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 emperor, Julian died in battle against the Persian Empire.
The author's writing style is leaden, and at times he assumes context his readers almost certainly wouldn't have, such as various military conventions or geographical context that would make sense only to readers already well-versed in Roman history. This makes the book more difficult to follow than necessary.
The story picks up momentum with Chapter 4, as Julian consolidates power in the western empire, then leads his army to Constantinople against Constantius II, in both a literal and political journey to total power over a unified Roman Empire. And then within two years Julian was dead, struck down in battle by a lucky spear throw--without naming a successor. Soon after, the empire would again fracture into east and west, never again to unify.
Julian ran the territories of Western Empire (as well as Constantinople once he took over) a bit like a supply-sider: he cut taxes, cut spending, and hacked away at the Empire's bloated bureaucracy. And he was a tragic hero to a certain extent: after his predecessors forced Christianity onto Rome's pantheistic and Hellenic cultural foundation, Julian struck a sort of Westphalian peace, advocating for freedom for all religions. Of course he didn't pick the religion that ultimately won out, and for this he is known as "the Apostate." The winners write the history books.
Notes:
Introduction: The Brittle Glass
1ff: The author starts with Julian's death: he's just 31, it's AD 363, and he had been Roman emperor for less than two years; he was in battle with the King Shapur II of the Persian Empire, continuing his predecessor Constantius' conflict with the Persians; and by luck some unknown Persian soldier pierced him with a lance through his liver. He calls out to his men not to be afraid, that his wound wasn't fatal, loses consciousness, is carried to his tent, wakes allegedly to discuss the nature of the soul with some of his friends, decides to leave the decision about his successor emperor to his army, then dies that night.
3ff: He was popular, youthful, had a proven track record on the battlefield and with reducing taxes and was fairly non-sectarian, non-favoring to any specific religion. He ruled for only 18 months.
4ff: Note also that Christianity was extremely fractured/disunited during this period, with lots of different splinter religions, and "catholic" Christianity didn't officially "win" until 17 years after Julian's death. There is quite a division of opinion over Julian; he's heavily studied by many contemporary historians; Note also a huge range of his writings survived, far more than any other Roman ruler; he's also a sort of tragic hero, doomed to fail against the Persians; a "flesh-and-blood" leader where we can see all kinds of personality aspects through his writings.
7ff: On how Julian fell out of and then back into fashion as official narrative changed over the following centuries: during the 11th and 12th centuries he was seen in quite a negative light; the biographer of Charlemagne, Notker the Stammerer, called him "hateful in the eyes of God"; John Milton called him "the subtlest enemy to our faith"; but then during the enlightenment he fell into favor again, and was "rehabilitated" by people like Voltaire; even Edward Gibbon made Julian a hero in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; then he was celebrated by Victorian-era poets like Swinburne and Hardy.
8: Julian never said the words attributed to him as he was dying, "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!"
Chapter 1: Return of the Gods
9: "When the emperor Diocletian retired to his Palace on the Dalmatian coast to tend his cabbages in May 305, Julian's family spent a great deal of the next fifty years developing ingenious ways to kill each other." [Occasionally this author fires off some solid sentences.]
10: After Diocletian, Constantine Chlorus, followed by his son Constantine the Great. In the Eastern domain of Rome there was a similar power struggle where Licinius became sole Augustus; Constantine and Licinius agreed to rule together, Licinius even married Constantine's sister. However in 324 Licinius was captured and Constantine executed him, thus becoming sole emperor of the entire empire, the first "sole" emperor in 40 years.
11: Julian later ascribed Constantine's conversion to Christianity to guilt over a series of murders, including his first wife and his bastard son Cripus who he both executed. (!) Julian wrote a satirical fantasy called "The Caesars" years later and in a scene where Constantine was asked to pick a God he runs first to Pleasure, then to Dissolution, and finally to Jesus who offers to wash away his sins.
13ff: Julian was born in 332, note that there's a dispute about this date, whether it's 331 or 332; he was born to Constantine's half-brother, Julius Constantius, after Constantine's death in 337 there followed four very bloody months where the emperor's three sons were declared emperors and then all of the males who could have posed credible challenge to the throne were quickly eliminated, including Jillian's father and the elder of his two half-brothers; the only two survivors of this family massacre were Julian and his other half-brother Gallus.
