Julian

“ Athanasius reckoned it among the impieties of the Arian Constantius that he had "given over to the barbarians" one who had been all but a Roman Empress. Constantius immediately on his accession had put to death the prefect Ablabius, the low-born favourite of Constantine whose ambitious career and violent end are related in the Lives of Eunapius; he now disposed of Ablabius' daughter as he had disposed of his own two sisters, giving one to Gallus and the other to Julian in order to secure their loyalty when they were promoted to the Caesarship. ”

“ Constantius, fully occupied with the persecution of non-Arian Christians, had not persecuted pagan intellectuals such as Libanius and Themistius the philosopher, while even pagan officials such as Sallust had been promoted in his reign. But Julian gave instructions that pagans should be preferred to Christians for public offices (Letter 37) , and, as the progress of "Hellenism" proved slower than he had hoped, he grew more intolerant. For evidence of definite persecution of the Christians in his brief reign we depend on Gregory Nazianzen, Socrates, Sozomen and other historians of the Church. ”

“ Iamblichus II, though he was a philosopher and is mentioned with admiration by the Emperor Julian in Letter 2, was not distinguished enough to account for the servile flattery expressed in these letters; and the writer, if he had been addressing the grandson, would hardly have failed to mention his famous grandfather. Moreover, the events alluded to are irreconcilable with what we know of Julian's life. There are in these six letters certain parallels of thought and language which favour the theory that they are by one man ”

“ The Christian sophist Victorinus, who was then lecturing at Rome, and Prohaeresius at Athens, must resign their chairs. Julian offered a special exemption to Prohaeresius, but the sophist, says Eunapius, [24] refused the privilege. He could afford to wait in patience, for, like many another distinguished Christian, he consulted the omens through the pagan hierophant of Greece, and learned indirectly, but to his own reassurance, that Julian's power would be short-lived. Even Ammianus the pagan historian deplored the bigotry and malice of Julian's attempt to suppress Christian educators. ”

“ Meanwhile Constantius, who had achieved nothing conclusive against the Persians, had married, at Antioch, his third wife Faustina. Their only child, a daughter, was married later to the Emperor Gratian, but died young. Constantius had now no choice but to lead his army to defend Constantinople against Julian. But at Tarsus he fell ill, and on November 3, 361, died of a fever at Mopsucrene in Cilicia. When Julian heard the news he wrote Letters 8 and 13, in which he thanks the gods for his escape from civil war. He entered Constantinople in triumph as Emperor on December 11, 361. ”

“ Ammianus says that though he has ransacked history he can find no eunuch who in wisdom and accomplishments can be compared with Eutherius. He must have possessed extraordinary tact to have been loved by Constantius, though he was a pagan, and by Julian, though he was the favourite of Constantius. Evagrius, the rhetorician to whom Julian wrote Letter 25, making him the present of a small estate in Bithynia, is otherwise unknown, though he is possibly to be identified with the man of that name who joined Julian at Nisli in the autumn of 361 (Letter 8, To Maximus) . ”

“ The letters of Julian must have been collected and published before the end of the fourth century, since Eunapius (A.D. 346-414) used them as a source for his History, and in his Lives mentions several that are not extant. Libanius, not long after Julian's death, wrote to Aristophanes of Corinth that some of Julian's letters were safe to publish, others not, and consoled himself for the Emperor's loss with "these his immortal children." Zosimus the pagan historian, who wrote 450-501, says that from Julian's letters one may best comprehend his activities, "which extended over the whole world." ”

“ Such a collection would be entitled Letters because any Imperial edict was called a letter. Julian was an indefatigable letter-writer, and we have only a fraction of his vast correspondence. Many letters must have been suppressed by their owners as dangerous to themselves after his death, or by the Christians because of their disrespectful allusions to Christianity; of those that survive some were mutilated by the Christians for the same reason, while others, such as Letter 81, To Basil, are suspected of being Christian forgeries designed to display Julian in an unpleasant light. ”

“ Oribasius was a pagan, but his son Eustathius, to whom he bequeathed his medical writings, was a Christian and a friend and correspondent of St. Basil. Eunapius relates that after Julian's death Oribasius was exiled "among the most savage barbarians" by the Christian Emperors. At the courts of "the barbarians" he rose to great renown and was worshipped like a god because of his wonderful cures. He was therefore permitted to return, and recovered his fortune and position. Suidas says that he was born at Sardis, but probably Eunapius, who gives his birthplace as Pergamon, was better informed. ”

“ The motives of Constantius in making Julian Caesar are not clear. Eunapius says that he hoped his cousin would be killed in Gaul. Eusebia may have persuaded the Emperor that their childlessness was a punishment for his treatment of his relatives. The Gallic provinces were overrun by barbarians, and Constantius could not go there himself because he was occupied on the Danube with the Sarmatians and the Quadi, and by the threat of the Persians in Mesopotamia. Julian set out for Gaul on December 1, 355, with a small troop of 360 men who "only knew how to pray" as he says in frag. ”

“ It was perhaps easier to restore the temples than the half-forgotten ritual of the gods, but Julian enlisted the aid of a learned pagan, the Roman antiquarian and senator, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, whom in 362 he appointed Proconsul of Achaia, while for the rites appropriate to the oriental cults he certainly consulted Maximus of Ephesus, who initiated him into the Mysteries of Mithras. ”

“ Two men named Elpidius attained to high office in the fourth century, and one of them was a favourite with Julian because he had renounced Christianity and become a zealous pagan. He was with Julian at Antioch in the winter of 362 as Comes rerum privatarum, and Libanius, in Letter 33, written when Julian was in Gaul in 358, says that Julian, though younger than Elpidius, has exercised a good influence on him, and that in his conversation Elpidius echoes Julian's ideas and is as anxious as Libanius himself regarding Julian's future. ”

