Gratian

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Gratian

For other figures with this name, see Gratian (disambiguation)
Gratian (disambiguation)

Gratian can refer to*Gratian the Elder, a 4th century Roman Empire soldier. Father of the emperors Valens and Valentinian I and grandfather of:...
.

Flavius Gratianus (18 April/23 May 359

359

Events...
- 25 August 383

383

Events...
), known usually by the anglicised name Gratian, was a Western Roman Emperor from 375 to 383.

He favoured the Christian religion against Roman polytheism, refusing the traditional polytheistic attributes of the emperors and removing the Altar of Victory

Altar of Victory

The Altar of Victory was located in the Roman Senate House bearing a gold statue of the goddess Nike . The altar was established by Augustus in 29 BC in honor of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium....
from the Roman Senate

Roman Senate

Valentinian I

Flavius Valentinianus, known in English as Valentinian I, was Roman Emperor from 364 until his death. Valentinian is often referred to as the "last great western emperor"....
by Marina Severa

Marina Severa

Marina Severa was the Empress of Rome and first wife of Emperor Valentinian I. She was the mother of later Emperor Gratian....
, and was born at Sirmium

Sirmium

Sirmium was an ancient city in Roman Pannonia. Sirmium originally was an Illyrians town conquered by the Ancient Rome in the 1st century BC. It was a very important town in the later Roman Empire, being the economic capital of Roman Pannonia and one of the four capital cities of the Roman Empire....
(now Sremska Mitrovica

Sremska Mitrovica

Sremska Mitrovica is a city and municipality located in the Vojvodina province of Serbia at 44.98? North, 19.61? East, on the left bank of the Sava river....
, Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
) in Pannonia

Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Gratian'

Start a new discussion about 'Gratian'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Flavius Gratianus (18 April/23 May 359

359

Events...
- 25 August 383

383

Altar of Victory

Roman Senate

Life

Gratian was the son of Emperor Valentinian I

Valentinian I

Flavius Valentinianus, known in English as Valentinian I, was Roman Emperor from 364 until his death. Valentinian is often referred to as the "last great western emperor"....
by Marina Severa

Marina Severa

Marina Severa was the Empress of Rome and first wife of Emperor Valentinian I. She was the mother of later Emperor Gratian....
, and was born at Sirmium

Sirmium

Sremska Mitrovica

Sremska Mitrovica is a city and municipality located in the Vojvodina province of Serbia at 44.98? North, 19.61? East, on the left bank of the Sava river....
, Serbia

Serbia

Pannonia

Pannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
. He was named after his grandfather Gratian the Elder

Gratian the Elder

Gratianus Funarius, also known as Gratianus Major , also known as Gratian the Elder, who was a soldier of the Roman Empire who flourished in the 4th century....
. Gratian was first married to Flavia Maxima Constantia

Flavia Maxima Constantia

Flavia Maxima Constantia was the first Empress consort of Gratian of the Western Roman Empire....
, daughter of Constantius II

Constantius II

Flavius Iulius Constantius, known in English as Constantius II was a Roman Emperor of the Constantinian dynasty....
. His second wife was Laeta

Laeta

Laeta was the second Empress consort of Gratian of the Western Roman Empire....
. Both marriages remained childless. His stepmother was Empress Justina and his paternal half siblings were Emperor Valentinian II

Valentinian II

Flavius Valentinianus Iunior , known usually by his anglicised name, Valentinian II, was a Roman Emperor from 375 to 392....
, Galla and Justa.

On August 4, 367

367

Events...
he received from his father the title of Augustus. On the death of Valentinian (November 17, 375

375

Events...
), the troops in Pannonia proclaimed his infant son (by a second wife Justina) emperor under the title of Valentinian II

Valentinian II

Flavius Valentinianus Iunior , known usually by his anglicised name, Valentinian II, was a Roman Emperor from 375 to 392....
.

Gratian acquiesced in their choice; reserving for himself the administration of the Gallic

Gallic

Gallic is an adjective that may refer to:*Gaul, from which the name derives, a region of Europe roughly corresponding to modern France, but also comprising parts of modern northern Italy, Belgium, western Switzerland and parts of the Netherlands and Germany....
provinces

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of the Italia ....
, he handed over Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
, Illyria and Africa to Valentinian and his mother, who fixed their residence at Mediolanum

Mediolanum

Mediolanum, the ancient Milan, was an important Celts and then Ancient Rome centre of northern Italy. This article charts the history of the city from its settlement by the Insubres around 600 BC, through its conquest by the Ancient Rome and its development into a key centre of Western Christianity and capital of the Western Roman Empire, un...
. The division, however, was merely nominal, and the real authority remained in the hands of Gratian.

