The Death of Valentinian

After this the Sarmatians made raids into Roman territory, and the emperor marched against them with a large army. When the barbarians understood how formidable the expedition was, they sent envoys to him to ask for peace on certain terms. When the envoys were brought before the emperor, they struck him as rather undignified fellows, and he asked whether all the Sarmatians were like these. They replied that the noblest men of their whole nation had come to him. At that Valentinian flew into a violent rage and cried out with great vehemence that the Roman empire was wretched indeed, to have fallen to him at a time when a nation of such contemptible barbarians, not content to be allowed to live in safety within their own borders, dared to take up arms, invade Roman territory, and break out into open war. So violent were his manner and his words that the effort opened all his veins and burst all his arteries, and he died from the quantity of blood that gushed out. This happened at the fortress of Bergition, in the year after the third consulship of Gratian, which he held with Equitius, on the seventeenth of November. Valentinian had lived fifty-four years and reigned thirteen. [a]

Six days after Valentinian’s death, the army in Italy proclaimed his son Valentinian, then a young child, emperor at Acincum, a city of Italy. When this was announced to the other two emperors, they were displeased. It was not that the brother of the one and the nephew of the other had been made emperor; it was that the soldiers had presumed to proclaim him without consulting them, when they themselves had wanted to proclaim him. Both of them, however, ratified what had been done, and so Valentinian the Younger took his seat on his father’s throne.

Now this Valentinian was the son of Justina, whom the elder Valentinian married while Severa, his former wife, was still living. It came about in this way. Justus, the father of Justina, who had been governor of Picenum in the reign of Constantius, had a dream in which he seemed to bring forth the imperial purple out of his right side. When he had told this dream to many people, it at last came to the ears of Constantius. He took it as a sign that a descendant of Justus would become emperor, and had him assassinated. Justina, left without her father, remained a virgin. Some time later she became acquainted with Severa, the wife of the emperor Valentinian, and was often in the empress’s company, until they grew so close that they used to bathe together. When Severa saw Justina in the bath, she was greatly struck by the young woman’s beauty and spoke of her to the emperor. The daughter of Justus, she said, was so lovely a creature and so finely formed that she herself, though a woman, was altogether charmed by her. The emperor kept his wife’s description in mind and considered how he could marry Justina without divorcing Severa, since Severa had borne him Gratian, whom he had made Augustus a little while before. So he framed a law and had it published throughout all the cities, permitting any man to have two lawful wives. The law was proclaimed, and he married Justina. By her he had Valentinian the Younger and three daughters, Justa, Grata and Galla. The first two remained virgins, but Galla was afterward 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. But we will give the particulars about Theodosius and his sons in their proper place.