VALERIAN (P. Licinius Valerianus Augustus), Roman Emperor. - B. c. 190, d. c. 260. The information, both about his private life and about his political career, is scanty and uncertain.
Descended from a noble family, he was consul before 238, and during the persecution of Decius he seems to have presided over the trials in Rome: some Passiones that pair the two Emperors give a vague notice of this. In 253 he was in Raetia to levy soldiers on behalf of Trebonianus against the usurper Aemilian, when he was acclaimed emperor. Recognized by the Senate (Aug. 253), he associated with himself his son Gallienus, whom he charged with fighting the barbarians who were pressing on the western frontiers and raiding in Gaul, Spain and the Balkan peninsula. He himself went to the East against the Persians, where, after varying fortunes, he was taken prisoner by Shapur, who put him to death amid humiliations and torments.
V. has passed into history as one of the fiercest persecutors of Christianity. At first he had shown himself very favorable, so much so that Dionysius of Alexandria could write that the Palatine itself seemed a church (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 10); suddenly, however, in Aug. 257, perhaps through the influence of the finance minister, the Egyptian Macrianus, he published an Edict by which he ordered the clergy to sacrifice under penalty of exile, laymen were subject to the death penalty, everyone was forbidden to enter the cemeteries and to hold liturgical assemblies; ecclesiastical property was confiscated (ibid., VII, 11; Acta s. Cypriani, in R. Knopf-G. Krüger, Ausgewählte Märtyrerakten, Tübingen 1929, pp. 62-64). Many bishops, presbyters and deacons, among them Cyprian of Carthage and Dionysius of Alexandria, were driven into exile or condemned "ad metalla" (St. Cyprian, Epp., 76-79 in CSEL, 3, 2, pp. 827-39). A second, more terrible edict was promulgated the following year: clerics were punished with death; noble believers were deprived of their rank and property, and if they still persisted in the faith they were killed; noble women were condemned to exile; the Caesarians to forced labor (St. Cyprian, Ep., 80, in CSEL, 3, 2, p. 839 ff.).
In Rome the victim was Pope Sixtus II together with four deacons in the cemetery of Callistus (ibid.), and shortly afterwards the other three deacons were also massacred (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, pp. 120, 123-26, 152-56, 167). St. Cyprian, recalled from exile, was beheaded in agro Sexti near Carthage; in the same Africa perished Montanus and Lucius (v.), Marian and James (v.), together with many others; in Spain Fructuosus of Tarragona fell; very many in Egypt (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 11); in Palestine, Priscus, Malchus and Alexander (ibid., 12). With the disappearance of V. the persecution also ceased, since his son Gallienus hastened to restore to the Church its freedom and the confiscated property (ibid., 13).