Valeria gens
Publius Valerius Poplicola was one of the consuls in 509 BC, the year that saw the overthrow of the Tarquins, and the members of his family were among the most celebrated statesmen and generals at the beginning of the Republic.
Over the next ten centuries, few gentes produced as many distinguished men, and at every period the name of Valerius was constantly to be found in the lists of annual magistrates, and held in the highest honour.
[1] A number of unusual privileges attached to this family, including the right to burial within the city walls,[2][3] and a special place for its members in the Circus Maximus, where the unique honour of a throne was granted them.
[5][6] The historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr conjectured that, during the transition from the monarchy to the Republic, the Valerii were entitled to exercise royal power on behalf of the Titienses, one of the three Romulean tribes that made up the Roman people.
Several generations later, another Volesus Valerius was the father of Publius, Marcus, and Manius, three brothers from whom the oldest branches of the family claimed descent.
"[14][15] The cognomen first appears in history as the surname given to Publius Valerius, one of the consuls chosen in 509 BC to serve alongside Lucius Junius Brutus.
Despite his patrician background, he made a considerable effort to win the support of the plebeians, averting a breach between the two orders at the inception of the Republic.
[15] This family flourished from the early years of the Republic down to the Samnite Wars, when the cognomen seems to have been replaced by Flaccus, a surname first borne by one of the Potiti, who must have been flabby or had floppy ears.
The Valerii Maximi appear in history down to the First Punic War, after which time the surname was replaced by Messalla or Messala, a cognomen derived from the city of Messana in Sicilia.
The Valerii Messallae held numerous consulships and other high offices in the Roman state, remaining prominent well into imperial times.
The first of this family was a son of the first Valerius Maximus, but the surname was of brief duration; the last mention of the Valerii Lactucinae is early in the fourth century BC.
[24][23] The cognomen Laevinus, meaning "left-handed", belonged to a family of the Valerii that was prominent for about a century, beginning with the Pyrrhic War, in 280 BC.
[23][32] Asiaticus, the surname of the only major family of the Valerian gens to emerge in imperial times, belongs to a class of cognomina typically derived from the locations of military exploits.
