Julian (emperor)

Julian, whose full name was Flavius Claudius Julianus, was born at Constantinople, probably in 331, into the family of the reigning emperor, Constantine I.^[15] His father was Julius Constantius, Constantine's younger half-brother, and his mother was a Bithynian noble named Basilina, daughter of a high-ranking bureaucrat, Julianus, who had served as praetorian prefect and head of government under the late emperor Licinius.^[16] Julian's mother died shortly after he was born, and he spent his childhood in Constantinople, for which he always felt attached.^[17] Julian was probably raised with Greek as his first language,^[16] and, being the nephew of Rome's first Christian emperor, he was brought up under the Christian faith.^[17]

Julian solidus, c. 361. The obverse shows a bearded Julian inscribed fl·cl·iulianus p·p· aug·, calling Julian "father of the nation" (Latin: Pater Patriae). The reverse depicts an armed Roman soldier bearing a military standard in one hand and subduing a captive with the other, a reference to the military strength of the Empire, inscribed: virtus exercitus romanorum, lit. 'the virtue of the Roman Army' The mint mark sirm. indicates the coin was minted in Sirmium, the home of Constantine's family.

In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish himself and his brothers, Julian's cousin Constantius II appears to have led a massacre of most of Julian's close relatives. Constantius II allegedly 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 Constantius 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, were strictly guarded in their youth, and given a Christian education. They were likely saved by their youth. If Julian's later writings are to be believed, Constantius would later be tormented with guilt at the massacre of 337.

Initially growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age of seven Julian was under the guardianship of Eusebius, the semi-Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, and taught by Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, about whom he later wrote warmly. After Eusebius died in 342, both Julian and Gallus were transferred 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.^[18] 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.^[19]

Julian's conversion from Christianity to paganism happened at around the age of 20. Looking back on his life in 362, Julian wrote that he had spent twenty years in the way of Christianity and twelve in the true way, i.e., the way of Helios.^[20] Julian began his study of Neoplatonism in Asia Minor in 351, at first under Aedesius, the philosopher, and then Aedesius' student Eusebius of Myndus. It was from Eusebius that Julian learned of the teachings of Maximus of Ephesus, whom Eusebius criticized for his more mystical form of Neoplatonic theurgy. Eusebius related his meeting with Maximus, in which the theurgist invited him into the temple of Hecate and, chanting a hymn, caused a statue of the goddess to smile and laugh, and her torches to ignite. Eusebius reportedly told Julian that he "must not marvel at any of these things, even as I marvel not, but rather believe that the thing of the highest importance is that purification of the soul which is attained by reason." In spite of Eusebius' warnings regarding the "impostures of witchcraft and magic that cheat the senses" and "the works of conjurers who are insane men led astray into the exercise of earthly and material powers", Julian was intrigued, and sought out Maximus as his new mentor. According to the historian Eunapius, when Julian left Eusebius, he told his former teacher "farewell, and devote yourself to your books. You have shown me the man I was in search of."^[21]

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 Constantius' court in Mediolanum (Milan) in 354, 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 Empress Eusebia intervened on his behalf, and he was permitted to study in Athens (Julian expresses his gratitude to the empress in his third oration).^[22] 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.

Discover more about Early life related topics

Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople became the de facto capital of the Roman Empire upon its founding in 330, and became the de jure capital in AD 476 after the fall of Ravenna and the Western Roman Empire. It remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Officially renamed Istanbul in 1930, the city is today the largest city and financial centre of the Republic of Turkey (1923–present). It is also the largest city in Europe.

Julius Constantius

Julius Constantius

Flavius Julius Constantius was a politician of the Roman Empire and a member of the Constantinian dynasty, being a son of Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his second wife Flavia Maximiana Theodora, a younger half-brother of Emperor Constantine the Great and the father of Emperor Julian.

Bithynia

Bithynia

Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast along the Pontic coast, and Phrygia to the southeast towards the interior of Asia Minor.

Basilina

Basilina

Basilina was the wife of Julius Constantius and the mother of the Roman emperor Julian who in her honour gave the name Basilinopolis to a city in Bithynia.

Julius Julianus

Julius Julianus

Julius Julianus was a Roman politician, the grandfather and namesake of the future emperor Julian.

Licinius

Licinius

Valerius Licinianus Licinius was Roman emperor from 308 to 324. For most of his reign he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I, with whom he co-authored the Edict of Milan, AD 313, that granted official toleration to Christians in the Roman Empire. He was finally defeated at the Battle of Chrysopolis, and was later executed on the orders of Constantine I.

Literal translation

Literal translation

Literal translation, direct translation or word-for-word translation, is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately, without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence.

Constantius II

Constantius II

Constantius II was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death.

Constantine II (emperor)

Constantine II (emperor)

Constantine II was Roman emperor from 337 to 340. Son of Constantine the Great and co-emperor alongside his brothers, his attempt to exert his perceived rights of primogeniture led to his death in a failed invasion of Italy in 340.

Constans

Constans

Flavius Julius Constans, sometimes called Constans I, was Roman emperor from 337 to 350. He held the imperial rank of caesar from 333, and was the youngest son of Constantine the Great.

Constantius Gallus

Constantius Gallus

Flavius Claudius Constantius Gallus (326–354) was a statesman and ruler in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire from 351 to 354, as Caesar under emperor Constantius II, his cousin. A grandson of emperor Constantius Chlorus and empress Flavia Maximiana Theodora, and a son of Julius Constantius and Galla, he belonged to the Constantinian dynasty. He was born during the reign of his uncle Constantine the Great, and was among the few to survive the killings of male members of the imperial family in 337. Under Constantius II, he married Constantina, Constantine's daughter and Constantius' sister. As Caesar he dealt with a Jewish revolt (351–352) and ruled from Antioch, but the emperor came to mistrust him, and ultimately had him executed and replaced with his younger half-brother Julian.

Eusebius of Nicomedia

Eusebius of Nicomedia

Eusebius of Nicomedia was an Arian priest who baptized Constantine the Great on his deathbed in 337. A fifth-century legend evolved that Pope Sylvester I was the one to baptize Constantine, but this is dismissed by scholars as a forgery 'to amend the historical memory of the Arian baptism that the emperor received at the end of his life, and instead to attribute an unequivocally orthodox baptism to him.' He was a bishop of Berytus in Phoenicia. He was later made the bishop of Nicomedia, where the Imperial court resided. He lived finally in Constantinople from 338 up to his death.

