Valerian Licinius

199 – 264 · Generation XIII · Roman emperor (r. AD 253–260) · The Third Century

Valerian (AD 199 – AD 264). Roman emperor (r. AD 253–260). Married Egnatia around AD 215. Captured alive by the Persian king Shapur — the only emperor ever taken prisoner; he died in captivity. He came from an old senatorial house and was already princeps senatus in 238, when Gordian I negotiated through him for the Senate's recognition; when Decius revived the censorship, the Senate chose Valerian for the office — an honour he declined. Marching to help Trebonianus Gallus against the usurper Aemilianus, he arrived too late — and first his own soldiers, then Aemilianus's defecting legions, made him emperor instead. He split the empire's burdens with his son Gallienus and took the troubled East, recovering Antioch and Syria by 257. His edicts of 257–258 turned on the Christians — banishment for clergy who refused sacrifice, then execution for church leaders, Pope Sixtus II and Lawrence among the dead. Plague gutted his army at Edessa before the final defeat. Even his captivity is contested: Lactantius has Shapur using him as a mounting-block, while Persian tradition settles him in mild confinement, his captured soldiers building the dam still called Caesar's.

One of 11 people of The Third Century (159–285) in this archive. Not one house but several short ones, in the fifty years the empire nearly came apart.

Partners

Married Egnatia Mariniana (200 – 250) in 215 — one child together

Children

Gallienus Licinius (218 – 268)

Life

199 — Born
215 — Married Egnatia
264 — Died