The Senate finds itself in great jeopardy…

The Senate finds itself in great jeopardy with the collapse of the African revolt.

Gordian's rule of only a few weeks had drawn the Senate to oppose Maximinus.

Having shown clear support for the Gordians, they can expect no clemency from Maximinus when he reaches Rome.

In this predicament, they determine to defy Maximinus, and in April 238 the rebellious Senate places the government in the hands of a board of twenty, one of whom is the patrician Balbinus—a Salian priest, twice a consul, and proconsul in Asia—and then chooses Balbinus and Pupienus Maximus to be joint emperors.

Pupienus, a seventy-four-year-old former city prefect, is extremely unpopular with the people of Rome.

When the Roman mob hears that the Senate has selected two men from the Patrician class, men whom the ordinary people hold in no great regard, they protest, showering the imperial cortège with sticks and stones.

When the enraged populace besieges the Senate and emperors in the Capitol, Balbinus and Pupienus, having no option but to compromise, extricate themselves by appointing as Caesar the young Gordian, grandson of the original leader of the revolt, with the backing of Gordian III's father-in-law, the praetorian prefect Timesitheus.

Pupienus advances to defeat Maximinus, and Balbinus, in charge of the civil administration, remains in Rome to maintain order, a task in which he signally fails.

A revolt of the praetorians is not repressed until much blood has been shed and a considerable part of the city reduced to ashes.