Balbinus Balbinus ( ; c . 165 – 29 July 238 ) , was Roman Emperor with Pupienus for three months in 238 , the Year of the Six Emperors . Origins and career . Not much is known about Balbinus before his elevation to emperor . It has been conjectured that he descended from Publius Coelius Balbinus Vibullius Pius , the consul ordinarius of 136 or 137 , and wife Aquilia . If this were true , he was also related to the family of Q . Pompeius Falco , which supplied many politicians of consular rank throughout the 3rd century , and to the 1st - century politician , engineer and author Julius Frontinus , as well as a descendant of a first cousin of Trajan . He was a patrician from birth , and was the son ( either by birth or adoption ) of . . . Caelius Calvinus , who was legate of Cappadocia in 184 . He was one of the Salii priests of Mars . According to Herodian he had governed provinces , but the list of seven provinces given in the " Historia Augusta " , as well as the statement that Balbinus had been both Proconsul of Asia and of Africa , are likely to be mere invention . He had certainly been twice consul ; his first consulate is not certainly known but is believed to have been about 203 or in July 211 ; he was consul for the second time in 213 as colleague of Caracalla , which suggests he enjoyed that emperor ' s favour . Reign . According to Edward Gibbon ( drawing upon the narratives of Herodian and the " Historia Augusta " ) : Balbinus was an admired orator , a poet of distinguished fame , and a wise magistrate , who had exercised with innocence and applause the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of the empire . His birth was noble , his fortune affluent , his manners liberal and affable . In him , the love of pleasure was corrected by a sense of dignity , nor had the habits of ease deprived him of a capacity for business . ( . . . ) The two colleagues [ Pupienus and Balbinus ] had both been consul ( Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honourable office ) , both had been named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate ; and , since the one was sixty and the other seventy - four years old , they had both attained the full maturity of age and experience . When the Gordians were proclaimed Emperors in Africa , the Senate appointed a committee of twenty men , including Balbinus , to co - ordinate operations against Maximinus Thrax . On the news of the Gordians ' defeat , the Senate met in closed session in the Temple of Jupiter and voted Pupienus and Balbinus as co - emperors , though they were soon forced to co - opt the child Gordian III as a colleague . Unlike the situation in 161 , both emperors were elected as " pontifices maximi " , chief priests of the official cults . This would be unthinkable in Republican times . Balbinus was probably in his early seventies : his qualifications for rule are unknown , except presumably that he was a senior senator , rich and well - connected . While Pupienus marched to Ravenna , where he oversaw the campaign against Maximinus , Balbinus remained in Rome , but failed to keep public order . The sources suggest that after Pupienus ' s victorious return following Maximinus ' death , Balbinus suspected Pupienus of wanting to supplant him , and they were soon living in different parts of the Imperial palace , where they were later assassinated by disaffected elements of the Praetorian Guard . Sarcophagus . The ' sarcophagus of Balbinus ' has earned this Emperor a niche in the history of Roman Imperial art . When presumably holding the title of Emperor , Balbinus had a marble sarcophagus made for himself and his wife ( whose name is unknown ) . Discovered in fragments near the Via Appia and restored , this is the only example of a Roman Imperial sarcophagus of this type to have survived . On the lid are reclining figures of Balbinus and his wife , the figure of the Emperor also being a fine portrait of him . The sarcophagus is held in collection at the " Museo di Pretastato " ( at the catacombs of Praetextatus ) in the Park of the Caffarella near the Appian Way at Rome . Although in accounts of their joint reign Balbinus is emphasized as the civilian as against Pupienus the military man , on the side of the sarcophagus he is portrayed in full military dress .