Valentinian

Valentinian, Roman emperor (364-375), was born of humble family at Cibalís in Pannonia, 321 A.D. By his capacity and courage he rose rapidly in rank under Constantius and Julian, and on the death of Jovian was chosen as his successor (February 26, 364). He resigned the East to his brother Valens, and himself governed the West with watchful care down to his sudden death at Bregetio, November 17, 375, brought on by a fit of passion. By his first wife he had one son, Gratianus (q.v.), and by the second, Justina, another son, Valentinian II., and three daughters, one of whom, Galla, became the wife of the Emperor Theodosius I.—VALENTINIAN II. was born in 372 A.D., and received from his elder brother, Gratianus, the provinces of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa, as his share of the western empire. During his long minority the empress Justina administered the government; and about three years after her death Valentinian was murdered by Arbogastes, the commander-in-chief of his army (392).—VALENTINIAN III., the grand-nephew of the preceding, being the son of Constantius III. by Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius the Great and Galla, was born about 419 A.D., and was seated on the throne of the West by Theodosius II., emperor of the East, in 425. Valentinian was a weak and contemptible prince, and never really ruled during the thirty years that he sat disesteemed and unhonoured on the imperial throne; his mother, Placidia, governed till her death in 450, and was succeeded by the eunuch, Heraclius, one of those malignant fribbles who swarmed around the throne of the falling empire. His treatment of Bonifacius made the latter throw himself into the arms of Genserich (q.v.), chief of the Vandals, and thus lost Africa to the empire. Aëtius, the buttress of his empire, he stabbed to death in a fit of envious jealousy (454), but next year was himself slain by Maximus, whose wife he had ravished.