A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Valeria
VALERIA, Daughter of the Emperor Dioclesian,
Was married to Galerius, on his being created Cesar, about 292; afterwards he became Emperor. On his death bed, 311, he recommended her, and his natural son Candidien, (whom he had caused her to adopt, having no children of her own,) to Licinius, his friend, whom he had raised to be emperor; intreating him to prove their protector and father. Her mother, Prisca, accompanied her in all her troubles, though Dioclesian was still living. Licinius was the slave of avarice and voluptuousness. Valeria was beautiful; he proposed himself to her in marriage, knowing the second husband would have great right over the heritage of the first. But insensible to love, and too proud to shock that propriety which would not permit an empress to yield to a second marriage, she fled from the court of Licinius, with Prisca, and Candidien, and sought refuge with Maximin, one of the other emperors. He had already a wife and children; and, as the adopted son of Galerius, had been accustomed to regard Valeria as a mother: but his brutal and passionate soul took fire even sooner than that of Licinius. Valeria was yet in the first year of her mourning; he solicited her favour by means of his confident, declaring he was ready to divorce his present wife, if she would consent to take her place: she answered, "that still wearing the garb of mourning, she could not think of marriage; that Maximin should remember the husband of Valeria was his father, whose ashes were not cold; that he could not commit a greater injustice than to divorce a wife by whom he was beloved; and that she could not flatter herself with better treatment; in fine, that it would be an unprecedented and dishonourable thing for a woman of her rank to engage in a second marriage." This firm and generous answer being taken to Maximin, roused his fury. He proscribed Valeria, made himself master of her possessions, took away from her her officers, or put them to death by torments, and banished her and her mother. To add insult to persecution, he caused to be condemned to death, under a false accusation of adultery, several ladies of the court, who were the friends of Prisca or Valeria. Meanwhile Valeria, exiled to the deserts of Syria, found means to inform Dioclesian of her misery: he immediately sent an express to Maximin, intreating the surrender of his daughter; but he was not attended to. He redoubled his solicitations, and implored of gratitude what was due to justice; but in vain, till the unhappy father sunk, over whelmed with grief. At length these unfortunate princesses found means to escape, disguised to Nicomedia, where Licinius was, and they mingled unknown amongst the domestics of Candidien. Licinius soon becoming jealous of him, who was sixteen years of age, caused him to be assassinated. Valeria again fled, and for fifteen months wandered in different provinces, under disguises most proper to conceal her rank. At length she was discovered and arrested, with her mother, in Thessalonica, in the year 315; and at last these two unfortunate princesses, for no other crime than their rank and chastity, were condemmed to death by the pitiless Licinius, amidst the useless tears of the people. They were beheaded, and their bodies afterwards thrown into the sea. Some authors assert they were Christians.