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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 25952575, member: 128351&quot;][ATTACH=full]1651525[/ATTACH]</p><p>Valerian (253-260), sestertius. AE 30 mm, 16.85 g. Rome, 255-256</p><p>Obv.: IMP C P LIC VALERIANVS P F AVG: Laureate and cuirassed bust, right</p><p>Rev.: VIRTVS AVGG / S C: Virtus helmeted, in military attire, standing left, resting right hand on shield and holding spear in left hand</p><p>RIC V Valerian 183</p><p><br /></p><p>Valerian was a Roman emperor for 7 years and nobody knows what eventually happened to him.</p><p><br /></p><p>He seized power in 253 during one of the many civil wars of the mid-3rd c. He was a Roman senator, governor of a Danubian province and could rely on the legions placed under his command. A conservative, he followed the traditionalist political line initiated by his former colleague Trajan Decius, especially the persecution of Christians: under his reign the Christians were forced to sacrifice to the pagan gods of the Empire and many bishops were executed.</p><p><br /></p><p>At his accession in 253, Valerian proclaimed his elder son Gallienus his co-emperor, with the title of Augustus. The interesting thing is that Gallienus would have rather promote another policy but, being Valerianus’ son, he was subordinate to his father.</p><p>In 253 the military situation was serious as two wars were being fought at that time, in the West against Germans, in Orient against the Persian king Shapur I who had taken Antioch and Armenia. Gallienus took the commandment of the western front and Valerian went East to command the war against the Persians. </p><p><br /></p><p>He was relatively successful and won several campaigns from 254 to 259. He could rightfully claim victory in Orient, but no actually decisive battle had removed the Persian threat. Antioch, Syria had been retaken, but in 259 Shapur’s forces were still in North Mesopotamia. In 259 or 260 the disaster occurred: Valerian was captured alive by Shapur at Edessa (today Sanliurfa, Turkey … oops Turkiye). There are different testimonies about this capture: was he made prisoner in battle or, in a rather treacherous way, when attempting to negotiate? In a triumphal inscription engraved at Naqsh-i Rustam near the ruins of Persepolis, Shapur gives his own version:</p><p><br /></p><p>“ (…) <i>And beyond Carrhae and Edessa we had a great battle with Valerian Caesar. We made prisoner ourselves with our own hands Valerian Caesar and the others, chiefs of that army, the praetorian prefect, senators; we made all prisoners and deported them to Persis.</i> (…)”</p><p><br /></p><p>Shapur does not say he had won the war and captured the whole Roman army; he just mentions the commanders… When playing chess, if you capture the king, you’ve won the game, that’s the Indo-Iranian way of thinking. But the Romans thought differently: for them, the loss of a few men does not weaken the army. The Roman forces were mostly intact and undefeated, and the chain of command was immediately re-established: there was still a legitimate emperor, Gallienus, and the senator Odenathus, who was governor of Syria at this moment, became the new commander in his name. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1651531[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">AR Dirham (drachm) of Shapur I</font></p><p><br /></p><p>We don’t know if Shapur attempted to take advantage of his prestigious prisoners, if he tried to negotiate a treaty or a ransom. What we can say is that nothing was done by the Romans to liberate Valerian. The war went on, and Shapur had eventually to withdraw his forces while Odenathus was harassing him, as far as the Persian capital Ctesiphon. </p><p><br /></p><p>In Rome, Gallienus was now the sole emperor. He did nothing to bring back his old reactionary dad, but immediately made the reforms he couldn’t make when his father was still the senior Augustus: the persecution of the Christians was stopped and Christianity officially tolerated in the Empire, the senators were excluded from the commandment of legions and provincial governorships. </p><p><br /></p><p>What happened to Valerian? In his inscription, Shapur just says that Valerian was deported in Persia. On the Persian triumphal reliefs, Valerian is always depicted standing, alive and well, never lying dead and tramped by the king’s horse. There even was a tradition in Iran saying that he stayed at Shapur’s court as a prisoner and was later released. This is the version told in the medieval Persian epic Shahnameh by Firdowsi. But there is a completely different version told by the Christian author Lactantius in “<i>the Deaths of Persecutors</i>”: Valerian spent the rest of his life as a slave, humiliated by Shapur who used him as a stool to mount on horseback. &quot;<i>This is true, </i>Shapur used to say, <i>and not what the Romans delineate on board or plaster!</i>&quot; When he died, he was flayed and his skin, dyed in red, was displayed in a temple in Persia… Seriously, nobody knows.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1651535[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3"><i>Valerian humiliated by Sapor,</i> by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1521 (not my drawing)</font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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