Maximian

• 1. Introduction

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  Maximian died by hanging in July 310, on the orders of his own son-in-law, the emperor Constantine. Within seven years, that same man had declared him a god.

  Born around 250 near Sirmium, in what is now Serbia, Maximian grew up in a family of shopkeepers on the Pannonian frontier. The fourth-century historian Aurelius Victor called him "a colleague trustworthy in friendship, if somewhat boorish, and of great military talents." A panegyric delivered in 289 compared his battlefield record to Scipio Africanus's defeat of Hannibal. The same panegyric noted, dryly, that Maximian had probably never heard of either of them.

  He shared the throne with Diocletian for nearly two decades, campaigned from the Rhine to the Sahara, and retired when ordered to. Then he came back. Then he came back again. Why Maximian could not stop, and what those repeated returns cost him, are the central questions of a career that reshaped the Roman world.

• 2. Apprentice to Empire

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  Maximian joined the army as a young man and served under two emperors: Aurelian, who reigned 270-275, and Probus, who reigned 276-282. He probably took part in the Mesopotamian campaign of Emperor Carus in 283. He was present at Nicomedia on the 20th of November 284, when Diocletian was proclaimed emperor.

  Maximian was elevated to imperial status almost immediately after Diocletian took power. Historians Stephen Williams and Timothy Barnes take this speed as evidence of a long-standing, pre-arranged alliance. Contemporaries described him as energetic and aggressive by character, yet notably disinclined to rebel on his own account. In an era when capable generals routinely turned on their emperors, that last quality was rare.

  The Christian writer Lactantius offered a darker picture of Maximian's private conduct. Lactantius argued that Maximian shared Diocletian's broad attitudes toward governance but was far less restrained in his personal behavior. He exploited the opportunities his imperial rank afforded. Lactantius charged him with pursuing senators' daughters and traveling with groups of young women for his gratification. Scholars note that Lactantius harbored a general hostility toward pagans, which casts doubt on his most extreme accusations.

  Maximian married Eutropia, a woman of Syrian origin, and had two children with her. His son Maxentius was probably born around 283, and his daughter Fausta around 289 or 290. A third figure, Theodora, appears in some ancient sources as his stepdaughter and in others as his natural daughter. The question of her parentage has been debated at length by historians including Timothy Barnes and Julia Hillner.

  By the time Diocletian had consolidated his reign, he had a plan for Maximian that went beyond battlefield command.

• 3. Jove and Hercules

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  At Mediolanum, now called Milan, in July 285, Diocletian named Maximian his Caesar, the formal title for an heir-apparent. The decision was shaped partly by biology. Diocletian had no sons, only a daughter named Valeria, who could not inherit imperial power under Roman convention.

  Both Aurelian and Probus had been removed from power despite strong military records. Precedent argued for two rulers rather than one. Diocletian knew he needed someone he trusted. Maximian took Diocletian's family name Valerius upon the appointment.

  William Seston has argued that Diocletian formally adopted Maximian as a filius Augusti, an "Augustan son," following precedents set by heirless emperors. Frank Kolb contests this, arguing the evidence rests on misreadings of papyrological records. What is not disputed is that their relationship was publicly framed as fraternal: equal in authority and prestige. Diocletian held the senior role in practice.

  Around 287, after Maximian was elevated to the title of Augustus, the two rulers gave their partnership a theological dimension. Diocletian took the divine title Iovius, aligning himself with Jupiter; Maximian took Herculius, aligning himself with Hercules. The symbolism was precise. Jove devises and commands; Hercules labors and executes. Neither man claimed to be divine; both presented themselves as agents of divine will on earth.

  Imperial propaganda from 287 onward described the empire as a patrimonium indivisum, an indivisible shared inheritance. The panegyrist of 289 compared their dual rule to the arrangement of the twin kings of Sparta: equal authority, no discord. Legal rulings were issued in both emperors' names and the same coins were struck across both halves of the empire.

