Maximianus

Roman emperor, A. D. 286-305-310. M. Aurelius Valerius Maximianus born of humble parents in Pannonia, had acquired such high fame by his services in the army, that when Diocletian carried into effect (A. D. 285) his celebrated scheme for dividing without dismembering the empire [Diocletianus, p. 1012], he was induced to select this rough soldier for his colleague, as one whose habits and abilities were likely to prove particularly valuable in the actual disturbed state of public affairs, and accordingly created him first Caesar (285), and then Augustus (286), conferring at the same time the honorary appellation of Herculius, while he himself assumed that of Jovius, epithets which afforded a copious theme to the panegyrists of that epoch for broad adulation and far-fetched conceits. The subsequent history of Maximian is so intimately blended with that of his patron and of Constantine, that almost every particular has been fully detailed in former articles. [Diocletianus; Constantinus I.; Maxentius.] It will be sufficient, therefore, to direct attention to the leading facts, that after having been most reluctantly persuaded, if not compelled to abdicate, at Milan, on the first of May, A. D. 305, he eagerly obeyed the invitation of his son Maxentius the following year (306), and quitting his retirement in Lucania, was again invested with all the insignia of the imperial station; that having by his bravery and skill, averted the dangers which threatened Italy, having compassed the death of Severus (307), and having repulsed Galerius, he formed a close union with Constantine, on whom he bestowed the title of Augustus and the hand of his daughter Fausta ; that on his return to Rome he was expelled by Maxentius, who, having become impatient of his control and dictation, pretended or believed that he had formed a plot for his dethronement; that having betaken himself to the court of Galerius, and having been there detected in the prosecution of treasonable intrigues, he sought refuge with his son-in-law, and, to disarm all suspicion, once more formally threw off the purple; that having taken advantage of the temporary absence of his protector and treacherously gained possession of the treasures deposited at Aries, by profuse bribery he persuaded a body of soldiers to proclaim him Augustus for the third time; that having been shut up in Marseilles and compelled to surrender, he was stripped of all his dignities, but permitted to retain his life and liberty (308); but that, finally, two years afterwards, having vainly endeavoured to induce his daughter Fausta to destroy her husband, he was ordered to choose the manner of his death, and strangled himself in the month of February, A. D.

The whole history of this stormy period bears testimony to the military talents of Maximianus, and proves with equal certainty that he was totally destitute of all dignity of mind, thoroughly unprincipled, not merely rough and stem, but base and cruel. All authorities agree that he was altogether devoid of cultivation or refinement, and it is said that his features and general aspect were an index of the coarseness and harshness of the mind within. So long as he was guided by the superior genius and commanding intellect of Diocletian, he performed well the work for which he was chosen, but the latter years of his life, when left to the direction of his own judgment, exhibit a melancholy spectacle of weak ambition, turbulence, perfidy, and crime.

Maximianus married Eutropia, a widow of Syrian extraction, by whom he had two children, the emperor Maxentius, and Fausta, wife of Constantine the Great. Eutropia, by her former husband, who is unknown, had a daughter, Flavia Maximiana Theodora, who was united to Constantius Chlorus when he was elevated to the rank of Caesar. [Eutropia; Fausta; Theodora.] Further Information

Zosim. 2.7, 8, 10, 11; Zonar. 12.31, 32, 33 ; Actor. de Mort. Persec. 8, 29, 30; Panegyr. Vet. ii. passim, 3.3, 10, 14, 6.9, 7.14, &c.; Victor, de Caes. Epit. 39, 40; Eutrop. 9.14, 16, 10.1. 2; Oros. 7.25, 28; Gruter. Corp. Inscrip. cclxxxi. 4; Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. not. v. xix. in Dioclet.; Eckhel, vol. viii. p. 15.