16: The triumvirate sons of Constantine quickly became two as one brother tried to invade the other's land, Julian and his brother are essentially exiled.
19: A gloriously atrocious run-on sentence right here that somehow managed to slip through editing:
"Even though he was now emperor and clearly had more interest in the pagan volumes to be shipped to him, as a member of family, which had led the conversion of the empire and surrounded as he was by bishops, of course his literary diet at that point would have been predominantly Christian."
19: You can tell here the book is clearly written from a Christian perspective; also Julian practices debate with his brother, always taking the pagan position because he wanted to practice the weaker argument; also Julian's mother was a committed Christian throughout her life.
20 Julian freed from exile, at age 16 he begins studying with Nicholas the Spartan ("a pagan and one of the best-known grammarians of the age") and Hecebolius, a Christian.
22ff: 351AD as an important year: Constantine's brothers murdered, a number of pseudo-emperors or pretenders show up in different regions of the empire, while Constantine remains in power in Constantinople; also this is the year from which historians date Julian's apostasy, his conversion to paganism (actually Hellenism). Note also Julian's frequent references to Christians as "Galileans."
25: Interesting comment here about how Julian could never be "entirely happy worshiping the same God as the man who had murdered his family."
26: On theurgy or neoplatonism: "Theurgy or Neoplatonism was the intellectual's main alternative to Christianity at the time, but it is difficult for the modern mind to grasp exactly what it was. It had its sacred scriptures, an emphasis on self-restraint and it was focused on the union of the soul with god, something achieved by magical rituals such as the animal sacrifices for which Julian was castigated when he became emperor."
26-7: Julian at this time seen as "at his most gullible" as he falls under the influence of Maximus, a philosopher who practiced pagan pantheism, was seen as a fraudster with a svengali-like relationship with Julian. Julian also joins cult after cult in his youth, worship of Hecate, worship of the sun god Mithras, etc.
28: 354 AD: Julian's half-brother Gallus is executed for treason, Julian is recalled to the Roman Court in Milan.
31: Constantine's second wife, Eusebia, helped rehabilitate Julian to the emperor, likely saving his life.
35ff: Julian sent to Athens, then recalled to Milan, kept under house arrest outside the city, and then promoted to become Caesar, basically a general of the army; he now has to become a soldier and has to totally change his nature and comportment; then sent to Gaul to pacify the region.
Chapter 2: A Written Order
38: context here about Magnentius and his revolt, he was a Germanic Roman general who took over the Western Empire, Constantius worked out a deal with the German tribes on the eastern side of the Rhine: if they would help him get rid of Magnentius, he would turn a blind eye to their territorial expansion; then Claudia Silvanus, a general, proclaimed himself emperor, lasting 28 days before being stabbed to death by his own men; Constantius them makes Julian caesar of the region, puts him in charge of the army, sends him off to fight the Gauls as the new ruler of Britain, Gaul and Spain.
39ff Discussion of Helena, who was arranged to marry Julian by Constantius, this was Constanius' own sister; she was six, seven or perhaps eight years older than Julian, who was 23 at the time; Helena miscarried his son, there are rumors that Eusebia arranged to have the son killed; then Helena died in childbirth five years later.
43ff: The winter of 355 AD is a turning point in Julian's life, he puts himself through basic training, becomes a legit soldier; he could have given himself over to a life of luxury but did not; has some successful campaigning. Conflict with commander-in-chief Marcellus, then Julian is named commander-in-chief; various conflicts and raids against the Germans, etc.
Chapter 3: Heart of Fire
56ff: The Battle of Strasbourg, Julian's greatest victory, actually a defensive battle more lost by the Germans than won by the Romans.
60ff: On regaining control of the English Channel, of different regions of Gaul. Conflict with some of the bureaucrats accompanying him, also with emperor Constantius. Constantius' wife Eusebia dies, Julian loses his key defender in Constantius' court.
Chapter 4: Out of the Darkness
76ff: Julian crowned by his Gallic troops. What's left of Rome at this point is basically a military dictatorship with various factions within the military, each supporting their favorite guy.
80ff: After Julian is crowned by his men there's a diplomatic flurry of letters back and forth between Julian and Constantius, who was campaigning against Persia in what is now modern Turkey. "Is my father's murderer seriously reproaching me for being an orphan?" This was Julian's answer to Leonas who had brought a letter from Constantius criticizing him for taking more power than he should.
