Publius Lollius Maximus

Publius Lollius Maximus also known as Lollius Maximus and Maximus Lollius was a Roman soldier who lived in the 1st century BC who served under the first Roman emperor Augustus.

Family
Maximus was a member of the plebeian gens Lollia. His name is often mentioned in Latin poetry which occurs in a later inscription.

The father of Maximus had owned a country estate. His father may have been Marcus Lollius consul in 21 BC, or at least a very close relation of the older Lollius who was in high favor with Augustus. If so, his immediate family would have included Marcus Lollius as his brother, and he could have been the uncle of Lollia Saturnina and the Roman empress Lollia Paulina.

Career & Horace
Maximus had served as a Roman soldier in Hispania against the Cantabri under Augustus from 27 BC until 25 BC. When Maximus returned to Rome from Hispania, he became a student in studying Rhetoric. Maximus being a young man, became a friend of the Roman Poet Horace.

In Horace’s Epistles I, 2 and 18, are addressed to Maximus. In Epistle 2, Horace tells Maximus to read the epic poems of Homer again, to find a better expounder of ethics than the philosophers (1-4). Horace wants Maximus to learn what follies to avoid from the Iliad (5-16) and what virtues to cultivate from the Odyssey (17-26).

In Epistle 18, reveals the career of Maximus. He is experiencing problems as being a courtier. If his nobility is recent, this might expose Maximus to all sort of snubs in the hierarchy of Roman society. Horace is advising Maximus that affability is the means between toadying and truculence, which is a virtue in social relationships. If he wants to maintain his position he will need to be accommodating in an agreeing way.

Maximus must learn to respect the wishes of his superior’s friend. In the Epistle, Horace never reveals who is Maximus’ superior friend, however he may have been a personage of princely descent as he is someone who enjoys a re-creation of the Battle of Actium in a country fish-pond. Maximus needs advice on treading the path of independence with a hierarchical aristocracy now transforming itself into a royal court. Maximus seems already on top and secure with his wealth, success, superior friends and some point in due course would want to remove his himself from the world.

At this time Maximus, may have turned his hand to poetry and must have been offered a post in the Retinue of the future Roman emperor Tiberius. The date of this event, may have taken place in 20 BC.

Historian
The English Poet of the Middle Ages Geoffrey Chaucer, who was the author of the poem, Troilus and Criseyde refers various times in the poem to Maximus, as myn auctor Lollius. Chaucer states that Maximus wrote an old story about the Trojan War in Latin and in his poem, Troilus and Criseyde is just retelling the story. In another poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer, The House of Fame, Chaucer introduces Maximus as a real historian. In The House of Fame poem, Chaucer puts Maximus on an iron pillar besides Dares and Homer.

Maximus being a possible historian could also be confirmed by Horace. In one of Horace’s Epistles, addressed to Maximus, Horace advises him to read Homer for the moral and philosophical content of the epics. He began:
 * The writer of the Trojan war, Maximus Lollius,
 * while you practiced speaking in Rome, I reread at Praeneste.

There is a possibility that Maximus could have been an ancient historian on Trojan history. Chaucer with his early readers, could well have believed in the existence of Maximus being an authority on history. However there is no such historian, ancient or modern known to the world as Lollius Maximus. This claim can make available a major literary discovery of a lost work.