Thursday 21 April 2016

Valerian, Emperor of Rome



Valerian is one of the lesser known Roman Emperors but he has a special claim to fame in that he was the only one who was captured by a foreign enemy and died in exile as a result. This puts him quite high on the list of failed Emperors, of which the later Roman Empire, in particular, had a large number.

Publius Licinius Valerianus was born in around the year 200 (possibly a few years earlier). Little is known about his early life except that he was a consul at some time in the 230s and a high-ranking member of the Senate who held the position of “princeps senatus” in 238, a year of civil war during which seven men claimed office as Emperor at various times.

It is known that Valerian was married to Egnatia Maririana, by whom he had two sons.

He was a trusted ally of both Emperors Decius and Trebonianus Gallus. The latter had been declared Emperor in 251 when Decius was killed by the Goths at the Battle of Abrittus (in modern Bulgaria).

Two years later Gallus was in turn threatened by a usurper, Aemilianus, and he called upon Valerian, who was commanding the legions on the Rhine, to come to his aid. However, Valerian was too late and Gallus had been overthrown and killed (possibly by his own troops) before he arrived.

The reign of Aemilianus was even briefer than that of Gallus, and his fate was similar in that his army mutinied and killed him before battle could be joined with the approaching army headed by Valerian, who was then acknowledged as Emperor. He was probably aged about 55 at the time (September 253).

One of Valerian’s first acts as Emperor was to elevate his son Gallienus to the rank of Augustus which signified his status as co-Emperor.

As Emperor, Valerian showed himself to be a deeply committed traditionalist, in that he was content to make the same mistakes that his predecessors had done in refusing to adapt to changing times. This meant that the borders of the Empire were to be defended at all costs and no concessions were to be made to the cultural diversity of the peoples who lived within those borders.

This thinking was behind Valerian’s edict in 257 that sanctioned persecution of Christians throughout the Empire. This included seizure of property and the execution of Christians who would not recant their beliefs.

On the military side, Roman armies failed to learn from their defeats against enemies such as the Goths and the Persians, in that Roman battle strategies were ineffective against the hit-and-run tactics of their opponents. The aim of these invaders was not so much to conquer territory as to raid and pillage and then retreat before the Romans could muster an army to confront them.

In 259 a new invasion threatened the Empire from the east. This was launched by Shapur, the leader of the Sassanid Empire that covered the whole of modern Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and reached as far as India. Valerian headed an army to confront Shapur but his troops were in no shape to put up much of a fight due to disease and incipient mutiny.

Valerian offered to sue for peace and a meeting was arranged between the two rulers. However, this was a trick and Valerian fell into the trap. He was captured by Shapur and taken back to Persia in chains, never to be heard from again.

Various stories have arisen about what happened to Valerian, many of them put about by later writers who had a reason for denigrating the former Emperor. One story was that Shapur used Valerian as a footstool when mounting his horse, and another was that, when he died, his body was stuffed with straw and exhibited in a Persian temple. All that can be known for certain is that Valerian died in captivity, leaving his son Gallienus to rule as sole Emperor.

Shapur was clearly proud of his triumphs against the might of Rome, having the events preserved in the form of reliefs carved at Naqsh-i-Rustam, near Persepolis. However, it should be noted that, although in a submissive posture, the figure of Valerian is not shown as being on his knees. That dishonour is reserved for another former Emperor, namely Philip, who had been defeated in a previous battle.



© John Welford

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