Gordian III
He was executed in 241 in the reign of Gordian III. The reasons are not recorded in the ancient sources and, in the absence of more precise dating, it cannot be determined whether his fall from grace was related to the abortive revolt of Sabinianus in Africa in 240 or to the appointment of Timesitheus as praetorian prefect and the loss of influence of the previously dominant court-faction that had looked to the mother of the emperor Gordian III. All that can be said with any certainty concerning the downfall of Menophilus was that it related to the troubled aftermath of the senatorial overthrow of the emperor Maximinus Thrax.