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senate. On the father's side he was descended from the Gracchi; on his
mother's, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate enabled him to support
the dignity of his birth, and in the enjoyment of it, he displayed an
elegant taste and beneficent disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly
inhabited by the great Pompey, had been, during several generations,
in the possession of Gordian's family. It was distinguished by ancient
trophies of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
painting. His villa on the road to Praeneste was celebrated for baths of
singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a hundred feet in
length, and for a magnificent portico, supported by two hundred columns
of the four most curious and costly sorts of marble. The public shows
exhibited at his expense, and in which the people were entertained with
many hundreds of wild beasts and gladiators, seem to surpass the
fortune of a subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was
confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of Gordian
was repeated, when he was aedile, every month in the year, and extended,
during his consulship, to the principal cities of Italy. He was twice
elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by Caracalla and by Alexander;
for he possessed the uncommon talent of acquiring the esteem of virtuous
princes, without alarming the jealousy of tyrants. His long life was
innocently spent in the study of letters and the peaceful honors of
Rome; and, till he was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the
senate and the approbation of Alexander, he appears prudently to have
declined the command of armies and the government of provinces. * As
long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the administration of
his worthy representative: after the barbarous Maximin had usurped
the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries which he was unable to
prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the purple, he was above
fourscore years old; a last and valuable remains of the happy age of the
Antonines, whose virtues he revived in his own conduct, and celebrated
in an elegant poem of thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his
son, who had accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise
declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character was
equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged
concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the
varie