Petronius Maximus - Wikipedia Petronius Maximus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Roman emperor in 455 Roman emperor of the West Petronius Maximus Solidus of Emperor Petronius Maximus Roman emperor of the West (unrecognized in the East) Reign 17 March – 31 May 455, with Marcian as Eastern emperor Predecessor Valentinian III Successor Avitus Born c. 397 Died 31 May 455 (aged c. 58) Rome Spouse Possibly Lucina Licinia Eudoxia Issue Palladius Father Possibly Anicius Probinus Petronius Maximus (c. 397 – 31 May 455) was Roman emperor of the West for two and a half months in 455. A wealthy senator and a prominent aristocrat, he was instrumental in the murders of the Western Roman magister militum, Aëtius, and the Western Roman emperor, Valentinian III. Maximus secured the throne the day after Valentinian's death by ensuring the backing of the senate and by bribing the palace officials. He strengthened his position by forcing Valentinian's widow to marry him and forcing Valentinian's daughter to marry his son. He cancelled the betrothal of his new wife's daughter to the son of the Vandal king Genseric. This infuriated both his stepdaughter and Genseric, who sent a fleet to Rome. Maximus failed to obtain troops from the Visigoths and he fled as the Vandals arrived, became detached from his retinue and bodyguard in the confusion, and was killed. The Vandals thoroughly sacked Rome. Contents 1 Early career 2 Murder of Valentinian III and accession of Maximus 3 Reign and death 4 Aftermath 5 See also 6 References 7 Sources Early career[edit] Petronius Maximus was born about 397.[1] Although he was of obscure origin, it is believed that he belonged to the Anicius family.[2] Related to the later Emperor Olybrius, Maximus was the son of Anicius Probinus,[3] and the grandson of Anicia Faltonia Proba and Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus,[4] who was prefect of Illyricum in 364, prefect of Gaul in 366, prefect of Italy from 368 to 375 and again in 383 and consul in 371.[5][6] Maximus had a remarkable early career. His earliest known office was praetor, held in about 411;[7] around 415 he served as a tribunus et notarius, which was an entry position to the imperial bureaucracy and led to his serving as comes sacrarum largitionum (count of the sacred largess) between 416 and 419.[7] From January or February 420 to August or September 421 he was praefectus urbi of Rome, meaning that he had executive authority for much of the municipal administration of Rome; he held the office again sometime before 439. As praefectus he restored the Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was also appointed praetorian prefect, a leading military and judicial position, sometime between 421 and 439. It was either while holding this post or during his second urban prefecture that he was appointed consul for the year 433. Becoming a consul was considered the highest honour of the Roman state.[8] From August 439 to February 441 he held the praetorian prefecture of Italy, the most important administrative and judicial non-imperial position in the Western Empire.[9] He was awarded a second consulship in 443. In 445 he was granted the title of patrician, the Empire's senior honorific title, which was limited to a very small number of holders.[10] During this year he was briefly the most honoured of all non-imperial Romans, until the third consulate of Flavius Aëtius, generalissimo, or magister militum, of the Western Empire, the following year.[7] Between 443 and 445 Maximus built a forum, the Forum Petronii Maximi,[11] in Rome, on the Caelian Hill between the via Labicana and the Basilica di San Clemente.[8] Murder of Valentinian III and accession of Maximus[edit] According to the historian John of Antioch,[12] Maximus poisoned the mind of the Emperor against Aëtius, resulting in the murder of his rival at the hands of Valentinian III. John's account has it that Valentinian and Maximus placed a wager on a game that Maximus ended up losing.[7] As he did not have the money available, Maximus left his ring as a guarantee of his debt. Valentinian then used the ring to summon to court Lucina, the chaste and beautiful wife of Maximus, whom Valentinian had long lusted after. Lucina went to the court, believing she had been summoned by her husband, but instead found herself at dinner with Valentinian. Although initially resisting his advances, the Emperor managed to wear her down and succeeded in raping her.[7] Returning home and meeting Maximus, she accused him of betrayal, believing that he had handed her over to the Emperor. Although Maximus swore revenge, he was equally motivated by ambition to supplant "a detested and despicable rival",[13] so he decided to move against Valentinian.