This volume provides a highly detailed study of the short and troubled reign of Maximinus Thrax. Haegemans asks why Maximinus had such difficulty in consolidating his rule, examining the reasons behind senatorial hostility, the causes of the revolt which brought him down, and why it spread so widely. In so doing she also analyses longer-term systemtic problems in Imperial institutions, concluding that Maximinus' reign represents less a watershed, than part of an evolving and deeper rooted crisis.