Albia Dominica
| Albia Dominica | |
|---|---|
| Augusta | |
Coin of Dominica
|
|
| Empress of the Roman Empire | |
| Tenure | 364 AD - 378 AD |
| Born | 337 AD |
| Died | after 378 AD |
| Spouse | Valens |
| Father | Petronius |
Albia Dominica (Also referred to as Dominica, Albia Domnica, Domnica, or Domnica Augusta; c. 337 – after 378) was a Roman Augusta, wife to Emperor Valens. Valens, who ruled from 364-378, was emperor of the East and co-emperor with his brother Valentinian I.
Dominica was the daughter of the powerful and unpopular praetorian prefect Petronius, who was hated for his greed and cruelty. Her father's unpopularity was so great that it led to the rebellion of Procopius, a rival of Valens, in 365.
According to the account of Ammianus Marcellinus:
"...Many who, since men are always discontented with present conditions, were finding fault with Valens, as being inflamed with a desire of seizing the property of others. To the emperor's cruelty deadly incentive was given by his father-in‑law Petronius, who from the command of the Martensian legion had by a sudden jump been promoted to the rank of patrician. He was a man ugly in spirit and in appearance, who, burning with an immoderate longing to strip everyone without distinction, condemned guilty and innocent alike, after exquisite tortures, to fourfold indemnities, looking up debts going back to the time of the emperor Aurelian, grieving excessively if he was obliged to let any one escape unscathed. Along with his intolerable character he had this additional incentive to his devastations, that while he was enriching himself through the woes of others, he was inexorable, cruel, savage and fearlessly hard-hearted, never capable of giving or receiving reason, more hated than Cleander,who, as we read, when prefect under the emperor Commodus, in his haughty madness had ruined the fortunes of many men; more oppressive than Plautianus, also a prefect under Severus, who with superhuman arrogance would have caused general confusion, if he had not perished by the avenging sword. These lamentable occurrences, which under Valens, aided and abetted by Petronius, closed the houses of the poor and the palaces of the rich in great numbers, added to the fear of a still more dreadful future, sank deeply into the minds of the provincials and of the soldiers, who groaned under similar oppression, and with universal sighs everyone prayed (although darkly and in silence) for a change in the present condition of affairs with the help of the supreme deity."
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