GORDIANUS, M. ANTONIUS, surnamed PIUS, was grandson of the elder Gordian, and raised to the empire at thirteen years of age; and when Maximus and Balbinus fell in an insurrection of the soldiers, he was left sole emperor. Having married Fabia Sabina Tranquillina, the daughter of his master of rhetoric, he appointed his father-in-law, Misitheus, prefect of the praetorian guards, and through his assistance emancipated himself from the hands of his mother's enemies. Misitheus proved himself an able minister, and discharged the military duties of his office with vigour and ability. He induced the young emperor to proceed against the Persians, who had invaded Mesopotamia; and during the whole of the expedition Misitheus watched over the safety and discipline of the army. He was suddenly cut off, however, and the suspicion was general that he had been poisoned by Philip, his successor in the prefecture. A short time afterwards a sedition broke out among the soldiers, which was fomented by this same Philip, and Gordian was killed, A.D. 244, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the little river Aboras. (See l'Histoire des quatre Gordiens, par Abbé Dubois; also Caspar, Historia trium Gordianorum, Deventer, 1697.)