Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1227

Rh VALERIA GALERIA. VALENTFNUS, TU'LLIUS, a cliieftain of the Treviri, who endeavoured to persuade the Gauls to join in the revolt of Civilis and Classicus (a. d. 70), but was unsuccessful, on account of the opposition of Julius Auspex and the Remi ; so that onl)^ the Treviri and Lingones rebelled. Valentinus acted as the leader of the Treviri, but took more pains to secure their fidelity by ha- rangues than their success by warlike preparations. When Cerealis passed the Alps, Valentinus joined Tutor in the attempt to oppose him. In his ab- sence two legions, which had surrendered to Clas- sicus at Novcsium and Bonna some time before, and, after taking the oath to the empire of Gaul, had been marched to the city of Treviri, volun- tarily took the oath to Vespasian, and on the return of Valentinus and Tutor after their defeat by Cerealis retired to the friendly state of the Mediomatrici. Valentinus and Tutor roused the Treviri anew to arms, and, in order to make them desperate*, killed Herennius and Numisius, the legates of the above legions. Cerealis soon marched against them from Magontiacum, stormed the strong position of Valentinus at Rigodulum, and entered Treviri, where he harangued and pardoned the two legions just mentioned, as well as the Treviri and Lingones. Valentinus, who had been taken prisoner at Rigodulum, was sent into Italy, and was delivered up to Mucianus and Domitian, who were on their march to support Cerealis. He was condemned to death, and while undergoing his sentence, when some one taunted him with the misfortunes of his country, he replied that he ac- cepted death as a solace for them. (Tac. Hist iv. 69—74, 85). [P. S.] VALENTI'NUS, VALE'RIUS, accused C. Cosconius under the Servilia lex (probably De Repetundis) ; and although the guilt of Cosconius was clear he was acquitted in consequence of an indecent verse of Valentinus "being read in court. (Val. Max. viii. 1. abs. 8 ; comp. Festus, s. v. Tappulam, p. 363, ed. MUller.) A. VALE'NTIUS, the Greek interpreter of Verres in Sicily, was one of his instruments of oppression in that province. (Cic. Verr. iii. 37, iv. 26.) VALE'RIA. 1. The sister of P. Valerius Publicola, is said to have advised the Roman ma- trons to ask Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, to go to the camp of Coriolanus in order to deprecate his resentment. (Dionys. viii. 39, foil.) Respecting her connection with the legend of Coriolanus, see Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 102, foil. 2. The last wife of Sulla, was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala. She attracted the notice of Sulla at the theatre, and he married her towards the end of his life. Soon after his death she bore a daughter. Plutarch calls her a sister of the orator Hortensius, but this is a mistake probably arising from the fact that the sister of Hortensius married a Valenus Messala. (Plut. Sull. 35, 37 ; Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. ii. p. 508.) VALE'RIA, GALE'RIA, the daughter of Dio- cletian and Prisca, was upon the reconstruction of the empire in A. D. 292 [Diocletianus] united to Galerius, one of the new Caesars, by whom she had no offspring, but adopted his illegitimate son Candidianus. After the death of her husband in 311 Valeria rejected the proposals of his successor Maximinus, who, having become enamoured of her person and her wealth, sought to gain her hand VALERIA GENS. 121i even before the established period of mourning had expired. She was in consequence exposed to the brutal fury of the disappointed prince, stripped of her possessions, and banished along with her mother to the deserts of Syria ; nor could the earnest entreaties of Diocletian, whose end is said to have been hastened by the misfortunes of his wife and child, procure any alleviation of their misery. Upon the death of their enemy in 314, they repaired in disguise to the court of Licinius, to whose care Valeria had been consigned by her husband with his dying breath ; but far from ob- taining at Nicomedia the protection and honour which they anticipated, they found themselves, after witnessing the murder of Candidianus and of Severianus, compelled to provide for their safety by a precipitate flight ; and having wandered for many months over various provinces in a humble disguise, were at length discovered at Thessalonica, probably in the year A. d. 315, where they were both beheaded and their bodies cast into the sea. It has been conjectured that Valeria and Prisca must at one period have betrayed some favour for Christianity, for we are told that they were the first persons whom Diocletian required to offer sacrifice to the pagan deities when he commenced his persecution ; and Tillemont seems to regard all their subsequent sufferings as a temporal punish- ment for their weak compliance with the commands of the emperor. Our chief authority for the history of this un- happy lady is the writer of the treatise De Mortibus persecutorum [Caecilius] (cc. 12, 15, 35, 39, 40, 41,42, 50, 51), whose notices have been collected, combined, and cast in an imposing form by Gibbon in the fourteenth chapter of his history. [W. R.] COIN OF GALERIA VALERIA. VALE'RIA MESSALI'NA. [Messalina.] VALE'RIA POLLA. [Polla, No. 1.] VALE'RIA GENS, patrician and afterwards plebeian also. The Valeria gens was one of the most ancient and most celebrated at Rome ; and no other Roman gens was distinguished for so long a period, although a few others, such as the Cor- nelia gens, produced a greater number of illustrious men. The Valerii are universally admitted to have been of Sabine origin, and their ancestor Vo- lesus or Volusus is said to have settled at Rome with Titus Tatius. (Dionys. ii. 46 ; Plut. Num. 5, Ptibl. 1.) One of the descendants of this Vo- lesus, P. Valerius, afterwards sumamed Publicola, plays a distinguished part in the story of the ex- pulsion of the kings, and was elected consul in the first year of the republic, b. c. 509. From thia time forward down to the latest period of the em. pire, for nearly a thousand years, the name occurs more or less frequently in the Fasti, and it was borne by the emperors Maximinus, Maximianus, Maxentius, Diocletian, Constantius, Constantine the