VALENS, v5'lens: Roman emperor 364--378; b. about 328; d. in the battle of Adrianople Aug. 9, 378. He was the son of Gratian, a soldier who had won his way from a low to a high station in military circles, and was the brother and colleague of Valentinianus I. (q.v.). Both brothers had been brought up in the 5amp; as officers they had in the time of Julian made manly confession of Christian faith (Socrates, Hist. eccl., iv. 1; Sozomen, Hist. eccl., vi. 1; both in Eng. transl. in NPNP, 1 ser., vol. ii.). Valentinian was called by the soldiers to the throne to succeed Jovian, and soon called as coruler Valens, to whom was assigned the Past. Conditions were difficult at the time. The Goths

on the Danube were awaiting the moment to assail the empire. While preparing for this emergency, 'Valens was confronted by the rebellion and usurpation of the throne by Proeopius, who was at length overthrown and executed, and his partisans severely punished.

Valens was soon drawn into ecclesiastical affairs. The general trend had improved the conditions for adherents of Nicene orthodoxy, and the two parties of Homoousians and Homoiousians were drawing together in union against Arianism, under the leadership of such men as Athanasius, Basil the Great, Eusebius of Emesa, and Gregory Nazianzen (qq.v.). Valens was on the other side, though whether this was his early choice or was due to .the influence of his consort Albia Dominica and of Bishop Eudoxius is not known. At any rate, Eudoxius was in high favor. Valens in an edict of 385 renewed the deposition by Constantius of the bishops who returned under Julian; among those affected adversely were Athanasius and Meletius of Antioch (qq.v.). There resulted new attacks upon orthodox leaders and churches, but little real harm came of them, as systematic direction was lacking, personal and local relations seeming to dominate. The Pretorian prefect Domitius Modestus was recognized as the enemy of the orthodox (Basil, MPG, xwi. 557). But Valens had no well-settled ecclesiastical policy, and practical and political cares crowded fast upon him. Ecclesiastical persecution took the form of deposition, banishment, and confiscation of goods; that matters went so far as the infliction of capital punishment is improbable, and such stories as the deliberate burning of a ship with thirty clerics, on hoard seem unlikely. Yet the actions of Valens called up anticipations of evil and evoked courageous opposition-though even, here exaggeration appears in the tradition (Socrates, iv. 26; Soaomen, vi. 16; Theodoret, iv. 19). The Novatians were involved in the danger because of their agreement in Christology with the Nicene party, but they escaped because of the influence of ,a certain Marcian, formerly a soldier of the palace and then instructor of the emperor's daughter. An edict of 370 or 373 has been mistakenly interpreted as an attack upon the monks, but certainly had to do with political matters pure and simple. The relation of the emperor to orthodoxy seemed the more unpleasant because his toleration of paganism was apparently open. Theodoret (Hist. eccl., iv. 24) implies that the edict of Valens during his stay at Antioch in the winter of 373-374, giving general toleration, was responsible for an outburst of paganism. But in view of the fact that the population of Antioch was nearly entirely Christian, this information moat be mistaken; yet the two rulers handled Hellenism with great care and were repressive only on special occasions. The reason for this was not-religious indifference, but the certainty that . the old religion was in its last stages.

Meanwhile the Gothic danger had grown, and in the defeat and death of the emperor in the battle of Adrianople the orthodox saw the judgment of God. Yet Valens had performed his royal duties with great conscientiousness and constant regard for the

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right as he saw it. He was earnest in seeking the welfare of the populace and in maintaining order, and his life was one of fidelity to the morality of Christianity and the Church. He was hampered by lack of education. But the Church saw in him only an anti-Christian persecutor, and has left a tradition of him which is far from the truth.

(Victor Schultze.)

Bibliography: Besides the sources named in the text in the ecclesiastical histories by Sosomen, Socrates, and Theo doret, a valuable source is Ammianus Marcellinus' "Ro man History," xxvi. 4 sqq., Eng. transl. in Bohn's Classical Library, London, 1887. Consult further: L. S. TA Nain de Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, vol. v., 8 vols., Paris, 1720-38; H. F. Clinton, Faati Romani. The civil and literary Chronology of Rome and Constantinople, i. 476, ii. 119, Oxford, 1845-50; J. V. A. de Broglie, L'-0gliae et (empire romain, au iv. aikele, 6 vols., Paris, 1856-86; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. w.; H. Richter, Das west römische Reich, Berlin, 1865; H. Schiller, Geschichte der rbraischen Kaiserzeit, ii. 348 sqq., Gotha, 1887; V. Schultze, Geschichte des Dnterganges des griechisch-römischen Heidentnma, i. 186 sqq., Jena, 1887; Schaff, Christian Church, iii. 60-81, 638; Neander, Christian Church, vol. iii. passim; W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, iii. 1202-05, London, 1890; and in general the works on the history, secular and ecclesiastical, of the period.