The Historians of Late Antiquity (41 page)

Rufinus was a great innovator in his recognition of barbarians as potential Christian partners rather than solely as the objects of conquest. Orosius extends Rufinus’ idea to include barbarians entering the empire as well as those beyond the borders. The Greek church historians also show an interest in Christian barbarians, and recount persecutions in Gothic and Persian territory. For them, however, because of the relative stability of the eastern throne, and
the increasingly flaunted Christian piety of the eastern emperor, no sharp distinction between Christian and Roman needed to be drawn. Instead, the fourth-century sense of Roman superiority over the barbarians could simply be enhanced by the Christian sense of superiority over the pagan. The Christian, Roman emperor was ideally placed to defeat the pagan barbarian, whether Goth or Persian, on behalf of the Christians abroad whom the emperor claimed as his own.

18
THE EMPEROR JULIAN (THE APOSTATE)

Few figures from late antiquity have inspired more interest, both in their own day and in the present day, than the emperor Julian (Bowersock 1978; Athanassiadi 1981/92; Smith 1995; Browning 1975; Bouffartigue 1992; Braun and Richer 1978). The emperor was reviled by Christians, yet often treated with the respect due a worthy opponent, and although pagans praised him, they did not fail to mention his flaws. His bold attempt to restore paganism to the empire aroused tremendous passion among contemporaries, but his innovations in military, judicial, and fiscal policies were also controversial.

Our knowledge of Julian’s life and reign comes not only from historians but also from orations, both in favor of and opposed to the emperor, and from numerous speeches, letters, and other works written by the emperor himself. The richness of our information allows us to know Julian as well as almost any other figure from antiquity, and serves as a useful check on the claims of partisan historians. Julian was the focus of the works of several late antique historians and occupied a substantial part of several others. A historian’s treatment of the emperor can serve as a particularly effective guide to understanding his interests and biases.

Youth and education

Modern studies of Julian tend to place considerable weight on the emperor’s childhood and education in an attempt to understand this psychologically complex man (Bowersock 1978: 21–32; Athanassiadi 1981/92: 13–51; Smith 1995: 23–48; Browning 1975: 31–66). Julian’s father, Julius Constantius, was a half-brother of Constantine the Great. Julian was born in 331 at Constantinople; his mother died within months of his birth. At the death of Constantine
in May 337, further tragedy struck. Soldiers, after announcing that they would obey only legitimate sons of Constantine, killed Julian’s father and eight others, sparing only the 6-year-old Julian and his half-brother Gallus (DiMaio and Arnold 1992). Many years later Julian would point to this massacre as justification for his revolt against his cousin, Constantius II, who was widely believed to have had a role in the killings.

The orphaned Julian was brought to Bithynia, where he was raised by his maternal grandmother. At age 7 his schooling began at the hands of Eusebius, the Arian bishop of Nicomedia, and Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch who had long been associated with Julian’s family. Julian would later remember Mardonius fondly as the man who had introduced him to Homer and other classics. In 342, however, Julian and his brother were sent into exile at an estate in Cappadocia, where they were isolated from their former teachers and friends. During this period it seems that Julian was guarded by eunuchs and taught by, among others, the Christian bishop George.

In 348, when Julian was 18, the sentence of exile was lifted, and while Gallus was taken to the court of Constantius, Julian was allowed to continue his education. He remained briefly in Constantinople, and then studied at Nicomedia. When Constantius elevated Gallus to the rank of Caesar in 351, Julian traveled to Asia Minor, where he studied Neoplatonism with Aedesius. Two traditions of late Platonism, descending from the philosophers Porphyry and Iamblichus respectively, were current at the time. The Porphyrean strain, which Aedesius professed, concentrated on the power of reason to know the soul. Julian was warned by Aedesius’ circle against the practitioners of the more ritualistic “Iamblichan” sort of Platonism, which sought enlightenment through the use of magic and miracle-working. This type of philosophy proved, however, to be exactly what Julian preferred, and he left Aedesius and his school to study with Maximus of Ephesus, who was a master of “theurgy,” the art of manipulating the gods through ritual. Julian later considered his education under Maximus to be responsible for his conversion to paganism, and Maximus would become an important advisor to Julian when he had gained imperial power. Julian’s survival was momentarily in doubt when Gallus was recalled and executed by Constantius in 354, but he was spared by the intercession of the empress Eusebia. With the empress’s support he then traveled to Athens, where he pursued further studies in theurgy with the philosopher Priscus, and where he was initiated into the
Eleusinian Mysteries. For years to come, however, he hid his apostasy from all but his closest intimates, and publicly continued to profess Christianity.