Statue at the Musée de Cluny formerly identified as Julian.^[ii]

After dealing with the rebellions of Magnentius and Silvanus, Constantius felt he needed a permanent representative in Gaul. In 355, Julian was summoned to appear before the emperor in Mediolanum and on 6 November was made Caesar of the West, marrying 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, assuming his prefects in Gaul would keep Julian in check. At first reluctant to trade his scholarly life for war and politics, Julian eventually took every opportunity to involve himself in the affairs of Gaul.^[23] In the following years he 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 Germanic kingdoms

During his first campaign in 356, Julian led an army to the Rhine, where he engaged the inhabitants and recovered 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.^[24] 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. Relations between Julian and Marcellus seem to have been poor. Constantius accepted Julian's report of events and Marcellus was replaced as magister equitum by Severus.^[25][26]

The following year saw a combined operation planned by Constantius to regain control of the Rhine from the Germanic peoples who 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 Durocortorum (Rheims). However, while Julian was in transit, a group of Laeti attacked Lugdunum (Lyon) 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 peoples.^[27][28]

With Barbatio safely out of the picture, King Chnodomarius led a confederation of Alamanni forces against Julian and Severus at the Battle of Argentoratum. The Romans were heavily outnumbered^[iii] and during the heat of battle a group of 600 horsemen on the right wing deserted,^[29] 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 Mediolanum.^[30][31] Ammianus, who was a participant in the battle, portrays Julian in charge of events on the battlefield^[32] 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.^[33]

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. At Moguntiacum (Mainz), however, he crossed the Rhine in an expedition that penetrated deep into what is today Germany, and forced three local kingdoms 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 who had taken control of some abandoned forts along the river Meuse.^[31][34]

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, where his views were influenced by his liberal education in Greece. 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. 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. Julian 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".^[35]

Rebellion in Paris

19th century depiction of Julian being proclaimed emperor in Paris (fancifully located in the Thermes de Cluny, then thought to have been the Imperial Palace), standing on a shield in the Frankish manner, in February 360.

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 join his eastern army, the order 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. According to the historian Zosimus, the army officers were those responsible for distributing an anonymous tract^[36] expressing complaints against Constantius as well as fearing for Julian's ultimate fate. Notably absent at the time was the prefect Florentius, who was seldom 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.^[37] 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.^[38]

The troops proclaimed Julian Augustus 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.^[39][40] 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.^[41]

Solidus of Julian issued at Ravenna in 361, during his war with Constantius. The reverse reads VIRTUS EXERC(ITUS) GALL(ICARUM), 'virtue of the Gallic army', celebrating Julian's legions from Gaul which acclaimed him as emperor.

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.^[42] 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.^[43] (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..."^[44])

However, in June, forces loyal to Constantius captured the city of Aquileia on the north Adriatic coast, an event that 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.^[45] 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).^[46] Civil war was avoided only by the death on 3 November of Constantius, who, in his last will, is alleged by some sources to have recognized Julian as his rightful successor.

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Musée de Cluny

Musée de Cluny

The Musée de Cluny, officially Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge, is a museum of medieval art in Paris. It is located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, bordered by square Samuel-Paty to the south, boulevard Saint-Michel to the west, boulevard Saint-Germain to the north, and rue Saint-Jacques to the east.

Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of 494,000 km2 (191,000 sq mi). According to Julius Caesar, who took control of the region on behalf of the Roman Republic, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania.

Caesar (title)

Caesar (title)

Caesar is a title of imperial character. It derives from the cognomen of Julius Caesar, a Roman dictator. The change from being a familial name to a title adopted by the Roman emperors can be traced to AD 68, following the fall of the Julio–Claudian dynasty.

Helena (wife of Julian)

Helena (wife of Julian)

Flavia Julia Helena was a Roman Empress by marriage to Julian, Roman emperor in 360–363. She was briefly his Empress consort when Julian was proclaimed Augustus by his troops in 360. She died prior to the resolution of his conflict with Constantius II.

Franks

Franks

The Franks were a germanic people who were first mentioned by name in 3rd-century Roman sources, living near the Lower Rhine, on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Later, Romanized Frankish dynasties based within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, became the rulers of the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They subsequently imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire. Beginning with Charlemagne in 800, Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old emperors.

Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million people in the urban region. Centered on the left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of NRW's state capital Düsseldorf and 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.

Magister equitum

Magister equitum

The magister equitum, in English Master of the Horse or Master of the Cavalry, was a Roman magistrate appointed as lieutenant to a dictator. His nominal function was to serve as commander of the Roman cavalry in time of war, but just as a dictator could be nominated to respond to other crises, so the magister equitum could operate independently of the cavalry; like the dictator, the appointment of a magister equitum served both military and political purposes.

Barbatio

Barbatio

Barbatio was a Roman general of the infantry under the command of Constantius II. Previously he was a commander of the household troops under Gallus Caesar, but he arrested Gallus under the instruction of Constantius, thereby ensuring his promotion on the death of Claudius Silvanus. In 359, both he and his wife Assyria were arrested and beheaded for treason against Constantius, possibly as part of a plot by Arbitio, a senior cavalry commander, and another exponent of the forms of scheming and political intrigue that became such a part of the later Roman Empire.

Kaiseraugst

Kaiseraugst

Kaiseraugst is a municipality within the district of Rheinfelden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. It is named after the Ancient Roman city of Augusta Raurica whose ruins are situated nearby. The prefix Kaiser- ("imperial") refers to the fact that from medieval times this town formed part of the Habsburg territory of Further Austria, as opposed to neighbouring village of Augst, part of the then Canton of Basel in the Old Swiss Confederacy.

Durocortorum

Durocortorum

Durocortorum was the name of the city Reims during the Roman era. It was the capital of the Remi tribe and the second largest city in Roman Gaul.

Laeti

Laeti

Laeti, the plural form of laetus, was a term used in the late Roman Empire to denote communities of barbari ("barbarians"), i.e. foreigners, or people from outside the Empire, permitted to settle on, and granted land in, imperial territory on condition that they provide recruits for the Roman military. The term laetus is of uncertain origin. It means "lucky" or "happy" in Latin but may derive from a non-Latin word. It may derive from a Germanic word meaning "serf" or "half-free colonist". Other authorities suggest the term was of Celtic or Iranian origin.

Lugdunum

Lugdunum

Lugdunum was an important Roman city in Gaul, established on the current site of Lyon. The Roman city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, but continued an existing Gallic settlement with a likely population of several thousands. It served as the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis and was an important city in the western half of the Roman Empire for centuries. Two emperors, Claudius and Caracalla, were born in Lugdunum. In the period 69–192 AD, the city's population may have numbered 50,000 to 100,000, and possibly up to 200,000 inhabitants.

