Valerian

Valerian ruled the Roman Empire from AD 253 to 260 during a period of invasion, plague and internal instability. He appointed his son Gallienus as co-emperor and campaigned in the east against the Sasanian king Shapur I. Defeated near Edessa, Valerian was captured alive, an unprecedented humiliation for a reigning Roman emperor, and his later fate is uncertain.

Valerian’s eastern war and capture form an important background to Harry Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome novels. The series uses the crisis of the third century to show how imperial defeat, frontier warfare and competing claims to authority affected soldiers and provincial communities.

In Harry Sidebottom’s King of Kings, the narrative follows the fragile authority of Valerian and Gallienus as the empire attempts to fight Persia without resolving its internal divisions. In Harry Sidebottom’s Lion of the Sun, in AD 260 the Roman eastern army collapses and Emperor Valerian is captured by Shapur I at Edessa. Other novels featuring Valerian include Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s Empire of Dragons and Harry Sidebottom’s Fire in the East.