  Maximian assumed control of the western empire and was dispatched immediately to Gaul, where an insurgency was waiting for him.

• 4. The Rhine Frontier

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  The Bagaudae were a rural uprising that first appeared in 285 under two leaders named Amandus and Aelianus. Eutropius described them as country people; Aurelius Victor called them bandits. The historian David Potter has proposed a third possibility. Under Potter's reading, they were defecting imperial troops seeking either Gallic political autonomy or the reinstatement of Emperor Carus, who had roots in southern Gaul. Under that reading, Maximian was not suppressing peasants but containing a political insurgency.

  Maximian has also been implicated in a massacre at Aucanus, in what is now Switzerland, early in 285. The victims were Coptic Christian soldiers drawn from a Theban legion, killed during preparations for the Bagaudae campaign.

  Maximian engaged the rebels in Gaul in mid-285. The historical record offers almost no tactical detail; panegyrists preferred to praise his virtues rather than document his methods. A panegyric from 289 records that the rebels were defeated through a blend of "harshness and leniency." The panegyrist paused. "I pass quickly over this episode, for I see in your magnanimity you would rather forget this victory than celebrate it."

  As the revolt subsided, two Germanic armies crossed the Rhine in late 285. One force of Burgundians and Alamanni was left to die of disease and starvation. Maximian intercepted the second, a combined force of Chaibones and Heruli, and defeated them in direct battle. He established a Rhine headquarters, either at Moguntiacum (Mainz) or at Augusta Treverorum (Trier), in preparation for the campaigns ahead.

  On the 1st of January 287, news of a barbarian raid arrived while Maximian was receiving the consular fasces. He set aside his toga, put on his armor, and marched. He targeted the Burgundians and Alamanni of the Moselle-Vosges region first, using scorched-earth methods to destroy crops and reduce populations through famine. He then cornered the Heruli and Chaibones in a single battle and rode along his own battle line until the Germanic forces broke. By the end of 287, the panegyrist declared: "All that I see beyond the Rhine is Roman."

  In 288, Diocletian joined Maximian for a joint invasion deep into the Agri Decumates, the territory between the upper Rhine and upper Danube. Both emperors burned crops and food stores as they went. Afterward, towns were rebuilt along the Rhine and bridgeheads established at Mainz and Cologne. A military highway through Tournai, Bavay, Tongeren, Maastricht, and Cologne connected the frontier posts.

  In early 288, Maximian sent his praetorian prefect Constantius Chlorus north through Frankish territory to clear the Rhine estuaries that pirate fleets had been using as staging grounds. Constantius drove to the North Sea; the Franks sued for peace. Maximian reinstated the deposed Frankish king Gennobaudes as his vassal and then allowed several tribes, including the Frisii, Salian Franks, and Chamavi, to settle on Roman territory between Nijmegen and Utrecht. On the condition that they acknowledged Roman dominance, they would provide a defensive buffer and a steady source of military recruits.

  While this reorganization secured the Rhine, a different crisis had been building along the English Channel: Frankish and Saxon pirates were plundering coastlines that Rome could no longer properly police.

• 5. Britain Breaks Away

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  Mausaeus Carausius was a Menapian from the region now called the southern and western Netherlands. By late 285, he was clearing Channel pirates with remarkable effectiveness. Maximian had appointed him to the task.

  Then reports reached Maximian that Carausius had a method: he waited for pirates to finish their raids before attacking them and then kept the captured booty himself. He was not returning it to the imperial treasury or to those who had been robbed. Maximian ordered his arrest and execution. Carausius fled to Britain instead.

  Carausius found strong support there. At least two British legions defected to him: II Augusta and XX Valeria Victrix. A unit near Boulogne, probably the XXX Ulpia Victrix, joined them as well. Carausius eliminated the remaining loyalists in his army, declared himself Augustus, and gave his new state a name: the Imperium Britanniarum. He issued coins of markedly higher purity than those of Maximian and Diocletian, winning the support of British and Gallic merchants. By late 286, he controlled Britain, much of northwestern Gaul, and the entire Channel coast.

