|
Julian II ‘The Apostate’ – Roman Emperor: 360-363 A.D. –
Bronze AE1 28mm (8.69 grams) Arles mint: 360-363 A.D.
Rarity: R2 Reference: RIC 320; C 39
Certification: NGC Ancients AU 4375823-379
DN FL CL IVLIANVS P F AVG Pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
SECVRITAS REIPVB Exe: PCONST◦, bull (Taurus zodiac astrological symbol) standing right, two stars above; eagle holding wreaths in beak and in talons in lower right field.
Julian II represented a resurgence of pagan beliefs, in a Christian-dominated world, so Julian grew a beard, put his zodiac symbol on his coins and became known as the ‘Apostate’.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Julian II ‘The Apostate’ – 360-363 A.D.
Caesar: 355-360 (under Constantius II)
Augustus: 360-361 A.D. (Rival of Constantius II)
361-363 A.D. Sole Reign
| Grandson of Constantius I and Theodora | Half-brother of Constantius Gallus | Husband and Half-Cousin of Helena the Younger | Nephew of Licinius I and Constantia | Cousin of Delmatius, Hanniballianus, Licinius II and Nepotian | Half-nephew of Constantine the Great | Half-cousin of Crispus, Constantine II, Constantius II, Constans and Constantina (w. of Hanniballianus & Constantius Gallus)
Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian, Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher (331/332 – 26 June 363), was Roman Emperor (Caesar, November 355 to February 360; Augustus, February 360 to June 363), last of the Constantinian dynasty. Julian was a man of “unusually complex character”: he was “the military commander, the theosophist, the social reformer, and the man of letters”.
Julian was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire and it was his desire to bring the empire back to its ancient Roman values in order to save it from “dissolution”. He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy and attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at the cost of Christianity. His rejection of Christianity in favour of Neo–Platonic paganism caused him to be called Julian the Apostate by the church, as Edward Gibbon wrote:
In 363, after a reign of only 19 months as absolute ruler of the Roman Empire, Julian died in Persia during a campaign against the Sassanid Empire.
Flavius Claudius Julianus, born in May or June 332 or 331 in Constantinople, was the son of Julius Constantius (consul in 335), half brother of Emperor Constantine I, and his second wife, Basilina, both Christians. His paternal grandparents were Western Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his second wife, Flavia Maximiana Theodora. His maternal grandfather was Julius Julianus, praetorian prefect of the East under emperor Licinius from 315 to 324 and consul after 325. The name of Julian’s maternal grandmother is unknown.
In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish himself as sole emperor, Julian’s zealous Arian Christian cousin Constantius II led a massacre of Julian’s family. Constantius II ordered the murders of many descendants from the second marriage of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora, leaving only Constantius and his brothers Constantine II and Constans I, and their cousins, Julian and Gallus (Julian’s half-brother), as the surviving males related to Emperor Constantine. Constantius II, Constans I, and Constantine II were proclaimed joint emperors, each ruling a portion of Roman territory. Julian and Gallus were excluded from public life and given a strictly Arian Christian education.
Initially growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age of seven he was under the guardianship of Eusebius of Nicomedia, the semi-Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, and taught by Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, whom Julian wrote warmly of later. After Eusebius died in 342, both Julian and Gallus were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia. Here Julian met the Christian bishop George of Cappadocia, who lent him books from the classical tradition. At the age of 18, the exile was lifted and he dwelt briefly in Constantinople and Nicomedia.
He became a lector, a minor office in the Christian church, and his later writings show a detailed knowledge of the Bible, likely acquired in his early life. (Looking back on his life in 362, Julian wrote, in his thirty-first year, that he had spent twenty years in the way of Christianity and twelve in the true way (ie the way of Helios).)
Julian studied Neoplatonism in Asia Minor in 351, at first under Aedesius, the philosopher, and then Neoplatonic theurgy from Aedesius’ student, Maximus of Ephesus. He was summoned to Constantius’ court in Milan in 354 and kept there for a year; in the summer and fall of 355, he was permitted to study in Athens. While there, Julian became acquainted with two men who later became both bishops and saints: Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great; in the same period, Julian was also initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, which he would later try to restore.