The Church of the Holy Apostles, where Julian brought Constantius II to be buried.

On 11 December 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.^[46] This act was a demonstration of his lawful right to the throne.^[47] He is also now thought to have been responsible for the building of Santa Costanza on a Christian site just outside Rome as a mausoleum for his wife Helena and sister-in-law Constantina.^[48]

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 equals"), 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 the other members of the Senate.^[49]

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 signalling his displeasure at their necessity.)^[50] He continually sought to reduce what he saw as a burdensome and corrupt bureaucracy within the Imperial administration whether it involved civic officials, secret agents or the imperial postal 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.^[51] This was a key reform reducing the power of corrupt imperial officials, as the unpaid taxes on land were often hard to calculate or higher than the value of the land itself. Forgiving back taxes both made Julian more popular and allowed him to increase collections of current taxes.

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 the Antiochenes

Julian as portrayed by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri (1583). From Romanorum Imperatorum effigies, preserved in the Municipal Library of Trento (Italy)

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 one reason for his 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.^[52]

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.^[53][54]

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.^[54]

He tried to resurrect the ancient oracular spring of Castalia at the temple of Apollo at Delphi. After being advised that the bones of 3rd-century 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.^[55][56]

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;^[57][58] while Ammianus blames Julian for "a mere thirst for popularity".^[59]

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.^[60] David Stone Potter said after nearly two millennia:

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.^[61]

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.

Julian's fellow pagans were of a divided mind about this habit of talking to his subjects on an equal footing: Ammianus Marcellinus saw in that only the foolish vanity of someone "excessively anxious for empty distinction", whose "desire for popularity often led him to converse with unworthy persons".^[62]

On leaving Antioch he appointed Alexander of Heliopolis as governor, a violent and cruel man whom the Antiochene Libanius, a friend of the emperor, admits on first thought was a "dishonourable" appointment. Julian himself described the man as "undeserving" of the position, but appropriate "for the avaricious and rebellious people of Antioch".^[63]

Persian campaign

Julian's rise to Augustus 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 Sassanid 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.^[64] 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.^[65]

Illustration from The Fall of Princes by John Lydgate (which is a translation of De Casibus Virorum Illustribus by Giovanni Boccaccio) depicting "the skyn of Julyan". There is no evidence that Julian's corpse was skinned and displayed, and it is likely that the illustrator simply confused the fate of Julian's body with that of Emperor Valerian.

Into enemy territory

On 5 March 363, despite a series of omens against the campaign, Julian departed from Antioch with about 65,000–83,000,^[66][67] or 80,000–90,000 men^[68] (the traditional number accepted by Gibbon^[69] is 95,000 effectives total), and headed north toward the Euphrates. En route he was met by embassies from various small powers offering assistance, none of which he accepted. He did order the Armenian King Arsaces to muster an army and await instructions.^[70] He crossed the Euphrates near Hierapolis and moved eastward to Carrhae, giving the impression that his chosen route into Persian territory was down the Tigris.^[71] For this reason it seems he sent a force of 30,000 soldiers under Procopius and Sebastianus further eastward to devastate Media in conjunction with Armenian forces.^[72] This was where two earlier Roman campaigns had concentrated and where the main Persian forces were soon directed.^[73] Julian's strategy lay elsewhere, however. He had had a fleet built of over 1,000 ships at Samosata in order to supply his army for a march down the Euphrates and of 50 pontoon ships to facilitate river crossings. Procopius and the Armenians would march down the Tigris to meet Julian near Ctesiphon.^[72] Julian's ultimate aim seems to have been "regime change" by replacing king Shapur II with his brother Hormisdas.^[73][74]

After feigning a march further eastward, Julian's army turned south to Circesium at the confluence of the Abora (Khabur) and the Euphrates arriving at the beginning of April.^[72] Passing Dura on 6 April, the army made good progress, bypassing towns after negotiations or besieging those which chose to oppose him. At the end of April the Romans captured the fortress of Pirisabora, which guarded the canal approach from the Euphrates to Ctesiphon on the Tigris.^[75] As the army marched toward the Persian capital, the Sassanids broke the dikes which crossed the land, turning it into marshland, slowing the progress of the Roman army.^[76]

Ctesiphon

Julian near Ctesiphon in modern-day Iraq, from a medieval miniature

By mid-May, the army had reached the vicinity of the heavily fortified Persian capital, Ctesiphon, where Julian partially unloaded some of the fleet and had his troops ferried across the Tigris by night.^[77] The Romans gained a tactical victory over the Persians before the gates of the city, driving them back into the city.^[78] However, the Persian capital was not taken. Concerned with the risk of becoming encircled and trapped within the city's walls, master-general Victor ordered his soldiers not to enter the open gates of the city in pursuit of the defeated Persians.^[79] Resultantly, the main Persian army was still at large and approaching, while the Romans lacked a clear strategic objective.^[80] In the council of war which followed, Julian's generals persuaded him not to mount a siege against the city, given the impregnability of its defences and the fact that Shapur would soon arrive with a large force.^[81] Julian, not wanting to give up what he had gained and probably still hoping for the arrival of the column under Procopius and Sebastianus, set off east into the Persian interior, ordering the destruction of the fleet.^[78] This proved to be a hasty decision, for they were on the wrong side of the Tigris with no clear means of retreat and the Persians had begun to harass them from a distance, burning any food in the Romans' path. Julian had not brought adequate siege equipment, so there was nothing he could do when he found that the Persians had flooded the area behind him, forcing him to withdraw.^[82] A second council of war on 16 June 363 decided that the best course of action was to lead the army back to the safety of Roman borders, not through Mesopotamia, but northward to Corduene.^[83][84]

Death

Sassanian relief of the investiture of Ardashir II showing Mithra, Shapur II and Ahura Mazda above a defeated Julian, lying prostrate

Detail of the fallen Julian

During the withdrawal, Julian's forces suffered several attacks from Sassanid forces.^[84] In one such engagement on 26 June 363, the indecisive Battle of Samarra near Maranga, Julian was wounded when the Sassanid army raided his column. In the haste of pursuing the retreating enemy, Julian chose speed rather than caution, taking only his sword and leaving his coat of mail.^[85] He received a wound from a spear that reportedly pierced the lower lobe of his liver and intestines. The wound was not immediately deadly. Julian was treated by his personal physician, Oribasius of Pergamum, who seems to have made every attempt to treat the wound. This probably included the irrigation of the wound with a dark wine, and a procedure known as gastrorrhaphy, the suturing of the damaged intestine. On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the emperor died during the night.^[86][iv] As Julian wished, his body was buried outside Tarsus, though it was later moved to Constantinople.^[87]

