ABSTRACT

The final decades of the fourth century saw the room for manoeuvre allowed to pagans increasingly restricted by the imperial government. As late as 382, a law was issued which sought to maintain a balanced approach to the status of temples (6.1), but this soon proved to be a misleading guide to the future. At some point around this time, Valentinian’s son and successor Gratian (375-83) effectively removed the pagan associations of the traditional imperial office of chief priest (pontifex maximus) that Constantine and his successors had continued to hold, apparently untroubled by its anomalous implications, by ‘rebranding’ it pontifex inclitus (‘renowned priest’) (Cameron 2007). This symbolic gesture was accompanied by other measures with greater practical import – the termination of public subsidies for the maintenance of the ceremonies and priesthoods associated with the official pagan cults in Rome and of the stipends paid to the Vestal Virgins (Matthews 1990: 203-4).