Julian II as Caesar in military dress w globe & spear 355AD Roman Coin i32781

Royal/Imperial
symbols of power

Ruling dynasties often exploit pomp and ceremony with the use of
regalia
:
crowns
,

robes,
orb (globe) and sceptres
, some of which are reflections
of formerly practical objects. The use of language mechanisms also support this
differentiation with subjects talking of “the crown” and/or of “the
throne
” rather than referring directly to
personal names and items.

Monarchies
provide the most explicit
demonstration of tools to strengthen the elevation of leaders. Thrones sit high
on daises
leading to subjects lifting their gaze
(if they have permission) to contemplate the ruler. Architecture in general can
set leaders apart: note the symbolism inherent in the very name of the Chinese
imperial
Forbidden City
.

Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as Julian,
Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher (331/332 – 26 June
363,
Greek
:Ιουλιανός), 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.)

 Caesar
in Gaul

After dealing with the rebellions of Magnentius and Sylvanus,
Constantius felt he needed a permanent representative in Gaul. Julian was thus
summoned to appear before the emperor in
Mediolanum
(Milan)
and, on 6 November 355
, he was made Caesar of the West and married
Constantius’ sister,
Helena
. Constantius, after his experience with
Gallus, intended his representative to be more a figurehead than an active
participant in events, so he packed Julian off to Gaul with a small retinue and
Constantius’ prefects in Gaul would keep him in check. Julian, however, had
other ideas, taking every opportunity to involve himself in the affairs of Gaul.
In the following years Julian learned how to lead and then run an army, through
a series of campaigns against the
Germanic tribes
that had settled on both sides
of the Rhine.

 Campaigns
against the Germanic tribes

In 356 during his first campaign he led an army to the Rhine,
engaged the barbarians and won back several towns that had fallen into
Frankish
hands, including Colonia Agrippina (Cologne).
With success under his belt he withdrew for the winter to Gaul, distributing his
forces to protect various towns, and choosing the small town of Senon near
Verdun to await the spring. This turned out to be a tactical error, for he was
left with insufficient forces to defend himself when a large contingent of
Franks besieged the town and Julian was virtually held captive there for several
months, until his general Marcellus deigned to lift the siege. There seem to
have been poor relations between Julian and Marcellus. Constantius accepted
Julian’s report of events and Marcellus was replaced as
magister equitum
by Severus.

The following year saw a combined operation planned by
Constantius to regain control of the Rhine from the Germanic tribes that had
spilt across the river onto the west bank. From the south his magister
peditum Barbatio
was to come from Milan and amass
forces at Augst
(near the Rhine bend), then set off north
with 25,000 soldiers; Julian with 13,000 troops would move east from
Reims
. However, while Julian was in transit, a
group of Laeti
attacked

Lyon (“Lugdunum”) and Julian was delayed in order to deal with them.
This left Barbatio unsupported and deep in
Alamanni
territory, so he felt obliged to
withdraw, retracing his steps. Thus ended the coordinated operation against the
Germanic tribes.

With Barbatio safely out of the picture, king
Chnodomarius
led a confederation of Alamanni
forces against Julian and Severus in a battle that took place in the vicinity of
Strasbourg
. The Romans were heavily outnumbered
and during the heat of battle a group of 600 horsemen on the right wing
deserted, yet, taking full advantage of the limitations of the terrain, the
Romans were overwhelmingly victorious. The enemy was routed and driven into the
river. King Chnodomarius was captured and later sent to Constantius in Milan.
Ammianus, who was a participant in the battle, portrays Julian in charge of
events on the battlefield and describes how the soldiers, because of this
success, acclaimed Julian attempting to make him Augustus, an acclamation he
rejected, rebuking them. He later rewarded them for their valor.

Rather than chase the routed enemy across the Rhine, Julian
now proceeded to follow the Rhine north, the route he followed the previous year
on his way back to Gaul, but at the
Mainz
bridge he crossed over and made a sudden
foray into Alamanni territory, where Roman forces had not been seen for many
years, forcing three kings to submit. This action showed the Alamanni that Rome
was once again present and active in the area. On his way back to winter
quarters in Paris he dealt with a band of Franks that had taken control of some
abandoned forts along the
Meuse River
.

