Part 15

MAXIMINUS [MAXIMIN], GALERIUS VALERIUS, Roman emperor from A.D. 308 to 314, was originally an Illyrian shepherd named Daia. He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was raised by his uncle, Galerius, to the rank of Caesar, with the government of Syria and Egypt. In 308, after the elevation of Licinius, he insisted on receiving the title of Augustus; on the death of Galerius, in 311, he succeeded to the supreme command of the provinces of Asia, and when Licinius and Constantine began to make common cause with one another Maximinus entered into a secret alliance with Maxentius. He came to an open rupture with Licinius in 313, sustained a crushing defeat in the neighbourhood of Heraclea Pontica on the 30th of April, and fled, first to Nicomedia and afterwards to Tarsus, where he died in August following. His death was variously ascribed "to despair, to poison, and to the divine justice." Maximinus has a bad name in Christian annals, as having renewed persecution after the publication of the toleration edict of Galerius, but it is probable that he has been judged too harshly.

See MAXENTIUS; Zosimus ii. 8; Aurelius Victor, _Epit_. 40.

MAXIMS, LEGAL. A maxim is an established principle or proposition. The Latin term _maxima_ is not to be found in Roman law with any meaning exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the modern sense of the word, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on _Regulae definitiones_, and _Sententiae juris_ are, in some measure, collections of maxims (see an article on "Latin Maxims in English Law" in _Law Mag. and Rev._ xx. 285); Fortescue (_De laudibus_, c. 8) and Du Cange treat _maxima_ and _regula_ as identical. The attitude of early English commentators towards the maxims of the law was one of unmingled adulation. In _Doctor and Student_ (p. 26) they are described as "of the same strength and effect in the law as statutes be." Coke (Co. _Litt._ 11 A) says that a maxim is so called "Quia maxima est ejus dignitas et certissima auctoritas, atque quod maxime omnibus probetur." "Not only," observes Bacon in the Preface to his _Collection of Maxims_, "will the use of maxims be in deciding doubt and helping soundness of judgment, but, further, in gracing argument, in correcting unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and substantial sense of law, in reclaiming vulgar errors, and, generally, in the amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the whole law." A similar note was sounded in Scotland; and it has been well observed that "a glance at the pages of Morrison's _Dictionary_ or at other early reports will show how frequently in the older Scots law questions respecting the rights, remedies and liabilities of individuals were determined by an immediate reference to legal maxims" (J. M. Irving, _Encyclo. Scots Law_, s.v. "Maxims"). In later times less value has been attached to the maxims of the law, as the development of civilization and the increasing complexity of business relations have shown the necessity of qualifying the propositions which they enunciate (see Stephen, _Hist. Crim. Law_, ii. 94 _n: Yarmouth_ v. _France_, 1887, 19 Q.B.D., per Lord Esher, at p. 653, and American authorities collected in Bouvier's _Law Dict._ s.v. "Maxim"). But both historically and practically they must always possess interest and value.

A brief reference need only be made here, with examples by way of illustration, to the field which the maxims of the law cover.

