**VALENS (F. Valens Augustus), EMPEROR OF ROME** of the East. — Born on 12 August at Cibalae in Pannonia
from the military tribune Gratian, who rose from humble station to the highest ranks of the imperial hierarchy.
He completed his military training first in the armies of Julian the Apostate and was then designated by his brother Valentinian I to govern the affairs of the Eastern Empire. At the outset of his reign he had to contend with Procopius, a usurper who claimed kinship with Constantine and had secured the support of the Goths. The revolt was crushed, but Valens vented his fury in a succession of reprisals and massacres, followed by a three-year war against the Gothic insurgents who had aided Procopius. A palace conspiracy led by a certain Theodorus, together with charges of magic, furnished him with grounds for numerous capital sentences, among whose victims was the philosopher Maximus of Ephesus. While he was campaigning against the Persians and their king Shapur II, the Goths—who, previously driven by the Huns, had crossed into imperial territory and were harassed by Roman officials—rose in rebellion. Under the leadership of their chieftain Fritigern they invaded Thrace, spreading desolation and ruin as far as Adrianople. Valens hastened to conclude a truce with the Persians (Ammianus, XXXI, 7) and resolved to confront the Goths without awaiting reinforcements being prepared by his nephew Gratian, the new emperor of the West. He was defeated at Adrianople (cf. F. Runkel, *Die Schlacht bei Adrianopel*, Berlin 1903) and perished in that battle on 9 August 378. Valens was a capable administrator (Ammianus, XXXI, 14, 2), though of coarse disposition (*ibid.*, 6). A follower of the moderate Arian party, he sought to intervene in the religious disputes of the day but was firmly opposed by St Basil. He also persecuted Christians such as Gregory Nazianzen (Or., XX, 49-52; V. Fliche-Martin-Frutaz, III, pp. 266-69). In Antioch he had several drowned in the Orontes and exiled various local bishops; at Nicomedia he permitted eighty priests to be burned alive in a boat (Gregory Naz., Or., XLIII, 46). While he showed some tolerance toward pagan cults in general (Cassiodorus, *Hist. trip.*, VIII, 3), he forbade bloody sacrifices and magical practices of the surviving pagan religion.
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