MAXIMINUS, CaiusJulius Verus, Roman emperor from 235 to 238, was of barbarian parentage, his father being a Goth and his mother an Alan, and was born in a village on the confines of Thrace, where his immense stature and enormous feats of strength first drew the attention of the emperor Septimius Severus. From being a shepherd he became a soldier, and under Caracalla rose to the rank of centurion. He carefully absented himself from court during the reign of Elagabalus, but rose to the first military command under his successor Alexander Severus. On March 19, 235, the troops saluted him emperor, and shortly afterwards Alexander was put to death. The three years of his reign, which were spent wholly~in the camp, were marked by great cruelty and oppression; the widespread discontent thus produced culminated in a revolt in Africa and the assumption of the purple by Gordianus (q.v.'). Maximin, who was in Pannonia at the time, marched against Rome, and passing over the Julian Alps descended on Aquileia; while detained before that city he and his son were murdered in their tent by a body of praetorians. Their heads were cut off and despatched to Rome, where they were burnt on the Campus Martius by the exultant crowd (May 238)....
MAXIMINUS, GaleriusValerius, Roman emperor from 308 to 314, was originally an Illyrian shepherd, and bore the name of Daza. His mother was a sister of him who afterwards became the emperor Galerius. He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was raised by his uncle to the rank of Caesar, with the honorary appellation of Jovius, Syria and Egypt being the government assigned to him. In 308, after the elevation of Licinius, he insisted on receiving the title of Augustus; on the death of Galerius in 311 he succeeded to the supreme command of the provinces of Asia, and, when Licinius and Constantine began to make common causa with one another, Maximin entered into a secret alliance with Maxentius. He came to an open rupture with Licinius in 313, sustained a crushing defeat in the neighbourhood of Heraclea on April 30th, and, having fled with extraordinary celerity first to Nicomedia and afterwards to Tarsus, perished at the latter city in August following. His death was variously ascribed “to despair, to poison, and to the Divine justice.” Maximin, in every respect a worthless character, has a bad eminence in the annals of the Christian church as having renewed persecution after the publication of the toleration edict of Galerius.
[212 words — estimated reading time: 2 minutes]