[W.R]

Roman emperor, A. D. 305-311. Galerius Valerius Maximianus, born near Sardica in Dacia, was the son of a shepherd, and in early life followed the humble calling of his parent. Hence he is frequently designated in history by the epithet Armentarius, although this must be regarded rather as a familiar than as a formal appellation, since it nowhere appears upon any public monument. Having served in the wars of Aurelian and Probus, he passed through all the inferior grades of military rank in succession, with such distinguished reputation, that when Diocletian remodelled the constitution of the empire [Diocletianus, p. 1012], he was chosen along with Constantius Chlorus, in A. D. 292, to discharge the dignified but arduous duties of a Caesar, was adopted by the elder emperor, whose daughter Valeria he received in marriage, was permitted to participate in the title of Jovius, and was entrusted with the command of Illyria and Thrace. In A. D. 297 he undertook an expedition against the Persian monarch Narses, and after his failure was treated with the most insulting harshness by his father-in-law. But having fully redeemed his credit by the glorious issue of the second campaign [DIOCLETIANUS, p. 1012], he from this time forward assumed a more haughty bearing, which gradually took the form of arrogant dictation, as the bodily health and mental energies of his superior gradually sunk under the pressure of complicated anxieties. Upon the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian (A. D. 305), an event which is said to have been hastened, if not caused, by his intrigues and threats, Galerius having succeeded in nominating two creatures of his own, Daza and Severus [Maximinus II.; Severus], to the posts of Caesars, now vacant in consequence of the elevation of himself and Constantius to the higher rank of Augusti, began to look forward with confidence to the period when the death of his colleague should leave him sole master of the world. But these hopes were destined to be signally frustrated. The news of the decease of Chlorus was accompanied by the intelligence that the troops had enthusiastically proffered their allegiance to his son. Galerius, filled with disappointment and rage, found himself in no condition to resist, and although he refused to concede a higher title than that of Caesar to Constantine, was obliged virtually to resign all claim to the sovereignty of Gaul and Britain. This mortification was followed by the more formidable series of disasters occasioned by the usurpation of Maxentius which led to the destruction of Severus, to the disgrace of Galerius himself, after a most calamitous campaign, and thus to the loss of Italy and Africa [Maxentius], A. D. 307. From this time forward, however, his life passed more tranquilly, for having supplied the place of Severus by his old friend and comrade Licinius [Licinius], he seems to have abandoned those schemes of extravagant ambition once so eagerly cherished, and to have devoted his attention to great works of public utility, the draining of lakes and the clearing of forests, until cut off in A. D. 311, by the same terrible disease which is said to have terminated the existence of Sulla and of Herod Agrippa.

Of a haughty and ungovernable temper, cruel to his enemies, ungrateful to his benefactors, a stranger to all the arts which soften the heart or refine the intellect, the character of this prince presents nothing to admire, except the valour of a fearless soldier and the skill of an accomplished general. The blackest shade upon his memory is thrown by his pitiless persecution of the Christians, whom he ever regarded with rancorous hostility, instigated, we are told, by the furious bigotry of his mother, an ardent cultivator of some of the darker rites of the ancient faith. The fatal ordinance of Diocletian, which for so many years deluged the world with innocent blood, is said to have been extorted by the pertinacious violence of Galerius, whose tardy repentance expressed in the famous edict of toleration published immediately before his death, made but poor amends for the amount of misery which he had deliberately caused.

Galerius, by his first wife, whose name is unknown, and whom he was required to repudiate when created Caesar, had one daughter, who was married to Maxentius; by his second, Galeria Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian, he had no children. [Valeria.] Further Information