Commencing with rules founded on public policy, we may note the famous principle--_Salus populi suprema lex_ (xii. Tables: Bacon, _Maxims_, reg. 12)--"the public welfare is the highest law." It is on this maxim that the coercive action of the State towards individual liberty in a hundred matters is based. To the same category belong the maxims--_Summa ratio est quae pro religione facit_ (Co. _Litt._ 341 a)--"the best rule is that which advances religion"--a maxim which finds its application when the enforcement of foreign laws or judgments supposed to violate our own laws or the principles of natural justice is in question; and _Dies dominicus non est juridicus_, which exempts Sunday from the lawful days for juridical acts. Among the maxims relating to the crown, the most important are _Rex non potest peccare_ (2 Rolle R. 304)--"The King can do no wrong"--which enshrines the principle of ministerial responsibility, and _Nullum tempus occurrit regi_ (2 Co. Inst. 273)--"lapse of time does not bar the crown," a maxim qualified by various enactments in modern times. Passing to the judicial office and the administration of justice, we may refer to the rules--_Audi alteram partem_--a proposition too familiar to need either translation or comment; _Nemo debet esse judex in propriâ suâ causâ_ (12 Co. _Rep._ 114)--"no man ought to be judge in his own cause"--a maxim which French law, and the legal systems based upon or allied to it, have embodied in an elaborate network of rules for judicial challenge; and the maxim which defines the relative functions of judge and jury, _Ad quaestionem facti non respondent judices, ad quaestionem legis non respondent juratores_ (8 Co. _Rep._ 155). The maxim _Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem_ (Ch. Prec. 329) is certainly erroneous as it stands, as a judge has no right to "extend his jurisdiction." If _justitiam_ is substituted for _jurisdictionem_, as Lord Mansfield said it should be (1 Burr. 304), the maxim is near the truth. A group of maxims supposed to embody certain fundamental principles of legal right and obligations may next be referred to: (a) _Ubi jus ibi remedium_ (see Co. _Litt._ 197 b)--a maxim to which the evolution of the flexible "action on the case," by which wrongs unknown to the "original writs" were dealt with, was historically due, but which must be taken with the gloss _Damnum absque injuria_--"there are forms of actual damage which do not constitute legal injury" for which the law supplies no remedy; (b) _Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam_ (2 Blackstone, 122)--and its allied maxim, _Lex non cogit ad impossibilia_ (Co. _Litt._ 231 b)--on which the whole doctrine of _vis major_ (_force majeure_) and impossible conditions in the law of contract has been built up. In this category may also be classed _Volenti non fit injuria_ (Wingate, _Maxims_), out of which sprang the theory--now profoundly modified by statute--of "common employment" in the law of employers' liability; see _Smith_ v. _Baker_, 1891, A.C. 325. Other maxims deal with rights of property--_Qui prior est tempore, potior est jure_ (Co. _Litt._ 14 a), which consecrates the position of the _beati possidentes_ alike in municipal and in international law; _Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas_ (9 Co. _Rep._ 59), which has played its part in the determination of the rights of adjacent owners; and _Domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium_ (5 Co. _Rep._ 92)--"a man's house is his castle," a doctrine which has imposed limitations on the rights of execution creditors (see EXECUTION). In the laws of family relations there are the maxims _Consensus non concubitus facit matrimonium_ (Co. _Litt._ 33 a)--the canon law of Europe prior to the council of Trent, and still law in Scotland, though modified by legislation in England; and _Pater is est quem nuptiae demonstrant_ (see Co. _Litt._ 7 b), on which, in most civilized countries, the presumption of legitimacy depends. In the interpretation of written instruments, the maxim _Noscitur a sociis_ (3 _Term Reports_, 87), which proclaims the importance of the context, still applies. So do the rules _Expressio unius est exclusio alterius_ (Co. _Litt._ 210 a), and _Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege_ (2 Co. _Inst._ 11), which lets in evidence of contemporaneous user as an aid to the interpretation of statutes or documents; see _Van Diemen's Land Co._ v. _Table Cape Marine Board_, 1906, A.C. 92, 98. We may conclude this sketch with a miscellaneous summary: _Caveat emptor_ (Hob. 99)--"let the purchaser beware"; _Qui facit per alium facile per se_, which affirms the principal's liability for the acts of his agent; _Ignorantia juris neminem excusat_, on which rests the ordinary citizen's obligation to know the law; and _Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt_ (2 Co. _Inst._ 690), one of the maxims in accordance with which courts of equity administer relief. Among other "maxims of equity" come the rules that "he that seeks equity must do equity," i.e. must act fairly, and that "equity looks upon that as done which ought to be done"--a principle from which the "conversion" into money of land directed to be sold, and of money directed to be invested in the purchase of land, is derived.

The principal collections of legal maxims are: _English Law_: Bacon, _Collection of Some Principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Law_ (1630); Noy, _Treatise of the principal Grounds and Maxims of the Law of England_ (1641, 8th ed., 1824); Wingate, _Maxims of Reason_ (1728); Francis, _Grounds and Rudiments of Law and Equity_ (2nd ed. 1751); Lofft (annexed to his Reports, 1776); Broom, _Legal Maxims_ (7th ed. London, 1900). _Scots Law_: Lord Trayner, _Latin Maxims and Phrases_ (2nd ed., 1876); Stair, _Institutions of the Law of Scotland_, with Index by More (Edinburgh, 1832). _American Treatises_: A. I. Morgan, _English Version of Legal Maxims_ (Cincinnati, 1878); S. S. Peloubet, _Legal Maxims in Law and Equity_ (New York, 1880). (A. W. R.)