In 358, Julian gained victories over the
Salian Franks
on the
Lower Rhine
, settling them in
Toxandria
in the Roman Empire, north of today’s
city of Tongeren, and over the Chamavi, who were expelled back to
Hamaland
.

 Taxation
and administration

At the end of 357 Julian, with the prestige of his victory
over the Alamanni to give him confidence, prevented a tax increase by the Gallic
praetorian prefect
Florentius
and personally took charge of the
province of

Belgica Secunda. This was Julian’s first
experience with civil administration. Properly it was a role that belonged to
the praetorian prefect. However, Florentius and Julian often clashed over the
administration of Gaul. Julian’s first priority, as Caesar and nominal ranking
commander in Gaul, was to drive out the barbarians who had breached the
Rhine
frontier. However, he sought to win over
the support of the civil population, which was necessary for his operations in
Gaul and also to show his largely Germanic army the benefits of Imperial rule.
He therefore felt it was necessary to rebuild stable and peaceful conditions in
the devastated cities and countryside. For this reason, Julian clashed with
Florentius over the latter’s support of tax increases, as mentioned above, and
Florentius’s own corruption in the bureaucracy.

Constantius attempted to maintain some modicum of control
over his Caesar, which explains his removal of Julian’s close adviser
Saturninius Secundus Salutius
from Gaul. His
departure stimulated the writing of Julian’s oration, “Consolation Upon the
Departure of Salutius”.

 Rebellion
in Paris

In the fourth year of Julian’s stay in Gaul, the
Sassanid Emperor
,
Shapur II
, invaded Mesopotamia and took the
city of Amida
after a 73-day siege. In February 360,
Constantius II ordered more than half of Julian’s Gallic troops to his eastern
army, the orders by-passing Julian and going directly to the military
commanders. Although Julian at first attempted to expedite the order, it
provoked an insurrection by troops of the
Petulantes
, who had no desire to leave
Gaul. Notably absent at the time was the prefect Florentius, who was usually
never far from Julian’s side, though now he was kept busy organizing supplies in
Vienne and away from any strife that the order could cause. Julian would later
blame him for the arrival of the order from Constantius. Ammianus Marcellinus
even suggested that the fear of Julian gaining more popularity than himself
caused Constantius to send the order on the urging of Florentius.

The troops proclaimed Julian emperor in Paris, and this in
turn led to a very swift military effort to secure or win the allegiance of
others. Although the full details are unclear, there is evidence to suggest that
Julian may have at least partially stimulated the insurrection. If so, he went
back to business as usual in Gaul, for, from June to August of that year, Julian
led a successful campaign against the Attuarian Franks. In November Julian began
openly using the title “Augustus” even issuing coins with the title, sometimes
with Constantius, sometimes without. He celebrated his fifth year in Gaul with a
big show of games.

In the spring of 361, Julian led his army into the territory
of the Alamanni, where he captured their king, Vadomarius. (Julian claimed that
Vadomarius had been in league with Constantius encouraging him to raid the
borders of Raetia
.) Julian then divided his forces,
sending one column to Raetia, one to northern Italy and the third he led down
the Danube on boats. His forces claimed control of Illyricum and his general,
Nevitta, secured the pass of Succi into Thrace. He was now well out of his
comfort zone and on the road to civil war. (Julian would state in late November
that he set off down this road “because, having been declared a public enemy, I
meant to frighten him [Constantius] merely, and that our quarrel should result
in intercourse on more friendly terms…”)

However, in June, forces loyal to Constantius captured the
city of Aquileia
on the north Adriatic coast, an event
which threatened to cut Julian off from the rest of his forces, while
Constantius’s troops marched towards him from the east. Aquileia was
subsequently besieged by 23,000 men loyal to Julian. All Julian could do was sit
it out in Naissus, the city of Constantine’s birth, waiting for news and writing
letters to various cities in Greece justifying his actions (of which only the
letter to the Athenians has survived in its entirety). Civil war was avoided
only by the death on November 3 of Constantius, who, in his last will,
recognized Julian as his rightful successor.

