Maximinus II (Daia)

Maximinus Daia
Emperor of the Roman Empire
Reign	305–8 (as Caesar in the east, under Galerius); 310– May 312 (as Augustus in the east, in competition with Licinius)
Full name	Gaius Valerius Galerius Maximinus Daia
Born	20 November c. 270
Birthplace	near Felix Romuliana (Gamzigrad, Serbia
Died	August 313 (aged 42)
Predecessor	Galerius
Successor	Licinius

This article deals with this 4th century Roman Emperor. For the 3rd century Roman Emperor of the same name, see: Maximinus Thrax. For other uses of the name, see Maximin.

Gaius Valerius Galerius Maximinus (20 November, c. 270 – July/August, 313) Roman emperor from 308 to 313, was originally named Daia. He was born of peasant stock to the half sister of the Roman emperor Galerius near their family lands around Felix Romuliana; a rural area now in the Danubian region of Moesia today's Serbia, then the newly reorganised Roman province of Dacia Aureliana subordinated to the later Prefecture of Illyricum).

He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was adopted by his maternal uncle, Galerius, and raised to the rank of caesar, with the government of Syria and Aegyptus.

In 308, after the elevation of Licinius to Augustus, Maximinus and Constantine were declared filii Augustorum ("sons of the Augusti"), but Maximinus probably started styling himself after Augustus during a campaign against the Sassanids in 310.

On the death of Galerius, in 311, Maximinus divided the Eastern Empire between Licinius and himself. When Licinius and Constantine began to make common cause with one another, Maximinus entered into a secret alliance with the usurper Caesar Maxentius, who controlled Italy. He came to an open rupture with Licinius in 313, he summoned an army of 70,000 men, but still sustained a crushing defeat at the Battle of Tzirallum, in the neighbourhood of Heraclea Pontica, on the April 30, and fled, first to Nicomedia and afterwards to Tarsus, where he died the following August. His death was variously ascribed "to despair, to poison, and to the divine justice".^[1]

Maximinus has a bad name in Christian annals, as having renewed persecution after the publication of the toleration edict of Galerius (see Edict of Toleration by Galerius). Eusebius of Caesarea^[2], for example, writes that Maximinus conceived an "insane passion" for a Christian girl of Alexandria, who was of noble birth noted for her wealth, education, and virginity – Saint Catherine of Alexandria. When the girl refused his advances, he exiled her and seized all of her wealth and assets.^[3]

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

See also

• Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy (306-324 AD)

External links

• Media related to Maximinus II at Wikimedia Commons
• DiMaio, Michael, "Maximinus Daia (305–313 A.D.)", De Imperatoribus Romanis
•  "Caius Valerius Daja Maximinus". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.