MAXIMIANUS, Marcus Aurelius Valerius, surnamed Πerculius, Roman emperor from 286 to 305, and again in a doubtful manner for some time prior to 308, was by birth a Pannonian peasant, but achieved great distinction in the course of long service in the army in almost every quarter of the empire, and, having been made Caesar by Diocletian in 285, received the title of Augustus in the following year (April 1, 286) with the honorary appellation of Herculius. In 287 he suppressed the rising of the peasants (Bagaudae) in Gaul, but in 289, after a three years’ struggle, his colleague and he were compelled to acquiesce in the assumption by his lieutenant Carausius of the title of Augustus in Britain. After 292, Maximian left the care of the Rhine frontier to Constantius Chlorus, who had been designated Caesar in that year, but in 297 ids arms achieved a rapid and decisive victory over the barbarians of Mauretania, and in November 303 he shared at Rome the triumph of Diocletian, the last pageant of the kind ever witnessed by that city. On May 1, 305, the day of Diocletian’s abdication, he also, but without his colleague’s sincerity, divested himself of the imperial dignity at Milan, which had been his capital, and retired to a villa in Lucania; in the following year, however, he was induced by his son Maxentius to reassume the purple. In 307 he brought the emperor Severus a captive to Rome, and also compelled the retreat of Galerius, but in 308 he was himself driven by Maxentius from Italy into Illyricum, whence again he was compelled to seek refuge at Arles, the court of his son-in-law Constantine. Here a false report was received, or invented, of the death of Constantine, at that time absent on the Rhine, and Maximian at once grasped at the succession, but was soon driven ...to Marseilles, where, having been delivered up to his pursuers, he strangled himself in 310 (February).
MAXIMIANUS, GaleriusValerius, usually referred to by his name Galerius, Roman emperor from 305 to 311, was born near Sardica in Dacia, and originally followed his father’s occupation, that of a herdsman, whence his surname of Armentarius. He served with distinction as a soldier under Aurelian and Probus, and in 292 was designated Caesar along with Constantius, receiving in marriage Diocletian’s daughter Valeria, and at the same time having assigned to him as his special charge the care of the Illyrian provinces. In 296, at thebeginning of the Persian war, he was removed from the Danube to the Euphrates; his first campaign ended in a crushing defeat on the same field as that which had proved fatal to Crassus, but in 297, advancing through the mountains of Armenia, and taking the enemy by surprise, he gained a victory over Narses by which his military reputation was more than restored. In 305, on the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, be at once assumed the title of Augustus, along with Constantius his former colleague, and, having procured the promotion to the rank of Caesar of Severus, a faithful servant, and Daza (Maximinus), his nephew, he hoped on the death of Constantius to become sole master of the Roman world. This scheme, however, was defeated by the sudden elevation of Constantine at York on the death of his father, and by the action of Maximian and Maxentius in Italy. After an unsuccessful invasion of Italy in 307 he elevated his friend Licinius to the rank of Augustus, and, moderating his ambition, devoted the few remaining years of his life “to the enjoyment of pleasure and to the execution of some works of public utility.” He died—of the morbus pedicularis, it is said—in May 311. It was at the instance of Galerius that the first of the celebrated edicts of persecution against the Christians was published, on February 24, 303, and this policy of repression was maintained by him until the appearance of the general edict of toleration, running in his own name and in those of Licinius and Constantine.
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