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| Death of Valentinian.
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Chapter XXXI.—Death of
Valentinian.
The Sarmatæ after this
having made incursions into the Roman territories, the emperor marched
against them with a numerous army but when the barbarians understood
the formidable nature of this expedition, they sent an embassy to him
to sue for peace on certain conditions. As the ambassadors were
introduced to the emperor’s presence, and appeared to him to be
not very dignified fellows, he enquired whether all the Sarmatæ
were such as these? As they replied that the noblest personages of
their whole nation had come to him, Valentinian became excessively
enraged, and exclaimed with great vehemence, that ‘the Roman
empire was indeed most wretched in devolving upon him at a time when a
nation of such despicable barbarians, not content with being permitted
to exist in safety within their own limits, dared to take up arms,
invade the Roman territories, and break forth into open war.’ The
violence of his manner and utterance of these words was so great, that
all his veins were opened by the effort, and all the arteries ruptured;
and from the quantity of blood which thereupon gushed forth he died.
This occurred at Bergition Castle, after Gratian’s third
consulate664
in conjunction with Equitius, on the seventeenth day of November,
Valentinian having lived fifty-four years and reigned thirteen. Upon
the decease of Valentinian, six days after his death the army in Italy
proclaimed his son Valentinian, then a young child, emperor, at
Acincum, a city of Italy.665
When this was announced to the other two emperors, they were
displeased, not because the brother of the one and the nephew of the
other had been declared emperor, but because the military presumed to
proclaim him without consulting them, whom they themselves wished to
have proclaimed. They both, however, ratified the transaction, and thus
was Valentinian the younger seated on his father’s throne. Now
this Valentinian was born of Justina, whom Valentinian the elder
married while Severa his former wife was alive, under the following
circumstances. Justus the father of Justina, who had been governor of
Picenum under the reign of Constantius, had a dream in which he seemed
to himself to bring forth the imperial purple out of his right side.
When this dream had been told to many persons, it at length came to the
knowledge of Constantius, who conjecturing it to be a presage that a
descendant of Justus would become emperor, caused him to be
assassinated. Justina being thus bereft of her father, still continued
a virgin. Some time after she became known to Severa, wife of the
emperor Valentinian, and had frequent intercourse with the empress,
until their intimacy at length grew to such an extent that they were
accustomed to bathe together. When Severa saw Justina in the bath she
was greatly struck with the beauty of the virgin, and spoke of her to
the emperor; saying that the daughter of Justus was so lovely a
creature, and possessed of such symmetry of form, that she herself,
though a woman, was altogether charmed with her. The emperor,
treasuring this description by his wife in his own mind, considered
with himself how he could espouse Justina, without repudiating Severa,
as she had borne him Gratian, whom he had created Augustus a little
while before. He accordingly framed a law, and caused it to be
published throughout all the cities, by which any man was permitted to
have two lawful wives.666
| 666Baronius (Am. IV. 272) and Valesius in this
passage agree in looking upon this whole story as a groundless fiction
which some pretended eyewitness palmed off on Socrates. The law
mentioned here is never mentioned by any other historian; no vestige of
it is found in any of the codes; on the contrary, according to Bingham
(Christ. Antiq. XVI. 11), bigamy and polygamy were treated with
the utmost severity in the ancient Church, and the Roman law was very
much against them; furthermore, Am. Marcellinus (XXX.) says that
Valentinian was remarkable for his chastity, both at home and abroad,
and Zosimus (IV. 19) that his second wife had been married to
Magnentius previously [and hence was not a virgin as here stated] and
that he married her after the death of his first wife; all of which
considerations taken together render it historically certain that the
story is not true.
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The law was promulgated and he married Justina, by whom he had
Valentinian the younger, and three daughters, Justa, Grata, and Galla;
the two former of these remained virgins: but Calla was afterwards
married to the emperor Theodosius the Great, who had by her a daughter
named Placidia. For that prince had Arcadius and Honorius by Flaccilla
his former wife: we shall however enter into particulars respecting
Theodosius and his sons in the proper place.667
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