[7] According to John of Antioch, Maximus was acutely aware that while Aëtius was alive he could not exact vengeance on Valentinian, so Aëtius had to be removed.[7] He therefore allied himself with a eunuch of Valentinian's, the primicerius sacri cubiculi Heraclius, who had long opposed the general, with the hope of exercising more power over the emperor. The two of them convinced Valentinian that Aëtius was planning to assassinate him and urged him to kill his magister militum during a meeting, which Valentinian did with his own hands, with the help of Heraclius, on 21 September 454.[7][14] The Western Roman Empire at about this period, in red only Once Aëtius was dead, Maximus asked Valentinian for Aëtius's now-vacant position, but the Emperor refused;[15] Heraclius, in fact, had advised the Emperor not to allow anyone to possess the power that Aëtius had wielded. According to John of Antioch, Maximus was so irritated by Valentinian's refusal to appoint him as his magister militum that he decided to have Valentinian assassinated as well. He chose as accomplices Optilia and Thraustila, two Scythians who had fought under the command of Aetius and who, after the death of their general, had been appointed as Valentinian's escort.[7] Maximus easily convinced them that Valentinian was the only one responsible for the death of Aetius, and that the two soldiers must avenge their old commander, while at the same time also promising them a reward for the betrayal of the Emperor. On 16 March 455 Valentinian, who was in Rome, went to Campus Martius with some guards, accompanied by Optilia, Thraustila and their men.[7] As soon as the Emperor dismounted to practice with the bow, Optilia came up with his men and stabbed him in the temple. As Valentinian turned to look at his attacker, Optila finished him off with another thrust of his blade. At the same moment, Thraustila killed Heraclius. The two Scythians took the imperial diadem and robe and brought them to Maximus.[7] The sudden and violent death of Valentinian III left the Western Roman Empire without an obvious successor to the throne. Several candidates were supported by various groups of the imperial bureaucracy and the military. In particular, the army's support was split among three main candidates:[7] Maximianus, the former domesticus (bodyguard) of Aëtius, who was the son of an Egyptian merchant named Domninus who had become rich in Italy; the future emperor Majorian, who commanded the army after the death of Aetius and who had the backing of the Empress Licinia Eudoxia; and Maximus himself, who had the support of the Roman Senate and who secured the throne on 17 March by distributing money to the officials of the imperial palace.[7] Reign and death[edit] After gaining control of the palace, Maximus consolidated his hold on power by immediately marrying Licinia Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian.[15] She married him reluctantly, suspecting that he had been involved in the murder of her late husband; and indeed Maximus treated Valentinian III's assassins with considerable favour.[7] The eastern court at Constantinople refused to recognise his accession. To further secure his position Maximus quickly appointed Avitus as magister militum and sent him on a mission to Toulouse to gain the support of the Visigoths.[16] He also proceeded to cancel the betrothal of Licinia's daughter, Eudocia, to Huneric, the son of the Vandal king Geiseric, and marry her to his own son. Again he anticipated that this would further his and his family's imperial credentials. This repudiation infuriated the Vandal king, who only needed the excuse of Licinia's despairing appeal to the Vandal court to begin preparations for the invasion of Italy.[17] By May, within two months of Maximus gaining the throne, news reached Rome that Geiseric was sailing for Italy. As the news spread, panic gripped the city and many of its inhabitants took to flight.[7] The Emperor, aware that Avitus had not yet returned with the expected Visigothic aid, decided that it was fruitless to mount a defence against the Vandals. So he attempted to organise his escape, urging the Senate to accompany him. However, in the panic, Petronius Maximus was abandoned by his bodyguard and entourage and left to fend for himself.[7] A depiction of the sack of Rome by the Vandals As Maximus rode out of the city on his own on 31 May 455, he was set upon by an angry mob, which stoned him to death (another account has it that he was killed by "a certain Roman soldier named Ursus").[18] His body was mutilated and flung into the Tiber.