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Gratian –
Roman Emperor: 367-383 A.D.
Bronze AE3 17mm (2.58 grams)
Antioch mint, struck 378-383 A.D.
Reference: RIC IX 50b
D N
GRATIANVS P F AVG, Pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
VIRTVS ROMANORVM / Θ/Φ/ANTA, Roma seated facing, head left, holding
globe and spear.
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In ancient Roman religionn, Roma was a female deity who
personified the city of Rome and more broadly, the Roman state. “As
personification, as goddess or as symbol, the name Roma stretches
from classical Greece to Mussolini’s Fascist propaganda… Roma
has been seen as a goddess, a whore, a near-saint, and as the symbol of
civilization itself. She remains the oldest continuous
political-religious symbol in Western civilization.” Ronald Mellor,
Introduction, The goddess Roma.
The earliest certain cult
to dea Roma was established at Smyrna in 195 BCE, probably to
mark Rome’s successful alliance against Antiochus III. Mellor has
proposed her cult as a form of religio-political diplomacy which
adjusted traditional Graeco-Eastern monarchic honours to Republican
mores: honours addressed to the divine personification of the Roman
state acknowledged the authority of its offices, Republic and city as
divine and eternal.
Democratic city-states such as Athens and
Rhodes accepted Roma as analogous to their traditional cult
personifications of the demos (ordinary people). In 189 BCE,
Delphi and Lycia instituted festivals in her honour. Roma as “divine
sponsor” of athletics and pan-Hellenic culture seems to have dovetailed
neatly into a well-established and enthusiastic festival circuit, and
temples to her were outnumbered by her civic statues and dedications. In
133 BCE Attalus III bequeathed the people and territories of Pergamon to
Rome, as to a trusted ally and protector. The Pergamene bequest became
the new Roman province of Asia, and Roma’s cult spread rapidly within
it.
In Hellenistic religious tradition, gods were served by
priests and goddesses by priestesses but Roma’s priesthood was male,
perhaps in acknowledgment of the virility of Rome’s military power.
Priesthood of the Roma cult was competed among the highest ranking local
elites. In contrast to her putative “Amazonian” Roman original, Greek
coinage depicts Roma in the “dignified and rather severe style” of a
Greek goddess, often wearing a mural crown, or sometimes a Phrygian
helmet. She is occasionally bareheaded. In this and later periods, she
was often associated with Zeus (as guardian of oaths) and Fides (the
personification of mutual trust). Her Eastern cult appealed for Rome’s
loyalty and protection – there is no reason to suppose this as other
than genuine (and diplomatically sound) respect. A panegyric to her
survives, in five Sapphic stanzas attributed to Melinno. In Republican
Rome and its Eastern colonae her cult was virtually non-existent.
Roma was thus absorbed into the earliest (Eastern) form of “Imperial
cult” – or, from an Eastern viewpoint, the cult to Augustus was grafted
onto their time-honoured cult to Roma. From here on, she increasingly
took the attributes of an Imperial or divine consort to the Imperial
divus, but some Greek coin types show her as a seated or enthroned
authority, and the Imperial divus standing upright as her
supplicant or servant.The Imperial cult arose as a pragmatic and
ingenious response to an Eastern initiative. It blended and “renewed”
ancient elements of traditional religions and Republican government to
create a common cultural framework for the unification of Empire as a
Principate. In the West, this was a novelty, as the Gauls, Germans and
Celts had no native precedent for ruler cult or a Roman-style
administration.
The foundation of the Imperial cult centre at
Lugdunum introduced Roman models for provincial and municipal assemblies
and government, a Romanised lifestyle, and an opportunity for local
elites to enjoy the advantages of citizenship through election to
Imperial cult priesthood, with an ara (altar) was dedicated to
Roma and Augustus. Thereafter, Roma is well attested by inscriptions and
coinage throughout the Western provinces. Literary sources have little
to say about her, but this may reflect her ubiquity rather than neglect:
in the early Augustan era, she may have been honoured above her living
Imperial consort.
In the city of Rome itself, the earliest known
state cult to dea Roma was combined with cult to Venus at the
Hadrianic Temple of Venus and Roma. This was the largest temple in the
city, probably dedicated to inaugurate the reformed festival of
Parilia, which was known thereafter as the Romaea after the
Eastern festival in Roma’s honour. The temple contained the seated,
Hellenised image of dea Roma – the Palladium in her right hand
symbolised Rome’s eternity. In Rome, this was a novel realisation. Greek
interpretations of Roma as a dignified deity had transformed her from a
symbol of military dominance to one of Imperial protection and
gravitas.
Gratian –
Roman Emperor: 367-383 A.D.
367-375 A.D.