The Eastern Roman Empire was under the rule of his uncle Valens

Valens

Flamin Julius Valens was Roman Emperor , after he was given the Eastern part of the empire by his brother Valentinian I. Valens, sometimes known as the Last of the Romans, was defeated and killed in the Battle of Adrianople, which marked the beginning of the fall of the Western Roman Empire....
. In May, 378 Gratian completely defeated the Lentienses

Lentienses

The Lentienses were an Alamannic tribe in the region between the river Danube River in the North, the river Iller in the East, and Lake Constance in the South, in what is now south Germany....
, the southernmost branch of the Alamanni

Alamanni

The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic languagess located around the upper Main river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211?17 and claimed thereby to be their defeater....
, at the Battle of Argentovaria

Battle of Argentovaria

The Battle of Argentovaria was fought in May 378 between the Roman emperor Gratian and the invading army of the Lentienses, at Argentovaria . With this defeat, the Lentienses disappear from history....
, near the site of the modern Colmar

Colmar

Colmar is a town and communes of France in the Haut-Rhin departments of France of Alsace, France, of which it is the Prefectures in France ....
. Later that year, Valens met his death in the Battle of Adrianopole

Battle of Adrianople

The second Battle of Adrianople , sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between a Roman Empire army led by the Roman Emperor Valens and Goths rebels led by Fritigern....
on August 9. Valens refused to wait for Gratian and his army to arrive and assist in defeating the host of Goths

Goths

The Goths were East Germanic tribes who, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, invasion the Roman Empire and later adopted Arian Christianity. In the 5th and 6th centuries, divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy....
, Alans

Alans

The Alans or Alani were a group among the Sarmatians people, Eurasian nomads of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian language and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian language....
and Huns

Huns

The Huns were a confederation of Central Asian Eurasian nomads or semi-nomads, who had established an empire in Eurasia. The Huns may have stimulated the Migration Period, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Roman Empire....
; as a result, two-thirds of the eastern Roman army were killed as well.

In the same year, the government of the Eastern Empire devolved upon Gratian, but feeling himself unable to resist unaided the incursions of the barbarians, he promoted Theodosius I

Theodosius I

Flavius Theodosius , also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great , was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Reuniting the eastern and western portions of the empire, Theodosius was the last emperor of both the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire....
on January 19, 379

379

Events...
to govern that portion of the empire. Gratianus and Theodosius then cleared the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is the historical name of a geographic subregion of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia....
of barbarian

Barbarian

"Barbarian" is a pejorative term for an uncivilized person, either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage....
s in the Gothic War (376-382).

For some years Gratian governed the empire with energy and success but gradually sank into indolence, occupying himself chiefly with the pleasures of the chase, and became a tool in the hands of the Frankish

Franks

The Franks or Frankish people were a West Germanic ethnic group first identified in the 3rd century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River....
general Merobaudes

Merobaudes

Merobaudes is the name of two Ancient Roman figures:* Merobaudes , 4th century Frankish general and Roman consul* Flavius Merobaudes, 5th century poet...
and bishop St. Ambrose

Ambrose

Saint Ambrose was a Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century. He is counted as one of the four original doctors of the Church....
of Milan

Milan

Milan is the second largest city of Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the Regions of Italy capital of Lombardy....
.

By taking into his personal service a body of Alans, and appearing in public in the dress of a Scythian warrior, after the disaster of the Battle of Adrianopole, he aroused the contempt and resentment of his Roman troops. A Roman general named Magnus Maximus

Magnus Maximus

Magnus Clemens Maximus , also known as Maximianus, was a Hispanic Roman usurper of the Western Roman Empire from 383 until his death, in 388, by order of Emperor Theodosius I....
took advantage of this feeling to raise the standard of revolt in Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
and invaded Gaul

Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
with a large army. Gratian, who was then in Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, being deserted by his troops, fled to Lyon

Lyon

||-||}Lyon, also known as Lyons in English, is a city in east-central France. Its name is pronounced in French language and Franco-Proven?al language, and or in English language....
. There, through the treachery of the governor, Gratian was delivered over to one of the rebel generals, Andragathius, and assassinated on August 25, 383

383

Events...
.

Empire and religion

The reign of Gratian forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history, since during that period Orthodox Christianity

Orthodox Christianity

KAHThe term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* The Eastern Orthodox Church: the Eastern Christianity churches of Byzantine Rite tradition that adhere to the first seven Ecumenical Councils, and are in full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and with each other....
for the first time became dominant throughout the empire.

Under the influence of Ambrosius, Gratian prohibited Pagan worship

Paganism

Paganism is the blanket term given to describe religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe, and by extension a term for polytheistic?traditions or folk religion?worldwide seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint....
at Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
; refused to wear the insignia of the pontifex maximus
Pontifex Maximus

The Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the Ancient Rome College of Pontiffs. This was the most important position in the Ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post....
as unbefitting a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
; removed the Altar of Victory

Altar of Victory

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
at Rome, despite protests of the pagan members of the Senate, and confiscated its revenues; forbade legacies of real property to the Vestals; and abolished other privileges belonging to them and to the pontiffs. Nevertheless he was still deified

Apotheosis

Apotheosis refers to the exaltation of a subject to divinity level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre....
after his death.

Gratian also published an edict that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith). The move was mainly thrust at the various beliefs that had arisen out of Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius , a Christian priest, who was first ruled a heresy at the First Council of Nicea, later exonerated and then pronounced a heretic again after his death....
, but smaller dissident sects, such as the Macedonians

Macedonians (religious group)

The Macedonians were a Christian sect of the 4th century AD, named after Bishop Macedonius I of Constantinople. They professed a belief similar to that of Arianism, but apparently denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and regarding the substance of Jesus Christ as being the same in kind as that of God the Father....
, were also prohibited.

External links

- This shows laws passed by Gratian relating to Christianity.

Gratian

Life

Empire and religion

See also

External links