Valentinianus Galates

Death of Valentinianus, the son of Emperor Valens, as depicted in the 9th century Paris Gregory. Valentinianus Galates (Greek: Ούαλεντινιανός Γαλάτης, 18 January 366 – ) was the only son of the Roman emperor Valens, who ruled the Roman Empire from 364 to 378. Born into the ruling Valentinianic dynasty, Galates became Roman consul in 369, but he died in early childhood, and the empire passed to the descendants of Valentinian I, Galates's uncle, whom he was named after.

According to the 4th- and 5th-century ecclesiastical histories written by Nicene Christians, Valentinianus died as a result of his father's Arian Christianity.

Life Valentinianus was the third child of the emperor Valens and his wife Domnica, and their only son. According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana, Valentinianus was born on 18 January 366. According to the work of the contemporary orator Themistius, he was born beside the Danube, where the Danubian Limes marked the frontier of the empire. This name was used by the 4th-century Greek church historians Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen and by the Chronicon Paschale.

Themistius delivered a panegyric – his Ninth Oration – on the beginning of the boy's consulship on 1 January 369. Themistius, a philosopher and rhetorician, suggested that he himself be appointed tutor to the young Valentinianus.

In his Eleventh Oration, delivered after Valentinianus's death, Themistius invokes divine intervention to bring Valens more children.