Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I

Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against
The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of
Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A
Disgraceful Treaty.

The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of
the Cæsars, 1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive
productions of ancient wit. 2 During the freedom and equality of
the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the
deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate,
and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial
people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the
table of the Cæsars was spread below the Moon in the upper region
of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of
gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis,
into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Cæsars successively
advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the
defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who
disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a
Bacchanal. 3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury
proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be
the reward of superior merit. Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and
Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious
candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from
this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited
to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the
candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits;
but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus
pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his
haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded
to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action,
the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more
decisive and conspicuous. 5 Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus,
Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame,
or power, or pleasure had been the important object of _their_
labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love,
a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of
philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had
aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value
of this agreeable composition (the Cæsars of Julian) is enhanced
by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with
freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes,
in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.

1 (return) [ See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig
edition of Julian’s works. The French version of the learned
Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct;
and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages.
The Abbé’ de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has
more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the
original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
notes.]

2 (return) [ Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly
discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of
the Greek _satyrs_, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the
tragedy; and the Latin _satires_, (from _Satura_,) a
_miscellaneous_ composition, either in prose or verse. But the
Cæsars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is
perplexed to which class he should ascribe them. * Note: See also
Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach’s observations.—M.]

3 (return) [ This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in
the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]

4 (return) [ Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the
partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the
Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters are
compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]

5 (return) [ Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a
Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher,
he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]

In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful
and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was
inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal
ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude.
In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy
the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the
experience, and animated by the success, of the German war,
resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the
continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, 6 had respectfully
saluted the Roman purple. 7 The nations of the West esteemed and
dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He
despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that
the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from
any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of
his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor
of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy
of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to
chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and
insulted the majesty of Rome. 9 As soon as the Persian monarch
was informed that the throne of Constantius was filled by a
prince of a very different character, he condescended to make
some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation
of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness
of Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to
hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the
cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt,
that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had
determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience
of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations.
The generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople
through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about
eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the
indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his
zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his
wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the
salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted
strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing
spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
sovereign. 10

6 (return) [ Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates
mittentibus.... ab usque Divis et _Serendivis_. Ammian. xx. 7.
This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly
the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed
the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds
upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months
with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the
first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to
send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The
geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen
times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as
far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China. * Note: The
name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to the probable
conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mém. Acad. p. 127,) was applied
by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian
Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced in
Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy.——M.
Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy from
Ceylon to have been an impostor.—M.]

7 (return) [ These embassies had been sent to Constantius.
Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have
forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
reign of Julian. ——Gothos sæpe fallaces et perfidos; hostes
quærere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators
Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur.
(Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic
slaves threatened and subdued their masters.]

9 (return) [ Alexander reminds his rival Cæsar, who depreciated
the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony
had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of
three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of
Mesopotamia or Assyria, (Cæsares, p. 324.)]

10 (return) [ The design of the Persian war is declared by
Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c.
19.)]

If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection
with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual
satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false
estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. 11
The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most
intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the
lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the
hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and
furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues
were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty
and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or
rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were
procured from the adjacent cities; 12 a considerable share of the
revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the
magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was
considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was
insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his
subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor
admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and
sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by
ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions
in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch
could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been
first invented by their ancestors: 13 they contended themselves
with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously
attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the
Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those
of Paulinus, 14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their
common adversary.

11 (return) [ The Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St.
Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature
which the Abbé de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de
Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]

12 (return) [ Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus,
comedians; Cæsarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza,
gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See
the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of Hudson’s
Minor Geographers.]