Junior Augustus with
Valentinian I
375-385 A.D. Senior Augustus with
Valentinian II
Ruling in the East:
Valens (364-378 A.D.),
Theodosius I (379-395 A.D.) and
Arcadius (379-395 A.D.)
| Son of
Valentinian I and Severa | Husband of Constantia (daughter of
Constantius II) | Nephew of
Valens | Half-brother of
Valentinian II and Galla (wife of
Theodosius I) |
Gratian (Latin: Flavius Gratianus
Augustus; 18 April/23 May 359 -25 August 383) was Roman emperor from
367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, during his youth Gratian
accompanied his father on several campaigns along the Rhine and Danube
frontiers. Upon the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian’s brother
Valentinian II was declared emperor by his father’s soldiers. In 378,
Gratian’s generals won a decisive victory over the Lentienses, a branch
of the Alamanni, at the Battle of Argentovaria. Gratian subsequently led
a campaign across the Rhine, the last emperor to do so, and attacked the
Lentienses, forcing the tribe to surrender. That same year, his uncle
Valens was killed in the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths – making
Gratian essentially ruler of the entire Roman Empire. He favoured
Christianity over traditional Roman religion, refusing the divine
attributes of the Emperors and removing the Altar of Victory from the
Roman Senate.
Life
Gratian was the son of Emperor
Valentinian I by Marina Severa, and was born at Sirmium (now Sremska
Mitrovica, Serbia) in Pannonia. He was named after his grandfather
Gratian the Elder. Gratian was first married to Flavia Maxima
Constantia, daughter of Constantius II. His second wife was Laeta. Both
marriages remained childless. His stepmother was Empress Justina and his
paternal half siblings were Emperor Valentinian II, Galla and Justa.
On 24 August 367 he received from his father the title of Augustus.
On the death of Valentinian (17 November 375), the troops in Pannonia
proclaimed his infant son (by a second wife Justina) emperor under the
title of Valentinian II.
Gratian acquiesced in their choice;
reserving for himself the administration of the Gallic provinces, he
handed over Italy, Illyricum and Africa to Valentinian and his mother,
who fixed their residence at Mediolanum. The division, however, was
merely nominal, and the real authority remained in the hands of Gratian.
Gratian’s general Mallobaudes, a king of the Franks, and Naniemus,
completely defeated the Lentienses, the southernmost branch of the
Alamanni, in May 378 at the Battle of Argentovaria. Upon receiving news
of the victory, Gratian personally led a campaign across the Upper Rhine
into the territory of the Lentienses. After initial trouble facing the
Lentienses on high ground, Gratian blockaded the enemy instead and
received their surrender. The Lentienses were forced to supply young men
to be levied into the Roman army, while the remainder were allowed to
return home. Later that year, Valens met his death in the Battle of
Adrianople on 9 August. Valens refused to wait for Gratian and his army
to arrive and assist in defeating the host of Goths, Alans and Huns; 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 on 19 January 379 to govern
that portion of the Empire. Gratianus and Theodosius then cleared the
Illyricum of barbarians 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 general Merobaudes
and bishop St. Ambrose of Milan.
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 Adrianople, he
aroused the contempt and resentment of his Roman troops. A Roman general
named Magnus Maximus took advantage of this feeling to raise the
standard of revolt in Britain and invaded Gaul with a large army.
Gratian, who was then in Paris, being deserted by his troops, fled to
Lyon. There, through the treachery of the governor, Gratian was
delivered over to one of the rebel generals, Andragathius, and
assassinated on 25 August 383.
Empire and Orthodox Christianity
The reign of Gratian forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history,
since during that period Nicene Christianity for the first time became
dominant throughout the empire.
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, but smaller
dissident sects, such as the Macedonians, were also prohibited.
Suppression of paganism
Gratian, under the influence of his chief
advisor the Bishop of Milan Ambrose, took active steps to repress pagan
worship. This brought to an end a period of widespread, if unofficial,
religious tolerance that had existed since the time of Julian. “In the
long truce between the hostile camps”, writes historian Samuel Dill “the
pagan, the sceptic, even the formal, the lukewarm Christian, may have
come to dream of a mutual toleration which would leave the ancient forms
undisturbed but such men, living in a world of literary and antiquarian
illusions, know little of the inner forces of the new Christian
movement.”
In 382, Gratian appropriated the income of the Pagan
priests and Vestal Virgins, forbade legacies of real property to them
and abolished other privileges belonging to the Vestals and to the
pontiffs. He confiscated the personal possessions of the colleges of
Pagan priests, which also lost all their privileges and immunities.
Gratian declared that all of the Pagan temples and shrines were to be
confiscated by the government and that their revenues were to be joined
to the property of the royal treasury.
He ordered another removal
of the Altar of Victory from the Senate House at Rome, despite protests
of the pagan members of the Senate, and confiscated its revenues. Pagan
Senators responded by sending an appeal to Gratian, reminding him that
he was still the Pontifex Maximus and that it was his duty to see that
the ancestral Pagan rites were properly performed. They appealed to
Gratian to restore the Altar of Victory and the rights and privileges of
the Vestal Virgins and priestly colleges. Gratian, at the urging of
Ambrose, did not grant an audience to the Pagan Senators. Moreover, he
further renounced the title, office, and insignia of the Pontifex
Maximus. Notwithstanding his actions, Gratian was still deified
after his death.
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