Valentinian (play)

Valentinian is a Jacobean era stage play, a revenge tragedy written by John Fletcher was that originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647. The play dramatizes the story of Valentinian III, one of the last of the Roman Emperors, as recorded by the classical historian Procopius.

Scholars date the play to the 1610–14 period. As he did with Monsieur Thomas, another play of the same era, Fletcher used the second part of the novel Astrée, by Honoré D'Urfé, as one of his sources; and Part 2 of Astrée was first published in 1610. The play was performed by the King's Men; the cast list added to the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 mentions Richard Burbage, Henry Condell, John Lowin, William Ostler, and John Underwood. Since Ostler died in December 1614, Valentinian must have been written and staged between those two dates.

Fletcher portrays Valentinian as a lustful and rapacious tyrant, comparable to the King in The Maid's Tragedy. His Empire is decadent and collapsing, his soldiers mutinous. Valentinian rapes the virtuous Lucina; she then commits suicide. Lucina's husband, the upright soldier Maximus, devotes himself to obtaining revenge against the Emperor, though his friend Aecius tries to dissuade him. Maximus finally succeeds as Valentinian dies a painful and drawn-out death by poison. Maximus is crowned by the Senate for overthrowing the tyrant, only to die himself soon after.

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