Young Gordian reigned for six years. When his praetorian prefect, Misitheus, died of the flux, the replacement, Philip, who aspired to the throne, had the boy murdered.
The events described here reflect the continuing rot of the empire. Power was concentrated in armies located far from Rome, commanded by provincials who had no connection to the mother city. In isolation, they rallied around their commanders, who, when they coveted the power of Rome, would move to take over. All of the factors that made the republic function: family history, a sense of culture, substantial political experience, and education were collapsed down to a remnant group of patricians and new men who had lost their authority forever.