“ Libanius of Antioch, the famous teacher whose speeches Julian studied at Nicomedia in 344-345, and to whom he wrote many letters (of which only three, 52, 53 and 58, survive) , has left more works, chiefly rhetorical, than any other sophist of his time. His Life by Eunapius is in some respects disparaging (see Eunapius, Lives, Wright, pp. 333-336) , and we can best judge of his career from his own letters, more than 1600 of which are extant, and his numerous orations. ”

“ Eutherius was sent by Julian to the Court at Milan in 356 to counteract the plots of Marcellus, his late master of horse, and he successfully defended the loyalty of Julian before Constantius; again in 360 Julian sent him to Constantius with the letters in which he sought to justify his action in accepting the title of Augustus from the army in Gaul. After Julian's death, Eutherius, who was a pagan, retired to Rome, where he spent his old age respected by all. ”

“ After his accession in 361 the plea of lack of time or a shortage of secretaries is frequent, and some scholars have rejected certain purely conventional and sophistic letters, such as 59 and 60, or assigned them to his student days, on the ground that Julian after 355 would not write in that strain, and that his undoubtedly genuine letters always have some definite content. They never reject a letter in which pressure of business is mentioned, though one may see from the correspondence of Libanius that the plea of lack of time owing to affairs is a regular sophistic excuse. ”

“ It was, in fact, a dangerous time for the friends of Julian, who were regarded with suspicion by the Christian Emperors Valens and Valentinian, and, for the most part, lost their offices. Arsaces, or Arsacius, to whom is addressed Letter 57, was king of Armenia in the reigns of Constantius and Julian, and, since Armenia was the buffer state between Rome and Persia, he was courted by Romans and Persians alike, whenever they were at war. ”

“ Julian at once wrote Letter 23 to demand his library.
In 351 Constantius, who had once visited the brothers at Macellum, released them, raised Gallus to the rank of Caesar and gave him his sister Constantia in marriage. Constantius had married as his first wife Galla, the sister of Gallus; she had lately died. Gallus was sent to Antioch to govern the provinces of the East. There he and Constantia, whose cruel and suspicious temper matched his own, embarked on a four years' reign of terror which is described by Ammianus. ”

“ There seems to be only one safe criterion for rejecting letters ascribed in the MS. tradition to Julian: when the historical facts of his life cannot be reconciled with the contents of a letter, or if he cannot have known the person addressed, as is the case with the six letters addressed to Iamblichus, or when the contents are too foolish even for Julian in his sophistic vein, [37] it has seemed better not to confuse the reader by including them, as Hertlein did, with the genuine letters. ”

“ Priscus, whom Eunapius calls "the Thesprotian or Molossian," was born about 305 and died in 395 when Alaric invaded Greece. His Life was written by Eunapius (Lives, pp. 461-465, Wright) . Julian made his acquaintance when he studied at Pergamon, and on his accession summoned him to his Court, and he accompanied the Emperor to Persia. On his return to Antioch in 363, Priscus, like other friends of Julian, fell under the suspicion of Valens and Valentinian, but was acquitted and dismissed with honour to Greece, where he continued to teach for another thirty years. ”

“ It was to him that Libanius applied when he grew anxious as to the fate of Aristophanes (see Letter 758, Foerster) . The other Elpidius, a Christian, was prefect of the East in 360, and was also at Antioch with Julian in 362. He is often mentioned by Ammianus and Libanius. Neither of these men could correctly be called a philosopher, but it is possible that Julian might so address the former, who was among his intimates. Eustathius, to whom Julian addressed Letters 43 and 44, was a Neo-Platonic philosopher but apparently not a miracle-worker of the type of Maximus. ”

“ He was in high favour with the Emperor Constantius and an ardent Christian. In Alexandria he was hated by the pagans because he despoiled the temples, especially the famous Serapeum, the shrine of Serapis, and not less by the orthodox Christians for his support of the Arian Bishop George. In 362 Julian summoned him to Antioch, deprived him of his office, and had him beheaded on October 20, 362, a day that was consecrated by the Church to his memory as a saint and martyr. ”

“ He spent the winter of 358-359 at Paris, whence he wrote to his friend the physician Oribasius, at Vienne, Letter 4, of which the first part, with its dream, [9] is highly sophistic but expresses vague fears that he and Constantius may be involved in ruin together; the second part describes his opposition to the pretorian prefect Florentius, his persistent enemy, whom he forbade to recommend to Constantius increased taxes on the Gallic provincials. ”

“ Under Constantius the citizens had pulled down the temples of Zeus and Apollo, and in Julian's reign they invited martyrdom by destroying the temple of Fortune, the only one that remained. Sozomen relates their punishment by Julian, which probably occurred while he was at Antioch in 362-363. The city lost its complimentary name of Caesarea, and was obliged to resume its old name Mazaca; it was expunged from the catalogue of cities, and its church treasures were confiscated, Libanius, Oration 16, describes its fate as a warning to the recalcitrant. ”

“ His fleet of a thousand boats of all kinds he transferred by means of a canal from the Euphrates to the Tigris, and arrived under the walls of Ctesiphon, devastating the country and burning towns and villages as he went. ”

“ He was famous as a teacher. Libanius in Letter 171, written 359-360, condoles with him on his exile and hints at a coming change for the better, by which he must have meant the rise of Julian to power. Libanius says that though they have never met he owes much to the skill of Zeno's pupils, some of whom had evidently tried to cure his chronic headache. Cumont, following Boissonade, identifies Zeno of Alexandria with another famous teacher of medicine, Zeno of Cyprus, the "healing sophist," whose Life by Eunapius is extant. ”