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Galeria Valeria – Roman Empress – Wife of Galerius –
Daughter of Diocletian –
Bronze Follis 26mm (5.67 grams) Heraclea mint: 310 A.D.
Reference: RIC 50 (Heraclea)
GALVALERIAAVG – Diademed, draped bust right.
VENERIVICTRICI Exe: HTΔ – Venus standing left, holding apple and raising skirt.
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Venus
was a
Roman
goddess
principally associated with
love,
beauty
and
fertility
, who played a key role in many
Roman religious
festivals and myths. From the third century BC, the
increasing
Hellenization
of Roman upper classes identified her as the equivalent of the
Greek goddess
Aphrodite
.
Her cult began in
Ardea
and
Lavinium,
Latium.
On August 15, 293 BC, her oldest known
temple
was dedicated, and August 18 became a festival called the
Vinalia Rustica
. After
Rome’s
defeat at the Battle of Lake Trasimene
in the opening
episodes of the Second Punic War
, the Sibylline oracle
recommended the importation of the Sicillian Venus of Eryx; a temple to her was
dedicated on the Capitoline Hill
in 217 BC: a second temple to
her was dedicated in 181 BC.
Venus seems to have played a part in household or private religion of some
Romans. Julius Caesar claimed her as an ancestor (Venus Genetrix); possibly a
long-standing family tradition, certainly one adopted as such by his heir
Augustus.
Venus statuettes have been found in quite ordinary household shrines (lararia).
In fiction, Petronius
places one among the
Lares
of the
freedman Trimalchio
‘s household shrine.
Galeria Valeria (died 315) was the daughter of
Roman
Emperor
Diocletian
and wife of his co-emperor
Galerius
.
Born as Valeria to Diocletian and
Prisca
, she married Galerius in 293, when her father elevated him to the
position of Caesar. Prior to this marriage, clearly organized to strengthen the
bonds between the two emperors, Galerius had to divorce his first wife,
Valeria Maximilla
.
Galeria was sympathetic towards Christians, while Galerius persecuted them.
Galeria was raised to the title of
Augusta
and Mater Castrorum in November 308. Since she gave no child
to Galerius, Galeria adopted her husband’s illegittimate son,
Candidianus
, as her own.
When Galerius died, in 311,
Licinius
was entrusted with the care of Valeria and her mother Prisca. The two women,
however, fled from Licinius to
Maximinus Daia
, whose daughter was betrothed to Candidianus. After a short
time, Valeria refused the marriage proposal of Maximinus, who arrested and
confined her in
Syria
and confiscated her properties. At the death of Maximinus, Licinius
ordered the death of both women. Valeria fled, hiding for a year, until she was
found in
Thessaloniki
. She was captured by the mob, beheaded in the central square of
the city, and her body thrown in the sea. Canonized as christian saint with her
mother (see
Saint Alexandra
).
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