A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

surnamed APOSTATA, "the Apostate," Roman emperor, A. D. 361-363, was born at Constantinople on the 17th of November, A. D. 331 (332?). He was the son of Julius Constantius by his second wife, Basilina, the grandson of Constantius Chlorus by his second wife, Theodora, and the nephew of Constantine the Great. [See the Genealogical Table, Vol. I. pp. 831, 832.]

Julian and his elder brother, Flavius Julius Gallus, who was the son of Julius Constantius by his first wife, Galla, were the only members of the imperial family whose lives were spared by Constantius II., the son of Constantine the Great, when, upon his accession, he ordered the massacre of all the male descendants of Constantine Chlorus and his second wife, Theodora. Both Gallus and Julian were of too tender an age to be dangerous to Constantius, who accordingly spared their lives, but had them educated in strict confinement at different places in Ionia and Bithynia, and afterwards in the castle of Macellum near Caesareia: and we know from Julian's own statement in his epistle to the senate and people of Athens, that, although they were treated with all the honours due to their birth, they felt most unhappy in their royal prison, being surrounded by spies who were to report the least of their words and actions to a jealous and bloodthirsty tyrant. However, they received a careful and learned education, and were brought up in the principles of the Christian religion: their teachers were Nicocles Luco, a grammarian, and Ecebolus, a rhetorician, who acted under the superintendence of the eunuch Mardonius, probably a pagan in secret, and of Eusebius, an Arian, afterwards bishop of Nicomedeia. Gallus was the first who was released from his slavery by being appointed Caesar in A. D. 351, and governor of the East, and it was through his mediation that Julian obtained more liberty. The conduct of Gallus in his government, and his execution by Constantius in A. D. 354, are detailed elsewhere. [CONSTANTIUS II., p. 848.] Julian was now in great danger, and the emperor would probably have sacrificed him to his jealousy but for the circumstance that he had no male issue himself, and that Julian was consequently the only other surviving male of the imperial family. Constantius was satisfied with removing Julian from Asia to Italy, and kept him for some time in close confinement at Milan, where he lived surrounded by spies, and in constant fear of sharing the fate of his brother. Owing to the mediation of the empress Eusebia, an excellent woman, who loved Julian with the tenderness of a sister, the young prince obtained an interview view Constantius, and having succeeded in cahniag the cmperor's suspicions, was allowed to

lead a private life at Athens (A. D. 355). Athens was then the centre of Greek learning, and there Julian spent short but delightful period in intercourse with the most celebrated philosophers, scholars, and artists of the time, and in the society of a company of young men who were devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, and among whom was Gregory Nazianzen, who became afterwards so celebrated as a Christian orator. Among those learned men Julian was not the least in renown, and he attracted universal attention both by his talents and his knowledge. The study of Greek literature and philosophy was his principal and favourite pursuit. He had been brought up by Greeks and among Greeks, and his predilection for whatever was Greek was of course very natural ; but he did not neglect Latin literature, and we Jearn from Ammianus Marcellinus (16.5), that he had a fair knowledge of the Latin language, which was then stil spoken at the court of Constantinople. While Julian lived in happy retirement at Athens, the cmperor was bent down by the weight of public affairs, and the empire being exposed to the invasions of the Persians in the east, and of the Germans and Sarmatians in the west and the north, he followed the advice of Eusebia, in opposition to his eunuchs, in conferring the rank of Caesar upon Julian, who was accordingly recalled from Athens and summoned to Milan, where Constantius was residing. Julian obeyed reluctantly : the Greek Minerva had more charms for him than the Roman Jupiter, and he was too well acquainted with the mythology of his ancestors not to know that even the embraces of Jupiter are sometimes fatal. On the 6th of November, A. D. 355, Julian was solemnly proclaimed Caesar, and received, as a guarantee of the emperor's sincerity, the hand of his sister Helena, who was the youngest child of Constantine the Great. At the same time he was invested with the government of the provinces beyond the Alps, but some time elapsed before he set out for Gaul, where he was to reside, and during this time he began to accustom himself to behave with that composure and artihcial dignity which suited a person of his exalted station, but which corresponded so little with his taste and habits. When he first entered upon public life he was timid and clumsy, and he used afterwards to laugh at his own awkwardness on those occasions. The internal peace of Gaul was still suffering from the consequences of the revolt of Sylvanus, and her frontiers were assailed by the Germans, who had crossed the Rhine, burnt Strassburg, Trèves, Cologne, and many other flourishing cities, and made devastating inroads into the midland provinces of Gaul. Accustomed to the quiet occupations of a scholar, Julian seemed little fitted for the command in the field, but he found an experienced lieutenant in the person of the veteran general Sallustius, and the wisdom he had learned in the schools of Greece was not merely theoretical philosophy, but virtue : temperate to the extreme, he despised the luxuries of a Roman court, and his food and bed were not better than those of a common soldier. In his administration he was just and forbearing; and never discouraged by adversity nor inflated by success, he showed himself worthy to reign over others, because he could reign over himself.

