Valerian

“ I can trace faintly the features which have been stamped upon my memory--and the form too--chiefly by the recollected scene of that bright morning, when he with our elder brother and venerable parent gave me each a last embrace, as they started for the tents of Valerian. A warmer climate has deepened the olive of his complexion, and at the same time added brilliancy to an eye by nature soft as a woman's. His Persian dress increases greatly the effect of his rare beauty, yet I heartily wish it off, as it contributes more I believe than the lapse of so many years to separate us. ”

“ For the immortal soul could never die, but would live for ever.
So they knelt down, and the cruel blows were struck. But, looking up, the soldiers saw a great pathway of light shining down from heaven. And the souls of Valerian and his brother were led up by angel hands to the throne of God, there to receive the crowns of everlasting glory which they had won on earth. ”

“ Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome, and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. ”

“ Valerian, an old man of seventy years, sent his son Gallienus with an army to drive back these hordes into Persia. He himself, in the mean time, repaired in person to the Danube to assail the barbarians there. But the irruption of these ferocious bands was like the resistless flood of the tide: it could not be arrested. In wave after wave of invasion, they swept over France and Spain. They even crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and entered Africa. An immense tribe came howling through the defiles of the Rhætian Alps, and swept over the plains of Lombardy. ”

“ She told him that she had a guardian angel who watched over her night and day, and would suffer no earthly lover to approach her. And when Valerian desired to see this angel, she sent him to seek the aged St. Urban, who, being persecuted by the heathen, had sought refuge in catacombs. After listening to the instructions of that holy man, the conversion of Valerian was perfected, and he was baptised. Returning then to his wife, he heard, as he entered, the most entrancing music ”

“ Valeriana, Amantilla and Fu are used as synonymous in the Alphita, a mediæval vocabulary of the school of Salernum. [1400]
Saladinus [1401] of Ascoli directs (circa a.d. 1450) the collection in the month of August of “radices fu id est valerianæ.” [Pg 378]
Valerian was anciently called in English Setwall, a name properly applied to Zedoary; and the root was so much valued for its medicinal virtues, that as Gerarde [1402] (1567) remarks, the poorer classes in the north of England esteemed “no broths, pottage, or physicall meats” to be worth anything without it. ”

“ Valerian is represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought into the Great King’s presence; but otherwise he does not appear to be subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most probable that the Roman emperor was not more severely treated than the generalty of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed with abusing the rights of conquest. ”

“ The old stock of Persian kings, professing to be descended from Cyrus, and, like him, adoring fire, had overcome the Parthians, and were spreading the Persian power in the East, under their king Sapor, who conquered Mesopotamia, and on the banks of the Euphrates defeated Valerian in a terrible battle at Edessa. Valerian was made prisoner, and kept as a wretched slave, who was forced to crouch down that Sapor might climb up by his back when mounting on horseback; and when he died, his skin was dyed purple, stuffed, and hung up in a temple. ”

“ He had vanquished Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more formidable than Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent Valerian, already distinguished by the honorable title of censor, to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany to his aid. Valerian executed that commission with zeal and fidelity; and as he arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved to revenge him. The troops of Æmilianus, who still lay encamped in the plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character, but much more by the superior strength of his army ”

“ By their unanimous votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was afterwards emperor, and who then served with distinction in the army of Decius, was declared the most worthy of that exalted honor. As soon as the decree of the senate was transmitted to the emperor, he assembled a great council in his camp, and before the investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of the difficulty and importance of his great office. “Happy Valerian,” said the prince to his distinguished subject, “happy in the general approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic! Accept the censorship of mankind ”

“ The monarch at last ordered him to be flayed alive, and salt to be thrown over his mangled body, so that he died in the greatest torments. His skin was tanned, and painted in red; and that the ignominy of the Roman empire might be lasting, it was nailed in one of the temples of Persia. Valerian died in the 71st year of his age, A.D. 260, after a reign of seven years.――A grandson of Valerian the emperor. He was put to death when his father, the emperor Gallienus, was killed.――One of the generals of the usurper Niger.――A worthy senator, put to death by Heliogabalus. ”

