaded themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron.

Yesterday, such was the joy of Balbinus, who was in even greater terror, that he sacrificed a hecatomb as soon as Maximinus' head was brought to him. Now a hecatomb is a sacrifice performed in the following manner: a hundred altars made of turf are erected at one place, and before them a hundred swine and a hundred sheep are slaughtered. Furthermore, if it be an emperor's sacrifice, a hundred lions, a hundred eagles, and several hundreds of other animals of this kind are slain.

The mayor of Beneventum, an older pudgy man known as Claudius Julianus, with numerous gold rings on his hand read out a letter to congratulate the two: "When first I learned that by choice of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, of the immortal gods and of the senate, together with the agreement of all mankind, you had undertaken to preserve the state from the sins of that impious bandit and rule it in accordance with Roman law, my lords and most holy and unconquerable Augusti, when first I learned this, not yet from your own sacred proclamations but from the decree of the senate that my illustrious colleague Celsus Aelianus forwarded to me, I felicitated the city of Rome, that you had been chosen to preserve it; I felicitated the senate, that you, in returned for its choosing you, had restored to it its early dignity; I felicitated Italy, that you are defending it particularly from spoliation by the enemy; I felicitated the provinces, torn in pieces by the insatiable greed of tyrants, that you are restoring them to some hope of safety; I felicitated the legions, lastly, and the auxiliaries, which now worship your images everywhere, that they have thrust away their former disgrace and have now, in your name, a worthy symbol of the Roman principate. No voice will ever be so strong, no speech will ever be so happy, no talent will ever be so fortunate, as ever adequately to express the state's felicity. How great this felicity is, and of what sort, we can see at the very beginning of your reign. You have restored Roman laws, you have restored justice that was abolished, mercy that was non-existent, life, morality, liberty, and the hope of heirs and successors. It is difficult even to enumerate these things, and much more to describe them with a fit dignity of speech. How shall I tell or describe how you have restored us our very lives, after that accursed bandit, sending the executioners everywhere throughout the provinces, had sought them to the point of openly confessing that he was enraged at our whole order, especially when my insignificance cannot express even the personal rejoicing of my own mind, to say nothing of the public felicity, and when I behold as Augusti and lords of the human race those by the unwavering elegance of whose lives I would like my own conduct and sobriety to be approved as by the ancient censors? And though I might trust to have them approved by the attestation of former princes, still I would glory in your judgment as a weightier one. May the gods preserve — and they will preserve — this felicity for the Roman world! For when I observe you, I can hope for nothing else than what the conqueror of Carthage is said to have implored of the gods, namely, that they preserve the state in the condition in which it was then, since no better one could be found. And, therefore, I pray that they may preserve this state, that has tottered up to now, in the condition in which you have established it."

The decree of the senate by which they were aroused was of this nature: When Balbinus, Gordian, the senate, and the Roman people went out to meet Maximus as he entered the city, acclamations which referred to the soldiers were made publicly first. Thereafter they went to the Senate-house, and there, after the ordinary acclamations which are usually made, they said: "So fare emperors wisely chosen, so perish emperors chosen by fools." For it was understood that Maximinus had been made emperor by the soldiers, Maximus and Balbinus by the senators. And when they heard this, the soldiers began to rage even more furiously — especially at the senate, which believed it was triumphing over the soldiers.

[This has all been documented between the Historia Augusta and Gibbons' Fall of the Roman Empire]