What I Just Read

A slow, workmanlike biography, but it gets the job done, conveying context on the Roman Empire during the 4th century AD, a period that began with Constantine I imposing Christianity, featured tremendous brutality and paranoia among the empire's ruling families, and led to Julian's ascension to emperor mostly by luck. This period was also a sort of mini-cycle of breakdown and recovery within the Roman Empire's much longer multi-century breakup and collapse. Julian was extraordinarily fortunate just to survive to adulthood as the then-emperor killed not only Julian's parents but practically his entire family to eliminate any possible future political threat. Julian then became emperor by still more miraculous luck: just as he and his opponent (and cousin) Constantius were girding for what was shaping up to be a tremendous civil war, Constantius died of a fever, and Julian took power peacefully. And then, luck of the other kind: a mere eighteen months after becoming emper