A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

a native of Tyre, a Greek writer of the age of the Antonines, was rather later, therefore, than Maximus the Rhetorician, mentioned by Plutarch (Symp. ix. probl. 4), and rather earlier than the Maximus mentioned by Porphyry (apud Euseb. Evang. Praep. 10.3) as having been present at the supper given by Longinus at Athens in honour of Plato. It is disputed whether Maximus of Tyre was one of the tutors of the emperor Aurelius. The text of the Chronicon of Eusebius, in which he is mentioned, being lost, we have to choose between the interpretation of his translator Jerome, according to whom Maximus is not mentioned as tutor to the emperor, and the reading of Georgius Syncellus [GEORGIUS, No. 46], who appears to have transcribed Eusebius, and according to whom Maximos held that office in conjunction with Apollonius of Chalcedon [APOLLONIUS, No. 11], and Basileides of Scythopolis [BASILEIDES, No. 2]. Even if we accept the reading of Syncellus, as representing the genuine text of Eusebius, it is not improbable that the statement may have arisen from the latter confounding Claudius Maximus, the Stoic, with Maximus of Tyre. Tillemont contends earnestly (Hist. des Empereurs, vol. ii. p. 550, note 11, sur l'Emp. Tite Antonin.) for the identity of the two persons, following in this the judgment of Jos. Scaliger, Jac. Cappellus, Dan. Heinsius, and Barthius. According to Suidas (s. v. Μάξιμος Τύριος) Maximus resided at Rome in the time of the emperor Commodus, and the title of the MS. of the Dissertationes Maximi, in the King's Library at Paris, used by Heinsius, Μαξίμου Τυρίου πλατωνικοῦ Ἐπιδημίας τῶν ἐν Ῥώμῃ διαλέξεων τῆς πρώτης ἐπιδημίας λόγοι μά, Maximi Tyrii Platonici Philosophi Dissertationum Romae, quum ibi primo versaretur, compositarum, &c., gives reason to believe that he resided there at least twice. Davis, indeed, disputes this, and conjectures from intimations contained in the work itself that only a few of the dissertations (five or perhaps seven) were written at Rome, that others were written in Greece, in which country he thinks Maximus passed a longer period of his life than at Rome. Certainly, while his works contain abundant allusions to Grecian history, there is scarcely a single reference to that of Rome. In one passage (Dissert. 8.8), Maximus states that he had seen the sacred rivers Marsyas and Maeander at Celaenae in Phrygia. He probably also had visited Paphos, in the isle of Cyprus, Mount Olympus, in Asia Minor, and perhaps Aetna, in Sicily, with which he contrasts Olympus; and as lie had seen also the quadrangular stone which the Arabs worshipped as an image or emblem of their deity, it is most likely that he had been in Arabia. (Maxim. Dissert. ibid.) But he does not appear to have resided in these places, but only to have visited them in the course of his travels, which must have been extensive. The time of his death is not known.

[J.C.M]