“ In three months Æmilianus himself met a similar fate, the army having chosen Valerian, the governor of Gaul, to the sovereignty. Valerian, though now sixty years of age, possessed powers that might have revived the sinking fortunes of the empire, which was now invaded on all sides. The Goths, who had formed a powerful monarchy on the lower Danube and the northern coasts of the Black Sea, extended their territories to the Borysthenes (Dneiper) and Tanais (Don) : they ravaged Mœsia, Thrace and Macedon; while their fleets ... devastated the coasts both of the European and Asiatic provinces. ”

“ Gloriously the religion of Jesus beams forth amidst all these horrors. “God hath made of one blood all nations.”176 “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”177 “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”178
The Emperor Valerian pressed on with his Roman legions to attack the barbarians in the Far East. He crossed the Euphrates, and encountered the Persian host, drawn up in defiant battle-array on the plains of Mesopotamia. A terrible battle was fought, and the Roman army cut to pieces. ”

“ Gallienus was a cruel and self-indulgent emperor, who excited the indignation of the Romans by leaving his old father, Valerian, to die a captive in the hands of the Persians, so that the inscription, "Clementissimo principi cuius invicta virtus sola pietate superata est," is singularly false, even for the time. ”

“ The other to Valerian her make.* *mate, husband
“With body clean, and with unwemmed* thought, *unspotted, blameless
Keep aye well these corones two,” quoth he;
“From Paradise to you I have them brought,
Nor ever more shall they rotten be,
Nor lose their sweet savour, truste me,
Nor ever wight shall see them with his eye,
But he be chaste, and hate villainy.
“And thou, Valerian, for thou so soon
Assented hast to good counsel, also
Say what thee list,* and thou shalt have thy boon.”** *wish **desire
“I have a brother,” quoth Valerian tho,* *then
“That in this world I love no man so ”

“ Plutarch, Publicola.—Livy, bk. 2.
Valeriānus Publius Licinius, a Roman, proclaimed emperor by the armies in Rhætia, A.D. 254. The virtues which shone in him when a private man, were lost when he ascended the throne. Formerly distinguished for his temperance, moderation, and many virtues, which fixed the uninfluenced choice of all Rome upon him, Valerian, invested with the purple, displayed inability and meanness. He was cowardly in his operations, and though acquainted with war, and the patron of science, he seldom acted with prudence, or favoured men of true genius and merit. ”

“ From her earliest youth she was brought up as a Christian, but that her father was one is doubtful, as he destined his daughter to become the wife of an honourable young patrician named Valerian, who was, however, a pagan.
Cæcilia would not hear of the marriage on this account; and Valerian, who loved her dearly, 23by her advice went to Urban the Pope, who was living in concealment in the Catacomb in the Appian Way, to learn something about the Faith. Valerian took with him his brother, Tiburtius; they were both convinced, were baptised, and, as they confessed Christ, suffered martyrdom ”

“ For I perceive that those most impious men, though they have been famous, yet in a short time have become nameless. But the holier and more godly prince, [5] having passed the seventh year, is now completing the ninth, [6] in which we shall keep the feast.”
Footnotes ↑ i.e. Macrianus; see above, chap. 10, note 5.↑ He is supposed to have betrayed Valerian into the hands of the Persians, or at least, by his treachery, to have brought about the result which took place, and after Valerian’s capture he made war upon Gallienus, the latter’s son and successor. ”

“ He (Dionysius) addressed also an epistle to Hermammon and the brethren in Egypt; and after giving an account of the wickedness of Decius and his successors, he states many other circumstances, and also mentions the peace of Gallienus. And it is best to hear his own relation as follows.↑ This is rightly understood of Macrianus, by whose treachery Valerian came under the power of the Persians. Aurelius Victor, Syncellus, and others, testify that Valerian was overtaken by that calamity through the treachery of his generals.↑ Isa. xlii. ”