Julian arrived in Gaul late in A. D. 355, and, after having stayed the winter at Vienna (Vienne in Dauphiné), he set out in the spring of 356 to drive the barbarians back over the Rhine. In this campaign he fought against the Alemanni, the invaders of Southern Gaul. He made their first acquaintance near Rheims, and paid dearly for it : they fell unexpectedly upon his rear, and two legions were cut to pieces. But as he nevertheless advanced towards the Rhine, it seems that the principal disadvantage of his defeat was only a loss of men. In the following spring (357) he intended to cross the Rhine, and to penetrate into the country of the Alemanni; and he would have executed his plan but for the strange conduct of the Roman general Barbation, who was on his march from Italy with an army of 25,000, or perhaps 30,000 men, in order to effect his junction with Julian. A sufficient number of boats was collected at Basel for the purpose of throwing a bridge over the Rhine, and provisions were kept there for supporting his troops, but barbation remained inactive on the left bank, and proved his treacherous designs by burning both the ships and the provisions. In consequence of this, Julian was compelled to adopt the defensive, and the Alemanni, headed by their king Chnodomarius, crossed the Rhine, and took up a position near Strassburg (August, A. D. and took up a position near Strassburg strong : Julian had only 13,000 veterans; but he did not decline the engagement, and, after a terrible conflict, he gained a decisive victory, which was chiefly owing to the personal valour of the young prince. Six thousand of the barbarians remained on the field, perhaps as many were slain in their flight or drowned in the Rhine, and their king Chnodomarius was made prisoner. The loss of the Romans in this memorable battle is stated by Ammianus Marcellinus to have been only 243 privates and four officers; but this is not credible. Chnodomarius was well treated by Julian, who sent him to the court of Constantius. [CHNODOMARIUS.]

Immediately after this victory Julian invaded the territory of the Alemanni on the right bank of the Rhine, but more for the purpose of exhibiting his power than of making any permanent conquests, for he advanced only a few miles, and then returned and led his troops against the Franks, who had conquered the tract between the Seheldt, the Maas, and the Lower Rhine. Some of the Frankish tribes he drove back into Germany, and others he allowed to remain in Gaul, on condition of their submitting to the Roman authority. Upon this he invaded Germany a second time, in 358, and a third time in 359, in order to make the Alemanni desist from all further attempts upon Gaul, and he not only succeeded, but returned with 20,000 Romans, whom the Alemanni had taken, and whom he compelled them to give up.

The peace of Gaul being now established, Julian exerted himself to rebuild the cities that had been ruined on the frontiers of Germany : among those rebuilt and fortified by him were Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Neuss, and, without doubt, Cologne also, as this city had been likewise laid in ashes by the Germans. As the constant inroads of the barbarians had interrupted all agricultural pursuits in those districts, there was a great scarcity of corn, but Julian procured an abundant supply by sending six hundred barges to England, which came back with a sufficient quantity for both grinding and sowing. The minimum of the quantity

of corn thus exported from England has been calculated at 120,000 quarters, and it has been justly observed that the state of agriculture in this country must have been in an advanced condition, since so much corn could be exported nearly altogether at the same time. Julian bestowed the same care upon the other provinces of Gaul, and the country evidently recovered under his administration, although the power with which he was invested was by no means extensive enough to check the system of rapacity and oppression which characterises the government of the later Roman emperors. His usual residence was Paris: he caused the large island in the Seine, which is now called l'île de la Cité, and whereupon stood ancient Paris or Lutetia, to be surrounded by a stone wall and towers, and he built the Thermae Juliani, a palace with baths, the extensive remains of which, " les thermes de Julien," are still visible in the Rue de la Harpe, between the palace of Cluny and the School of Medicine.

