Valens
Valens was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of the Roman Empire to rule. In 378, Valens was defeated and killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths, which astonished contemporaries and marked the beginning of barbarian encroachment into Roman territory.
As emperor, Valens continually faced threats both internal and external. He defeated, after some dithering, the usurper Procopius in 366, and campaigned against the Goths across the Danube in 367 and 369. In the following years, Valens focused on the eastern frontier, where he faced the perennial threat of Persia, particularly in Armenia, as well as additional conflicts with the Saracens and Isaurians. Domestically, he inaugurated the Aqueduct of Valens in Constantinople, which was longer than all the aqueducts of Rome. In 376–77, the Gothic War broke out, following a mismanaged attempt to settle the Goths in the Balkans. Valens returned from the east to fight the Goths in person, but lack of coordination with his nephew, the western emperor Gratian, as well as poor battle tactics, led to Valens and much of the eastern Roman army dying in a battle near Adrianople in 378.
A capable administrator who significantly relieved the burden of taxation on the population, Valens is also described as indecisive, impressionable, a mediocre general and overall "utterly undistinguished". His suspicious and fearful disposition resulted in numerous treason trials and executions which heavily stained his reputation. In religious matters, Valens favored a compromise between Nicene Christianity and the various non-trinitarian Christian sects, and interfered little in the affairs of the pagans.
Early life and military career
Valens and his brother Valentinian were born, in 328 and 321 respectively, to an Illyrian family resident in Cibalae in Pannonia Secunda. Their father Gratianus Funarius, a native of Cibalae, had served as a senior officer in the Roman army and as comes Africae. The brothers grew up on estates purchased by Gratianus in Africa and Britain. Both were Christians, but favored different sects: Valentinian was a Nicene Christian and Valens was an Arian Christian. In adulthood, Valens served in the protectores domestici under the emperors Julian and Jovian. According to the 5th-century Greek historian Socrates Scholasticus, Valens refused pressure to offer pagan sacrifices during the reign of the polytheist emperor Julian.Julian was killed in battle against the Persians in June 363, and his successor Jovian died the following February while traveling home to Constantinople. The Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus relates that Valentinian was summoned to Nicaea by a council of military and civil officials, who acclaimed him augustus on 25 February 364.
File:INC-1867-r Солид. Валент II. Ок. 375—378 гг..png|thumb|Solidus of Valens showing Valentinian and Valens on the reverse, marked: . They hold together the orb, a symbol of power.
Valentinian appointed his brother Valens tribunus stabulorum on 1 March 364. It was the general opinion that Valentinian needed help to handle the administration, civil and military, of the large and unwieldy empire, and, on 28 March, at the express demand of the soldiers for a second augustus, he selected Valens as co-emperor at the Hebdomon, before the Constantinian Walls.
Reign
Both emperors were briefly ill, delaying them in Constantinople. As soon as they recovered, the two augusti travelled together through Adrianople and Naissus to Mediana, where they divided their territories. Valens obtained the eastern half of the Empire: Greece, the Balkans, Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant as far as the border with the Sasanian Empire. Valentinian took the western half, where the Alemannic wars required his immediate attention. The brothers began their consulships in their respective capitals, Constantinople and Mediolanum.In the summer of 365, the 365 Crete earthquake and ensuing tsunami caused destruction around the Eastern Mediterranean.
The empire had recently retreated from most of its holdings in Mesopotamia and Armenia, because of a treaty that Jovian had made with Shapur II of the Sasanian Empire. Valens' first priority after the winter of 365 was to move east in hopes of shoring up the situation.
Usurpation of Procopius (365–366)
Recent tax increases, and Valens' dismissal of Julian's popular minister Salutius, contributed to a general disaffection and to the acceptability of a revolution. With the emperor absent from the imperial city, Procopius, a maternal cousin of Julian, declared himself augustus on 28 September 365. Procopius had held office under Constantius II and Julian and was rumored to have been Julian's intended successor, despite how he had died without naming one. Jovian, aside from depriving him of his command, took no measures against this potential rival, but Valentinian regarded Procopius with hostility. Procopius met the danger from the new emperors with his own bid for power, emphasizing his connection to the revered Constantinian Dynasty: during his public appearances he was always accompanied by Constantia, the posthumous daughter of Constantius II, and her mother Faustina, the dowager empress.News of the revolt reached Valens at Caesarea in Cappadocia, after most of his troops had already crossed the Cilician Gates into Syria. His first reaction was despair, and he considered abdication and perhaps even suicide. Procopius quickly gained control of the provinces of Asia and Bithynia, winning increasing support for his insurrection. Valens recovered his nerve and sent an army to Constantinople; according to Ammianus Marcellinus, the soldiers defected to Procopius, whose use of his Constantinian hostages had met with some success.