“ People are always pleased with that which is novel, and up to this time there have been no kings on the throne bearing the name of Valeriano. I think Valeriano the First will make a very pretty autograph. ”

“ The letters still extant from the princes of the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; [168] nor is it natural to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever fallen into the hands of the enemy languished away his life in hopeless captivity. ”

“ Valeriano's dialogue 'De Literatorum Infelicitate' opens with a description of Rome in the pontificate of Leo. [410] Never since the downfall of the Empire, he says, had letters flourished so freely or had men of learning found more generous patronage. Of that brilliant company Valeriano was himself an ornament. The friend of Egidius and the favourite of Leo, he spent his time in the composition of Latin poems, panegyrical and satiric, and in the exploration of antiquities. ”

“ Valerianus Emperor, 253-260 A.D.
7. Hinc Licinius Valeriānus in Raetiā et Nōricō agēns ab
[85] exercitū imperātōr et mox Augustus est factus. Galliēnus
quoque Rōmae ā senātū Caesar est appellātus. Hōrum imperium
Rōmānō nōminī perniciōsum et paene exitiābile fuit
vel īnfēlīcitāte prīncipum vel ignāviā. Germānī Ravennam
ūsque vēnērunt. Valeriānus in Mesopotamiā bellum gerēns
ā Sapōre, Persārum rēge, superātus est, mox etiam captus 5
apud Parthōs ignōbilī servitūte cōnsenuit. Gallienus Emperor, 260-268 A.D.
8. ”

“ Valentinians, a Gnostic sect, called after their leader Valentine, a native of Egypt of the 2nd century, regarded heathenism as preparatory to Christianity, and Christ as the full and final development in human form of a series of fifteen stages of emanation from the infinite divine to the finite divine in Him “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all,” each stage in the process achieved by the union of a male element with a female, that is, a conceptive and a susceptive.
Valerianus, Lucinius, Roman emperor from 253 to 260, elected by the legions in Rhætia ”

“ With a great effort, Valerianus made his voice heard above the tumult. “Citizens of Rome,” he cried, “be not discouraged by the sight of my torments from confessing the truth! Be firm in your faith and believe in the one true, holy God! Destroy the false gods to whom Almachius sacrifices, crush and annihilate them, for all who adore them will be tormented everlastingly.”
In spite of the constancy of the brothers, Almachius, frightened at the possible consequences of his acts, was at this point inclined to let them go ”

“ Valence, probably Valence, near Lyons, France, 5. 272.
Valentyn, St. Valentine, 5. 683; L. 145; Valentyne, 4. 13; Valentynes day, Feb. 14, 5. 309, 322, 386; 22. 85; I 1086.
Valeria, F 1456.
Valerian, G 129, 162, &c.; gen. Valerians, 277.
Valerie, Valerius, a work by Walter Map, D 671; L. 280 a.
Valerius, Valerius Maximus, D 1165; Valerie, B 3910.
Venus, the goddess, 4. 26, &c.; 5. 261, 652; T. i. 1014, ii. 234, 680, 972, 1524; T. iii. 187, 705, 951, 1257; HF. 130, 162, 219, 227, 465, 618; L. 338, 940, 998, 1021, 1072, 2584, 2591, &c.; the planet, T. v. 1016; A. ii. 12. 18, ii. 40. 6 ”

“ V. = 5.
vacuus, a, um [vacō, to be empty] , adj., empty, unoccupied.
*vādō, ere, —, —, to go, rush. ex—ēvādō, ere, vāsī, vāsus, to go forth or away; get away, escape; get to be, become. in—invādō, ere, vāsī, vāsus, to enter; attack; seize, take possession of..
vagor, ārī, ātus sum, to wander.
Valēns, entis, m., 1. (F.) Valēns, consul 96 A.D. 2. Valēns, emperor of the East, 364-378 A.D.
Valeria, ae, f., daughter of Diocletian and wife of Galerius.
Valeriānus, ī, m., 1. (P.) Licinius Valeriānus, Roman emperor 253-260 A.D. 2. (P.) Licinius Valeriānus, son of (1) . ”