Valentinianus Galates

Flavius Valentinianus Galates ( ancient Greek Οὐαλεντινιανός Γαλάτης ; * January 18, 366 ; † 370 or 372 in Caesarea , Cappadocia , or Antioch ) was a Roman prince.

Life

Valentinianus Galates - the name probably refers to his (unknown) place of birth in Galatia - was the son of Emperor Valens and his wife Albia Domnica . He had two older sisters named Anastasia and Carusa .

Galates was born at a time when his father Valens had to deal with the usurper Procopius . After Valens' brother Valentinian I had appointed his eight-year-old son Gratian as co-emperor in 367, Valens also set the dynastic course by making his two-year-old son nobilissimo (and thus implicitly future Caesar ) and designating consul of the year 369. The orator and philosopher Themistios offered himself as tutor to the heir to the throne .

However, shortly afterwards, Galates fell ill and died. The early death was a severe blow for the imperial couple, which was accompanied by religious scandals and rumors. According to the church historian Socrates Scholastikos , Domnica reported visions to her husband, according to which the serious illness of her son was a punishment from God for the bad treatment of the metropolitan Basil of Caesarea . When the Bishop of Valens was asked to pray for the child's well-being, he is said to have made the child's survival dependent on the emperor's turning away from Arianism . Valens refused, however, and had the terminally ill Galates baptized according to the Arian rite. Thereupon Basil predicted the imminent death of the boy, which then also occurred.

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literature

Arnold Hugh Martin Jones , John Robert Martindale, John Morris : Valentinianus Galates. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6 , p. 381.
Noel Lenski: Failure of Empire. Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century AD University of California Press, Berkeley CA 2002, ISBN 0-520-23332-8 .
Gerhard May : Basil the Great and the Roman State. In: Bernd Moeller , Gerhard Ruhbach (Hrsg.): Remaining in the change of church history. Church history studies. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1973, ISBN 3-161-35332-3 , pp. 47-70.
Gregor Weber : Emperor, dreams and visions in principate and late antiquity (= Historia - single writings. Vol. 143). Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07681-6 .

Web links

Thomas M. Banchich: Short biography (English) at De Imperatoribus Romanis (with references). (Treats Galates' mother, Domnica.)

Remarks

↑ Banchich, Domnica , dates the death of Galates to 370 in Caesarea. However, Gregor von Nazianz only records a stay of the emperor in Caesarea for the beginning of 372, from which the later reference point results (cf. May, p. 54 ). Of course, this does not rule out an earlier meeting of Valens and Basilius, who was appointed Archbishop of Caesarea in the autumn of 370, either there or at the court in Antioch (so Socrates), especially since Galates disappears from official sources after his consulate in 369. For the dating problem see also Weber, p. 357 .

personal data
SURNAME	Galates, Valentinianus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Galates, Flavius Valentinianus (full name); Γαλάτης, Ουαλεντινιανός (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Son of the Roman Emperor Valens
DATE OF BIRTH	January 18, 366
DATE OF DEATH	370 or 372
Place of death	Caesarea , Cappadocia , or Antioch

[1] Banchich, Domnica , dates the death of Galates to 370 in Caesarea. However, Gregor von Nazianz only records a stay of the emperor in Caesarea for the beginning of 372, from which the later reference point results (cf. May, p. 54 ). Of course, this does not rule out an earlier meeting of Valens and Basilius, who was appointed Archbishop of Caesarea in the autumn of 370, either there or at the court in Antioch (so Socrates), especially since Galates disappears from official sources after his consulate in 369. For the dating problem see also Weber, p. 357 .