Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/885

 nearly as fond of the smell of this plant as of the true valerian, and will frequently roll on the plant and injure it.

VALERIANUS, PUBLIUS LICINIUS, Roman emperor from 253 to 260. He was of noble family, and in 238 was princeps senatus. In 251, when Decius revived the censorship with legislative and executive powers so extensive that it practically embraced the civil authority of the emperor, Valerian was chosen censor by the senate. After the death of Decius Valerian retained the confidence of his successor, Trebonianus Gallus, who sent him to fetch troops to quell the rebellion of Aemilianus, governor of Moesia and Pannonia. The soldiers in Raetia, however, proclaimed Valerian emperor; and marching slowly towards Rome he found both his rivals dead, slain by their own soldiers. Valerian was about sixty-three years of age, and had scarcely the vigour to deal with the enemies that threatened every frontier of the empire. Taking his son Gallienus as colleague, he left the wars in Europe to his direction, under which matters went from bad to worse and the whole West fell into disorder. Valerian chose for his own part the war in the East, where Antioch had fallen into the hands of a Persian vassal and Armenia was occupied by Shapur (Sapor) I., while in 258 the Goths ravaged Asia Minor. Valerian recovered Antioch, fought in Mesopotamia with mixed success and finally was taken captive. It is said that he was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, and that after his death his skin was stuffed with straw and preserved as a trophy in the chief Persian temple. Owing to imperfect and contradictory authorities, the chronology and details of this reign are very uncertain.

VALERIC ACID, or Valerianic Acid, C4H9CO2H, an organic acid belonging to the fatty acid series, which exists in four isomeric forms, one of which contains an asymmetric carbon atom and consequently occurs in two optically active modifica- tions and one optically inactive modification. Ordinary valeric acid (baldrianic acid) is a mixture of isovaleric acid or isopro-pylaceticacid, (CH3)2 CH-CH2 -CO2H, and optically active methy- lethylacetic acid, (CH3) (C2H5)CH-CO2 H, which occur free or as esters in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, chiefly in the roots of Angelica archangelica and Valeriana officinalis. It may be extracted by boiling with water or soda. A similar product is obtained by oxidizing fermentation amyl alcohol with chromic acid. Isovaleric acid is an oily liquid having the odour of stale cheese and boiling at 174; the salts are usually greasy to the touch. Potassium permanganate oxidizes it to /3-oxyisovaleric acid (CH3)2-C(OH)-CH2-CO2H, whilst nitric acid gives, among other products, dinitropropane, (CH3)2 C(NO2)2. The acid has been synthesized, as has also the inactive form of methylethyl-acetic acid; this modification is split into its optical antipodes by crystallization of its brucine salt. Normal valeric acid or propylacetic acid, CH3-CH2-CH2 -CH2-CO2 H, is a liquid boiling at 186°. The remaining isomer, pivalic or trimethylacetic acid, (CH3)3 C-CO2H, melts at 35° and boils at 163°. Both these acids are synthetic products.

VALERIUS, PUBLIUS, surnamed Publicola (or Poplicola), “friend of the people,” the colleague of Brutus in the consulship in the first year of the Roman republic (509 ). According to Livy and Plutarch, his family, whose ancestor Volusus had settled in Rome at the time of King Tatius, was of Sabine origin. He took a prominent part in the expulsion of the Tarquins, and though not originally chosen as the colleague of Brutus he soon took the place of Tarquinius Collatiiius. On the death of Brutus, which left him sole consul, the people began to fear that he was aiming at kingly power. To calm their apprehensions he discontinued the building of his house on the top of the Velian Hill, and also gave orders that the fasces should be lowered whenever he appeared before the people. He further introduced two laws to protect the liberties of the citizens, one enacting that whosoever should attempt to make himself a king might be slain by any man at any time, while another provided an appeal to the people on behalf of any citizen condemned by a magistrate (lex Valeria de provocatione, see, History, II. “The Republic”). He died in 503, and was buried at the public expense, the matrons mourning him for ten months.

VALERIUS FLACCUS, GAIUS, Roman poet, flourished under Vespasian and Titus. He has been identified on insufficient grounds with a poet friend of Martial (i. 61. 76), a native of Padua, and in needy circumstances; but as he was a member of the College of Fifteen, who had charge of the Sibylline books (i. 5), he must have been well off. The subscription of the Vatican MS., which adds the name Setinus Balbus, points to his having been a native of (Setia in Latium. The only ancient writer who mentions him is Quintilian (''Instil. Orat. x. 1. 90), who laments his recent death as a great loss, although it does not follow that he died young; as Quintilian's work was finished about 90, this gives a limit for the death of Flaccus. His work, the Argonautica, dedicated to Vespasian on his setting out for Britain, was written during the siege, or shortly after the capture, of Jerusalem by Titus (70). As the eruption of Vesuvius (79) is alluded to, it must have occupied him a long time. The Argonautica is an epic in eight books on the Quest of the Golden Fleece. The poem is in a very corrupt state, and ends abruptly with the request of Medea to accompany Jason on his homeward voyage. It is a disputed question whether part has been lost or whether it was ever finished. It is a free imitation and in parts a translation of the work of  (q.v.''), already familiar to the Romans in the popular version of Varro Atacinus. The object of the work has been described as the glorification of Vespasian's achievements in securing Roman rule in Britain and opening up the ocean to navigation (as the Euxine was opened up by the Argo). Various estimates have been formed of the genius of Flaccus, and some critics have ranked him above his original, to whom he certainly is superior in liveliness of description and delineation of character. His diction is pure, his style correct, his versification smooth though monotonous. On the other hand, he is wholly without originality, and his poetry, though free from glaring defects, is artificial and elaborately dull. His model in language was Virgil, to whom he is far inferior in taste and lucidity. His tiresome display of learning, rhetorical exaggeration and ornamentations make him difficult to read, which no doubt accounts for his unpopularity in ancient times.