[7] He had reigned for only seventy-five days. His son from his first marriage, Palladius, who had held the title of caesar between 17 March and 31 May, and who had married his stepsister Eudocia, was probably executed.[7][19] Aftermath[edit] On 2 June 455, three days after Maximus' death, Geiseric captured the city of Rome and sacked it for two weeks. Amidst the pillaging and looting of the city, and in response to the pleas of Pope Leo I, the Vandals are said to have refrained from arson, torture, and murder.[20] Such modern historians as John Henry Haaren state that temples, public buildings, private houses and even the emperor's palace were destroyed. The Vandals also shipped many boatloads of Romans to North Africa as slaves, destroyed works of art and killed a number of citizens. The Vandals' activities during the sack gave rise to the modern term vandalism.[21] Geiseric also carried away the empress Licinia Eudoxia and her daughters Placidia and Eudocia.[22] See also[edit] Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire References[edit] ^ Drinkwater & Elton 2002, pp. 118, 120. ^ Drinkwater & Elton 2002, p. 117. ^ Drinkwater & Elton 2002, p. 120. ^ Drinkwater & Elton 2002, p. 112. ^ Cameron, Alan (1985). "Polyonomy in the Late Roman Aristocracy: The Case of Petronius Probus". Journal of Roman Studies. 75: 178–181. doi:10.2307/300658. JSTOR 300658. ^ Jones & Martindale 1992, vol. 1 p. 737 (1971 ed.). ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Mathisen 1999. ^ a b Jones & Martindale 1992, p. 750. ^ Norwich 1990, p. 160. ^ Kazhdan 1991, p. 1600. ^ Richardson, jr, Lawrence (1992). A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-8018-4300-6. Retrieved 1 June 2020. ^ John of Antioch, fragments 200–201; translated in C.D. Gordon, The Age of Attila: Fifth-Century Byzantium and the Barbarians (Ann Arbor, 1960), pp. 51ff ^ Gibbon 1776, chapter 35. ^ Cameron, Ward-Perkins & Whitby 2001, p. 473. ^ a b Jones & Martindale 1992, p. 751. ^ Cameron, Ward-Perkins & Whitby 2001, p. 20. ^ Cameron, Ward-Perkins & Whitby 2001, p. 125. ^ Browne 1859, p. 350. ^ Cameron, Ward-Perkins & Whitby 2001, p. 21. ^ Hughes 2017, p. 140. ^ "vandal". Online Etymology Dictionary. Cited from Encyclopædia Britannica (13 ed.). 1926. OCLC 313128834. ^ Norwich 1990, p. 162. Sources[edit] Browne, Robert William (1859). A history of Rome from A.D. 96 to the fall of the Western empire. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. OCLC 26234691. Cameron, Averil; Ward-Perkins, Bryan; Whitby, Michael (2001). "Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600". The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume 14. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-32591-2. |volume= has extra text (help) Drinkwater, John; Elton, Hugh (2002). Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521529334. Gibbon, Edward (1776). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. I. OCLC 810900761. |volume= has extra text (help) Hughes, Ian (2017). Gaiseric: The Vandal Who Destroyed Rome. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-9030-5. Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin; Martindale, John Robert (1992). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521201599. Kazhdan, Aleksandr Petrovich, ed. (1991). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Volume 3. Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0195046526. |volume= has extra text (help) Mathisen, Ralph (1999). "Petronius Maximus (17 March 455 – 22 May 455)". De Imperatoribus Romanis. Norwich, John Julius (1990). Byzantium: The Early Centuries. Penguin. ISBN 978-0140114478. Regnal titles Preceded by Valentinian III Western Roman emperor 455 Succeeded by Avitus Political offices Preceded by Aetius Valerius Roman consul 433 with Theodosius Augustus XIV Succeeded by Aspar Areobindus Preceded by Dioscorus Eudoxius Roman consul II 443 with Paterius Succeeded by Theodosius Augustus XVIII Albinus v t e Roman and Byzantine emperors and ruling empresses Principate 27 BC – AD 235 Augustus Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius Vespasian Titus Domitian Nerva Trajan Hadrian Antoninus Pius Marcus Aurelius Lucius Verus Commodus Pertinax Didius Julianus (Pescennius Niger) (Clodius Albinus) Septimius Severus Caracalla Geta Macrinus Diadumenian Elagabalus Severus Alexander Crisis 235–285 Maximinus Thrax Gordian I Gordian II Pupienus Balbinus Gordian III Philip the Arab Philip II Decius Herennius Etruscus Hostilian Trebonianus Gallus Volusianus Aemilianus Valerian Gallienus Saloninus Claudius Gothicus Quintillus Aurelian Ulpia Severina Tacitus Florian Probus