[Valencia] (40), a city of Venezuela, in a rich district, on a lake of the same name; large numbers of cattle, horses, and mules are reared in the neighbourhood.
[Valenciennes] (24), an ancient fortified city in the dep. Nord, France, on the Scheldt, 32 m. SE. of Lille, with a citadel planned by Vauban, a fine town-hall, and a modern Gothic church and other buildings; has textile manufactures, besides iron-works, and was once famous for its lace.
[Valens, Flavius], Emperor of the East from 364 to 378; nominated by his brother Valentinian I. emperor of the West; was harassed all his reign by the Goths, who had been allowed to settle in the empire, and whom he drove into revolt, to the defeat of his army in 378, in a battle in which he was himself slain; the controversy between the orthodox and the Arians was at its height in this reign, and to the latter party both he and his victors belonged; b. 328.
[Valentia], an island in co. Kerry, Ireland, is the European terminus of the Atlantic telegraph system.
[Valentine, Basil], a German alchemist of the 15th century, is said to have been a Benedictine monk at Erfurt, and is reckoned the father of analytical chemistry.
[Valentine's Day], the 14th of February, on which young people of both sexes were wont (the custom seems gradually dying out) to send love-missives to one another; it is uncertain who the Valentine was that is associated with the day, or whether it was with any of the name.
[Valentinian I.], Roman emperor from 364 to 375, born in Pannonia, of humble birth; distinguished himself by his capacity and valour; was elected emperor by the troops at Nicæa; his reign was spent in repelling the inroads of the barbarians.
[Valentinians], a Gnostic sect, called after their leader Valentine, a native of Egypt of the 2nd century, regarded heathenism as preparatory to Christianity, and Christ as the full and final development in human form of a series of fifteen stages of emanation from the infinite divine to the finite divine in Him "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all," each stage in the process achieved by the union of a male element with a female, that is, a conceptive and a susceptive.
[Valerianus, Lucinius], Roman emperor from 253 to 260, elected by the legions in Rhætia; the empire being assailed on all hands he set out to defend it on the E.; was defeated at Edessa, taken prisoner, and cruelly treated; when he died his skin, it is said, was stuffed and paraded as a trophy.
[Valerius Maximus], a Roman writer of the age of Tiberius, who compiled a collection of the sayings and doings of notable Romans; it is of very miscellaneous character, and is written in a bombastic style, and dedicated to the emperor.