MAXIMUS, the name of four Roman emperors.

I. M. CLODIUS PUPIENUS MAXIMUS, joint emperor with D. Caelius Calvinus Balbinus during a few months of the year A.D. 238. Pupienus was a distinguished soldier, who had been proconsul of Bithynia, Achaea, and Gallia Narbonensis. At the advanced age of seventy-four, he was chosen by the senate with Balbinus to resist the barbarian Maximinus. Their complete equality is shown by the fact that each assumed the titles of pontifex maximus and princeps senatus. It was arranged that Pupienus should take the field against Maximinus, while Balbinus remained at Rome to maintain order, a task in which he signally failed. A revolt of the praetorians was not repressed till much blood had been shed and a considerable part of the city reduced to ashes. On his march, Pupienus, having received the news that Maximinus had been assassinated by his own troops, returned in triumph to Rome. Shortly afterwards, when both emperors were on the point of leaving the city on an expedition--Pupienus against the Persians and Balbinus against the Goths--the praetorians, who had always resented the appointment of the senatorial emperors and cherished the memory of the soldier-emperor Maximinus, seized the opportunity of revenge. When most of the people were at the Capitoline games, they forced their way into the palace, dragged Balbinus and Pupienus through the streets, and put them to death.

See Capitolinus, _Life of Maximus and Balbinus_; Herodian vii. 10, viii. 6; Zonaras xii. 16; Orosius vii. 19; Eutropius ix. 2; Zosimus i. 14; Aurelius Victor, _Caesares_, 26, _epit._ 26; H. Schiller, _Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit_, i. 2; Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ch. 7 and (for the chronology) appendix 12 (Bury's edition).

II. MAGNUS MAXIMUS, a native of Spain, who had accompanied Theodosius on several expeditions and from 368 held high military rank in Britain. The disaffected troops having proclaimed Maximus emperor, he crossed over to Gaul, attacked Gratian (q.v.), and drove him from Paris to Lyons, where he was murdered by a partisan of Maximus. Theodosius being unable to avenge the death of his colleague, an agreement was made (384 or 385) by which Maximus was recognized as Augustus and sole emperor in Gaul, Spain and Britain, while Valentinian II. was to remain unmolested in Italy and Illyricum, Theodosius retaining his sovereignty in the East. In 387 Maximus crossed the Alps, Valentinian was speedily put to flight, while the invader established himself in Milan and for the time became master of Italy. Theodosius now took vigorous measures. Advancing with a powerful army, he twice defeated the troops of Maximus--at Siscia on the Save, and at Poetovio on the Danube. He then hurried on to Aquileia, where Maximus had shut himself up, and had him beheaded. Under the name of Maxen Wledig, Maximus appears in the list of Welsh royal heroes (see R. Williams, _Biog. Dict. of Eminent Welshmen_, 1852; "The Dream of Maxen Wledig," in the _Mabinogion_).

Full account with classical references in H. Richter, _Das weströmische Reich, besonders unter den Kaisern Gratian, Valentinian II. und Maximus_ (1865); see also H. Schiller, _Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit_, ii. (1887); Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, ch. 27; Tillemont, _Hist. des empereurs_, v.

III. MAXIMUS TYRANNUS, made emperor in Spain by the Roman general, Gerontius, who had rebelled against the usurper Constantine in 408. After the defeat of Gerontius at Arelate (Arles) and his death in 411 Maximus renounced the imperial title and was permitted by Constantine to retire into private life. About 418 he rebelled again, but, failing in his attempt, was seized, carried into Italy, and put to death at Ravenna in 422.

See Orosius vii. 42; Zosimus vi. 5; Sozomen ix. 3; E. A. Freeman, "The Tyrants of Britain, Gaul and Spain, A.D. 406-411," in _English Historical Review_, i. (1886).

