GRAZIANO (Imp. Flavius Gratianus), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Son of Valentinian I and his first wife Marina, born at Sirmium on 23 May 359, died near Lyons on 25 Aug. 383. First elected consul in 366, he was proclaimed Augustus in August 367. He received a careful education under the rhetorician Ausonius; in 374 he married Constantia, daughter of Constantius II. In November 375 he succeeded his father in the government of the Western Empire, but was compelled to share it with his half-brother Valentinian II, proclaimed Augustus by the army while still a child of four, at the instigation of Justina, Valentinian I’s second wife. A cultured, gentle and upright young man, Gratian proved generous and merciful. In 378 he went to the East to assist his uncle Valens against the Goths, and after Valens’ death in August of that year he remained for several months the effective ruler of the East as well. In January 379 he associated with himself the valiant Spanish general Theodosius, entrusting him with the government of the East.
In 383, while marching against the Alamanni, the general of Britain, Magnus Maximus, rebelled; Gratian marched against him, but was abandoned by his army, taken prisoner and assassinated.
Though a convinced Christian, Gratian showed little concern in his early years for the religious disputes then agitating the Church. From 378 onwards, however, under the influence and guidance of St Ambrose, he inaugurated an active religious policy wholly devoted to Catholicism and directed against paganism and Arianism. The first act of this new policy was the Council held at Sirmium (378) during the expedition to the East, at which attempts were made to reconcile Eastern and Western bishops in a common struggle against the then-emerging Macedonian heresy and to heal the schism afflicting the Church of Antioch; six heretical bishops of Illyricum were also deposed. On his return to Gaul, where he had established himself at Trier, he became ever more openly a champion of Nicene orthodoxy against all kinds of heretics. In August 379 and August 380 he issued two edicts of proscription against Arianism. Having taken up residence at Milan, in September 381 he summoned, at St Ambrose’s suggestion, a Council to which thirty-five Italo-Illyrian bishops came to adjudicate on the status of the two Arian bishops, Palladius of Ratiaria and Secundianus of Singidunum. The two heretics were deposed and Gratian ratified their sentence, sending them into exile. At the Council’s request he also forbade the religious assemblies of the Photinians at Sirmium and the Ursinians at Rome. In 382, again through his intervention, a Council was summoned at Rome to settle the disputes tearing apart the Churches of Antioch and Constantinople, but in the absence of Eastern bishops no result was achieved. Also of this year is the decree of exile against the Priscillianists.
While Gratian laboured for the restoration of Catholicism and the suppression of Arianism, he did not neglect to suppress paganism as well. He refrained from persecuting individuals still adhering to it, but was radical and energetic in principle, taking decisive measures to sever the State completely from paganism. In 382, indeed, he refused the title of Pontifex Maximus, hitherto retained even by Christian emperors; he had the altar of Victory removed from the Senate house; he deprived the priestly colleges and the Vestal Virgins of state subsidies and immunities, transferring their goods to the public treasury; he forbade apostates from Christianity to make wills, proscribed divinatory superstitions and banned public cult in the temples.
Gratian’s religious policy in the West, joined to that of Theodosius in the East, certainly hastened the end of paganism and the triumph of Catholic orthodoxy over Arianism.