While Julian became more and more popular in the provinces entrusted to his administration, and his fame was spreading all over the empire, Constantius once more gave way to the suggestions of jealousy and distrust, and believed that Julian aimed at popularity in order to gain for himself the supreme authority. It happened that in A. D. 360 the eastern provinces were again threatened by the Persians. Constantius commanded Julian to send to the frontiers of Persia four of his best legions and a number of picked soldiers from his other troops, apparently that he might be able apprehend him, which it was impossible to do while he was surrounded by so many thousands devoted warriors. This order surprised Julian in April 360: to obey it was to expose Gaul to new inroads of the Germans, and Britain to the ravages of the Scots and Picts, whose incursions had assumed such a dangerous character that Julian just despatched Lupicinus to defend the island; but to disobey the order was open revolt. His soldiers also were unwilling to march into Asia; but Julian, notwithstanding the dangers that awaited him, resolved to obey, and endeavoured to persuade his troops to submit quietly to the will of their master. His endeavours were in vain. In the night large bodies of soldiers surprised the palace of Julian, and proclaimed him emperor. He had hid himself in his apartments; but they soon discovered him, dragged him, though respectfully, before the assembled troops, and compelled him to accept the crown. Upon this he despatched Pentadius and Eutherius with a conciliatory message to Constantius, in which, however, he positively demanded to be acknowledged as Augustus, and to be invested with the supreme authority in those provinces over which he had ruled as Caesar, viz. Gaul, Spain, and Britain. The conditions of Julian were haughtily declined; and after a considerable time had elapsed in fruitless negotiations, which Julian employed in making two more expeditions beyond the Rhine against the Franks and the Alemanni, he at last resolved to wage open war, and to march upon Constantinople. His army was numerous and well disciplined, and the frontier along the Rhine in an excellent state of defence: his troops, who had refused leaving Gaul without him, now joyfully left it with him. Meanwhile, Constantius likewise collected a strong army, and gave directions for the defence of his capital from Antioch, from whence he had superintended the Persian war. Informed of his plans, Julian resolved to thwart them by quickness and energy. At Basel on the Rhine he divided his army into two corps: one, commanded by Novitta, was to march through Rhaetia and Noricum; the other, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus, was to cross the Alps and march through the north-eastern corner of Italy: both divisions were to unite at Sirmium, a town on the Savus, now Save. Julian, at the head of a small but chosen body of 3000 veterans, plunged into the wildernesses of the Marcian, now Black Forest; and for some time the rival of Constantius seemed to be lost in those dark glens whence issue the sources of the Danube. But when Novitta, Jovius and Jovinus arrived at Sirmium, they be held, to their joy and astonishment, the active Julian with his band, who had descended the Danube and had already defeated the extreme outposts of Lucilian, the lieutenant of Constantius in those regions.

From Sirmium Julian moved upon Constantinople: the officers of Constantius fled before him, but the inhabitants received him with acclamations of joy; and at Athens, Rome, and other important cities, he was either publicly or privately acknowledged as emperor, having previously sent explanatory letters to the authorities of those distant places. Informed of the unexpected appearance of Julian on the Danube, Constantius set out from Syria to defend his capital; and a terrible civil war threatened to desolate Italy and the East, to when Constantius suddenly died at Mopsocrene in Cilicia, on the third of November, A. D. 361, leaving the whole empire to the undisputed posses sion of Julian. On the 11th of December following, Julian made his triumphal entrance into Constantinople. Shortly afterwards the mortal remains of Constantius arrived in the Golden Horn, and had were buried by Julian in the church of the Holy Apostles with great solemnity and magnificence.

While Julian thus gave a Christian burial to the body of his rival, he had long ceased to be a Christian himself. According to Julian's own statement (Epist. ii.), he was a Christian up to his twentieth year; and the manner in which he praises his tutor, Mardonius, seems to imply that Mardonius and the philosopher Maximus first caused him to love the religion of the ancient Greeks, without, however, precisely estranging him from the Christian religion, which seems to have been the effect of his study of the ancient Greek philosophers. The vile hypocrisy of the base and cruel Constantius, the conviction of Julian that Con stantine the Great had at first protected, and afterwards embraced, Christianity from mere political motives, the persecuting spirit manifested equally by the Orthodox and Arians against one another,-- had also a great share in the conversion of Julian. During ten years he dissembled his apostacy, which was, however, known to many of his friends, and early suspected by his own brother Gallus and it was not till he had succeeded to the throne that he publicly avowed himself a pagan. Our space does not allow us to enter into the details of his apostacy, and we must refer the reader to the sources cited below. His apostasy was no sooner known than the Christians feared a cruel persecution, and the heathens hoped that paganism would be forced upon all who were not heathens; but they were beth disappointed by an edict of