IV. PETRONIUS MAXIMUS, a member of the higher Roman nobility, had held several court and public offices, including those of _praefectus Romae_ (420) and _Italiae_ (439-441 and 445), and consul (433, 443). He was one of the intimate associates of Valentinian III., whom he assisted in the palace intrigues which led to the death of Aëtius in 454; but an outrage committed on the wife of Maximus by the emperor turned his friendship into hatred. Maximus was proclaimed emperor immediately after Valentinian's murder (March 16, 455), but after reigning less than three months, he was murdered by some Burgundian mercenaries as he was fleeing before the troops of Genseric, who, invited by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber (May or June 455).

See Procopius, _Vand._ i. 4; Sidonius Apollinaris, _Panegyr. Aviti_, ep. ii. 13; the various _Chronicles_; Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, chs. 35, 36; Tillemont, _Hist. des empereurs_, vi.

MAXIMUS, ST (c. 580-662), abbot of Chrysopolis, known as "the Confessor" from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite (q.v.) controversy, or as "the monk," was born of noble parentage at Constantinople about the year 580. Educated with great care, he early became distinguished by his talents and acquirements, and some time after the accession of the emperor Heraclius in 610 was made his private secretary. In 630 he abandoned the secular life and entered the monastery of Chrysopolis (Scutari), actuated, it was believed, less by any longing for the life of a recluse than by the dissatisfaction he felt with the Monothelite leanings of his master. The date of his promotion to the abbacy is uncertain. In 633 he was one of the party of Sophronius of Jerusalem (the chief original opponent of the Monothelites) at the council of Alexandria; and in 645 he was again in Africa, when he held in presence of the governor and a number of bishops the disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed and banished patriarch of Constantinople, which resulted in the (temporary) conversion of his interlocutor to the Dyothelite view. In the following year several African synods, held under the influence of Maximus, declared for orthodoxy. In 649, after the accession of Martin I., he went to Rome, and did much to fan the zeal of the new pope, who in October of that year held the (first) Lateran synod, by which not only the Monothelite doctrine but also the moderating _ecthesis_ of Heraclius and _typus_ of Constans II. were anathematized. About 653 Maximus, for the part he had taken against the latter document especially, was apprehended (together with the pope) by order of Constans and carried a prisoner to Constantinople. In 655, after repeated examinations, in which he maintained his theological opinions with memorable constancy, he was banished to Byzia in Thrace, and afterwards to Perberis. In 662 he was again brought to Constantinople and was condemned by a synod to be scourged, to have his tongue cut out by the root, and to have his right hand chopped off. After this sentence had been carried out he was again banished to Lazica, where he died on the 13th of August 662. He is venerated as a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches. Maximus was not only a leader in the Monothelite struggle but a mystic who zealously followed and advocated the system of Pseudo-Dionysius, while adding to it an ethical element in the conception of the freedom of the will. His works had considerable influence in shaping the system of John Scotus Erigena.

The most important of the works of Maximus will be found in Migne, _Patrologia graeca_, xc. xci., together with an anonymous life; an exhaustive list in Wagenmann's article in vol. xii. (1903) of Hauck-Herzog's _Realencyklopädie_ where the following classification is adopted: (a) exegetical, (b) scholia on the Fathers, (c) dogmatic and controversial, (d) ethical and ascetic, (e) miscellaneous. The details of the disputation with Pyrrhus and of the martyrdom are given very fully and clearly in Hefele's _Conciliengeschichte_, iii. For further literature see H. Gelzer in C. Krumbacher's _Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur_ (1897).

MAXIMUS OF SMYRNA, a Greek philosopher of the Neo-platonist school, who lived towards the end of the 4th century A.D. He was perhaps the most important of the followers of Iamblichus. He is said to have been of a rich and noble family, and exercised great influence over the emperor Julian, who was commended to him by Aedesius. He pandered to the emperor's love of magic and theurgy, and by judicious administration of the omens won a high position at court. His overbearing manner made him numerous enemies, and, after being imprisoned on the death of Julian, he was put to death by Valens. He is a representative of the least attractive side of Neoplatonism. Attaching no value to logical proof and argument, he enlarged on the wonders and mysteries of nature, and maintained his position by the working of miracles. In logic he is reported to have agreed with Eusebius, Iamblichus and Porphyry in asserting the validity of the second and third figures of the syllogism.

