GORDIANO III (M. Antonius Gordianus), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Born in Rome on 20 December 224 to Giunius Balbus and Mecia Faustina; died in Syria, near Circesium, in February or March 244. He was emperor from 238 to 244. After his uncle Gordian II and his grandfather Gordian I died in Africa in 238, he was acclaimed emperor by the soldiers and the people of Rome, against the Senate, which had invested Pupienus and Balbinus with power; they were killed shortly thereafter.
In 241 he married Fulvia Sabinia Tranquillina, daughter of the able commander Timesitheus, whom G. raised to the position of praetorian prefect, thereby becoming the effective ruler of the Empire. Together with him, in the following year, G. went to fight the Persians in Syria. But while the imperial armies were triumphing, reconquering Antioch, Carrhae, and Nisibis, Timesitheus died in 243, thus changing the fortunes of the young G.; for the new praetorian prefect, Philip the Arab, who aspired to the Empire, incited the soldiers against him, and they killed him in the first months of 244. Under G., the Church enjoyed a period of peace, consolidated under his successor Philip the Arab, perhaps indicative of a changed direction in domestic policy, but one that lasted only briefly.