  Maximian faced a structural problem: he had given Carausius his fleet. He had no navy. He could not invade.

  On the 1st of April 286, Maximian took the title of Augustus. Imperial propaganda framed this as a promotion, making him Diocletian's brother and equal in authority. It also reframed the conflict: instead of an emperor versus a rebel, it was now a contest between two Augusti. Diocletian was attested in Byzantium on the 22nd of March 286 and in Tiberias from the 31st of May onward. He could not have been present for the ceremony.

  Maximian assembled an invasion fleet and attempted to cross to Britain in 289 or 290. Storms destroyed the fleet. Diocletian cut his eastern tour short and hurried west, reaching Sirmium by the 1st of July 290. He met Maximian in Milan in late December 290 or January 291, staging elaborate ceremonies to project imperial unity. Whatever the two men discussed in private, a swift solution did not emerge.

  On the 1st of March 293, at Milan, Maximian appointed Constantius as Caesar. Diocletian did the same for Galerius, creating the arrangement that became known as the Tetrarchy. Constantius was assigned the task of defeating Carausius. By 293, he had expelled Carausius' forces from northern Gaul. That same year, Carausius was assassinated by his own treasurer Allectus, who took power in his place. Allectus was killed on the North Downs in battle with Constantius' praetorian prefect Asclepiodotus. Constantius himself landed near Dubris and marched on Londinium, whose citizens greeted him as a liberator.

  When the Channel was finally back under Roman control, Maximian was free to address a crisis that had been building on a very different frontier.

• 6. The Desert War

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  In 289, the governor of Mauretania Caesariensis won a brief reprieve by pitting a small army against two raiding tribes, the Bavares and Quinquegentiani. The reprieve did not last.

  In 296, Maximian raised a large composite army and advanced through Spain. His forces included Praetorian cohorts, legionaries drawn from Aquileia, Egypt, and the Danube, Gallic and German auxiliaries, and Thracian recruits. He may have fought against Moorish raiders before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar into Mauretania Tingitana, the province covering roughly what is now Morocco.

  By March 297, Maximian had launched a full offensive against the Berbers. The terrain was difficult and the Berbers practiced guerrilla warfare. Rather than push them back to their strongholds in the Atlas Mountains, where they could regroup and resume raiding, Maximian pressed deep into their territory. He spent the winter of 297-298 resting in Carthage before returning to the field.

  The campaign concluded in early 298. On the 10th of March, Maximian made a triumphal entry into Carthage. Inscriptions recorded the city's gratitude. He received the same title that Constantius had been given on entering Londinium: redditor lucis aeternae, "restorer of the eternal light." He returned to Italy in early 299 and celebrated another triumph in Rome.

  For the next several years, Maximian lived in palaces in Milan and Aquileia, leaving active warfare to Constantius. Lactantius writes that he terrorized senators during this period, falsely charging several and having them executed. Among those was the prefect of Rome in 301-302. Constantius, by contrast, maintained good relations with the senatorial aristocracy and continued campaigning against Germanic tribes through 300 and 302.

  Evidence suggests it was during the celebration of Diocletian's vicennalia in Rome in 303 that Diocletian extracted a promise from Maximian to retire jointly.

• 7. A Second Reign

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  On the 1st of May 305, in separate ceremonies at Milan and Nicomedia, Diocletian and Maximian stepped down simultaneously. The succession disappointed Maximian. Under Galerius' influence, Severus and Maximinus, both men with long military careers and ties to Galerius, were appointed Caesar, displacing both Constantine and Maximian's own son Maxentius. Maximian retired to villas in Campania, Lucania, or Sirmium.