Having reappointed Salutius, Valens dispatched more troops under veteran generals, Arinthaeus and Arbitio, to march on Procopius. According to Ammianus Marcellinus and the later Greek historians Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen, the forces of Valens eventually prevailed after eight months, defeating Procopius in battles at Thyatira and Nacoleia. On both occasions, Procopius was deserted by his own following in fear of their adversaries' formidable commanders. Put on trial by members of his own escort, Procopius was executed on 27 May 366. Ammianus Marcellinus relates that Procopius' relative Marcellus was proclaimed emperor in his place, but according to Zosimus he was swiftly captured and executed. Valens could turn his attention back to external enemies, the Sasanian Empire and the Goths.
First Gothic War: 367–369
During Procopius' insurrection, the Gothic king Ermanaric, who ruled a powerful kingdom north of the Danube from the Euxine to the Baltic Sea, had engaged to supply him with troops for the struggle against Valens. The Gothic army, reportedly numbering 30,000 men, arrived too late to help Procopius, but nevertheless invaded Thrace and began plundering the farms and vineyards of the province. Valens, marching north after defeating Procopius, surrounded them with a superior force and forced them to surrender. Ermanaric protested, and when Valens, encouraged by Valentinian, refused to make atonement to the Goths for his conduct, war was declared.In spring 367, Valens crossed the Danube and attacked the Visigoths under Athanaric, Ermanaric's tributary. The Goths fled into the Carpathian Mountains, and the campaign ended with no decisive conclusion. The following spring, a Danube flood prevented Valens from crossing; instead the Emperor occupied his troops with the construction of fortifications. In 369, Valens crossed again, from Noviodunum, and by devastating the country forced Athanaric into giving battle. Valens was victorious, and took the title Gothicus Maximus in time for the celebration of his quinquennalia. Athanaric and his forces were able to withdraw in good order and pleaded for peace.
Fortunately for the Goths, Valens expected a new war with the Sasanid Empire in the Middle East and was therefore willing to come to terms. In early 370 Valens and Athanaric met in the middle of the Danube and agreed to a treaty that ended the war. The treaty seems to have largely cut off relations between Goths and Romans, confining trade and the exchange of troops for tribute.
Persian War: 373
As mentioned before, among Valens' reasons for contracting a hasty and not entirely favorable peace in 369 was the deteriorating state of affairs in the East. Jovian had surrendered Rome's much disputed claim to control over Armenia in 363, and Shapur II was eager to make good on this new opportunity. The Persian emperor began enticing Armenian lords over to his camp and eventually forced the defection of the Arsacid Armenian king, Arshak II, whom he quickly arrested and incarcerated. The Armenian nobility responded by asking Valens to return Arshak's son, Pap. Valens agreed and sent Pap back to Armenia, but as these events took place during the war with the Goths he could not support him militarily.In response to the return of Pap, Shapur personally led an invasion force to seize control of Armenia. Pap and his followers took refuge in the mountains while Artaxata, the Armenian capital, and the city of Artogerassa along with several strongholds and castles were destroyed. Shapur sent a second invasion force to Caucasian Iberia to drive out the pro-Roman king Sauromaces II, and put his own appointee, Sauromaces's uncle Aspacures II, on the throne.
In the summer following his Gothic settlement, Valens sent his magister peditum Arinthaeus to support Pap. The following spring twelve legions were sent under Terentius to regain Iberia and to garrison Armenia near Mount Npat. When Shapur counterattacked into Armenia in 371, his forces were bested by Valens' generals Traianus and Vadomarius and the Armenian sparapet Mushegh Mamikonian at Bagavan and Gandzak. Valens had overstepped the 363 treaty and then successfully defended its transgression. A truce settled after the 371 victory held as a quasi-peace for the next five years while Shapur was forced to deal with a Kushan invasion on his eastern frontier.
Meanwhile, troubles broke out with the boy-king Pap, who purportedly had the Armenian patriarch Nerses assassinated and demanded control of a number of Roman cities, including Edessa. Controversy also ensued over the issue of the appointment of a new patriarch of Armenia, with Pap appointing a candidate without the traditional approval from Caesarea. Pressed by his generals and fearing that Pap would defect to the Persians, Valens made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the prince and later had him executed inside Armenia. In his stead, Valens imposed another Arsacid, Varazdat, who ruled under the regency of the sparapet Mushegh Mamikonian, a friend of Rome.
None of this sat well with the Persians, who began agitating again for compliance with the 363 treaty. As the eastern frontier heated up in 375, Valens began preparations for a major expedition. Meanwhile, trouble was brewing elsewhere. In Isauria, the mountainous region of western Cilicia, a major revolt had broken out in 375 which diverted troops formerly stationed in the East. Furthermore, by 377, the Saracens under Queen Mavia had broken into revolt and devastated a swath of territory stretching from Phoenicia and Palestine as far as the Sinai. Though Valens successfully brought both uprisings under control, the opportunities for action on the eastern frontier were limited by these engagements closer to home.
File:Valens aquädukt02.jpg|thumb|Aqueduct of Valens in Constantinople, capital of the eastern Roman Empire
File:KHM Wien 32.482 - Valens medal, 375-78 AD.jpg|thumb|Obverse of a medal of Valens, set in a later pendant and found in the Șimleu Silvaniei, a hoard from the second quarter of the 5th century