MAXIMIAN (M. Aurelius Valerius Maximianus), Roman Emperor. - Born of humble origins in Pannonia, a soldier in one of the periods of the most energetic and fortunate recovery of Roman military prestige under the emperors Aurelian and Probus, a fellow soldier of Diocletian and helped by him in his career, so that he recognized his superiority and always showed himself devoted to him.
The ancient sources concerning him are of little value, because they range from the often excessive praises of the orations of Mamertinus (v. Panegyrici Latini, II, III and VI) to the judgments of harshness, perhaps exaggerated, of the few historians of the time who never cease to insist on his coarseness, ignorance, impulsiveness, crude inexperience, and puerile greed for honors.
When Diocletian, after the deaths of Carus, Numerian and Carinus, found no one left to contest the Empire with him, he nevertheless had at once to provide for not a few grave and urgent necessities, not the least of which was the serious disorder of the Gallic provinces, to which repeated barbarian invasions and internal struggles of usurpers had brought enormous damage. The evil had to be crushed, and to this end Diocletian appointed M. Caesar and sent him with military forces into Gaul. M. gave an excellent account of himself and, as a result, was associated in the Empire with the title of Augustus.
Entrusted with the protection of all the western provinces, M. won further victories over the Germans beyond the Rhine, especially over the Franks, while one of his generals, Carausius, was successfully attending to the policing of the northern seas infested by piracy. However, Carausius, trusting in his naval forces, crossed over to Britain and had himself acclaimed emperor; M. failed to suppress the usurpation. If not precisely because of this failure, certainly at this time Diocletian thought of creating two Caesars, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus (1 March 293), the second of whom remained in Gaul and brought the enterprise against Carausius to a successful conclusion.
M. meanwhile stayed at Milan, or campaigned in Africa against the Quinquegentani and other rebellious tribes. In 303, when Diocletian's vicennalia were being celebrated, M. was with him in Rome, celebrating there a triumph and the ludi saeculares begun in 298. In 305 M.'s vicennalia should have been celebrated, but the festivity was embittered by the abdication that Diocletian willed, and imposed also on his very reluctant colleague (1 May 305), to make room, according to the system of the "tetrarchy," for the two Caesars. The irregular proclamation of Constantine as emperor by the soldiers of Gaul and Britain induced Maxentius (v.), M.'s son, to have himself acclaimed emperor and to press his father to resume the imperial purple. M. accepted, and his presence beside his son caused the expeditions of Flavius Severus and of Galerius against Maxentius to come to nothing. M. pressed Diocletian strongly to resume the imperial power himself as well, in order to restore order and peace, but in vain; indeed at the conference of Carnuntum Diocletian imposed on M. a new abdication. Having returned to private citizenship, and on no good terms with his son, he took refuge in Gaul with Constantine, to whom he had given his own daughter Fausta in marriage. But even there, seized again by restless ambitions for power, he was viewed with suspicion by his son-in-law and made to disappear in a manner not entirely clear.
A good soldier, but nothing more than that, he was nevertheless a good executor of Diocletian's directives. He was not well disposed toward the Christians, so that in his part of the Empire the provisions of Diocletian's edict of persecution were applied severely.
Bibliography5 works
Roberto Paribeni