I. M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus, joint emperor with D. Caelius Calvinus Balbinus during a few months of the year A.D. 238. Pupienus was a distinguished soldier, who had been proconsul of Bithynia, Achaea, and Gallia Narbonensis. At the advanced age of seventy-four, he was chosen by the senate with Balbinus to resist the barbarian Maximinus. Their complete equality is shown by the fact that each assumed the titles of pontifex maximus and princeps senatus. It was arranged that Pupienus should take the field against Maximinus, while Balbinus remained at Rome to maintain order, a task in which he signally failed. A revolt of the praetorians was not repressed till much blood had been shed and a considerable part of the city reduced to ashes. On his march, Pupienus, having received the news that Maximinus had been assassinated by his own troops, returned in triumph to Rome. Shortly afterwards, when both emperors were on the point of leaving the city on an expedition—Pupienus against the Persians and Balbinus against the Goths—the praetorians, who had always resented the appointment of the senatorial emperors and cherished the memory of the soldier-emperor Maximinus, seized the opportunity of revenge. When most of the people were at the Capitoline games, they forced their way into the palace, dragged Balbinus and Pupienus through the streets, and put them to death.
See Capitolinus, Life of Maximus and Balbinus; Herodian vii. 10, viii. 6; Zonaras xii. 16; Orosius vii. 19; Eutropius ix. 2; Zosimus i. 14; Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 26, epit. 26; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 2; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 7 and (for the chronology) appendix 12 (Bury’s edition).
II. Magnus Maximus, a native of Spain, who had accompanied Theodosius on several expeditions and from 368 held high military rank in Britain. The disaffected troops having proclaimed Maximus emperor, he crossed over to Gaul, attacked Gratian (q.v.), and drove him from Paris to Lyons, where he was murdered by a partisan of Maximus. Theodosius being unable to avenge the death of his colleague, an agreement was made (384 or 385) by which Maximus was recognized as Augustus and sole emperor in Gaul, Spain and Britain, while Valentinian II. was to remain unmolested in Italy and Illyricum, Theodosius retaining his sovereignty in the East. In 387 Maximus crossed 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 with a powerful army, he twice defeated the troops of Maximus—at Siscia on the Save, and at Poetovio on the Danube. He then hurried on to Aquileia, where Maximus had shut himself up, and had him beheaded. Under the name of Maxen Wledig, Maximus appears in the list of Welsh royal heroes (see R. Williams, Biog. Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, 1852; “The Dream of Maxen Wledig,” in the Mabinogion).
Full account with classical references in H. Richter, Das weströmische Reich, besonders unter den Kaisern Gratian, Valentinian II. und Maximus (1865); see also H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, ii. (1887); Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 27; Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, v.
III. Maximus Tyrannus, made emperor in Spain by the Roman general, Gerontius, who had rebelled against the usurper Constantine in 408. After the defeat of Gerontius at Arelate (Arles) and his 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.
See Orosius vii. 42; Zosimus vi. 5; Sozomen ix. 3; E. A. Freeman, “The Tyrants of Britain, Gaul and Spain, A.D. 406-411,” in English Historical Review, i. (1886).
IV. Petronius Maximus, a member of the higher Roman nobility, had held several court and public offices, including those of praefectus Romae (420) and Italiae (439-441 and 445), and consul (433, 443). He was one of the intimate associates of Valentinian III., whom he assisted in the palace intrigues which led to the death of Aëtius in 454; but an outrage committed on the wife of Maximus by the emperor turned his friendship into hatred. Maximus was proclaimed emperor immediately after Valentinian’s murder (March 16, 455), but after reigning less than three months, he was murdered by some Burgundian mercenaries as he was fleeing before the troops of Genseric, who, invited by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber (May or June 455).
See Procopius, Vand. i. 4; Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyr. Aviti, ep. ii. 13; the various Chronicles; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chs. 35, 36; Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, vi.
MAXIMUS, ST (c. 580-662), abbot of Chrysopolis, known as “the Confessor” from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite (q.v.) 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 of Jerusalem (the chief original opponent of the Monothelites) 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 (together with the pope) by order of Constans and carried a prisoner to Constantinople. In 655, after repeated examinations, in which he maintained his theological opinions with memorable constancy, he was banished to Byzia in Thrace, and afterwards to Perberis. In 662 he was again brought to Constantinople and was condemned by a synod 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 the 13th of August 662. He is venerated as a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches. Maximus was not only a leader in the Monothelite struggle but a mystic who zealously followed and advocated the system of Pseudo-Dionysius, while adding to it an ethical element in the conception of the freedom of the will. His works had considerable influence in shaping the system of John Scotus Erigena.