Res Gestae

While the linked course of the fates was bringing this to pass in the Roman world, Julian Caesar at Vienne was admitted by Augustus,[*](That is, Constantius Augustus.) then consul for the eighth time, into the fellowship of the consular fasti. Urged on by his native energy, he dreamed of the din of battle and the slaughter of savages, already preparing to gather up the broken fragments of the province, if only fortune should at last aid him with her favouring breeze.

Accordingly, since the great deeds that he had the courage and good fortune to perform in Gaul surpass many valiant achievements of the ancients, I shall describe them one by one in progressive order,

Now whatever I shall tell (and no wordy deceit adorns my tale, but untrammelled faithfulness to fact, based upon clear proofs, composes it) will almost belong to the domain of the panegyric.

For some law of a higher life seems to have attended this youth from his noble cradle even to his last breath. For with rapid strides he grew so conspicuous at home and abroad that in his foresight he was esteemed a second Titus, son of Vespasian, in the glorious progress of his wars as very like Trajan, mild as Antoninus Pius, and in searching out the true and perfect reason of things in harmony with Marcus Aurelius, in emulation of whom he moulded his conduct and his character.[*](This is also stated by Eutropius, x. 16, 5, and by Julian himself in his Letter to Themistius, p. 253, 13; ii. p. 203, L.C.L.)

And since (as the authority of Cicero informs us)[*](Orator, 43, 147; a very free quotation.) we take delight in the loftiness of all noble arts, as we do of trees, but not so much in their roots and stumps, just so the beginnings of his surpassing ability were then veiled by many overshadowing features. Yet they ought to be preferred to his many admirable later achievements, for the reason that while still in early youth, educated like Erechtheus[*](One of the earliest kings of Athens, because of his discovery of many useful arts said to have been educated by Minerva; cf. Iliad, ii. 546 f.) in Minerva’s retreat, and drawn from the peaceful shades of the Academy, not from a soldier’s tent, to the dust of battle, he vanquished Germany, subdued the meanders of the freezing Rhine, here shed the blood of kings breathing cruel threats, and there loaded their arms with chains.