At that same time, on the twenty-second of October, the splendid temple of the Daphnaean Apollo, which that hot-tempered and cruel king Antiochus Epiphanes had built,According to others, the builder was Seleucus Nicator. Antiochus may have enlarged or embellished it. and with it the statue of the god, a copy of that of the Olympian ZeusAt Olympia, the work of Phidias; of. Pausanias, v. 11, 9. and of equal size, was reduced to ashes by a sudden fire.
The unexpected destruction of this shrine by so terrible an accident inflamed the emperor with such anger, that he ordered stricter investigations than usual to be made, and the greater church at Antioch to be closed. For he suspected that the Christians had done the deed, aroused by jealousy and unwillingness to see the temple enclosed by a magnificent colonnade.
It was said, however, though on very slight evidence, that the cause of the burning of the temple was this: the philosopher Asclepiades, whom I have mentioned in the history of Magnentius,In a lost book. when he had come to that suburbDaphne. from abroad to visit Julian, placed before the lofty feet of the statue a little silver image of the Dea Caelestis,Venus Urania, as worshipped in Syria and Phoenicia which he always carried with him wherever he went, and after lighting some wax tapers as usual, went away. From these tapers after midnight, when no one could be present to render aid, some flying sparks alighted on the woodwork, which was very old, and the fire, fed by the dry fuel, mounted and burned whatever it could reach, at however great a height it was.
In that year also, just as the winter season was at hand, there was such a fearful scarcity of water that some brooks dried up, as well as springs which had before over- flowed with plentiful jets of water; but later these were restored to their former condition.
Then, on the second of December, just before evening, the rest of NicomediaCf. xvii. 7, 1-8. was wholly destroyed by an earthquake, as well as a good part of Nicaea.
Although these disasters filled the prince with sorrow and anxiety, yet he did not neglect the urgent duties that remained to be done before the longed- for time of battle arrived. All the same, amid such weighty and serious affairs, it did seem superfluous, that with no satisfactory reason for such a measure, but merely from a desire for popularity, he wished to lower the price of commodities;Diocletian had done the same in his edict, De Pretiis Venaliunz Rerum. although sometimes, when this matter is not properly regulated, it is wont to cause scarcity and famine.
And, although the senate at Antioch clearly pointed out that this could not be done at the time when he ordered it, he in no wise gave up his plan, since he resembled his brother Gallus, though without his cruelty. Therefore raging against them one by one as recalcitrant and stubborn, he composed an invective, which he entitled
The Antiochian or
Misopogon,
This work has survived. It means The Beard Hater
; see Julian, L.C.L., ii. 420 ff. It is a satire on Julian himself, in which he also scolded the people of Antioch. They made fun of his beard because they them- selves were clean-shaven. Hadrian and his successors wore beards, but Constantine and his successors did not. in which he enumerated in a hostile spirit the faults of the city, including more than were justified. After this, finding that he was the object of many jests, he was forced at the time to disregard them, but was filled with suppressed wrath.
For he was ridiculed as a Cercops,One of a people living in an island near Sicily, changed by Jupiter into apes; Ov., Metam. xiv. 91, and Suidas, s.v. κέρκωπες. as a dwarf, spreading his narrow shoulders and displaying a billy-goat’s beard,Cf. xxv. 4, 22. taking mighty strides as if he were the brother of Otus and Ephialtes, whose height Homer describes as enormous.Two giants, the Aloidae; cf. Odyss. xi. 307 ff. He was also called by many a slaughtererThe victimarius slew the animal that was offered up. instead of high-priest, in jesting allusion to his many offerings; and in fact he was fittingly criticised because for the sake of display he improperly took pleasure in carrying the sacred emblems in place of the priests, and in being attended by a company of women. But although he was indignant for these and similar reasons, he held his peace, kept control of his feelings, and continued to celebrate the festivals.