Born in AD 274, the son of Fabius Victor, an official connected to the Roman army, Maximilian was obliged to enlist at the age of 21.
He is noted as the earliest recorded conscientious objector, although it is believed that other Christians at the time also refused military service and were executed.
His father, a Christian named Fabius Victor, was a former soldier enlisted in the Roman army.
On 12 March 295 at Theveste (now Tébessa, Algeria),[3] he was brought before the proconsul of Africa Proconsularis, Cassius Dio, to swear allegiance to the Emperor as a soldier.
The Order of Maximilian, a group of American clergy opposed to the Vietnam War in the 1970s, took their name from him.