Constantine II died in 340 when he attacked his brother Constans. Constans in turn fell in 350 in the war against the usurper Magnentius. This left Constantius II as the sole remaining emperor. In need of support, in 351 he made Julian’s half-brother, Gallus, Caesar of the East, while Constantius II himself turned his attention westward to Magnentius, whom he defeated decisively that year. In 354 Gallus, who had imposed a rule of terror over the territories under his command, was executed. Julian was summoned to court, and held for a year, under suspicion of treasonable intrigue, first with his brother and then with Claudius Silvanus; he was cleared, in part because the Empress Eusebia intervened on his behalf, and he was sent to Athens. (Julian expresses his gratitude to the empress Eusebia in his third oration.)
On December 11, 361, Julian entered Constantinople as sole emperor and, despite his rejection of Christianity, his first political act was to preside over Constantius’ Christian burial, escorting the body to the Church of the Apostles, where it was placed alongside that of Constantine. This act was a demonstration of his lawful right to the throne.
The new emperor rejected the style of administration of his immediate predecessors. He blamed Constantine for the state of the administration and for having abandoned the traditions of the past. He made no attempt to restore the tetrarchal system begun under Diocletian. Nor did he seek to rule as an absolute autocrat. His own philosophic notions led him to idealize the reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. In his first panegyric to Constantius, Julian described the ideal ruler as being essentially primus inter pares (“first among peers”), operating under the same laws as his subjects. While in Constantinople therefore it was not strange to see Julian frequently active in the senate, participating in debates and making speeches, placing himself at the level of all the members of the senate and thus embodying the first among peers.
He viewed the royal court of his predecessors as inefficient, corrupt, and expensive. Thousands of servants, eunuchs, and superfluous officials were therefore summarily dismissed. He set up the Chalcedon tribunal to deal with the corruption of the previous administration under the supervision of magister militum Arbitio. Several high-ranking officials under Constantius including the chamberlain Eusebius were found guilty and executed. (Julian was conspicuously absent from the proceedings, perhaps signaling his displeasure at their necessity.) He continually sought to reduce what he saw as a burdensome and corrupt bureaucracy within the Imperial administration whether it involved civic officials, the secret agents, or the imperial post service.
Another effect of Julian’s political philosophy was that the authority of the cities was expanded at the expense of the imperial bureaucracy as Julian sought to reduce direct imperial involvement in urban affairs. For example, city land owned by the imperial government was returned to the cities, city council members were compelled to resume civic authority, often against their will, and the tribute in gold by the cities called the aurum coronarium was made voluntary rather than a compulsory tax. Additionally, arrears of land taxes were cancelled.
While he ceded much of the authority of the imperial government to the cities, Julian also took more direct control himself. For example, new taxes and corvées had to be approved by him directly rather than left to the judgement of the bureaucratic apparatus. Julian certainly had a clear idea of what he wanted Roman society to be, both in political as well as religious terms. The terrible and violent dislocation of the 3rd century meant that the Eastern Mediterranean had become the economic locus of the empire. If the cities were treated as relatively autonomous local administrative areas, it would simplify the problems of imperial administration, which as far as Julian was concerned, should be focused on the administration of the law and defense of the empire’s vast frontiers.
In replacing Constantius’s political and civil appointees, Julian drew heavily from the intellectual and professional classes, or kept reliable holdovers, such as the rhetorician Themistius. His choice of consuls for the year 362 was more controversial. One was the very acceptable Claudius Mamertinus, previously the Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum. The other, more surprising choice was Nevitta, Julian’s trusted Frankish general. This latter appointment made overt the fact that an emperor’s authority depended on the power of the army. Julian’s choice of Nevitta appears to have been aimed at maintaining the support of the Western army which had acclaimed him.
Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple
In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Temple rebuilt. A personal friend of his, Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort:
Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt.
The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to the Galilee earthquake of 363, and to the Jews‘ ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time. Julian’s support of Jews caused Jews to call him “Julian the Hellene“.
|
