Emperor of Rome Julian

“ That festival may the ruling gods grant me to praise and to celebrate with sacrifice! And above all the others may Helios himself, the King of the All, grant me this, even he who from eternity has proceeded from the generative substance of the Good: even he who is midmost of the midmost intellectual gods; who fills them with continuity and endless beauty and superabundance of generative power and perfect reason, yea with all blessings at once, and independently of time! ”

“ But in his own hand no sword should lie ready to slay a citizen, even though he has committed the blackest crimes, nor should a sting lurk in his soul, considering that, as we see, nature has made even the queen-bee free from a sting. However it is not to bees that we must look for our analogy, but in my opinion to the king of the gods himself, whose prophet and vice-regent the genuine ruler ought to be. For wherever good exists wholly untainted by its opposite, and for the benefit of mankind in common and the whole universe, of this good God was and is the only creator. ”

“ Anyone therefore who thinks that cruelty and harshness and inhumanity ill become a king, and that mercy and goodness and human kindness befit one who takes no pleasure in acts of vengeance, but grieves at the misfortunes of his subjects, however they may arise, whether from their own wickedness and ignorance or aimed at them from without by fate, will, it is evident, award to the Emperor the palm of victory. For bear in mind that he was kinder and more just to the boy than his own father, and to the usurper's friends he was more loyal than he who acknowledged the tie of friendship. ”

“ For law is the child of justice, the sacred and truly divine adjunct of the most mighty god, and never will the man who is wise make light of it or set it at naught. But since all that he does will have justice in view, he will be eager to honour the good, and the vicious he will, like a good physician, make every effort to cure. ”

“ Socrates, for instance, spoke in praise of many, as did Plato also and Aristotle. Xenophon, too, eulogised King Agesilaus and Cyrus the Persian, not only the elder Cyrus, but him whom he accompanied on his campaign against the Great King, nor did he hide away his eulogies, but put them into his history. Now I should think it strange indeed if we shall be eager to applaud men of high character, and not think fit to give our tribute of praise to a noble woman, believing as we do that excellence is the attribute of women no less than of men. ”

“ And after this signal, when King Attis stays his limitless course by his castration, the god bids us also root out the unlimited in ourselves and imitate the gods our leaders and hasten back to the defined and uniform, and, if it be possible, to the One itself. After this, the Hilaria must by all means follow. For what could be more blessed, what more joyful than a soul which has escaped from limitlessness and generation and inward storm, and has been translated up to the very gods? ”

“ Genuine praise they somehow or other avoid giving, as though it were a costly extravagance, and they censure the applause given to noble actions, when the only thing that they need enquire into is whether the eulogists respect truth and rate her higher than the reputation of showing their gratitude by eulogy. For this at any rate they cannot assert, that praise is a useless thing, either to those who receive it or to others besides, who, though they have been assigned the same rank in life as the objects of their praise, have fallen short of their merit in what they have accomplished. ”

“ But he who like a good physician tries to ward off such calamities as these, and by no means thinks that it is enough for him not to cause anyone to contract a disease, but unless he cures and cares for everyone as far as he can, considers that his work is unworthy of his skill, do you think that in justice such a one ought to receive no higher praise than Pericles? And shall we not hold in higher honour her character and that authority which enables her to do what she will, since what she wills is the good of all? ”

“ I think Heaven smiled on you and willed that you should govern the whole world, and so from the first trained you in virtue, and was your guide when you journeyed to all points, and showed you the bounds and limits of the whole empire, the character of each region, the vastness of your territory, the power of every race, the number of the cities, the characteristics of the masses, and above all the vast number of things that one who is bred to so great a kingship cannot afford to neglect. ”

“ O Mother of gods and men, thou that art the assessor of Zeus and sharest his throne, O source of the intellectual gods, that pursuest thy course with the stainless substance of the intelligible gods; that dost receive from them all the common cause of things and dost thyself bestow it on the intellectual gods; O life-giving goddess that art the counsel and the providence and the creator of our souls ”

“ But his light no one ever takes from the sun, not even the moon when in their conjunctions she oversteps his disc, or when she takes his rays to herself, and often, as the saying is, turns midday into night.398 Nor is he deprived of his light when he illumines the moon in her station opposite to himself and shares with her his own nature, nor when he fills with light and day this great and wonderful universe. Just so no good man who imparts his goodness to another was ever thought to have less virtue by as much as he had bestowed. ”

“ And do you think this a trifling tribute to Penelope, or is there not now found to be yet another woman whose virtue surpasses hers, and who, as the consort of a brave, magnanimous and prudent Emperor, has won as great affection from her husband, since she has mingled with the tenderness that is inspired by love that other which good and noble souls derive from their own virtue, whence it flows like a sacred fount? ”

“ Some place it at the spring equinox, others at the height of summer, and many in the late autumn; but they each and all sing the praises of the most visible gifts of Helios. One nation celebrates the season best adapted for work in the fields, when the earth bursts into bloom and exults, when all the crops are just beginning to sprout, and the sea begins to be safe for sailing ”

“ From a boy you were taught to govern this great empire, but a better thing you learned, to be governed, submitting yourself to the authority that is the best in the world and the most just, that is to say nature and law. ”

