Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1002

Rh 9V,i MAXIM US. ^v■,is generally disapproved. Whether, however, this was really the first instance of divorce at Rome may be questioned. (Gell. iv. 3 ; Val. Max. ii. 1. § 4 ; Dionys. ii. 25 ; Niebuhr, Hist, of Borne, vol. iii. p. 355.) MA'XIMUS CHRYSOBERGES. An account of the only published work of this writer is given elsewhere. [Chrysoberges Lucas.] He flou- rished about A. D. 1400, and was, though a Greek, a strenuous defender of the opinions of the Latin church, sending letters to various persons on this subject, especially to the people of Constantinople. Whether the Uepl Siacpopwv KecpaAaioav, Quaestiones Sacrae Miscelianeae, by " Maximus the Monk," contained in a MS. of the Imperial Library at Vienna, are by Chrysoberges, is not clear. Max- imus Chrysoberges had for his antagonist Nilus Damyla. [Nilus,] (Comp. Fabric. Bill. Graec. vol. ix. p. 679, vol. xi. p. 397 ; Cave, Hist. Litt. vol. ii. Appendix., p. 87 ; and Dissert. Prima, p. 14.) [J. C. M.] MA'XIMUS, CLAU'DIUS, a stoic philosopher of the age of the Antonines. He is mentioned by Julius Capitolinus {M. Afifon. Philosopli. Vita, c. 3) among the preceptors of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who has himself made honourable men- tion of Maximus in his De Rebus suis, lib. i. c. 15 (seu ut alii, c. 12), in the reading of which passage Casaubon conjecturally substitutes Hapa KA. Ma|f- fj.ov for the received lection, Ylapd.KT]cns Ma^lfxov. He speaks shortly after (c. 16, seu 13, ad fin.) of a sickness of Maximus in the lifetime of Antoninus Pius ; and in another place (viii. 25, seu ut alii, 22, sub init.) he speaks of the death of Maximus and of his widow Secunda. If the sickness mentioned in the first of these quotations was the mortal sick- ness, we must place the death of Maximus before that of Antoninus Pius, a. D. 161 ; at any rate it occurred before that of the emperor Aurelius (a. d. 180). Some have identified Claudius Maximus with the Maximus who was consul, A. d. 144 ; and Fabricius {Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 550) identifies him with the Claudius Maximus, " proconsul of Bithynia" (more correctly of Africa), before whom Appuleius defended himself against the charge of magic, brought against him by Pontianus. [Appu- leius.] Whether the consul of A. D. 144 and the proconsul of Africa are the same person (as Tille- mont believes), and whether the stoic philosopher is correctly identified with either, is quite uncertain. Several learned men, including Jos. Scaliger, Jac. Cappellus, Dan. Heinsius, and Tillemont {Hist, des Empereurs, vol. ii. p. 550, note 11, sur VEmp. Tite Antonin) identify Claudius Maximus with Maximus of Tyre [Maximus Tyrius], but Gatacker and Meric Casaubon (N^ot. ad Antonin. lib. de Rebus suis, i. 15, s. 12), and Davis {Praef. ad Ed. Maaimi Tyrii, secund. fragmentum), have shown that this is not correct. Claudius Maximus was a stoic, the Tyrian was a Platonist : Claudius died, at any rate, before the emperor Marcus Aurelius, while the Tyrian lived under the reign of Commodus. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. v. p. 515.) [J. C.M.J MA'XIMUS, M. CLO'DIUS PUPIE'NUS, was elected emperor with Balbinus, in a. d. 238, when the senate received intelligence of the death of the two Gordians in Africa. For particulars, see Balbinus. MA'XIMUS CONFESSOR (J dfioXoynT/is), known also as the Monk (o fxovax^s), an emi- MAXIMUS. nent Greek ecclesiastic of the sixth and seventli centuries. He was born at Constantinople about A. D. 580. His parents were eminent for tiieir lineage and station, and still more for their piety. Maximus was educated with great strictness ; and his careful education, diligence, and natural abili- ties, enabled him to attain the highest excellence in grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. He gave his especial attention to the last, cherishing the love of truth and seeking its attainment, and rejecting all sophistical reasonings. His own incliiiation would have led him to a life of privacy and study, but his merit had at- tracted regard ; and Heraclius, who had ob- tained the Byzantine sceptre in A. d. 610, made him his chief secretary, and treated him with the greatest regard and confidence. How long Max- imus held his important office is not clear ; but long before the death of Heraclius (who died a. d. 641), probably about the middle of that emperor's reign, he resigned his post ; and leaving the palace, embraced a monastic life at Chrysopolis, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, opposite Constanti- nople. Here he was distinguished by the severity of his ascetic practices, and was soon appointed hegumenus or abbot of his monastery. Maximus did not spend his life at Chrysopolis : he withdrew into Africa (i. e. the Roman province so called, of which Carthage was the capital) ; but at what time and on what account is not clear. Whether Maximus returned to Chrysopolis is not known : he was still in Africrt in a. d. 645, when he had his disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed patriarch of Constantinople, in the presence of the patrician, Gregorius [Gregorius, historical. No. 4] and the bishops of the province. He had already distinguished himself by his zealous exertions to impede the spread of the Monothelite heresy, which he had induced the African bishops to anathema- tise in a provincial council. In this disputation, so cogent were the arguments of Maximus, that Pyrrhus owned himself vanquished, and recanted his heresy, to which, however, he subsequently re- turned, and ultimately (a. d. 654 or (ibb) recovered his see. Maximus, apparently on the accession of Martin I. to the papal throne (a. d. 649), went to Rome, and so successfully stimulated the zeal of the new pope against the Monothelites, that he convoked the council of Lateran, in which the heresy and all its abettors were anathematized. This step so irritated the emperor, Constans II., who had endeavoured to extinguish the controversy by a " Typus " (TwTros) or edict, forbidding all dis- cussion of the subject [Constans II.], that on various pretexts he ordered (a. d. 653) the pope and Maximus, with two disciples of the latter, Anastasius Apocrisiarius and another Anastasins, and several of the Western (probably Italian) bishops to be sent as prisoners to Constantinople. The pope arrived at Constantinople A. D. G54, and was treated with great severity ; and after some time was exiled to Chersonae, in the Chersonesus Taurica or Crimea, where he died A. D. 655. Maximus, the time of whose arrival is not stated, was repeatedly examined, and after- wards sentenced to banishment at Bizya, in Thrace. The two Anastasii were also banished, but to different places ; Maximus was not suffered to remain at peace in his place of exile. Theo- dosius, bishop of the Bithynian Caesareia, and two nobles, Paulus and another Theodosius, and