Maximus Thrax was born around 173 CE in the Balkans, a Thraco-Roman of genuinely humble stock. The hostile ancient sources, especially the gossipy Historia Augusta, pile on the legend: that he stood over eight feet tall, used his wife's bracelet as a thumb ring, could drag loaded wagons and pulverize rocks with his fists, and put away absurd quantities of meat and wine. His ascent says everything about where the empire was headed. In 235, mutinous troops on the Rhine murdered Severus Alexander and his mother and hailed Maximinus instead. Historians traditionally mark his accession as the opening of the Crisis of the Third Century, the half-century of chaos that nearly tore Rome apart. Interestingly, he never bothered with the city of Rome. He spent his entire three-year reign in the field, hammering Germans and Sarmatians along the frontier and squeezing the provinces with heavy taxes to pay for it. The Senate loathed him for it. In 238, the famous "Year of the Six Emperors," revolt cascaded across the empire. Maximinus marched on Italy, stalled at the walls of Aquileia, and his own hungry, frustrated soldiers cut him and his son down in their tent.