84ff: Julian's first act of open insubordination was to read the letter from Constantius out loud on the parade ground to his soldiers: this showed Leonas Julian's popularity among his army; continued diplomatic communications back and forth between Julian and Constantius.
85ff: Julian also playing both sides of the fence, religiously speaking, celebrating Epiphany in a Christian Church in 361, and also sending instructions for a Christian burial for his wife; Julian was not yet ready to declare his true beliefs yet.
86: 361AD: it becomes clear that there will be civil war between Julian and Constantius, note also Constantius encouraged attacks from the Alemanni on Julian's legions in the Rhine region. [You can see that in order to consolidate control Constantius was perfectly willing to subvert his own empire's stability by giving quarter to and helping to "the enemy of his enemy" which in this case happened to be Germanic barbarians. This is a textbook example here of the types of things that happen during the collapse and fracture of a formally unified empire.] Note here that Julian handled most of the problems with the Alemanni (under Vadomar) diplomatically.
86ff: Julian learns that Constantius bribed the Persian forces for peace and began recruiting and establishing supply dumps of grain along the passes of the Alps, clearly planning to march against his cousin. [Now it really becomes a battle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" because the Celts strongly supported Julian, he's basically running a barbarian army--and a barbarian-financed army--against an eastern Roman general... one can't help but ask where are the actual Romans fighting for their own country? It also sounds so familiar in today's modern era of proxy wars and mercenary armies.]
90ff: Julian quickly marches all the way to the Balkans with hardly any bloodshed.
93: [Also it's interesting to notice the decisions of the various leaders to either side with Julian or not as Julian marched his way to Constantinople: many made their decision based on the odds of reprisals afterwards; the emperor they sided with wasn't based on their conviction, but rather on their fears of what might happen to them after the political situation was settled out and someone had taken power... and then used reprisal killings to eliminate all opposition.]
94: Luckily for everyone, Constantius died of fever on his way back from the Persian front. "His death was totally unexpected." The armies of the east swore allegiance to Julian and he was able to take power peacefully in Constantinople; also Julian then gave up any public pretence of Christianity, growing a beard and a taking the dress of a pagan philosopher. Julian writes to his teacher Maximus, "The gods command me to restore their worship in its utmost purity and I obey them, yes and with a good will."
Chapter 5: The Shadow of Sacred Plumes
96ff: Julian enters Constantinople as sole ruler of the Roman Empire on December 11th 361, AD. He basically rolls into the city to cheers from the masses. [Interesting to think about what he did here basically he got lucky, he managed to survive childhood out of luck, then managed to not have a civil war out of luck because Constantius died, and then he rolls into Constantinople as the new emperor.] One of Julian's first actions was to hold Constantius's funeral, this was to maintain support with Constantias's legions. Note also the oblique reference here to Jovian, who was a staff officer of one of the elite corps of the army who would become emperor in another eighteen months after Julian died. We're getting towards the end of Julian's story apparently.
99ff: A period of "show trials" followed where Julian had set up a court across the Bosphorus in Chalcedon to try various members of Constantius's government. [The author describes this as if it's something normal, and that Julian did this in a magnanimous way, but these were purges of the prior administration, nothing more, many of Julian's opponents were burned alive--and this is yet another aspect of a declining empire where any change of power results in brutal purges of the prior regime.] After six weeks trials were all done, and then Julian began governing for real.
101ff: Since Constantine, the eastern Empire had become "Byzantine" in style with tremendous state and court overhead: all sorts of servants, eunuchs, a tremendous bureaucracy and an untouchable emperor treated with incredible obsequiousness. Julian stripped out all of this to make the government more "Marcus Aurelius" in style than "Constantine" in style, eliminating most of the courtiers.
105: The author here talks about how Julian put a great deal of thought into what kind of ruler he wanted to be. [The irony is he only lasted eighteen months.]
109: Julian sure looks like a supply-sider, he likes to cut taxes and reduce bureaucracy.
111: That spring he makes plans to take war to Persian territory, setting up a base in Antioch.
114ff: Strange tangent here describing the shrine and cult of Cybele at Pessinus, now Ballihisar in Turkey, and some of the cult's rather gory practices... [The author gives all this extra context on an obscure pagan religion, why can't he give equivalent context for other aspects of the book that he assumes readers already know?]