In 364, Libanius stated that Julian was assassinated by a Christian who was one of his own soldiers;^[88] this charge is not corroborated by Ammianus Marcellinus or other contemporary historians. John Malalas reports that the supposed assassination was commanded by Basil of Caesarea.^[89] Fourteen years later, Libanius said that Julian was killed by a Saracen (Lakhmid) and this may have been confirmed by Julian's doctor Oribasius who, having examined the wound, said that it was from a spear used by a group of Lakhmid auxiliaries in Persian service.^[90] Later Christian historians propagated the tradition that Julian was killed by Saint Mercurius.^[91]

Legacy

Julian was succeeded by the short-lived Emperor Jovian who reestablished Christianity's privileged position throughout the Empire.

Libanius says in his epitaph of the deceased emperor (18.304) that "I have mentioned representations (of Julian); many cities have set him beside the images of the gods and honour him as they do the gods. Already a blessing has been besought of him in prayer, and it was not in vain. To such an extent has he literally ascended to the gods and received a share of their power from him themselves." However, no similar action was taken by the Roman central government, which would be more and more dominated by Christians in the ensuing decades.

Considered apocryphal is the report that his dying words were νενίκηκάς με, Γαλιλαῖε, or Vicisti, Galilaee ("You have won, Galilean"),^[v] supposedly expressing his recognition that, with his death, Christianity would become the Empire's state religion. The phrase introduces the 1866 poem "Hymn to Proserpine", which was Algernon Charles Swinburne's elaboration of what a philosophic pagan might have felt at the triumph of Christianity. It also ends the Polish Romantic play The Undivine Comedy written in 1833 by Zygmunt Krasiński.

Tomb

Porphyry sarcophagi outside the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

As he had requested,^[93] Julian's body was buried in Tarsus. It lay in a tomb outside the city, across a road from that of Maximinus Daia.^[94]

However, chronicler Zonaras says that at some "later" date his body was exhumed and reburied in or near the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, where Constantine and the rest of his family lay.^[95] His sarcophagus is listed as standing in a "stoa" there by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.^[96] The church was demolished by the Ottomans after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Today a sarcophagus of porphyry, believed by Jean Ebersolt to be Julian's, stands in the grounds of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.^[97]

4th-century cameo of an emperor, probably Julian, performing sacrifice (National Archaeological Museum, Florence)

Discover more about Empire and administration related topics

Church of the Holy Apostles

Church of the Holy Apostles

The Church of the Holy Apostles, also known as the Imperial Polyándreion, was a Byzantine Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The first structure dated to the 4th century, though future emperors would add to and improve upon it. It was second in size and importance only to the Hagia Sophia among the great churches of the capital.

Mausoleum

Mausoleum

A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum.

Constantina

Constantina

Flavia Valeria Constantina, later known as Saint Constance, was the eldest daughter of Roman emperor Constantine the Great and his second wife Fausta, daughter of Emperor Maximian. Constantina may have received the title of Augusta by her father, and is venerated as a saint, having developed a medieval legend wildly at variance with what is known of her actual character.

Diocletian

Diocletian

Diocletian, nicknamed "Jovius", was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Diocles rose through the ranks of the military early in his career, eventually becoming a cavalry commander for the army of Emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on a campaign in Persia, Diocles was proclaimed emperor by the troops, taking the name Diocletianus. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus.

Hadrian

Hadrian

Hadrian was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica, a Roman municipium founded by Italic settlers in Hispania Baetica. He came from a branch of the gens Aelia that originated in the Picenean town of Hadria, the Aeli Hadriani. His father was of senatorial rank and was a first cousin of Emperor Trajan. Hadrian married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina early in his career before Trajan became emperor and possibly at the behest of Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Plotina and Trajan's close friend and adviser Lucius Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian. When Trajan died, his widow claimed that he had nominated Hadrian as emperor immediately before his death.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calmness and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Chalcedon tribunal

Chalcedon tribunal

Shortly after the death of Roman emperor Constantius II, his successor Julian held a tribunal at the city of Chalcedon, which was then a suburb of Constantinople. Saturninius Secundus Salutius, who was raised to the rank of Praetorian Prefect was given the chief oversight and with him were associated Claudius Mamertinus, and four military commanders, Arbitio, Agilo, Nevitta and Jovinus. The first two were ex-officers of Constantius, while the other two had served with Julian.

Magister militum

Magister militum

Magister militum was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer of the empire. In Greek sources, the term is translated either as strategos or as stratelates.

Arbitio

Arbitio

Flavius Arbitio was a Roman general and Consul who lived in the middle of the 4th century AD.

Corvée

Corvée

Corvée is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year.

Claudius Mamertinus

Claudius Mamertinus

Claudius Mamertinus was an official in the Roman Empire. In late 361 he took part in the Chalcedon tribunal to condemn the ministers of Constantius II, and in 362, he was made consul as a reward by the new Emperor Julian; on January 1 of that year he delivered a panegyric in Constantinople by way of thanks to the Emperor. The text of this is extant, preserved in the Panegyrici Latini. Claudius Mamertinus later went on to become praetorian prefect of Italy, Africa, and Illyria before being removed from public office in 368 for embezzlement.

Nevitta

Nevitta

Nevitta was a Roman military leader and official in the Roman Empire. His career is closely linked to that of the emperor Julian. He was master of the cavalry and in 362 served as consul.

Beliefs

Julian's personal religion was both pagan and philosophical; he viewed the traditional myths as allegories, in which the ancient gods were aspects of a philosophical divinity. The chief surviving sources are his works To King Helios and To the Mother of the Gods, which were written as panegyrics, not theological treatises.^[98]

As the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire, Julian's beliefs are of great interest for historians, but they are not in complete agreement. He learned theurgy from Maximus of Ephesus, a student of Iamblichus;^[99] his system bears some resemblance to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus; Polymnia Athanassiadi has brought new attention to his relations with Mithraism, although whether he was initiated into it remains debatable; and certain aspects of his thought (such as his reorganization of paganism under High Priests, and his fundamental monotheism) may show Christian influence. Some of these potential sources have not come down to us, and all of them influenced each other, which adds to the difficulties.^[100]

According to one theory (that of Glen Bowersock in particular), Julian's paganism was highly eccentric and atypical because it was heavily influenced by an esoteric approach to Platonic philosophy sometimes identified as theurgy and also Neoplatonism. Others (Rowland Smith, in particular) have argued that Julian's philosophical perspective was nothing unusual for a "cultured" pagan of his time, and, at any rate, that Julian's paganism was not limited to philosophy alone, and that he was deeply devoted to the same gods and goddesses as other pagans of his day.