“ Nothing, in my opinion, can be called a good bargain if it be not honourable as well. In general, if anyone wish to apply the test of expediency alone, he ought not to make money his criterion or reckon up his revenues from estates, like those old misers whom writers of comedy bring on to the stage, but he should take into account the vastness of the empire and the point of honour involved. If the Emperor had disputed about the boundaries and taken a hostile attitude, he might have obtained more than he did, but he would have governed only his allotted share. ”

“ And though of that continuous birth King Helios is the primary creative cause, yet Aphrodite is the joint cause with him, she who enchants our souls with her charm and sends down to earth from the upper air rays of light most sweet and stainless, aye, more lustrous than gold itself. ”

“ To rhetoricians the art of rhetoric allows just as much freedom; fiction is denied them, but flattery is by no means forbidden, nor is it counted a disgrace to the orator that the object of his panegyric should not deserve it. Poets who compose and publish some legend that no one had thought of before increase their reputation, because an audience is entertained by the mere fact of novelty. ”

“ For instance, the cutting of the tree belongs to the story of Gallus and not to the Mysteries at all, but it has been taken over by them, I think because the gods wished to teach us, in symbolic fashion, that we must pluck the fairest fruits from the earth, namely, virtue and piety, and offer them to the goddess to be the symbol of our well-ordered constitution here on earth. For the tree grows from the soil, but it strives upwards as though to reach the upper air, and it is fair to behold and gives us shade in the heat, and casts before us and bestows on us its fruits as a boon ”

“ But now that in these days its power has waned, since the government has changed to a monarchy, the bare honour, though robbed of all the rest, is held to counterbalance all power, and for private citizens is set up as a sort of prize and a reward of virtue, or loyalty, or of some favour done to the ruler of the empire, or for some brilliant exploit, while for the emperors, it is added to the advantages they already possess as the crowning glory and adornment. ”

“ For some limit themselves to your exploits, with the idea that a description of these suffices for a perfect panegyric, but for my part I think one ought to devote the greater part of one's speech to the virtues that were the stepping-stones by which you reached the height of your achievements. Military exploits in most cases, nay in almost all, are achieved with the help of fortune, the body-guard, heavy infantry and cavalry regiments. But virtuous actions belong to the doer alone, and the praise that they inspire, if it be sincere, belongs only to the possessor of such virtue. ”

“ And I recognise the kinship of Athene and the Mother of the Gods through the similarity of the forethought that inheres in the substance of both goddesses. And I discern also the divided creative function of Dionysus, which great Dionysus received from the single and abiding principle of life that is in mighty Zeus. For from Zeus he proceeded, and he bestows that life on all things visible, controlling and governing the creation of the whole divisible world. ”

“ And now he illumines his own visible abode, which from eternity moves as the centre of the whole heavens, and bestows a share of intelligible beauty on the whole visible world, and fills the whole heavens with the same number of gods as he contains in himself in intellectual form. ”

“ For the Egyptians say that the Nile in their country is not only the saviour and benefactor of the land, but also wards off destruction by fire, when the sun, throughout long periods, in conjunction or combination with fiery constellations, fills the atmosphere with heat and scorches everything. For it has not power enough, so they say, to evaporate or exhaust the fountains of the Nile. And so too neither from the Greeks has philosophy altogether departed, nor has she forsaken Athens or Sparta or Corinth. ”

“ And if any of you doubt this statement, I have no lack of notable witnesses, Greek and barbarian, who fought and won many mighty battles, and became the masters of whole nations and compelled them to pay tribute, and yet were themselves slaves in a still more shameful degree of pleasure, money and wantonness, insolence and injustice. And no man of sense would call them even powerful, not though greatness should shine upon and illumine all that they achieved. For he alone is strong whose virtue aids him to be brave and magnanimous. ”

“ And never did this happen save in the manner that it happens now; but forever is Attis the servant and charioteer of the Mother; forever he yearns passionately towards generation; and forever he cuts short his unlimited course through the cause whose limits are fixed, even the cause of the forms. In like manner the myth says that he is led upwards as though from our earth, and again resumes his ancient sceptre and dominion: not that he ever lost it, or ever loses it now, but the myth says that he lost it on account of his union with that which is subject to passion and change. ”

“ Nay rather, the god came forth from an eternal cause, or rather brought forth all things from everlasting, engendering by his divine will and with untold speed and unsurpassed power, from the invisible all things now visible in present time. And then he assigned as his own station the mid-heavens, in order that from all sides he may bestow equal blessings on the gods who came forth by his agency and in company with him ”

“ For when those who have the power to exact by force what they wish condescend to entreat, naturally they put one out of countenance and there is nothing left but to obey. Now when I consented, I had to change my mode of dress, and my attendants, and my habitual pursuits, and my very house and way of life for what seemed full of pomp and ceremony to one whose past had naturally been so modest and humble, and my mind was confused by the strangeness, though it was certainly not dazzled by the magnitude of the favours that were now mine. ”

“ The only alternative is the policy that you have yourself pursued, I mean of doing good to all men and imitating the divine nature on earth. To show mercy even in anger, to take away their harshness from acts of vengeance, to display kindness and toleration to your fallen enemies, this was your practice, this you always commended and enjoined on others to imitate, and thus, even while the usurper still controlled Italy, you transferred Rome to Paeonia by means of the Senate and inspired the cities with zeal for undertaking public services. ”