Chapter 6: Sung In Vain
118ff: On Julian's entry into Antioch (modern Antakya); he saw the city as dissolute, Christian but dissolute, a sort of Sodom; although the people there welcomed him initially, later they began to get tired of him and his pompous self-denial. [It's interesting here to think of Julian as an "apostate" when in reality he was more moral than the established church in those days, and in many ways he was an anti-corrupting influence on the church.]
120ff: History of Antioch; once Christians emigrated there after the collapse of the temple in Jerusalem, and after the stoning of St. Stephen, Christianity became non-Jewish; this is where Paul did his missionary efforts; see also Constantine's octagonal great church (the Domus Aurea) which was completed by Constantius in 341; note also that nobody really knows what Antioch was really like because was destroyed so many times, by both human and natural disaster, including being sacked in the 13th century with all its inhabitants either killed or sold into slavery, from this "Antioch was never to recover."
124: Julian attempts to do a sacrifice at the temple for Apollo in Daphne, which was a suburb outside of Antioch, it doesn't go well; the readers sees here how Christianity has displaced all of the pantheistic traditions and religions that preceded it. Note also that "Julian never considered a full-blown persecution of the Christians as had been seen in the past" but did have certain Christian protesters rounded up to be tortured.
Chapter 7: Nothing in Excess, Augustus
[This chapter opens with a wonderful (albeit difficult) poem from Cavafy: Julian Seeing Contempt]
129ff: Famine in Antioch; depleted grain stores and failed harvests; Julian's popularity hitting an all-time low, ruined still further by "Julian's obsessive paganism" which is the most controversial aspect of his reign and why he is still called "the Apostate."
131ff: Discussion here on how Christian the Roman Empire really was, technically paganism was outlawed with Constantine's initial laws in 320-321, but even centuries later there were many examples of pagan practices: towns sacrificing to pagan gods in the middle of crop failures, etc.; even St. Augustine would rail against Roman "idolaters" centuries later; in Julian's time Christianity was an urban phenomenon that had been carried along Mediterranean shipping routes from the Middle East. "The traditions that had grown up around paganism were by now so embedded in Roman society that it would take more than legislation to shift them." "Julian saw Christianity as a sickness infecting the Roman Empire" and it "conflicted with the interests of the Roman state." See also Julian's treatise "Against the Galileans" which he published in 363 AD. Only about a third of it survives, thanks to an extensive refutation by Cyril of Alexander in the 440s, thus likely only the weakest passages of the treatise survived.
134ff: Discussion of Julian's gameplan for pagan revivalism; he wanted to rebuild, reopen or reconstruct temples that had been destroyed or closed down; he passed an edict of universal religious tolerance (this actually acted as a divide-and-conquer tactic as various Christian splinter groups fell to arguing among themselves).
138: Julian's "notorious" education law that he used to ban Christians from teaching grammar, rhetoric and philosophy. This cut Christians off from potential income, from teaching youth, and might have totally marginalized them, perhaps permanently. Other laws: banning Christians from practicing law, etc.
141ff: Julian reaches out to Antioch's Jewish community, promises to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Note that Jews had been banned from Jerusalem since Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD).
146ff: Julian writes a satire of the people of Antioch within another work that is a sort of parody of himself: "The Beard Hater"; he then leaves for Persia.
Chapter 8: Where King Nebuchadnezzar Grazed
148ff: On Shapur II, Julian's adversary and King of Persia; he ruled for 70 years, one of the great Sassanid monarchs. On the regular conflict between Rome and Persia over the centuries; due to cultural differences, myths (the rape of Europa), conflicts with Greece, etc. Basically Persia "had" to be invaded, Julian didn't really have a choice: it was basic frontier policy inherited from emperors before with a momentum of its own.
157: Julian attacked Shapur early on as a sort of PR/morale move after earning goodwill from his wars with Barbarians in the western Empire; he wanted similar success in the east with armies who had been (previously) loyal to Constantius.
158: Interesting blurb here about the apocryphal and famous story where Julian sent Oribasius consult the Oracle at Delphi. "It was perceived to have been the Delphic oracle's last utterance and came to be inextricably linked with images of the twilight of the gods." In reality this never happened and the Oracle of Delphi actually closed some 21 years after this.
160: Julian didn't appear to have a coherent gameplan for his invasion; he just wanted to invade to get more credit back home in Constantinople.
