#there's that one painting of saint basil celebrating mass and valens looks SO hot in it. it's actually a little baffling. like.

[brother-emperors]

Now Valentinian was chosen emperor in Bithynia (as we have said before). He gave the signal for the march for the next day but one, and assembling the chief civil and military officials, as if ready to follow safe and sound advice rather than his own inclination, inquired who ought to be chosen as partner in the rule. [...] Dagalaifus, at that time commander of the cavalry, boldly answered: "If you love your relatives, most excellent emperor, you have a brother; if it is the state that you love, seek out another man to clothe with the purple." The emperor, angered by this, but keeping silence and concealing his thoughts, forcing the pace, entered Nicomedia on the first of March, and appointed his brother Valens chief of his stable with the rank of tribune. Then, on his arrival in Constantinople, [...] on the twenty-eighth of March he brought the aforesaid Valens into one of the suburbs and with the consent of all (for no one ventured to oppose) proclaimed him Augustus. Then he adorned him with the imperial insignia and put a diadem on his head, and brought him back in his own carriage, thus having indeed a lawful partner in his power, but, as the further course of our narrative will show, one who was as compliant as a subordinate.

AM 26.4.1-4

there's some hint of 'no one's allowed to talk shit about my brother but me,' energy, but also generally I'm just kind of obsessed. not with Valentinian I, but with Valens. hello.

I'll probably get into Valens later, since he's taking up a significant amount of room in my thoughts, but for now, it's the 'oh! the brothers were co emperors!' that's making the wheels spin. (the last time I was reading about brothers, or people made to be like brothers, as co-rulers, it was with Tiberius. and that goes about as well as you expect it to lmao)

Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D, Noel Lenski

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#roman empire tag #komiks tag #there's that one painting of saint basil celebrating mass and valens looks SO hot in it. it's actually a little baffling. like. #what's up with that. but what's important is that i immediately got obsessed and had to look him up and now i'm speed running #what happened with crassus only there are no real life dead people involved with that arc #long post #rip tiberius you would've loved to know that there was indeed a pair of brother co-emperors #you probably would've tried to force them into twin roles if you could. #later Roman Empire tag