Because of his Neoplatonist background Julian accepted the creation of humanity as described in Plato's Timaeus. Julian writes, "when Zeus was setting all things in order there fell from him drops of sacred blood, and from them, as they say, arose the race of men."^[101] Further he writes, "they who had the power to create one man and one woman only, were able to create many men and women at once..."^[102] His view contrasts with the Christian belief that humanity is derived from the one pair, Adam and Eve. Elsewhere he argues against the single pair origin, indicating his disbelief, noting for example, "how very different in their bodies are the Germans and Scythians from the Libyans and Ethiopians."^[103][104]

The Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus was of the opinion that Julian believed himself to be Alexander the Great "in another body" via transmigration of souls, "in accordance with the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato".^[105]

The diet of Julian is said to have been predominantly vegetable-based.^[106]

Restoration of state paganism

Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by Edward Armitage, 1875

After gaining the purple, Julian started a religious reformation of the empire, which was intended to restore the lost strength of the Roman state. He supported the restoration of Hellenistic polytheism 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 Chinese Buddhism was driven back into the lower classes by a revived Confucian mandarinate in 13th century China."^[107]

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. The edict was seen as an act of favor toward the Jews, in order to upset the Christians.

Coptic icon showing Saint Mercurius killing Julian. According to a tradition, Saint Basil (an old school-mate of Julian) had been imprisoned at the start of Julian's Sassanid campaign. Basil prayed to Mercurius to help him, and the saint appeared in a vision to Basil, claiming to have speared Julian to death.

Since the persecution of Christians by past Roman Emperors had seemingly only strengthened Christianity, many of Julian's actions were designed to harass Christians and undermine their ability to organize resistance to the re-establishment of paganism in the empire.^[108] 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 Christian liturgy and demand the suppression of the Christian Holy Mysteries (Sacraments).^[109]

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.^[107] This was an attempt to remove some of the influence 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 also dealt a severe financial blow to many Christian scholars, tutors and teachers, as it deprived them of 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 "heretical" Christian bishops who had been censured or excommunicated by the Church. The latter was an instance of tolerance of different religious views, but it may also have been an attempt by Julian to foster schisms and divisions between his Christian rivals, since disputes over what constituted orthodox Catholic teaching could become quite fierce.^[110]

His care in the institution of a pagan hierarchy in opposition to that of the Church's hierarchy 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 Church's hierarchy or Christian charity.^[111]

Paganism's shift under Julian

Julian's popularity among the people and the army during his brief reign suggest that he might have brought paganism back to the fore of Roman public and private life.^[112] In fact, during his lifetime, neither pagan nor Christian ideology reigned supreme, and the greatest thinkers of the day argued about the merits and rationality of each religion.^[113] Most importantly for the pagan cause, though, Rome was still a predominantly pagan empire that had not wholly accepted Christianity.^[114]

Even so, Julian's short reign did not stem the tide of Christianity. The emperor's ultimate failure can arguably be attributed to the manifold religious traditions and deities that paganism promulgated. Most pagans sought religious affiliations that were unique to their culture and people, and they had internal divisions that prevented them from creating any one ‘pagan religion.’ Indeed, the term pagan was simply a convenient appellation for Christians to lump together the believers of a system they opposed.^[115] In truth, there was no Roman religion, as modern observers would recognize it.^[116] Instead, paganism came from a system of observances that one historian has characterized as “no more than a spongy mass of tolerance and tradition.”^[116]

This system of tradition had already shifted dramatically by the time Julian came to power; gone were the days of massive sacrifices honoring the gods. The communal festivals that involved sacrifice and feasting, which once united communities, now tore them apart—Christian against pagan.^[117] Civic leaders did not even have the funds, much less the support, to hold religious festivals. Julian found the financial base that had supported these ventures (sacred temple funds) had been seized by his uncle Constantine to support the Christian Church.^[118] In all, Julian's short reign simply could not shift the feeling of inertia that had swept across the Empire. Christians had denounced sacrifice, stripped temples of their funds, and cut priests and magistrates off from the social prestige and financial benefits accompanying leading pagan positions in the past. Leading politicians and civic leaders had little motivation to rock the boat by reviving pagan festivals. Instead, they chose to adopt the middle ground by having ceremonies and mass entertainment that were religiously neutral.^[119]

After witnessing the reign of two emperors bent on supporting the Church and stamping out paganism, it is understandable that pagans simply did not embrace Julian's idea of proclaiming their devotion to polytheism and their rejection of Christianity. Many chose to adopt a practical approach and not support Julian's public reforms actively for fear of a Christian revival. However, this apathetic attitude forced the emperor to shift central aspects of pagan worship. Julian's attempts to reinvigorate the people shifted the focus of paganism from a system of tradition to a religion with some of the same characteristics that he opposed in Christianity.^[120] For example, Julian attempted to introduce a tighter organization for the priesthood, with greater qualifications of character and service. Classical paganism simply did not accept this idea of priests as model citizens. Priests were elites with social prestige and financial power who organized festivals and helped pay for them.^[118] Yet Julian's attempt to impose moral strictness on the civic position of priesthood only made paganism more in tune with Christian morality, drawing it further from paganism's system of tradition.

Indeed, this development of a pagan order created the foundations of a bridge of reconciliation over which paganism and Christianity could meet.^[121] Likewise, Julian's persecution of Christians, who by pagan standards were simply part of a different cult, was quite an un-pagan attitude that transformed paganism into a religion that accepted only one form of religious experience while excluding all others—such as Christianity.^[122] In trying to compete with Christianity in this manner, Julian fundamentally changed the nature of pagan worship. That is, he made paganism a religion, whereas it once had been only a system of tradition.

Juventinus and Maximus

Many of the Church fathers viewed the emperor with hostility, and told stories of his supposed wickedness after his death. A sermon by Saint John Chrysostom, entitled On Saints Juventinus and Maximinus, tells the story of two of Julian's soldiers at Antioch, who were overheard at a drinking party, criticizing the emperor's religious policies, and taken into custody. According to John, the emperor had made a deliberate effort to avoid creating martyrs of those who disagreed with his reforms; but Juventinus and Maximinus admitted to being Christians, and refused to moderate their stance. John asserts that the emperor forbade anyone from having contact with the men, but that nobody obeyed his orders; so he had the two men executed in the middle of the night. John urges his audience to visit the tomb of these martyrs.^[123]

Charity

The fact that Christian charities were open to all, including pagans, put this aspect of Roman citizens' lives out of the control of 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, saying: "These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes."^[124]

Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple

Subterranean fires defeat Julian's effort to rebuild the temple.

