Grasshopper
the name of various leaping insects of the order Orthoptera nearly akin to the locusts. They are characterized by very long and slender legs, the thighs of the hinder legs being large and adapted for leaping, by large and delicate wings, and by the wingcovers extending far beyond the extremity of the abdomen. Grasshoppers form an extensive group of insects, and are distinguished by the power which they possess of leaping to a considerable distance, and by the stridulous or chirping noise the males produce by rubbing their wing covers together.
GRATIAN (grā'shan), a Roman emperor; eldest son of Valentinian I., by his first wife Severa; born in Pannonia 359 A. D.; elected by his father to the rank of Augustus, 367. On the death of Valentinian, 375, the troops elevated Gratian to the throne, giving him at the same time as a colleague his halfbrother Valentinian II. During the first part of his reign, a fierce warfare was carried on against the tribes who possessed the Danubian provinces and Illyricum; and he was on the point of marching into Thrace, to assist his uncle Valens against the Goths, when he was suddenly called upon to defend his dominions against the Lentienses, a tribe of the Alemanni. After the invaders had been defeated, Gratian advanced toward the Eastern Empire, but while on the way he learned that his uncle Valens had been defeated and killed by the Goths near Adrianople, 378. The sovereignty of the Eastern Empire then devolved on Gratian, but feeling his into the task of ruling the whole empire, he recalled Theodosius from Spain, and appointed him his colleague, 379. Gratian possessed some admirable virtues; but his fondness for frivolous amusements and unworthy associates excited the contempt of the army, so that when Maximus was proclaimed emperor by the legions in Britain crowds of the disaffected flocked to his standard.
Gratian was defeated by him near Paris, and afterward fled to Lyons, where he was overtaken and killed, 383.
GRATZ