Charles Norris Cochrane on the tradition emerging in the fourth century A.D. of elevating children to imperial status:
This dynasticism was presently to assume bizarre forms, as when, in the presence of the troops, Valentinian I solemnly conferred the purple upon his son Gratian, at that time a child of eight; thereby setting an example for the action of Theodosius in entrusting the welfare of the empire to the nominal charge of two adolescents, the one a sluggard, the other a half-wit. (Christianity and Classical Culture, p. 189)