Surely the largest man ever to hold imperial office. The Historia Augusta recorded his height at 8 ft 6 (2.6 metres); and so strong he could pull an ox cart on his own. Extraordinarily brave and physically overwhelming, he made the ideal soldier. Legendary physical prowess had him rise up the military ladder. By AD 232 he might have commanded a legion based in Egypt; and he played a leading role in the campaign against the Parthians by Alexander Severus. In AD 235 he was on the Rhine in command of a force of recruits from Pannonia. The army revolted, killed Alexander Severus and his mother Julia Mamaea, and proclaimed the giant Maximinus emperor. After much political crisis, the senate, which had clearly supported the Gordians and which was determined to rid itself from the common soldier on the throne now pronounced no fewer than two new emperors, Pupienus and Balbinus, with the young Gordian III as Caesar. On 10 May AD 238 some of the troops, most of all those whose families were in territory held by the enemy (the Praetorians and the Legio II 'Parthica'), rose in revolt and killed Maximinus and his son Maximus. Their heads were severed and carried to Rome by a group of cavalrymen.

Main Roman Coin Book and Other References:

RIC = Mattingly, Harold    The Roman Imperial Coinage
BMC = Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum
RSC = Seaby, H A    Roman Silver Coinage
RCV = Sear, David R    Roman Coins and Their Values
Cr = Crawford, Michael    The Roman Republican Coinage
SB = Sear, David R    Byzantine Coins and Their Values
S = Coins of England and the United Kingdom
WW = Wildwinds.com (reference & attribution site)