Zosim. 2.8, 10, 11 ; Zonar. 12.32, 33, 34; Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 8.5, 17, Vit. Constant. 18; Auctor. de Mort. Persec. 18, &c., 33, &c.; Amm. Marc. 14.11.10; Victor, de Caes. 39, 40, Epit. 39, 40; Eutrop. 9.15, 10.1_3; Ores. 7.26, 28; Jornandes, de Rebus Get. 21; Fragments published by Valesius at the end of his ed. of Amm. Marc. § 3. [W.R]

the poet, whose full name was Cornelius Maximianus Gallus Etruscus

In the year 1501, Pomponius Gauricus, a Neapolitan youth of nineteen, published at Venice six amatory elegies, little remarkable for purity of thought or of expression, under the title Cornelii Galli Fragmenta, with a preface, in which he endeavoured to prove from internal evidence that they must be regarded as belonging to the ill-fated Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil and Ovid. [GALLUS, CORNELIUS.] They profess to be written by an old man, and the leading theme is the infirmities and miseries of age. These, as contrasted with the vigour and joys of youth, form the exclusive subject of the first piece; the second, third, and fourth contain an account of three mistresses who had in succession ruled his heart, Aquilina, Candida, and Lycoris; the two former had been the objects of a transient flame; the last, long his faithful companion, had at length forsaken him in declining years; in the fifth he gives the history of a senile passion for a Grecian damsel; and the sixth, which extends to a dozen lines only, is filled with complaints and lamentations called forth by the near approach of death. The points upon which Gauricus chiefly insisted for the proof of his proposition were:--1. That we know from Virgil and other sources that Lycoris was the name under which Gallus celebrated the charms and the cruelty of his loved Cytheris. 2. That the author of these poems describes himself as an Etruscan. 3. That the expressions at the beginning of the fifth elegy evidently allude to his office as prefect of Egypt.

These reasonings were at first freely admitted; the elegies were frequently reprinted with the name of Gallus, and subjoined without suspicion to many of the earlier editions of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, as the works of their contemporary. Upon a more critical examination, however, it was soon perceived that the impure Latinity and faulty versification accorded ill with the Augustan era; that a fictitious name, such as Lycoris, might be regarded as common property; that the fact, which is unquestionable, of the author declaring himself an Etruscan, in itself proves that he could not be Cornelius Gallus who was a native of Forum Julii (Frejus) in Southern Gaul; that the repinings at old age were altogether out of place in one who perished while yet in the strength of manhood; and finally, that the terms in which an allusion is made to his political appointment-- Missus ad Eoas legati munere partes Tranquillum cunctis nectere pacis opus, Dum studeo gemini componere foedera regni, Inveni cordis bella nefanda mei, are such as could never have been employed to designate the duties of the imperial prefect in the most important and jealously guarded of all the Roman provinces. But when, in addition to these considerations, it was discovered that the MSS., which are very numerous, and the early printed impressions, of which two at least, if not three, had appeared in the fifteenth century, exhibited a couplet which was altogether omitted by Gauricus, and that this couplet (4.25), Atque aliquis, cui caeca foret bene nota voluptas, Cantat, cantantem Maximianus amat, actually furnished the name of the real author, a name, be it remarked, prefixed to many MSS., and to these very early editions, it became evident that fraud had been at work, and that Gauricus had been guilty of deliberate imposture. Some time, however, elapsed before the most acute scholars could divest themselves of the impression that Gallus was in some way concerned with these productions. Gyraldus contended that one or two out of the six might be genuine; Julius Caesar Scaliger went farther, and believed that only one was spurious, that on Aquilina; while Barthius imagined that all anomalies might be explained by supposing that the sketches of Gallus had been overlaid and interpolated by a later and unskilful land. By degrees these and similar positions were found untenable, and the whole fabric was acknowledged to be the workmanship of a semi-barbarous epoch. This being granted, the next task was to discover who Maximianus was, and when he flourished. This investigation cannot be pushed far. From his own words we conclude, as noticed above, that he was by birth an Etruscan: it would appear that he spent his youth at Rome, devoting himself to poetry and rhetoric, that he acquired widespread reputation as a speaker-- Orator toto clarus in orbe fui, and that, when far advanced in life, he was despatched to the East on an important mission, involving the peaceful relations of two kingdoms. Beyond this we can scarcely advance. Goldastus, Fontanini, and Wernsdorf have, indeed, proved to their own satisfaction that he is the very Maximianus to whom king Theodoric addressed a letter preserved by Cassiodorus (Variar. 1.21), and they have undertaken to determine the period and the object of the embassy. Their reasoning, however, is so shadowy that it completely eludes the grasp, and is in fact an elaborate attempt to create a substantial reality out of nothing. The most stringent argument which they can find is based upon the couplet (3.47), Hic mihi, magnarum scrutator maxime rerum, Solus, Boeti, fers miseratus opem, where it is assumed that the person addressed must be Boethius the philosopher.

