the son of Valentinian I. by his first wife, was declared Augustus by his father at the city of Amiens in 365, and succeeded him in 367; a prince equally extolled for his wit, eloquence, modesty, chastity, and zeal against heretics. He associated Theodosius with him in the empire, and advanced the poet Ausonius to the consulate. He made a great slaughter of the Germans at Strasburg*, and hence was surnamed Alemannicus. He was the first emperor who refused the title of Pontifex Maximus, upon the score of its being a Pagan dignity. He was assassinated by Andragathius in 375, in the 24th year of his age.

a famous Benedictine monk, in the 12th century, was born at Chiusi in Tuscany, and employed above 24 years in composing a work, entitled Decretum, or Concordantia Discordantium Canonum, because he there endeavoured to reconcile the canons which seemed contradictory to each other. This work was first printed at Mentz in 1472. As he is frequently mistaken, in taking one canon of one council, or one passage of one father for another, and has often cited false decretals, several authors have endeavoured to correct his faults; and chiefly Anthony Augustine, in his excellent work entitled De emendatione Gratiani. To the decretals of Gratian, the popes principally owed the great authority they exercised in the 13th and following centuries.