In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to oppose Christianity, he allowed Jews to rebuild their Temple.^{[125][126][127]} The point was that the rebuilding of the Temple would invalidate Jesus’ prophecy about its destruction in 70, which Christians had cited as proof of Jesus' truth.^[125] But fires broke out and stopped the project.^[128] 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. Although there is contemporary testimony for the miracle, in the Orations of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Edward Gibbon considered this to be unreliable.^[129] Other possibilities are accidental fire or deliberate sabotage. Divine intervention was for centuries a common view among Christian historians,^[130] and it was seen as proof of Jesus’ divinity.^[125]

Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian the Hellene".^[131]

Discover more about Religious issues related topics

Helios

Helios

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios is the god and personification of the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion and Phaethon. Helios is often depicted in art with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. He was a guardian of oaths and also the god of sight. Though Helios was a relatively minor deity in Classical Greece, his worship grew more prominent in late antiquity thanks to his identification with several major solar divinities of the Roman period, particularly Apollo and Sol. The Roman Emperor Julian made Helios the central divinity of his short-lived revival of traditional Roman religious practices in the 4th century AD.

Cybele

Cybele

Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, accompanied by lionesses, have been found in excavations. Phrygia's only known goddess, she was probably its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the 6th century BC.

Panegyric

Panegyric

A panegyric is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens.

Maximus of Ephesus

Maximus of Ephesus

Maximus of Ephesus was a Neoplatonist philosopher. He is said to have come from a rich family, and exercised great influence over the emperor Julian, who was commended to him by Aedesius. Maximus pandered to the emperor's love of magic and theurgy and won a high position at court, where his overbearing manner made him numerous enemies. He spent an interval in prison after the death of Julian, and eventually was executed by Valens.

Iamblichus

Iamblichus

Iamblichus was a Syrian neoplatonic philosopher of Arabic origin. He determined a direction later taken by neoplatonism. Iamblichus was also the biographer of the Greek mystic, philosopher, and mathematician Pythagoras. In addition to his philosophical contributions, his Protrepticus is important for the study of the sophists because it preserved about ten pages of an otherwise-unknown sophist known as the Anonymus Iamblichi.

Mithraism

Mithraism

Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linked to a new and distinctive imagery, with the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice debated. The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th-century CE.

Paganism

Paganism

Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry".

Monotheism

Monotheism

Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.

Glen Bowersock

Glen Bowersock

Glen Warren Bowersock is a historian of ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East, and former Chairman of Harvard’s classics department.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20, and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.

Henosis

Henosis

Henosis is the classical Greek word for mystical "oneness", "union" or "unity". In Neoplatonism, henosis is unification with what is fundamental in reality: the One, the Source, or Monad. The Neoplatonic concept has precedents in the Greek mystery religions as well as parallels in Eastern philosophy. It is further developed in the Corpus Hermeticum, in Christian theology, Islamic Mysticism, soteriology and mysticism, and is an important factor in the historical development of monotheism during Late Antiquity.

Henotheism

Henotheism

Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.

Julian wrote several works in Greek, some of which have come down to us.

• Budé indicates the numbers used by Athanassiadi given in the Budé edition (1963 & 1964) of Julian's Opera.^[vii]
• Wright indicates the oration numbers provided in W.C.Wright's edition of Julian's works.

Ioulianou autokratoros ta sozomena (1696)

The religious works contain involved philosophical speculations, and the panegyrics to Constantius are formulaic and elaborate in style.

The Misopogon (or "Beard Hater") is a light-hearted account of Julian's clash with the inhabitants of Antioch after he was mocked for his beard and generally scruffy appearance for an emperor. The Caesars is a humorous tale of a contest between notable Roman emperors: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius and Constantine, with the competition also including Alexander the Great. This was a satiric attack upon the recent Constantine, whose worth, both as a Christian and as the leader of the Roman Empire, Julian severely questions.

One of the most important of his lost works is his Against the Galileans, intended to refute the Christian religion. The only parts of this work which survive are those excerpted by Cyril of Alexandria, who gives extracts from the three first books in his refutation of Julian, Contra Julianum. These extracts do not give an adequate idea of the work: Cyril confesses that he had not ventured to copy several of the weightiest arguments.

Problems regarding authenticity

Julian's works have been edited and translated several times since the Renaissance, most often separately; but many are translated in the Loeb Classical Library edition of 1913, edited by Wilmer Cave Wright. Wright mentions, however, that there are many problems surrounding Julian's vast collection of works, mainly the letters ascribed to Julian.^[145] The collections of letters existing today are the result of many smaller collections, which contained varying numbers of Julian's works in various combinations. For example, in Laurentianus 58.16, the largest collection of letters ascribed to Julian was found, containing 43 manuscripts. The origins of many letters in these collections are unclear.

Joseph Bidez and François Cumont compiled the different collections in 1922 and arrived at a total of 284 items. 157 of these were considered genuine, and 127 were regarded as spurious. This contrasts starkly with Wright's earlier mentioned collection, which contains only 73 items which are considered genuine, along with 10 apocryphal letters. Michael Trapp notes, however, that when comparing Bidez and Cumont's work with Wright's, Bidez and Cumont regard as many as sixteen of Wright's genuine letters as spurious.^[146] Which works can be ascribed to Julian is thus very much up to debate.

The problems surrounding a collection of Julian's works are exacerbated by the fact that Julian was a motivated writer, which means it is possible that many more letters could have circulated despite his short reign. Julian himself attests to the large number of letters he had to write in a letter that is itself likely to be genuine.^[147] Julian's religious agenda gave him even more work than the average emperor as he sought to instruct his newly styled pagan priests and dealt with discontented Christian leaders and communities. An example of him instructing his pagan priests is found in a fragment in the Vossianus MS., inserted in the Letter to Themistius.^[148]

Additionally, Julian's hostility towards the Christian faith inspired vicious counteractions by Christian authors, as in Gregory of Nazianzus' invectives against Julian.^[149][150] Christians no doubt suppressed some of Julian's works as well.^[151] This Christian influence is still visible in Wright's much smaller collection of Julian's letters. She comments that some letters are suddenly cut off when the contents become hostile towards Christians and believes this to be the result of Christian censorship. Notable examples appear in the Fragment of a letter to a Priest and the letter to High-Priest Theodorus.^[152][153]

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Salutius

Salutius

Saturninius Secundus Salutius was a Roman official and Neoplatonist author. A native of Gaul, he had a successful career as a provincial governor and officer at the imperial court, becoming a close friend and adviser of the Emperor Julian. Salutius was well versed in Greek philosophy and rhetoric, and had a reputation for competence and incorruptibility in office. He authored a Neoplatonic religious treatise titled On the Gods and the Cosmos, in support of Julian's pagan reaction against Christianity.