Julian, in which he proclaimed a perfect toleration of all parties. He was not, however, impartial in his conduct towards the Christians, since he preferred pagans as his civil and military officers, forbade the Christians to teach rhetoric and grammar in the schools, and, in order to annoy them, allowed the Jews to rebuild their great temple at Jerusalem [*](* Respecting the alleged miracle which interrupted the Jews in this work, see the judicious remarks in Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testinonies; vol. iv.,) and compelled the followers of Jesus to pay money towards the erection of pagan temples, and, in some instances, to assist in building them. Had Julian lived longer he would have seen that his apostacy was not followed by those effects, either religious or political, which he flattered himself would take place: he would have learnt that paganism, as he understood it, was not the religion of the great mass of pagans, and that paganism, as it actually existed, was a rotten institution, destitute of all religious and moral discipline; and he would have witnessed that, however divided the Christians were, there was something better and healthier in Christianity than futile subjects for subtle controversies.

Soon after his accession Julian set out for Antioch, where he remained some time busy in organising a powerful army for the invasion, and perhaps subjugation, of Persia. The people of Antioch received him coolly: they were Christians, but also the most frivolous and luxurious people in the East, and they despised the straightforward and somewhat rustic manners of an emperor who had formed his character among stern Celts and Germans. At Antioch Julian made the acquaintance of the orator Libanius; but the latter was unable to reconcile the emperor to the sort of life which prevailed in that splendid city. He therefore withdrew to Tarsus in Cilicia, where he took up his winter-quarters. In the following spring (March, 363) he set out for Persia. The different corps of his army met at Hierapolis, where they passed the Euphrates on a bridge of boats, and thence moved to Carrhae, now Ilarran, a town in Mesopotamia about fifty miles E. N. E. from Hierapolis. Julian's plan was to march upon Ctesiphon, but in order to deceive the Persian king, Sapor, he despatched Procopius and Sebastianus with 30,000 men against Nisibis (east of Carrhae), while he himself wheeled suddenly round to the south, following the course of the Euphrates on its left or Mesopotamian side. Procopius and Sebastianus were to join Arsaces Tiranus, king of Armenia, and Julian expected to effect a junction with their united forces in the environs of Ctesiphon ; but the treachery of Arsaces prevented the accomplishment of his plan, as is mentioned below [Compare Vol. I. p. 363b.]. While Julian marched along the Euphrates in a south-eastern direction, he was accompanied by a fleet of 1100 ships, fifty of which were well-armed galleys, and the rest barges, carrying a vast supply of provisions and military stores. At Circesium, situated on the confluence of the Chaboras, now the Khabur, with the Euphrates, he arrived at the Persian frontier, which rail along the lower part of the Chaboras, and he Fntered the Persian territory on the 7th of April, 363, at the head of an army of 65,000 veterans. The bridge of the Chaboras was broken down behind them by his orders, to convince the soldiers that a retreat was no plan of their master. From Circesium he continued marching along the Euphrates till he came to that narrow neck of land which separates the Euphrates from the Tigris in the latitude of Ctesiphon. This portion of the route lies partly through a dreary desert, where the Romans experienced some trifling losses from the light Persian horse, who hovered round them, and occasionally picked up stragglers or assailed the rear or the van. Previous to crossing the neck of land, Julian besieged, stormed, and burned Perisabor, a large town on the Euphrates; and while crossing that tract, he was delayed some time under the walls of Maogamalcha, which lie likewise took after a short siege and razed to the ground. Julian now accomplished a most difficult and extraordinary task: he conveyed his whole fleet across the above-mentioned neck of land, by an ancient canal called Nahar-Malcha, which, however, he was obliged to deepen before he could trust his ships in such a passage; and, as the canal joined the Tigris below Ctesiphon, he looked for and found an old cut, dug by Trajan, from Colche to a place somewhat above Ctesipllon, which, however, he was likewise compelled to make deeper and broader, so that at last his fleet run safely out into the Tigris. The canal of Nahar-Malcha is now called the canal of Sakláwíyeh, or Isa; it joins the Tigris a little below Baghdád, and it still affords a communication between the two rivers. Through a very skilful manoeuvre, he brought over his army on the left bank of the Tigris,--a passage not only extremely difficult on account of the rapid current of the Tigris, but rendered still more so through the stout resistance of a Persian army, which, however, was routed and pursued to the walls of Ctesiphon. The city would have been entered by the Romans together with the fugitive Persians, but for the death of their leader, Victor. Julian was now looking out for the arrival of Procopius and Sebastianus, and the main army of the Armenian king, Arsaces or Tiranus. He was sadly disappointed: his lieutenants did not arrive, and Tiranus arranged for a body of his Armenians to desert which had joined the Romans previously, and which now secretly withdrew from the Roman camp at Ctesiphon. Julian nevertheless began the siege of that vast city, which was defended by the flower of the Persian troops, king Sapor, with the main body of his army, not having yet arrived from the interior of Persia. Unable to take the city, and desirous of dispersing the king's army, Julian imprudently followed the advice of a Persian nobleman of great distinction, who appeared in the Roman camp under the pretext of being persecuted by Sapor, and who recommended the emperor to set out in search of the Persian king. In doing so, Julian would have been compelled to Abandon his fleet on the Tigris to the attacks of a hostile and infuriated populace: this he avoided by setting fire to his ships,--the best thing he could have done, if his march into the interior of Persia had been dictated by absolute necessity; but as he was not obliged to leave the city, even success would not have compensated for the loss of 1200 ships. In proportion as the Romans advanced eastward, the country became more and more barren, and Sapor remained invisible. The treachery of the Persian noble was discovered after his secret flight, and Julian was obliged to retreat.