 The
new emperor and his administration

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.

 Clash
with Antiochenes

After five months of dealings at the capital, Julian left
Constantinople in May and moved to
Antioch
, arriving in mid-July and staying there
for nine months before launching his fateful campaign against Persia in March
363. Antioch was a city favored by splendid temples along with a famous oracle
of Apollo in nearby Daphne, which may have been cause for him choosing to reside
there. It had also been used in the past as a staging place for amassing troops,
a purpose which Julian intended to follow.

His arrival on 18 July was well received by the Antiochenes,
though it coincided with the celebration of the Adonia, a festival which
marked the death of Adonis
, so there was wailing and moaning in the
streets—not a good omen for an arrival.

Julian soon discovered that wealthy merchants were causing
food problems, apparently by hoarding food and selling it at high prices. He
hoped that the curia would deal with the issue for the situation was headed for
a famine. When the curia did nothing, he spoke to the city’s leading citizens,
trying to persuade them to take action. Thinking that they would do the job, he
turned his attention to religious matters.

He tried to resurrect the ancient oracular spring of Castalia
at the temple of Apollo
at Daphne. After being advised that the
bones of 3rd-century martyred bishop
Babylas
were suppressing the god, he made a
public-relations mistake in ordering the removal of the bones from the vicinity
of the temple. The result was a massive Christian procession. Shortly after
that, when the temple was destroyed by fire, Julian suspected the Christians and
ordered stricter investigations than usual. He also shut up the chief Christian
church of the city, before the investigations proved that the fire was the
result of an accident.

When the curia still took no substantial action in regards to
the food shortage, Julian intervened, fixing the prices for grain and importing
more from Egypt. Then landholders refused to sell theirs, claiming that the
harvest was so bad that they had to be compensated with fair prices. Julian
accused them of
price gouging
and forced them to sell. Various
parts of Libanius’ orations may suggest that both sides were justified to some
extent^[44][45]
while Ammianus blames Julian for “a mere thirst for popularity”.

Julian’s ascetic lifestyle was not popular either, since his
subjects were accustomed to the idea of an all-powerful emperor who placed
himself well above them. Nor did he improve his dignity with his own
participation in the ceremonial of bloody sacrifices. As David S. Potter says:

They expected a man who was both removed from them by the
awesome spectacle of imperial power, and would validate their interests and
desires by sharing them from his Olympian height (…) He was supposed to be
interested in what interested his people, and he was supposed to be dignified.
He was not supposed to leap up and show his appreciation for a
panegyric
that it was delivered, as Julian had
done on January 3, when Libanius was speaking, and ignore the chariot races.

He then tried to address public criticism and mocking of him
by issuing a satire ostensibly on himself, called
Misopogon
or “Beard Hater”. There he blames the
people of Antioch for preferring that their ruler have his virtues in the face
rather than in the soul.

 The
Persian Campaign

Julian’s rise to Augustus—it should be remembered—was the
result of military insurrection eased by Constantius’s sudden death. This meant
that, while he could count on the wholehearted support of the Western army which
had aided his rise, the eastern army was an unknown quantity originally loyal to
the emperor he had risen against, and he had tried to woo it through the
Chalcedon Tribunal. However, to solidify his position in the eyes of the eastern
army, he needed to lead its soldiers to victory and a campaign against the
Persians offered such an opportunity.

An audacious plan was formulated whose goal was to lay siege
on the Sassanid capital city of
Ctesiphon
and definitively secure the eastern
border. Yet the full motivation for this ambitious operation is, at best,
unclear. There was no direct necessity for an invasion, as the Sassanids sent
envoys in the hope of settling matters peacefully. Julian rejected this offer.
Ammianus states that Julian longed for revenge on the Persians and that a
certain desire for combat and glory also played a role in his decision to go to
war.

