Maximinus was the envoy whom the emperor of the eastern Romans, Theodosius II, sent to Attila in 449.[1][2] His friend, the historian Priscus, went with him at his request and described the journey and Attila’s court.[3][4] Maximinus himself was not told that the embassy served a plot to murder Attila.[5]

Rank

The emperor’s letter to Attila described Maximinus as superior in rank to the interpreter Bigilas. It called him illustrious by birth and very close to the emperor.[5] The edition of Priscus calls him a man of the highest rank.[4] Some scholars identify him with a Maximinus who held the rank of count in December 435, as a member of the commission that drew up the Theodosian Code.[6] In that case he was a man of considerable distinction, but he was not one of the viri illustres, the highest rank of officials.[6]

The embassy of 449

In Constantinople the eunuch Chrysaphius had persuaded Attila’s envoy Edeco to promise to kill his master.[7] The emperor and Martialius, the master of the offices, then decided to send Bigilas to do what Edeco advised. Bigilas was to act under cover of his office as interpreter.[8] Maximinus was to deliver the emperor’s letter.[5] The letter told Attila not to invade Roman territory against the treaties. It also announced seventeen more fugitives, the last the emperor had.[9] Orally, Maximinus was to say that Attila should not ask for envoys of higher rank. Attila’s ancestors and the other rulers of Scythia, he was to add, had accepted any soldier or messenger. He was also to say that Onegesius should come to settle the disputes.[3] Some scholars call the first point an obvious falsehood, since men of the highest rank had negotiated with Attila before. If so, the emperor did not wish to risk such a man if the plot failed.[6]

The envoys travelled north with Edeco and his companions.[3] At Serdica, thirteen days from Constantinople, they gave a dinner for the Huns. Afterwards Maximinus gave Edeco and Orestes silk garments and Indian gems.[3][10] Orestes then told Maximinus that he thought him good and sensible. The other ministers of the emperor, he said, had invited Edeco to dinner and slighted him.[3]

Beyond the Danube Edeco, Orestes, Scottas and other leading men came to the Roman tent. They asked the purpose of the embassy.[11] The Romans would speak to no one but Attila. The Huns went to him and came back. They recited the secret instructions of the embassy and ordered the Romans to leave.[11] Maximinus was overcome with grief. Priscus went to Scottas and won the audience.[12]

Maximinus stepped forward, greeted Attila and handed him the emperor’s letter. He said that the emperor wished him and his people well.[13] Attila answered: “May it be to the Romans as they wish it for me.”[13][14] Then he turned on Bigilas. In their tent afterwards Priscus suggested that someone had reported to Attila what Bigilas had said at Serdica, that Attila was a man and Theodosius a god. Maximinus believed it, because he had no part in the plot.[15]

At Attila’s residence

At Attila’s residence Maximinus pitched his tent near the king’s houses, to be close at hand for talks with Attila and his councillors.[16] He told Onegesius that the time had come to win greater glory. If Onegesius came to the emperor and settled the disputes, he would bring concord to both peoples and bind his house and children to the imperial family for ever.[17] Onegesius refused.[18] He allowed Priscus to carry Maximinus’s messages, since frequent meetings were not fitting for a man of Maximinus’s rank.[19]

Onegesius later led Maximinus to Attila, who named the only envoys he would accept: Nomus, Anatolius or Senator.[20] Maximinus objected that envoys named in this way would become suspect to the emperor. Attila answered that if the Romans refused, he would settle the disputes by arms.[20] At the second banquet Attila told Maximinus to remind the emperor of his promise to give Attila’s secretary Constantius a rich wife, for it was unworthy of an emperor to be a liar.[21]

After three more days the envoys were dismissed with gifts.[22] Attila had ordered the leading men around him to honour Maximinus, and each sent him a horse. Maximinus, seeking a name for moderation, accepted a few and refused the rest.[22] Attila sent the Hun noble Berichus with them as his envoy. Berichus was friendly while they crossed Scythia. After the Danube he turned hostile and took back the horse he had given Maximinus.[22] In Constantinople he accused Maximinus of having said that the generals Areobindus and Aspar had no weight with the emperor.[23]

The return

The envoys went home by Philippopolis and Adrianople. Beyond Adrianople they met Bigilas on his way back to Attila and told him Attila’s answer.[22] He was seized with the gold when he arrived.[24] The promised bride was the daughter of Saturninus. The commander Zeno had taken her from custody and betrothed her to one of his own men.[21] In Constantinople Maximinus reported Attila’s words. The emperor should keep his promise to Constantius, and no one should have been allowed to betroth the girl against the emperor’s will.[25] Theodosius, angry, confiscated her property.[25] Some scholars judge that the envoys had carried out an impossibly difficult mission with tact, firmness and dignity.[26]

Later missions and death

Some scholars identify him with the Maximinus whom Theodosius sent to Isauropolis in the early summer of 450, when the emperor feared a rising by his commander Zeno.[2] The same scholars hold that Priscus was with him in Rome at the end of that year.[27]

Some years later Priscus went with Maximinus again. They went first to Damascus, where they found Ardaburius, the son of Aspar, negotiating peace with envoys of the Saracens.[28] The edition dates the journey to 452 and its end to 453.[29] In the Thebaid in Egypt the Blemmyes and the Nobades, defeated by the Romans, sent envoys to Maximinus to ask for peace.[30] They offered to keep it while he stayed in the Thebaid, then for as long as he lived. He refused both offers and made a truce of a hundred years.[30]

Under the truce the Roman captives were freed without ransom, the cattle returned, and hostages given from the noble families.[30] The barbarians kept their ancient right to cross to the temple of Isis at Philae. At fixed times they took the statue of the goddess home from the temple to receive its oracles. Maximinus had the treaty posted in that temple.[30] After the hostages had been handed over, Maximinus fell ill and died.[30] When the barbarians heard of his death, they took back the hostages by force and raided the country.[31]

According to the text printed in the edition, Maximinus was certainly a pagan, because no Christian would have granted the Blemmyes their rites at Philae.[4] Others identify him with a count Maximinus who carried a letter of Pope Leo from Rome to Constantinople in November 450. They hold that he and Priscus were Christians.[27] A third finds the arguments for this unconvincing and hesitates to accept the identification.[27]

References

  1. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7, p. 77
  2. ^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 220
  3. ^ a b c d e Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 78
  4. ^ a b c Müller 1851, p. 69
  5. ^ a b c Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 77
  6. ^ a b c Thompson 1948, p. 102
  7. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7, p. 76–77
  8. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7–8, p. 77
  9. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 77–78
  10. ^ Bury 1923, p. 279
  11. ^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 79
  12. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 80–81
  13. ^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 81
  14. ^ Bury 1923, p. 280–281
  15. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 81–82
  16. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 86
  17. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 88
  18. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 88–89
  19. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 89
  20. ^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 91
  21. ^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 93–94
  22. ^ a b c d Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 94
  23. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 94–95
  24. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 95
  25. ^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 12, p. 97
  26. ^ Thompson 1948, p. 120
  27. ^ a b c Thompson 1948, p. 221
  28. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 20, p. 100
  29. ^ Müller 1851, p. 69, 71
  30. ^ a b c d e Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 21, p. 100
  31. ^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 21, p. 100–101

Sources

Literature

  • Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
  • J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, vol. I (1923)
  • E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)

Related

What links here6

Persons
Bigilas · Orestes · Scottas · Theodosius II
Battles & Events
Embassy of Maximinus to Attila
Institutions and Titles
Envoys and Embassies

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Maximinus.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/maximinus/

Last revised: 8 November 2026