  The arrangement lasted fourteen months. Constantius died on the 25th of July 306. Constantine, his son, immediately assumed the title of Augustus. Galerius reluctantly offered him the lesser title of Caesar, which Constantine accepted. Maxentius was excluded from the succession entirely. On the 28th of October 306, he persuaded a cohort of imperial guardsmen to declare him Augustus. He then sent imperial robes to his father and proclaimed Maximian "Augustus for the second time."

  Galerius refused to recognize Maxentius and dispatched Severus with an army to remove him from Rome. The plan failed. Many of Severus' soldiers had served under Maximian and had taken Maxentius' bribes; most defected. Severus fled to Ravenna, which Maximian besieged. When Severus surrendered on offered terms, Maximian seized him and held him as a hostage in a public villa in southern Rome. In late 307, Galerius himself marched on Rome with a second force. He too failed to take the city and retreated north.

  Maximian then traveled to Gaul to negotiate with Constantine. He offered Constantine the hand of his younger daughter Fausta in marriage. In return, Constantine would be elevated to Augustus within Maxentius' regime and would remain neutral in the conflict with Galerius. The double ceremony took place in Trier in late 307: Constantine married Fausta and was formally declared Augustus by Maximian.

  The arrangement did not survive the winter. By early 308, Maximian had returned to Rome and challenged his son's right to rule before an assembly of Roman soldiers. He delivered a speech disparaging Maxentius' government and ripped the imperial toga from his son's shoulders. He expected the soldiers to side with him. They sided with Maxentius. Maximian left Italy in disgrace.

  On the 11th of November 308, Galerius convened a general council at Carnuntum, a military city on the upper Danube. He brought Diocletian out of retirement to attend. Both men forced Maximian to renounce his imperial claim again. Constantine was demoted to Caesar, and Licinius, a loyal companion of Galerius, was appointed Augustus of the West.

  Constantine and Maximinus, frustrated by their demotion at Carnuntum, refused the title of Sons of the Augusti and were reluctantly recognized as emperors. There were now four Augusti simultaneously.

• 8. The Last Gamble

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  In 310, Maximian was in Arles with part of Constantine's army, assigned to defend southern Gaul against attacks by Maxentius. There he announced that Constantine was dead and took up the imperial purple for the final time. The announcement was false. Most of Constantine's army remained loyal and would not follow him.

  Constantine, on campaign against the Franks, learned of the rebellion and moved quickly south. He caught the fleeing Maximian at Massilia, the city now called Marseille. The town was well fortified, but loyal citizens opened the rear gates to Constantine before a siege could be sustained. Maximian was captured, reproved for his crimes, and stripped of his title for the third and last time. Constantine offered him some clemency but strongly encouraged his suicide. In July 310, Maximian hanged himself.

  Maxentius, despite the rupture between them, presented himself as his father's devoted son. He minted coins bearing Maximian's deified image and declared his intention to avenge the death. Constantine took the opposite line, initially presenting the suicide as a family tragedy and nothing more.

  By 311, Constantine was spreading a different version. According to this account, after receiving his pardon, Maximian had plotted to murder Constantine in his sleep. Maximian's own daughter Fausta had learned of the plan and warned her husband. Constantine placed a eunuch in his own bed as a substitute. Maximian killed the eunuch, was apprehended, and was offered suicide, which he accepted. Whether or not the story is true, the propaganda campaign followed swiftly. Constantine declared a damnatio memoriae: Maximian's name was erased from inscriptions and his image purged from public monuments.

  Then came the reversal. On the 28th of October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Maxentius died, and Italy came under Constantine's rule. Eutropia, Maximian's widow, swore on oath that Maxentius had not been Maximian's son at all. Maximian's memory was rehabilitated. His apotheosis under Maxentius was declared void, and he was re-consecrated as a god, probably in 317. By 318, he was appearing on Constantine's coinage as divus, alongside the deified Constantius and Claudius Gothicus. The three were hailed as "the best of emperors" and claimed as Constantine's forebears.

  Through his daughters Fausta and Theodora, Maximian became grandfather or great-grandfather to every reigning Roman emperor from 337 to 363.