MAXIMUS OF TYRE (CASSIUS MAXIMUS TYRIUS), a Greek rhetorician and philosopher who flourished in the time of the Antonines and Commodus (2nd century A.D.). After the manner of the sophists of his age, he travelled extensively, delivering lectures on the way. His writings contain many allusions to the history of Greece, while there is little reference to Rome; hence it is inferred that he lived longer in Greece, perhaps as a professor at Athens. Although nominally a Platonist, he is really an Eclectic and one of the precursors of Neoplatonism. There are still extant by him forty-one essays or discourses ([Greek: dialexeis]) on theological, ethical, and other philosophical commonplaces. With him God is the supreme being, one and indivisible though called by many names, accessible to reason alone; but as animals form the intermediate stage between plants and human beings, so there exist intermediaries between God and man, viz. daemons, who dwell on the confines of heaven and earth. The soul in many ways bears a great resemblance to the divinity; it is partly mortal, partly immortal, and, when freed from the fetters of the body, becomes a daemon. Life is the sleep of the soul, from which it awakes at death. The style of Maximus is superior to that of the ordinary sophistical rhetorician, but scholars differ widely as to the merits of the essays themselves.

Maximus of Tyre must be distinguished from the Stoic Maximus, tutor of Marcus Aurelius.

Editions by J. Davies, revised with valuable notes by J. Markland (1740); J. J. Reiske (1774); F. Dübner (1840, with Theophrastus, &c., in the Didot series). Monographs by R. Rohdich (Beuthen, 1879); H. Hobein, _De Maximo Tyrio quaestiones philol._ (Jena, 1895). There is an English translation (1804) by Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.

MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH (1823-1900), Anglo-German orientalist and comparative philologist, was born at Dessau on the 6th of December 1823, being the son of Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), the German poet, celebrated for his phil-Hellenic lyrics, who was ducal librarian at Dessau. The elder Müller had endeared himself to the most intellectual circles in Germany by his amiable character and his genuine poetic gift; his songs had been utilized by musical composers, notably Schubert; and it was his son's good fortune to meet in his youth with a succession of eminent friends, who, already interested in him for his father's sake, and charmed by the qualities which they discovered in the young man himself, powerfully aided him by advice and patronage. Mendelssohn, who was his godfather, dissuaded him from indulging his natural bent to the study of music; Professor Brockhaus of the University of Leipzig, where Max Müller matriculated in 1841, induced him to take up Sanskrit; Bopp, at the University of Berlin (1844), made the Sanskrit student a scientific comparative philologist; Schelling at the same university, inspired him with a love for metaphysical speculation, though failing to attract him to his own philosophy; Burnouf, at Paris in the following year, by teaching him Zend, started him on the track of inquiry into the science of comparative religion, and impelled him to edit the _Rig Veda_; and when, in 1846, Max Müller came to England upon this errand, Bunsen, in conjunction with Professor H. H. Wilson, prevailed upon the East India Company to undertake the expense of publication. Up to this time Max Müller had lived the life of a poor student, supporting himself partly by copying manuscripts, but Bunsen's introductions to Queen Victoria and the prince consort, and to Oxford University, laid the foundation for him of fame and fortune. In 1848 the printing of his _Rig Veda_ at the University Press obliged him to settle in Oxford, a step which decided his future career. He arrived at a favourable conjuncture: the Tractarian strife, which had so long thrust learning into the background, was just over, and Oxford was becoming accessible to modern ideas. The young German excited curiosity and interest, and it was soon discovered that, although a genuine scholar, he was no mere bookworm. Part of his social success was due to his readiness to exert his musical talents at private parties. Max Müller was speedily subjugated by the _genius loci_. He was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern languages in 1850, and the German government failed to tempt him back to Strassburg. In the following year he was made M.A. and honorary fellow of Christ Church, and in 1858 he was elected a fellow of All Souls. In 1854 the Crimean War gave him the opportunity of utilizing his oriental learning in vocabularies and schemes of transliteration. In 1857 he successfully essayed another kind of literature in his beautiful story _Deutsche Liebe_, written both in German and English. He had by this time become an extensive contributor to English periodical literature, and had written several of the essays subsequently collected as _Chips from a German Workshop_. The most important of them was the fascinating essay on "Comparative Mythology" in the _Oxford Essays_ for 1856. His valuable _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature_, so far as it illustrates the primitive religion of the Brahmans (and hence the Vedic period only), was published in 1850.