Fourteen hundred years before Britain voted to leave the European Union, it tried (and failed) to Brexit the Roman Empire. Under the leadership of Spanish-born soldier Magnus Maximus, a chunk of the Western Roman Empire rebelled against its Italian overlords, but ultimately failed to stay independent for too long. Maximus, though, inspired fascinating Welsh myths that turned him into a King Arthur- esque epic hero.
History
First, let’s deal with the historic Maximus. One of a series of usurper-emperors that came out of Britain in late antiquity, Maximus started his career as a humble soldier from Spain, serving in various campaigns across the Empire. Throughout the 360s and 370 AD, he fought everywhere from Britain to Africa in service of his emperor. He rose through the ranks and marked the pinnacle of his military career by returning to Britain and striking a major victory against the Picts and Scots in 382.
Acclaimed as a war hero, Maximus was proclaimed emperor by his troops in 383 in place of their then-overlord, Western Roman Emperor Gratian. The revolution didn’t take place across all of Rome’s vast territories, but primarily in the west. Once he was named emperor, Maximus didn’t rest on his laurels, but invaded Gaul and moved against Gratian.
Gratian Solidus ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )
At the time, Maximus was eager to consolidate his newly found power while Gratian was fighting the Germans, according to Church historian Sozomen. Luckily for Maximus, he had a very loyal general named Andragathos, who tricked Gratian into thinking the latter’s wife was meeting him; under the pretext, Gratian left his camp, but he fell into Andragathos’s hands and was murdered.
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After eliminating Gratian, Maximus established a court at Trier, located in modern Germany, and was baptized. This firmly established himself as Western Roman Emperor to his counterpart Theodosius I’s Eastern Roman Emperor. At the time, Theodosius had other problems to worry about in his Eastern territories, so he didn’t bother with Maximus. That is, until 388, when Maximus invaded Italy and took the city of Milan, ousting Gratian’s brother, Valentinian II. Maximus had raised an army of “Britons, Gauls, Celts, and other nations,” Sozomen says, under the pretext of protecting Christianity, but really did it to consolidate his power.
Magnus Maximus strikes a pose. Image via Panairjdde/Classical Numismatic Group ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )
While Maximus raised his profile, Theodosius cannily consolidated his own power by marrying Galla, Gratian’s half-sister. Finally, he marched against Maximus, who’d given his little brother so much grief, in July 388. When Theodosius engaged Maximus in battle in August, theologian Paulus Orosius claims that “he surrounded, captured, and killed his great enemy, Maximus, a brutal man, who had exacted tribute and taxes from the most savage German tribes merely through the terror of his reputation.” Orosius portrays Theodosius triumphing over Maximus because of his Christian piety. After the battle, Maximus was executed; his son Victor was killed, and Andragathos drowned himself.
Legend
Despite his failure to liberate the Western Roman Empire from Theodosius’s yoke, Maximus, or at least the memory of him, survived in an unusual place—Wales. The medieval chronicler Nennius placed Maximus in a semi-fictional lineage of legitimate rulers of Britain, also claiming that he brought Britons over to Brittany and resettled the area. Nennius’s Historia Brittonum named Maximus as the final Roman emperor to rule in Britain (whether or not that was historically accurate), and this popular text helped popularize the idea that Maximus was somehow associated with the final days of Rome in the British Isles.
Thought to be a depiction of Magnus Maximus from a 14th Century Welsh manuscript. ( CC0 1.0 )
By the Middle Ages, legend had transformed Maximus from a post-Roman leader to one of the founders of Welsh history. He supposedly married Elen, one of the matriarchs of post-Roman Britain, and fathered a number of Welsh dynasties. By marrying Elen, the daughter of legendary King Eudaf, Macsen enmeshed himself in Welsh pseudo-history. He wound up a national hero, to the extent that the medieval kings of Powys and Dyfed, among others, claimed him as their ancestor.
Perhaps the most famous character associated with Maximus was King Arthur himself. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur, when asked why Rome should submit to him, justified his dominion by claiming close kinship with Maximus and Elen’s sons. Admittedly, there were several mythological figures named Elen, whom Geoffrey conflated, but naming himself as the direct heir of a former emperor and his royal British wife, Arthur laid claim to rulership of Britain and even Rome!
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