Chapter 9: Present Opportunity
161ff: Relief in leaving Antioch and enthusiasm about the coming campaign, and Julian has no idea that he was about to lose his life; also after Julian's letter on March 10th--which were his last written words--all the information about this last campaign and his death is secondhand or worse, so it's difficult to chronicle the campaign.
166ff: Feinting across Persian territory to keep the enemy guessing; also mention of Procopius, who took over in a coup after Julian's death, and on whether Julian chose him or not; extended discussion of various military engagements, towns and garrisons captured, etc.
177ff: The battle at Ctesiphon, seen to be where Julian begins losing his grip on things; he and the Army turn for home, they had burned their (river going) ships previously, so afterward instead of crossing the Tigris they had to go north towards the borders of Armenia; a dust storm hits them and suddenly the army awakens one morning facing the Persian army led by Shapur: the Roman army was itching for a fight, but uncharacteristically Julian urges caution, probably a mistake; the Persians had basically done a scorched-earth campaign across the entire region (and it was the desert) and then simply began raiding/harrying the Roman army, not engaging in a pitched battle; the journey homewards seriously drained the Roman army.
Chapter 10: Toward the Islands of the Blest
183ff: The actual events of how Julian died are uncertain; the author starts by quoting at length the account from Ammianus: Julian was separated from his guard during the confusion during a raid on his army's rear; Julian was only partially armed, but on his horse urging on his men; then a spear lodged in his ribs in the lower part of his liver; no one knew who threw the spear. Many stories and "histories" of what happened show various degrees of "disregard for reality."
193ff: The author speculates himself on what may have happened [interestingly he also kind of gives away that he doesn't really understand the progression of an infection]. Ultimately the author says Julian was semiconscious for two days then died on the third day, never naming his successor. "Julian's was not a glamorous death. It was not the way an emperor was supposed to die."
Epilogue: By the Silvery Kydnos
197ff: Now the Roman army is leaderless and deep in enemy territory. Factionalism, then selection of Jovian as emperor; "Jovian was unencumbered by any obvious talents" but religiously tolerant.
199ff: The Romans negotiate a peace with the Persians, giving up quite a bit of territory in order to get back home alive.
203ff: On Julian's lack of a legacy; very little architecture remains that he established; nothing remains of his building works in Constantinople; he didn't really leave much of a legacy at all as a ruler; his territorial gains in the west were soon lost; his policy with Persia was terrible and resulted in the loss of tremendous territory; his religious reforms "died with him"; he was made into an evil caricature by historians up until the late Middle Ages.
207ff: "The first genuinely positive view of the emperor is that of Michel de Montaigne in the mid-sixteenth century" in a "significant essay" entitled "On Freedom of Conscience." Later in the late 17th century Julian is adopted by English Protestants as a symbol of resistance [interestingly!]; still later, he becomes a "mascot for the Age of Reason, a symbol of toleration." See also Voltaire and his rehabilitation of Julian's reputation as well as Gibbon, who was influenced by Voltaire: thanks to Gibbon's Decline and Fall the Roman Empire, Julian is now a hero to the Enlightenment--at least to English speakers. The author calls Gibbon's view of Julian "shamelessly partisan."
211: Interesting blurb here on low Church attendance in the mid 1800s (the author refers to the infamous 1851 religious census in Britain which revealed that under 40% of the population attended church that Sunday); also an upsurge in a sort of aesthetic paganism and a full rehabilitation of Julian as a symbol.
212ff: Various works influenced by or talking about Julian through the 1800s up to today's era, including the Greek poet Cavafy, who wrote seven poems on Julian.
218: See also the statue of Julian in the late Roman section of the Louvre.
To Read:
Ammianus: The Later Roman Empire (AD 354-378) (trans. Walter Hamilton)
Libanius: Selected Works (trans. A.F. Norman)
Eusebius: Life of Constantine
Robert Browning: The Emperor Julian
Catullus: The Complete Poems (trans. by Guy Lee)
St. Basil of Caesaria: Ascetical Works
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (early Christian writings)
Peter Heather: The Goths of the Fourth Century
C.P. Cavafy: The seven "Julian poems"
Robert Liddell: Cavafy: A Biography
Celsus: The True Word (Platonist criticism of Christianity)
John Buchan: Mr. Standfast
Percy Sykes: A History of Persia
Herodian: History
Gertrude Bell: Amurath to Amurath (travelogue)
Media:
The Vision of the Cross, painting by Raphael