Carus Carinus Numerian Gallic emperors Postumus (Laelianus) Marius Victorinus (Domitianus II) Tetricus I with Tetricus II as caesar Palmyrene emperors Vaballathus Zenobia Septimius Antiochus Dominate 284–395 Diocletian Maximian Galerius Constantius I Severus Constantine the Great Maxentius Licinius Maximinus Daza (Valerius Valens) (Martinian) Constantine II Constantius II Constans I Magnentius Vetranio Julian Jovian Valentinian I (west) Valens (east) Gratian (west) Valentinian II (west) Theodosius I Magnus Maximus Victor (Eugenius) Western Empire 395–480 Honorius Constantine III with son Constans II Constantius III Joannes Valentinian III Petronius Maximus Avitus Majorian Libius Severus Anthemius Olybrius Glycerius Julius Nepos Romulus Augustulus Eastern/ Byzantine Empire 395–1204 Arcadius Theodosius II Marcian Leo I Leo II Zeno Basiliscus Marcus Anastasius I Dicorus Justin I Justinian I Justin II Tiberius II Constantine Maurice with son Theodosius as co-emperor Phocas Heraclius Constantine III Heraklonas Constans II Constantine IV with brothers Heraclius and Tiberius and then Justinian II as co-emperors Justinian II (first reign) Leontios Tiberius III Justinian II (second reign) with son Tiberius as co-emperor Philippikos Anastasios II Theodosius III Leo III the Isaurian Constantine V Artabasdos Leo IV the Khazar Constantine VI Irene Nikephoros I Staurakios Michael I Rangabe with son Theophylact as co-emperor Leo V the Armenian with Symbatios-Constantine as junior emperor Michael II the Amorian Theophilos Michael III Basil I the Macedonian Leo VI the Wise Alexander Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos Romanos I Lekapenos with sons Christopher, Stephen and Constantine as junior co-emperors Romanos II Nikephoros II Phokas John I Tzimiskes Basil II Constantine VIII Zoë (first reign) and Romanos III Argyros Zoë (first reign) and Michael IV the Paphlagonian Michael V Kalaphates Zoë (second reign) with Theodora Zoë (second reign) and Constantine IX Monomachos Constantine IX Monomachos (sole emperor) Theodora Michael VI Bringas Isaac I Komnenos Constantine X Doukas Romanos IV Diogenes Michael VII Doukas with brothers Andronikos and Konstantios and son Constantine Nikephoros III Botaneiates Alexios I Komnenos John II Komnenos with Alexios Komnenos as co-emperor Manuel I Komnenos Alexios II Komnenos Andronikos I Komnenos with John Komnenos as co-emperor Isaac II Angelos Alexios III Angelos Alexios IV Angelos Nicholas Kanabos (chosen by the Senate) Alexios V Doukas Empire of Nicaea 1204–1261 Constantine Laskaris Theodore I Laskaris John III Doukas Vatatzes Theodore II Laskaris John IV Laskaris Byzantine Empire 1261–1453 Michael VIII Palaiologos Andronikos II Palaiologos with Michael IX Palaiologos as co-emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos John V Palaiologos John VI Kantakouzenos with John V Palaiologos and Matthew Kantakouzenos as co-emperors John V Palaiologos Andronikos IV Palaiologos John VII Palaiologos Andronikos V Palaiologos Manuel II Palaiologos John VIII Palaiologos Constantine XI Palaiologos Italics indicates a junior co-emperor, while underlining indicates a usurper. Authority control General Integrated Authority File ISNI 1 VIAF 1 WorldCat National libraries United States Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petronius_Maximus&oldid=1022490266" Categories: 390s births 455 deaths 4th-century Romans 5th-century Christians 5th-century murdered monarchs 5th-century Roman emperors Comites sacrarum largitionum Executed Roman emperors Imperial Roman consuls Imperial Roman praetors Patricii People executed by stoning People executed by the Roman Empire Petronii Praetorian prefects of Italy Theodosian dynasty Urban prefects of Rome Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from June 2020 Good articles EngvarB from April 2018 CS1 errors: extra text: volume CS1: long volume value Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Year of birth uncertain Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages العربية Aragonés تۆرکجه Bân-lâm-gú Беларуская Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Cymraeg Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Galego 한국어 Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Kiswahili Latina Lietuvių Magyar Македонски मराठी مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Occitan Polski Português Română Русский Slovenčina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Tagalog Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt Yorùbá Zazaki 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 10 May 2021, at 20:05 (UTC). 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