VALERIAN (P. Licinius Valerianus Augustus), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Born ca. 190, died ca. 260. Information concerning both his private life and his political career is scanty and uncertain.
Descended from a noble family, he was consul before 238 and, during the persecution of Decius, seems to have presided over trials in Rome: some Passiones that associate the two Emperors provide a vague report to this effect. In 253 he was in Raetia gathering soldiers on behalf of Trebonianus against the usurper Aemilianus, 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 pressing upon the western frontiers and raiding Gaul, Spain, and the Balkan peninsula. He went to the East against the Persians, where, after varying fortunes, he was taken prisoner by Shapur, who caused him to die amid humiliations and tortures.
V. Christianity. At first he had shown himself very favorably disposed, so much so that Dionysius of Alexandria could write that the Palatine itself seemed like a church (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 10); suddenly, however, in Aug. 257, perhaps under the influence of the finance minister, the Egyptian Macrianus, he published an Edict ordering ecclesiastics to sacrifice under penalty of exile, while the death penalty was imposed on laymen; everyone was forbidden to enter cemeteries or 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, priests, 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 by death; noble faithful were deprived of their rank and property and, if they still persisted in the faith, were killed; noble women were condemned to exile; the Caesariani were sentenced to forced labor (St. Cyprian, Ep., 80, in CSEL, 3, 2, p. 839 ff.).
In Rome, Pope Sixtus II fell victim together with four deacons in the cemetery of Callistus (ibid.), and shortly afterward 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 Africa, Lucius (v.), James (v.), together with many others, also perished; in Spain, Fructuosus of Tarragona fell; and 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 came to an end, since his son Gallienus hastened to restore to the Church its freedom and confiscated property (ibid., 13).