Themistius

Themistius

Themistius, nicknamed Euphrades, Εὐφραδής (eloquent), was a statesman, rhetorician, and philosopher. He flourished in the reigns of Constantius II, Julian, Jovian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius I; and he enjoyed the favour of all those emperors, notwithstanding their many differences, and the fact that he himself was not a Christian. He was admitted to the senate by Constantius in 355, and he was prefect of Constantinople in 384 on the nomination of Theodosius. Of his many works, thirty-three orations of his have come down to us, as well as various commentaries and epitomes of the works of Aristotle.

Heraclius the Cynic

Heraclius the Cynic

Heraclius was a Cynic philosopher, against whom the emperor Julian wrote in his seventh oration. Julian relates how Heraclius delivered an allegorical fable before him, in which Heraclius took upon himself the part of Jupiter, and gave the emperor that of the god Pan. Although offended by this fable, and by the disrespect with which Heraclius mentioned the gods, Julian maintained his silence, fearing that he would appear paranoid if he imposed silence upon Heraclius, as well as for regard for the audience. The encounter occurred whilst Julian was in Constantinople. Julian later composed his long discourse to explain that a Cynic should be an enemy to all pretence and deception, and ought not to compose fables; or, if he will compose them, that they should at least be serious, instructive, and religious.

Misopogon

Misopogon

The "Misopogon", or Beard-Hater, is a satirical essay on philosophers by the Roman Emperor Julian. It was written in Classical Greek. The satire was written in Antioch in February or March 363, not long before Julian departed for his fateful Persian campaign.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Trajan

Trajan

Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared optimus princeps by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history and led the empire to attain its greatest territorial extent by the time of his death. He is also known for his philanthropic rule, overseeing extensive public building programs and implementing social welfare policies, which earned him his enduring reputation as the second of the Five Good Emperors who presided over an era of peace within the Empire and prosperity in the Mediterranean world.

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He was enthroned when the city was at the height of its influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a major player in the Christological controversies of the late-4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople. Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and also as a Doctor of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers. The Nestorian bishops at their synod at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church."

Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library

The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and Latin literature designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each left-hand page, and a fairly literal translation on the facing page. The General Editor is Jeffrey Henderson, holder of the William Goodwin Aurelio Professorship of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University.

Wilmer Cave Wright

Wilmer Cave Wright

Emily Wilmer Cave Wright was a British-born American classical philologist, and a contributor to the culture and history of medicine. She was a professor at Bryn Mawr College, where she taught Greek. Wright's works include, The Emperor Julian’s relation to the new sophistic and neo-Platonism (1896), A Short History of Greek Literature, from Homer to Julian (1907), Julian (1913–23), Philostratus and Eunapius: The Lives of the Sophists (1922), Against the Galilaeans (1923), Hieronymi Fracastorii de contagione et contagiosis morbis et eorum curatione libri III (1930), and De morbis artificum Bernardini Ramazini diatriba (1940). Giovanni Maria Lancisi: De aneurysmatibus, opus posthumum (1952), and Bernardino Ramazzini: De Morbis Typographorum (1989) were published postmortem.

Laurentian Library

Laurentian Library

The Laurentian Library is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze under the patronage of the Medici pope Clement VII, the library was built to emphasize that the Medici were no longer just merchants but members of intelligent and ecclesiastical society. It contains the manuscripts and books belonging to the private library of the Medici family. The library building is renowned for its architecture that was designed by Michelangelo and is an example of Mannerism.

Franz Cumont

Franz Cumont

Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont was a Belgian archaeologist and historian, a philologist and student of epigraphy, who brought these often isolated specialties to bear on the syncretic mystery religions of Late Antiquity, notably Mithraism.

Gregory of Nazianzus

Gregory of Nazianzus

Gregory of Nazianzus, also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople and theologian. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained orator and philosopher, he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.

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Constantinian dynasty

Constantinian dynasty

The Constantinian dynasty is an informal name for the ruling family of the Roman Empire from Constantius Chlorus to the death of Julian in 363. It is named after its most famous member, Constantine the Great, who became the sole ruler of the empire in 324. The dynasty is also called Neo-Flavian because every Constantinian emperor bore the name Flavius, similarly to the rulers of the first Flavian dynasty in the 1st century.

Afranius Hannibalianus

Afranius Hannibalianus

Afranius Hannibalianus was the consul of 292 AD, a praetorian prefect, a senator and a military officer and commander.

Eutropia

Eutropia

Eutropia, a woman of Syrian origin, was the wife of Emperor Maximian.

Flavia Maximiana Theodora

Flavia Maximiana Theodora

Flavia Maximiana Theodora was a Roman empress, wife of Constantius Chlorus.

Constantius Chlorus

Constantius Chlorus

Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus", also called Constantius I, was Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 to 305 and then ruling as augustus until his death. Constantius was also father of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The nickname Chlorus was first popularized by Byzantine-era historians and not used during the emperor's lifetime. After his re-conquering of Roman Britain, he was given the title 'Redditor Lucis Aeternae', meaning 'The Restorer of Eternal Light'.

Flavia Julia Constantia

Flavia Julia Constantia

Flavia Julia Constantia was the daughter of the Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his second wife, Flavia Maximiana Theodora.

Flavius Dalmatius

Flavius Dalmatius

Flavius Dalmatius, also known as Dalmatius the Censor, was a censor (333), and a member of the Constantinian dynasty, which ruled over the Roman Empire at the beginning of the 4th century.

Galla (wife of Julius Constantius)

Galla (wife of Julius Constantius)

Galla was a member of the Constantinian dynasty that ruled in the Roman Empire.

Fausta

Fausta

Flavia Maxima Fausta Augusta was a Roman empress. She was the daughter of Maximian and second wife of Constantine the Great, who had her executed and excluded from all official accounts for unknown reasons. Historians Zosimus and Zonaras reported that she was executed for adultery with her stepson, Crispus.

