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Gratian's repudiation of the Pontifical Robe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Alan Cameron
Alan Cameron
Affiliation:
Bedford College, London
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Extract

The reign of Gratian marked a turning-point in the conflict between Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire. One of the more spectacular manifestations of this change of emphasis which culminated in the anti-pagan legislation of Theodosius was Gratian's ostentatious repudiation of the title of pontifex maximus, held by every Emperor from Augustus down to Gratian's own father, Valentinian. The Christian Emperors had tolerated it hitherto as a purely formal element of their titulature. But Gratian refused the pontifical robe, ἀθέμιτον εἶναι Χριστιανῷ τὸ σχῆμα νομίσας.

Zosimus, our only authority for the event, dates it to the beginning of Gratian's reign. If he means 367, when Gratian was created co-Augustus by Valentinian, then he is certainly wrong, for pontifex maximus is attested among Gratian's titles in an inscription of the year 370 (CIL VI, 1175). And even if his accession proper in 375 is meant, when Valentinian died, this is still wrong, for Ausonius addressed him as pontifex in his Gratiarum Actio of January 379.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1-2 , November 1968 , pp. 96 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Alan Cameron 1968. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Zosimus IV, 36.

2 See below, p. 98.

3 ‘L'empereur Gratien et le grand pontificat païen’, Byzantion VIII, 1933, 41 f.Google Scholar

4 A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the fourth Century (1937), 36Google Scholar.

5 Fortina, L'imperatore Graziano (1953), 214 and 247–9; Demougeot, , RÉL LVI (1954), 514Google Scholar; Jones, , Later Roman Empire 1 (1964), 163Google Scholar (citing only Zosimus as his authority, who of course says no such thing), and many others: it has become canonical.

6 E.g. Piganiol, A., L'empire chrétien (1947), 228Google Scholar and, notably, even Palanque, ap. Stein, , Histoire du Bas-Empire 1 (1959), 524Google Scholar, n. 52; R. Rémondon, La crise de l'empire romain (1964), 195. W. Ensslin did not accept this view so formulated, but suggested (Sitz.-ber. Bay. Akad. München, Phil.-hist. Kl. 1953, 2, pp. 9–10) that on his accession the devout Theodosius persuaded Gratian to renounce the title. It is difficult to see why he should have done so, and in any event Ehrhardt, A. (Journ. Eccles. History XV, 1964, 1 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) has now shown that there can be little question of Theodosius influencing Gratian in religious matters in at any rate the first two years or so of his reign. I pass over scholars such as Baynes, Rauschen and Homes Dudden who proposed 375, overlooking the evidence of Ausonius; for earlier discussions refer to the bibliographies given by Palanque and Alföldi.

7 It was doubtless included in Theodosius' titulature on a certain number of inscriptions and documents which do not happen to have come down to us up to Gratian's repudiation of the title, and thereafter quietly dropped.

8 The Life and Times of St. Ambrose 1 (1935), 258Google Scholar with n. 1.

9 E.g. Stein, , Bas-Empire 1 (1959), 201Google Scholar.

10 Rev. Ét. Byz. XII (1954), 18 f.Google ScholarDemougeot, , Le moyen age (1962), 23Google Scholar, and Palanque, , Les Empereurs romains d'Espagne (1965), 255Google Scholar, both refer to Grumel's view without either accepting or rejecting it. I have no opinion myself.

11 After a short captivity: see Homes Dudden, op. cit., 221.

12 L'imperatore Graziano 248 (with bibliography).

13 Homes Dudden, op. cit., 230 f.: the most recent study of Maximus is the paper of Palanque cited at n. 10.

14 For a list of priesthoods held by the late-fourth-century Roman aristocracy (impressive in view of the fragmentary state of our information), see Bloch, H., Harv. Theol. Rev. XXXVIII (1945), 244 f.Google Scholar

15 See his edition of Zosimus (1887), p. xxxviii.

16 Catholic Hist. Review XXII (1936), 307Google Scholar.

17 Alföldi, Conflict of Ideas in the Late Roman Empire (1952), 87 f.

18 Elaborately described by Ammianus, who, however, strangely omits the removal of the Altar of Victory: on the significance of this, cf. my remarks in JRS LIV (1964), 24–5Google Scholar.

19 For the Emperor's powers to appoint pontiffs, cf. Dio LIII, 17; Tacitus, , Hist. 1, 77Google Scholar; Pliny, , Epp. X, 13Google Scholar.

20 This embassy was in fact denied admittance to the consistory, but obviously a written record will have been submitted as well.

21 Cf. Paschoud, F., Historia XIV (1965), 221Google Scholar (who was ill-advised to retract this opinion in a ‘note complémentaire’ on p. 234). See my paper in Harvard Studies 1968.

22 For example, as McGuire pointed out against Palanque (Cath. Hist. Rev. XXII, 1936, 307Google Scholar), there is really no good reason why the dropping of the title should have any direct connection with Gratian's anti-pagan legislation as a whole. There is certainly no evidence that it did.