MAXIMUS, the name of four Roman emperors. In chronological order the first was Μ. Clodius Pupienus Maximus, who was associated with Balbinus in the imperial dignity by the senate for a short time in 238, before and after the death of the hated Maximin. Tho second was Magnus Clemens Maximus, a native of Spain, who shared the imperial dignity with Valentinian and Theodosius from 383 to 388. He had accompanied Theodosius on several expeditions, and from 368 held high military rank in Britain. The disaffection of the Roman troops towards the emperor Gratian found expression in 383 in the proclamation of Maximus as emperor, —whether with or without his complicity in the act is uncertain. Voluntarily or under compulsion Maximus forthwith attacked Gratian in Gaul, and drove him from Paris to Lyons, where the fugitive was murdered. Circumstances made it difficult for Theodosius at the time to avenge the death of his colleague by war, and an agreement was therefore come to by which Maximus was recognized as Augustus and sole emperor in Gaul, Spain, and Britain, while Valentinian was to remain unmolested in Italy and Illyricum, Theodosius retaining his sovereignty in the East. A prosperous reign of four years having tempted Maximus, in 387, to pass the Alps, Valentinian was speedily put to flight, while the invader established himself in Milan, and for the time became master of Italy. Theodosius now took vigorous measures: advancing a powerful army by land, he utterly defeated the western, troops at Siscia (Sciszek) in Pannonia, and, passing the Julian Alps with great rapidity, came upon Maximus, who had fled to Aquileia, seized him, and caused him to be beheaded (August 388). The third, Maximus Tyrannus, was made emperor in Spain by the Roman general Gerontius, who had ...rebelled against Constantine in 408. Alter the defeat of Gerontius at Arles, and his subsequent death in 411, Maximus renounced the imperial title and was permitted by Constantine to retire into private life. About 418 he rebelled again, but, failing in his attempt, was seized, carried into Italy, and put to death at Ravenna in 422. Lastly, Petronius Maximus was a member of the higher Roman nobility, and had held a large number of public offices, including those of praefectus Romae (420) and of praefectus Italiae (439-441 and 445). He was one of the intimate associates of Valentinian, who received his assistance in the palace intrigues which led to the death of Aetius in 454; but a brutal outrage committed on the wife of Maximus by the emperor turned his friendship into the bitterest hatred. Maximus was proclaimed emperor immediately after Valentinian’s murder in March 455, but reigned for less than three months, having been murdered by some Burgundian mercenaries as he was flying before the Vandals, who, invited by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber (May or June 455).
MAXIMUS, St, abbot of Chrysopolis, known as “the Confessor” from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite controversy, or as “the monk,” was born of noble parentage at Constantinople about the year 580. Educated with great care, he early became distinguished by his talents and,acquirements, and some time after the accession of the emperor Heraclius in 610 was made his private secretary. In 630 he abandoned the secular life and entered the monastery of Chrysopolis (Scutari), actuated, it was believed, less by any longing for the life of a recluse than by the dissatisfaction he felt with the Monothelite leanings of his master. The date of his promotion to the abbacy is uncertain. In 633 he was one of the party of Sophronius at the council of Alexandria; and in 645 he was again in Africa, when he held in presence of the governor and a number of bishops the disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed and banished patriarch of Constantinople, which resulted in the (temporary) conversion of his interlocutor to the Dyothelite view. In the following year several African synods, held under the influence of Maximus, declared for orthodoxy. In 649, after the accession of Martin I., he went to Rome, and did much to fan the zeal of the new pope, who in October of that year held the (first) Lateran synod, by which not only the Monothelite doctrine but also the moderating ecthesis of Heraclius and typus of Constans II. were anathematized. About 653 Maximus, for the part he had taken against the latter document especially, was apprehended by order of Constans and carried a prisoner to Constantinople, and in 655, after repeated examinations, in which he maintained his theological opinions with memorable constancy, was banished to Byzia in Thrace, and afterwards to Perberis. In 662 he was again brought to Constantinople and was condemned by a synod there to be scourged, to have his tongue cut out by the root, and to have his right hand chopped off. After this sentence had been carried out he was again banished to Lazica, where he died on August 13, 662. He is venerated as a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Church,—in the former on January and on August 12th and 13th, in the latter on August 13th.
Λ collection of his works, which are of importance for the history of the Monothelite controversy, was undertaken by Combefis, who published two volumes in 1675 (<S ’. Maximi Confessoris, Graecorum Theologi, eximiique Philosophi Opera), but did not live to complete his labours. A list of the more important of the writings of Maximus, with bibliographical details, will be found in Smith’s Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, an exhaustive “Catalogue raisonné,” by Wagenmann, occurs in vol. ix. (1881) of the new edition of Herzog’s Real·Encyklopadie. The details of the disputation with Pyrrhus and of the martyrdom are given very fully and clearly in Hefele’s Conc.-gesch., vol. iii.
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