Res Gestae

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 suburb[*](Daphne.) 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 Nicomedia[*](Cf. 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

Finally, on a previously appointed festal day, he ascended Mount Casius,[*](In Seleucia, near Antioch.) a wooded hill rising on high with a rounded contour, from which at the second cock-crow[*](One of the divisions of the night; the latter part of the fourth watch; cf. Pliny, N.H. v. 80; Mart. Cap. vi., p. 235.) the sun is first seen to rise And as he was offering sacrifice to Jove, he suddenly caught sight of a man lying flat upon the ground, and in suppliant words begging for life and pardon. And when Julian asked who he was, the man answered that he was the ex-governor Theodotus of Hierapolis; that when in company with other dignitaries he was escorting Constantius as he set out from his city, he shamefully flattered him, in the belief that he would unquestionably be victorious, begging him with feigned tears and wailing to send them the head of Julian, that ungrateful rebel, just as he remembered that the head of Magnentius had been paraded about.