After gaining the purple, Julian started a religious
reformation of the state, which was intended to restore the lost strength of the
Roman State. He supported the restoration of
Hellenicc
paganism as the state religion. His
laws tended to target wealthy and educated Christians, and his aim was not to
destroy Christianity but to drive the religion out of “the governing classes of
the empire — much as
Buddhism
was driven back into the lower classes
by a revived
Confucian
mandarinate in
13th century China
.”

He restored pagan temples which had been confiscated since
Constantine’s time, or simply appropriated by wealthy citizens; he repealed the
stipends that Constantine had awarded to Christian bishops, and removed their
other privileges, including a right to be consulted on appointments and to act
as private courts. He also reversed some favors that had previously been given
to Christians. For example, he reversed Constantine’s declaration that
Majuma
, the port of

Gaza, was a separate
city
. Majuma had a large Christian congregation
while Gaza was still predominantly pagan.

On 4 February
362,
Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee freedom of religion. This edict
proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, and that the Roman
Empire had to return to its original religious eclecticism, according to which
the Roman State did not impose any religion on its provinces. Practically
however, it had as its purpose the restoration of paganism at the expense of
Christianity.

Since the persecution of Christians by past Roman Emperors
had seemingly only strengthened Christianity, many of Julian’s actions were
designed to harass and undermine the ability of Christians to organize
resistance to the re-establishment of paganism in the empire. Julian’s
preference for a non-Christian and non-philosophical view of Iamblichus’ theurgy
seems to have convinced him that it was right to outlaw the practice of the
Christian view of theurgy and demand the suppression of the Christian set of
Mysteries.

In his School Edict Julian required that all public
teachers be approved by the Emperor; the state paid or supplemented much of
their salaries. Ammianus Marcellinus explains this as intending to prevent
Christian teachers from using pagan texts (such as the
Iliad
, which was widely regarded as
divinely inspired) that formed the core of classical education: “If they want to
learn literature, they have
Luke
and
Mark
: Let them go back to their churches and
expound on them”, the edict says. This was an attempt to remove some of the
power of the Christian schools which at that time and later used ancient Greek
literature in their teachings in their effort to present the Christian religion
as being superior to paganism. The edict was also a severe financial blow,
because it deprived Christian scholars, tutors and teachers of many students.

In his Tolerance Edict of 362, Julian decreed the
reopening of pagan temples, the restitution of confiscated temple properties,
and the return from exile of dissident Christian bishops. The latter was an
instance of tolerance of different religious views, but it may also have been
seen as an attempt by Julian to foster schisms and divisions between different
Christian sects, since conflict between rival Christian sects was quite fierce.

His care in the institution of a pagan hierarchy in
opposition to that of the Christians was due to his wish to create a society in
which every aspect of the life of the citizens was to be connected, through
layers of intermediate levels, to the consolidated figure of the Emperor – the
final provider for all the needs of his people. Within this project, there was
no place for a parallel institution, such as the Christian hierarchy or
Christian charity.

 Charity

Because Christian
charities
were beneficial to all, including
pagans, it put this aspect of the Roman citizens lives out of the control of the
Imperial authority and under that of the Church. Thus Julian envisioned the
institution of a Roman philanthropic system, and cared for the behaviour and the
morality of the pagan priests, in the hope that it would mitigate the reliance
of pagans on Christian charity:

 Church
martyrs

Although Julian was responsible for temporarily stopping
factional struggles between Arian and orthodox Christians, the following martyrs
have traditionally been dated to his reign:

• Artemius

• Saint
  Basil of Ancyra

• Saint
  Eupsychios of Caesarea

• Saint
  Dorotheus of Tyre

• John and Paul

• Cyril of Heliopolis

 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:

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
, coming after the hostility of many
earlier Emperors, meant that Jews called him Julian the
Hellene
.

e time. Julian’s support of Jews, coming after the hostility of many earlier Emperors, meant that Jews called him Julian the Hellene.