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| - Born into a wealthy family, Lucius Valerius Messalus was the eventual choice of the Senate through its agreement with Tyrianus, whom earlier senators offered the titles and powers of a first citizen in exchange for not naming his own heir. Valerius was a man in his forties when the Senate elected him emperor. In many ways, he was of the opposite mind as the power-hungry Cleganus - the emperor who had gone to war against the Senate - since Valerius was a man with a philosophical distaste for war, taken from his time studying rhetoric and moral philosophy in Pergamum. His temperament and fondness for the painted arts also earned him the nickname of Flos, or "the Flower". Originally, his opponents in the Senate called him the flower as derision of his lack of male virtues but Valerius and his
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| abstract
| - Born into a wealthy family, Lucius Valerius Messalus was the eventual choice of the Senate through its agreement with Tyrianus, whom earlier senators offered the titles and powers of a first citizen in exchange for not naming his own heir. Valerius was a man in his forties when the Senate elected him emperor. In many ways, he was of the opposite mind as the power-hungry Cleganus - the emperor who had gone to war against the Senate - since Valerius was a man with a philosophical distaste for war, taken from his time studying rhetoric and moral philosophy in Pergamum. His temperament and fondness for the painted arts also earned him the nickname of Flos, or "the Flower". Originally, his opponents in the Senate called him the flower as derision of his lack of male virtues but Valerius and his supporters took the name in stride as emphasizing his status as a peacetime leader. In this way, Valerius promised the people of Rome another Pax Romana as an end to the last few centuries of consistent war. Ultimately, Valerius would become the longest-lived emperor in Roman history. Coming to power after finishing his consulship in sui anno, he went on to govern the empire for 51 years, exceeding the length of the reigns of either Fabius or Marcus, and living longer than any emperor before him. Despite his prosperous early reign, Valerius is also remembered for being almost vegetative during the last ten years, allowing the Senate to more firmly reassert its de facto authority. The result would be a weakening of the harmonizing effect of the princeps civitatis and a re-emergence of the factional politics that dominated the Old Republic.
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