Galeria Valeria

Portrait of the Galeria Valeria on bronze follis

Galeria Valeria († probably 315) was a late ancient Roman empress .

Valeria was the daughter of Emperor Diocletian , who ruled the Roman Empire since 284 , and of Prisca . When her father introduced a new form of rule in 293, in which four emperors now ruled ( tetrarchy ), she was married to Galerius , one of the new Caesares (subordinate co-emperors). As part of the restructuring of the provinces under Diocletian, Galerius named one of the new provinces in Pannonia Valeria after her . Galeria adopted Candidianus , an illegitimate son of Galerius. When Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian resigned as active ruler in 305 , Valeria's husband Galerius Augustus became . He appointed his wife - the only one of the tetrarchs - to be Augusta and mater castrorum ("mother of the army camp"). She was thus nominally raised to the same rank as her husband.

After the death of Constantius in 306, the Roman Empire fell into crisis, the tetrarchical system gradually collapsed in a series of civil wars (see dissolution of the Roman tetrarchy ). Galerius fought to preserve the tetrarchy until he died in 311. After his death, the situation for Galeria became dangerous: First, she and her mother and stepson had to flee from Licinius , who illegally appropriated Galerius' provinces. She fled to her husband's legitimate heir, Maximinus Daia , also emperor in the east. In order to legitimize his rule, Maximinus supposedly wanted to marry Valeria, which she refused. Daia then confiscated her property and exiled her to Syria . In the civil war between Maximinus Daia and Licinius, the latter was victorious in 313. He immediately ordered Valeria to be executed. However, she was initially able to flee and hid from Licinius' captors for 15 months, until she was finally captured and executed together with her stepson Candidianus.

The Christian writer Lactantius reports that Valeria was a Christian and was forced to sacrifice to the old gods during the persecution of Christians , which Diocletian ordered in 303. On coins minted in honor of Augusta , her head is depicted as a square, similar to the portraits of the tetrarchs. With this, Galerius expressed her belonging to the tetrarchical dynasty of the Iovians.

literature

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Galeria Valeria. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 937.

Web links

Commons : Galeria Valeria - collection of images, videos and audio files

Michael DiMaio, Jr .: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references).

Remarks

↑ The whole name can be found on two inscriptions ( René Cagnat , Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes 4, 1562; CIL 3, 13661 ) and the coins minted for them, elsewhere it is only called Valeria.
↑ Ammianus Marcellinus 19.11.4; Aurelius Victor , Liber de Caesaribus 40.10.
↑ ^a ^b Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 50–51.
↑ Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 35; 39-40; 41.
^ Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 15.
↑ In addition Manfred Clauss , Die Frauen der Diokletianisch-Constantinischen Zeit , in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Ed.), Die Kaiserinnen Roms. From Livia to Theodora , CH Beck, Munich 2002, pp. 340–369, here p. 342.

personal data
SURNAME	Valeria, Galeria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Valeria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	late antique Roman empress
DATE OF BIRTH	3rd century
DATE OF DEATH	uncertain: 315

[1] The whole name can be found on two inscriptions ( René Cagnat , Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes 4, 1562; CIL 3, 13661 ) and the coins minted for them, elsewhere it is only called Valeria.

[2] Ammianus Marcellinus 19.11.4; Aurelius Victor , Liber de Caesaribus 40.10.

[Lactanz-3] Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 50–51.

[4] Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 35; 39-40; 41.

[5] Lactantius, de mortibus persecutorum 15.

[6] In addition Manfred Clauss , Die Frauen der Diokletianisch-Constantinischen Zeit , in: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (Ed.), Die Kaiserinnen Roms. From Livia to Theodora , CH Beck, Munich 2002, pp. 340–369, here p. 342.