He took the direction of the province of Corduene. The Persians now appeared: swarms of light horse were seen hovering round the army; larger bodies followed, and ere long Sapor, with his main army, came in sight, and harassed fearfully the rear of the Romans. Still the Romans remained victorious in many a bloody engagement, especially at Maronga; but it was in the mouth of June, and the oppressive heat, and the want of water and provisions had a pernicious effect upon the troops. On the 26th of June the Roman rear was suddenly assailed by the Persians, and Julian, who commanded the van, hastened to the relief of the rear without his cuirass, the heat making a heavy armour almost insupportable. The Persians were repulsed, and fled in confusion. Julian was pursuing them with the utmost bravery, when in the middle of the mélée he was shot by an arrow, that pierced through his liver. He fell from his horse mortally wounded, and was conveyed to his tent. Feeling his death approaching, he took leave of his friends with touching words, but certainly not with that fine and elegant speech with which Ammianus Marcellinus (25.3) makes him bid farewell to the world.

Jovian was chosen emperor in his stead, on the field of battle. [JOVIANUS.]

We cannot enter into a long description of Juliain's character. His talents, his principles, and his deeds, were alike extraordinary. His pride was to be called by others and by himself a philosopher, yet many facts prove that he was very superstitious. Most Christian writers abused and calumniated him because he abandoned Christianity: if they had pitied him they would have acted more in accordance with that sublime precept of our religion, which teaches us to forgive our enemies. It must ever be recollected that the bigotry, the hypocrisy, and the uncharitableness, of the majority of the Christians of Julian's time, were some of the principal causes that led to his apostacy. In reading the ancient authorities, the student oughlt to bear in mind that the heathen writers extol Julian far too high, and that the Christians debase him far too low.

Julian was great as an emperor, unique as a man, and remarkable as an author. He wrote an immense number of works, consisting of orations on various subjects, historical treatises, satires, and letters : most of the latter were intended for public circulation. All these works are very elaborately composed, so much so as to afford a fatiguing and monotonous reading to those who peruse them merely for their merits as specimens of Greek literature but they are at the same time very important sources for the history and the opinions of the age on religion and philosophy. Julian also tried to write poetry, but he was no poet: lie lacks imagination, and his artificial manner of embellishing prose shows that he had no poetical vein. He was a man of reflection and thought, but possessed no creative genius. His style is remarkably pure for his time, and shows that lie had not only studied the classical Greek historians and philosophers, but had so far identified himself with his models, that there is scarcely a page in his works where we do not meet with either reminiscences from the classical writers, or visible efforts to express his ideas in the same way as they did. With this painful imitation of his classical models he often unites the exaggerated and over-elaborate style of his contemporaries, and we trace in his writings the influence of the Platonists no less than that of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and so many other writers of the golden age. There is, however, one circumstance which reconciles the reader to many of the author's defects: Julian did not merely write for writing's sake, as so many of his contemporaries did, but he shows that he had his subjects really at heart, and that in literature as well as in business his extraordinary activity arose from the wants of a powerful mind, which desired to improve itself and the world. In this respect Julian excites our sympathy much more, for instance, than the rhetorician Libanius.

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