Dalmatius

Dalmatius

Flavius Dalmatius Caesar was a Caesar (335–337) of the Roman Empire, and member of the Constantinian dynasty.

Hannibalianus

Hannibalianus

Flavius Hannibalianus was a member of the Constantinian dynasty, which ruled over the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD.

Constantius Gallus

Constantius Gallus

Flavius Claudius Constantius Gallus (326–354) was a statesman and ruler in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire from 351 to 354, as Caesar under emperor Constantius II, his cousin. A grandson of emperor Constantius Chlorus and empress Flavia Maximiana Theodora, and a son of Julius Constantius and Galla, he belonged to the Constantinian dynasty. He was born during the reign of his uncle Constantine the Great, and was among the few to survive the killings of male members of the imperial family in 337. Under Constantius II, he married Constantina, Constantine's daughter and Constantius' sister. As Caesar he dealt with a Jewish revolt (351–352) and ruled from Antioch, but the emperor came to mistrust him, and ultimately had him executed and replaced with his younger half-brother Julian.

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Literature

• The Julian Romance is a late antique Syriac romance of Julian's reign from a hostile Christian perspective.^[154]
• In 1681 Lord Russell, an outspoken opponent of King Charles II of England and his brother The Duke of York, got his chaplain to write a Life of Julian the Apostate. This work made use of the Roman Emperor's life in order to address contemporary English political and theological debates – specifically, to reply to the conservative arguments of Dr Hickes's sermons, and defend the lawfulness of resistance in extreme cases.
• In 1847, the controversial German theologian David Friedrich Strauss published in Mannheim the pamphlet Der Romantiker auf dem Thron der Cäsaren ("A Romantic on the Throne of the Caesars"), in which Julian was satirised as "an unworldly dreamer, a man who turned nostalgia for the ancients into a way of life and whose eyes were closed to the pressing needs of the present". In fact, this was a veiled criticism of the contemporary King Frederick William IV of Prussia, known for his romantic dreams of restoring the supposed glories of feudal Medieval society.^[155]
• Julian's life inspired the play Emperor and Galilean published in 1873 by Henrik Ibsen.^[156]
• The late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing read an English translation of Julian's work in 1891^[157]
• Julian's life and reign were the subject of the novel The Death of the Gods (Julian the Apostate) (1895) in the trilogy of historical novels entitled "Christ and Antichrist" (1895–1904) by the Russian Symbolist poet, novelist and literary theoretician Dmitrii S. Merezhkovskii.
• The opera Der Apostat (1924) by the composer and conductor Felix Weingartner is about Julian.
• In 1945, Nikos Kazantzakis authored the tragedy Julian the Apostate in which the emperor is depicted as an existentialist hero committed to a struggle which he knows will be in vain. It was first staged in Paris in 1948.
• Julian was the subject of a novel, Julian (1964), by Gore Vidal, describing his life and times. It is notable for, among other things, its scathing critique of Christianity.^[158]
• Julian appeared in Gods and Legions, by Michael Curtis Ford (2002). Julian's tale was told by his closest companion, the Christian saint Caesarius, and accounts for the transition from a Christian philosophy student in Athens to a pagan Roman Augustus of the old nature.
• Julian's letters are an important part of the symbolism of Michel Butor's novel La Modification.
• The fantasy alternate history The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford, while set in the time of the Wars of the Roses, uses the reign of Julian as its point of divergence.^[159] His reign not being cut short, he was successful in disestablishing Christianity and restoring a religiously eclectic societal order which survived the fall of Rome and into the Renaissance. Characters in the novel refer to him as "Julian the Wise".
• The dystopian speculative fiction novel by Robert Charles Wilson, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, parallels the life of Julian with the titular character as the hereditary president of an oligarchic future United States of America who tries to restore science and combat the fundamentalist Christianity that has taken over the country.
• A student paper by the narrator fills out the center of the 2022 novel Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes.^[160]
• C.P. Cavafy wrote 6 poems about Julian in 1923-1935.^[161]

Film

• An Italian movie treatment of his life, Giuliano l'Apostata, was released in 1919.

Street named

'Julian Way' is a main thoroughfare in Jerusalem named for the Emperor. It was given that name during the British Mandate period, and then changed to King David Street with the creation of the State of Israel.^[162][163]

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Julian Romance

Julian Romance

The Julian Romance is fictionalized prose account of the reign of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. It was written sometime between Julian's death in 363 and the copying of the oldest known manuscript in the sixth century. It does not survive complete—parts of the opening section are missing. It was probably written in Edessa in Syriac, the language of all surviving copies. An Arabic adaptation had been made by the tenth century.

Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

James II of England

James II of England

James II was King of England and King of Ireland, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

George Hickes (divine)

George Hickes (divine)

George Hickes was an English divine and scholar.

Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim, officially the University City of Mannheim, is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 21st-largest city, with a 2020 population of 309,119 inhabitants. The city is the cultural and economic centre of the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region, Germany's seventh-largest metropolitan region with nearly 2.4 million inhabitants and over 900,000 employees.

Frederick William IV of Prussia

Frederick William IV of Prussia

Frederick William IV, the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, reigned as King of Prussia from 7 June 1840 to his death on 2 January 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he is best remembered for the many buildings he had constructed in Berlin and Potsdam as well as for the completion of the Gothic Cologne Cathedral.

Emperor and Galilean

Emperor and Galilean

Emperor and Galilean is a play written by Henrik Ibsen. Although it is one of the writer's lesser known plays, on several occasions Henrik Ibsen called Emperor and Galilean his major work. Emperor and Galilean is written in two complementary parts with five acts in each part and is Ibsen's longest play.

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.

George Gissing

George Gissing

George Robert Gissing was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1891) and The Odd Women (1893).

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his wife, the poet Zinaida Gippius – was twice forced into political exile. During his second exile (1918–1941) he continued publishing successful novels and gained recognition as a critic of the Soviet Union. Known both as a self-styled religious prophet with his own slant on apocalyptic Christianity, and as the author of philosophical historical novels which combined fervent idealism with literary innovation, Merezhkovsky became a nine-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in literature, which he came closest to winning in 1933. However, because he was close to the Nazis, he has been virtually forgotten after World War 2.

Felix Weingartner

Felix Weingartner

Paul Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life. Beyond literature, Vidal was heavily involved in politics. He unsuccessfully sought office twice as a Democratic Party candidate, first in 1960 to the U.S. House of Representatives, and later in 1982 to the U.S. Senate.