Balbinus

Balbinus, fully named Decimus Clodius Balbinus, was a Roman senator who held the imperial title briefly as a co-emperor in 238 CE. He ruled jointly with Pupienus Maximus during the crisis year known to historians as the Year of the Six Emperors. Their accession came after the deaths of Gordian I and Gordian II, and their shared reign lasted only a few months before they were killed by the Praetorian Guard. The period is characterized by rapid and unstable changes of leadership across the Roman Empire.

Balbinus belonged to the patrician gens Clodius Balbinus. Details of his early life and career are poorly documented, but he was a senior and prominent member of the Senate by the time of his elevation to the throne. This scarcity of reliable biographical information is typical of several mid-third-century figures who rose to power during the imperial crisis.

During their brief tenure as emperors, Balbinus and Pupienus faced substantial military and political pressures, including unrest among provincial forces and discontent within the capital. The combination of factional opposition and the volatile security situation proved insurmountable, and in 238 the Praetorian Guard murdered both emperors. Their deaths removed them from the line of succession and cleared the way for the ascent of Gordian III later that year.

In modern scholarship, Balbinus is regarded as a relatively obscure figure whose reign had limited lasting impact on Roman institutions. Primary sources from antiquity, such as Herodian and the Historia Augusta, provide the basis for what is known, though some of these accounts are considered of uneven reliability.