Three out of the four names placed at the head of this article are probably fictitious. The MSS., we are assured, exhibit simply Maximianus, or L. Maximianus.

The Editio Princeps, in fol., which, although without date, and without name of place or printer, is known by bibliographers to have been printed at Utrecht about 1473, bears for its title Maximiani Philosophi atque Oratoris clarissimi Ethica suavis et perjoconda and a second edition, also very old, but without date, printed at Paris in 4to. by S. Jehannot and Petrus le Drou, commences Perjucundus, juvenum quoque mirum in modum demuleens animos, Libellus, quem nugarum Maximiani immitis Alexander intitulat, &c. The verses having for a long time after the publication of Gauricus been extensively circulated as the remains of Cornelius Gallus, were eventually allowed to retain his designation along with that of the lawful owner, and Etruscus is merely an epithet attached by some editor.

The present division into six pieces is purely arbitrary, and originated, it would appear, with Gauricus. In many codices the whole are written as one continuous poem, with the following or some similar inscription, Facetum et perjucundum Poema de A moribus Maximiani, Poetae doctissimi, Oratoris suavissimi,

Labbe in his Bibliotheca nova Manuscriptorum mentions other poems of Maximianus, which he distinguishes, Super Senectute; Regulam Metricam; Carmen de Virtute et Invidia, de Ira, Patientia, et Avaritia; but of these nothing is known, unless the first be another name for what we now possess. There is no reason to believe that the epigrams in the anthology found among the exercises of the twelve scholastic poets, one of whom is called Maximianus, have any connection with the individual whom we are now discussing. Editions

The elegies will be found under their best form in the Poetae Latini Minores of Wernsdorf, vol. vi. pars i. p. 269, who gives a detailed catalogue of the different editions. Further Information

For further information consult Goldastus, Epist. dedic. ad Ovidii Opuscula Erotica, Francf. 1610; Bernardus Moneta, in Menagianis, ed. tert., Paris, 1715, vol. i. p. 336; Souchaye, Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, vol. xvi.; Fontanini, Historia Litter. Aquileiae, 4to. Rom. 1742, lib. 1. c.3 ; Withofius, Alaximnianus primaevae inteqr. restit., 8vo. 1741. [W.R]

(1) A Roman emperor, who ruled A.D. 286-305, originally a Pannonian soldier. He was made by Diocletian his colleague in the Empire, but was compelled to abdicate along with the latter. (See Diocletianus.) When his son Maxentius assumed the imperial title in the following year (306), he resided some time at Rome; but being expelled from the city by Maxentius, he took refuge in Gaul with Constantine, who had married his daughter Fausta. Here he was compelled by Constantine, against whom he is said to have conspired, to put an end to his own life in 310.

(2) Galerius Maximiānus, usually called Galerius, Roman emperor, A.D. 305-311. He was first made Caesar by Diocletian, whose daughter he had married; and upon the abdication of Diocletian and Maximianus (305), he became Augustus or emperor. He died in 311, of the disgusting disease known in modern times by the name of morbus pediculosus. He was a cruel persecutor of the Christians.

(3) Maximiānus of Etruria. A Latin poet in the beginning of the sixth century after Christ. He is the author of six amatory elegies, modelled on classical poets, from whom he borrowed largely. His chief theme is a lament for the prospective loss of his youth. Edited first by Gauricus (Venice, 1501), who ascribed the elegies to Cornelius Gallus; and lately by Bährens in his Poetae Latini Minores, v. 316; and Petschenig (Berlin, 1890). See Professor Robinson Ellis in the American Journal of Philology (1884).