PETRONIUS MAXIMUS, Emperor of the West. - Emperor for a few months, b. in 396 of a noble family; he quickly rose to the high ranks of the civil hierarchy: prefect of Rome in 420 and consul in 433, in 439 he was praetorian prefect in Italy. On the death of Valentinian III (March 455), to which he was not a stranger, P. was acclaimed emperor by the soldiers.

To give an appearance of legality to his government, he forced Eudoxia, Valentinian's wife, still in mourning for her husband's death, to marry him, and gave his own son Palladius her daughter Eudocia. Genseric meanwhile, who had made pacts with Valentinian, and to whose son Huneric Eudocia had already been promised, considered himself released from the pacts, and taking advantage of the precarious condition of the Empire, landed with a fleet at Portus on 3 May. Rome was seized by panic; P., terrified, sought escape in flight, but was massacred by the people and his body was thrown into the Tiber (May 455).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Ensslin, s. v. in Pauly-Wissowa, XIV, 2543-45; H. Grisar, Roma alla fine del mondo antico, ed. it., I, Rome 1930, p. 87; R. Paribeni, Da Diocleziano alla caduta dell'Impero d'Occidente, Bologna 1941, pp. 277-80.

Agostino Amore

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Petronius Maximus, Emperor of the West

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