Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV

The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by
Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt
that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous
successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his
punishments; and his contempt of treason was the result of
judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of superior merit,
he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare to meet
him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves
on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty
sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious
projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash
conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a
purple garment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the
reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital
offence, 68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity
of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into
the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with
a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the
magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy
was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had resolved to
assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their
intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in
chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a
lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their
enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved
and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two
principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to
depart from his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash
youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to seize the reins of
empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the general of
cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had
deserted the standard of the Cæsar and the republic. Without
appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily
confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was
reconciled by the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of
the emperor endeavored to heal the wound which had been inflicted
by the hand of justice. 69

68 (return) [ The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p.
448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing
that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a
Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology is
supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws, “chez
une nation.... où il est défendu de boire à la santé d’une
certaine personne.”]

69 (return) [ The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which
was formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus
(xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
99, p. 323.)]

Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. 70 From
his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and
heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a
tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare
to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. 71
He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which
Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore
years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a
costly diadem; 72 but he absolutely refused the title of
_Dominus_, or _Lord_, 73 a word which was grown so familiar to
the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its
servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name,
of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with
reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which
had been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by
Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at
break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened
to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed
of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to
meet them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the
demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they
proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before
their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of
ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their
eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. 74 But the behavior of
Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus,
he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded
that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of _another_
magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of
gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the
world, that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens,
to the laws, 75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The
spirit of his administration, and his regard for the place of his
nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of
Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which
were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. 76 A legal
fiction was introduced, and gradually established, that one half
of the national council had migrated into the East; and the
despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of Senators,
acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which
was permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From
Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended to the
municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated
edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn
so many idle citizens from the services of their country; and by
imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he restored the
strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression
of Libanius, 77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire.
The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in
the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he
recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes
and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the
monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He
relieved the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of
Epirus and Peloponnesus. 78 Athens acknowledged him for her
benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again
rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted
a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of
defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this
tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had
inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of
perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games,
claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted
the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate,
who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in
which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian 79
allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the
defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, 80
and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. 81

70 (return) [ According to some, says Aristotle, (as he is quoted
by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of absolute government is
contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher choose,
how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
obscurity.]

71 (return) [ That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]

72 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who
mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious
language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
revelation.]

73 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never abolished,
by any public law, the proud appellations of _Despot_, or
_Dominus_, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he
affected to express, only gave a different tone to the servility
of the court. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the
word _Dominus_ under the Imperial government.]

74 (return) [ Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr.
Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like an
elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of
his master.]

75 (return) [ Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est
Judiciumque—Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. ——Julian (in Misopogon, p.
337) owns himself subject to the law; and the Abbé de la Bleterie
(Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a
declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to the
true spirit of the Imperial constitution.]

76 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.]

77 (return) [ See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,)
Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i.
leg. 50-55.) with Godefroy’s Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.)
Yet the whole subject of the _Curia_, notwithstanding very ample
materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of
the empire.]

78 (return) [ Quæ paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia visebantur,
ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra, Gymnasia,
lætis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et
celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
(Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis
and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]

79 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle,
which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
Abbé de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
translator, who, by rendering _tributum_, and _populus_, directly
contradicts the sense of the original.]

80 (return) [ He reigned in Mycenæ at the distance of fifty
stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which
alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]

81 (return) [ Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after
a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot.
l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
and unpopular in Greece. When the Achæan league declared against
Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should
retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)]

The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which
were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire,
exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the
two characters of Orator 82 and of Judge, 83 which are almost
unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of
persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Cæsars, were
neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers,
whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators,
whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which
Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place
where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a
republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately
practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of
praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the
simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor,
whose words descended like the flakes of a winter’s snow, or the
pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a
judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince,
were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and
discernment of his Prætorian præfects, he often placed himself by
their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his
mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the
chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot
the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the
agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he
maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and
their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him
to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and
ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame,
as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian
were almost always founded on the principles of justice; and he
had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous temptations,
which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the specious
forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of the
cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the
poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the
just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully
distinguished the judge from the legislator; 84 and though he
meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he
pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal
interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to
execute, and the subjects to obey.

82 (return) [ His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius, (Orat.
Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the
orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted
that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Cæsar, who
harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit.
Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various
examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.]

83 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 10) has impartially stated the
merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat.
Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and
his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of
the Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to
be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]

84 (return) [ Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of
sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of
Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.)
The Abbé de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
these laws to give an idea of Julian’s Latin style, which is
forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]

The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple,
and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the
lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their
obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure,
independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life,
by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense
application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have
deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might
have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the
state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous
caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had
prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the
same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the
reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When
we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the
portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and
perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
sublime than that of Cæsar; nor did he possess the consummate
prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady
and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and
consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and
prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and
twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and
his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive
the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect
authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction,
and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the
superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his
country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 85

85 (return) [

... Ductor fortissimus armis; Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore
manûque Consultor patriæ; sed non consultor habendæ Religionis;
amans tercentum millia Divûm. Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et
perfidus orbi. Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.

The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised
the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]