13 (return) [ The people of Antioch ingenuously professed their
attachment to the _Chi_, (Christ,) and the _Kappa_,
(Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]

14 (return) [ The schism of Antioch, which lasted eighty-five
years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while Julian resided in
that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition,
(Paris, 1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]

The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of
an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged
the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St.
Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian.
His subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that
famine had pursued the emperor’s steps from Constantinople to
Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people was exasperated by
the injudicious attempt to relieve their distress. The inclemency
of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and the price
of bread, 15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable
proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly.
In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is
claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by
another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required by a
third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the
profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of
the defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were
exaggerated and increased by their own impatience and anxiety;
and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced the
appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch
complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly
declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular
supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was
the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his
people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very
dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the
value of corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should
be sold at a price which had seldom been known in the most
plentiful years; and that his own example might strengthen his
laws, he sent into the market four hundred and twenty-two
thousand _modii_, or measures, which were drawn by his order from
the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The
consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The
Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the
proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the
accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the
market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price.
Julian still continued to applaud his own policy, treated the
complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful murmur, and
convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy, though not
the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. 16 The remonstrances of the
municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind.
He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of
Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had
themselves contributed to the calamities of their country; and he
imputed the disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the
sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The whole
body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy
citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the
prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of
evening, to return to their respective houses, 17 the emperor
himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily
granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same
complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and
levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the
Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with insolent
songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal
conduct, and even the _beard_, of the emperor; the spirit of
Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and
the applause of the multitude. 18 The disciple of Socrates was
too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch,
endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute
power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge. A
tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and
fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians
must have patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and
the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence
might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and
privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian,
would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted the
dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. 19 But instead
of abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge
his personal injuries, Julian contented himself with an
inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the power
of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and
libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the _Enemy
of the Beard_, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a
severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of
Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the
gates of the palace; and the Misopogon 20 still remains a
singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and
the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could
not forgive. 21 His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might
be gratified, by the nomination of a governor 22 worthy only of
such subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful
city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at
Tarsus in Cilicia. 23

15 (return) [ Julian states three different proportions, of five,
ten, or fifteen _modii_ of wheat for one piece of gold, according
to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p. 369.)
From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude,
that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which
is equal to the average price of the sixty-four first years of
the present century. See Arbuthnot’s Tables of Coins, Weights,
and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mém. de
l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. Smith’s
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol.
i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a sage and
a friend.]

16 (return) [ Nunquam a proposito declinabat, Galli similis
fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The ignorance of the
most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we cannot be
satisfied with Julian’s own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363, 369,)
or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii.
p. 321.)]

17 (return) [ Their short and easy confinement is gently touched
by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)]

18 (return) [ Libanius, (ad Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c.
17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p. 221-223,)
like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of the
people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken
wretches.]

19 (return) [ Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds
Antioch of the recent chastisement of Cæsarea; and even Julian
(in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum had
expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]

20 (return) [ On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
(xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,)
Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbé de la
Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]

21 (return) [ Ammianus very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare
pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The elaborate irony of
Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct invective.]

22 (return) [ Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
quendam Alexandrum Syriacæ jurisdictioni præfecit, turbulentum et
sævum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus avaris
et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian. xxiii. 2.
Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to Julian
himself, that he had shared the general discontent, pretends that
Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of the manners and
religion of Antioch.]

23 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and
Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration, invites him
to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]

Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might
atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his
country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the
East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation
at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously
frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes
exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from
one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The
preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance,
that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the
curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he
secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the
most laborious of his domestic pupils. 24 When Julian ascended
the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the
Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the
Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
emperor’s prepossession was increased and justified by the
discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople,
Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from
court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his
sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment
of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting
to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, 25
reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might
disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the
Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the
admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated
his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and
idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of
words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind,
regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the
Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he
entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; 26 he praised
the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of
public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of
Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It
is the common calamity of old age, 27 to lose whatever might have
rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the peculiar
misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which
he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an
indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his
bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did
not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and
happiness. 28

24 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.]

25 (return) [ Eunapius reports, that Libanius refused the
honorary rank of Prætorian præfect, as less illustrious than the
title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit.
Wolf) of Libanius himself.]

26 (return) [ Near two thousand of his letters—a mode of
composition in which Libanius was thought to excel—are still
extant, and already published. The critics may praise their
subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon
Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that “you
feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse
with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.”]

27 (return) [ His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions
the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to
allude to some events of a still later date.]

28 (return) [ Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but curious
narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of
which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable
account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p.
127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
famous sophist.]