Ammianus’ history is dominated by Julian, both in the percentage of the work allotted to him, despite his short reign, and in his role as the ideal emperor to whom all others are compared. In light of the importance of Julian to the
Res Gestae
as a whole, it is perhaps surprising to see how little information Ammianus gives us about Julian’s youth. Julian first appears in the extant books as the object of slander at court after the execution of Gallus in 354, where it is stated that he was eventually allowed to go to Greece to further his education (15.2.7–8). Evidence for the presence of information about Julian in the lost books is very thin. Ammianus probably mentioned the massacre of Julian’s family, since he later presents it as an example of Constantius’ cruelty (21.16.8). But when Julian traveled to Nicomedia as emperor, Ammianus mentions, as if for the first time, that Julian had spent time there as a youth (22.9.4). When Ammianus discusses the murder of Bishop George of Alexandria and Julian’s reaction to it, he surprisingly neglects to mention George’s role as tutor of the young Julian (22.11.3–11). At the beginning of book 16, Ammianus provides a formal introduction of his hero as he prepares to lead an army in Gaul as Caesar. The only references to Julian’s childhood in this passage are the passing remarks that Julian’s success was all the more remarkable since he was brought up in seclusion and had come “from the quiet shadows of the Academy, not from a soldier’s tent” (16.1.5).

Julian was raised a Christian and did not convert to paganism until his teens, as all of our other sources and Julian’s own writings make clear. Ammianus’ comment on Julian’s religion comes, then, as a surprise: “Although Julian from the first beginnings of boyhood was rather attracted toward the worship of the gods, and as he grew older was gradually more aflame with desire for it, out of fear he was performing certain acts pertaining to divine worship, insofar as he was able, in the most extreme secrecy” (22.5.1). Ammianus seems determined to portray Julian’s paganism as a gradually evolving tendency, rather than as something acquired in a sudden moment of conversion. Ammianus’ later criticisms directed at Julian for his “superstition” and for his excessive reliance on theurgic wonder-workers such as Maximus and Priscus suggest that the historian did not approve of the “Iamblichan,” theurgic paganism which the emperor professed (Matthews 1989: 128–9). The erasure of Julian’s formative years allowed the historian to avoid
extensive discussion of either his Christianity or his theurgic Neoplatonism, both of which Ammianus found distasteful.

Eunapius, like Ammianus, wrote his history in order to praise the deeds of Julian, as he explicitly claims. He and his companions felt that the history of the age had reached its apogee at the time of Julian, whom all worship as a divinity (
fr
. 1; cf.
fr
. 15). Eunapius places the blame for the massacre of Julian’s relatives firmly on Constantius (
fr
. 20.3), adding that all of his family’s property was stolen as well. We derive much of our information about Julian’s teachers and associates, such as Maximus and the Christian sophist Prohaeresius, from Eunapius’
Lives of the Sophists
. We can thus imagine that Eunapius had provided some information about Julian’s earlier life in his history, which has left a trace in Zosimus’ summary of his work. In Zosimus, the imperial official Eusebius describes Julian as one who “has spent his whole life as a student” and who has no experience in worldly matters (3.1.3). Zosimus’ claim that Julian excelled his teachers in every kind of learning may summarize a collection of anecdotes found in the original Eunapius (3.2.1).

While the brief works of Victor and Eutropius omit any reference to Julian’s early years, they do provide interesting comments on the massacre of 337. Their version is perhaps that of the
KG
and represents the official imperial line, which absolved Constantius II and Constantine’s other sons and blamed the killings on the soldiers acting on their own initiative. Both mention only Dalmatius, Constantine’s nephew, as a victim of the massacre. Victor, writing at the time of Constantius, needed to be more circumspect, and he says that the instigator of the slaying was unknown (41.22). Previously he had mentioned that Constantine’s appointment of Dalmatius as Caesar had angered the army, and the discerning reader is presumably intended to connect the comments and assign blame properly (41.15). Eutropius, writing later, was able to speak more freely. He also blames the killing of Dalmatius on the military, but adds that Constantius “allowed rather than ordered” the coup (10.9.1). Orosius also follows this tradition, saying that Dalmatius was “immediately destroyed by a military faction” (7.29.1).

The ecclesiastical historians provide the most details about the early life of Julian. Although Rufinus’ abbreviated account contains no information, Socrates’ account of the emperor is very full, and is surprisingly positive in comparison to the other Greek church historians (3.1.1–24). He attributes the killing of Dalmatius to the
soldiers, but adds that Constantius’ jealousy was an additional factor which endangered the lives of Gallus and Julian. Socrates points out that Constantius had required that all of Julian’s teachers be Christian in an attempt to shield the boy from pagan influences. Julian’s great skill at literature made Constantius worried that he might become emperor, Socrates implausibly suggests, and so the boy was sent away to Nicomedia for his further schooling. The historian frames his story as a conflict between Julian and Constantius centered upon religion. For example, certain orations of the renowned pagan orator Libanius suggest that Julian’s teacher Hecebolius had insisted out of professional jealousy that the boy swear an oath not to attend the lectures of Libanius. Julian, sticking to the letter of the oath, had paid another student to attend and transcribe the lectures, which he read privately (Bowersock 1978: 27–8). Socrates, however, manipulates this story to claim that it had been Constantius who had forbidden Julian to attend Libanius’ lectures because of the orator’s paganism.

Socrates, like the other ecclesiastical historians, is particularly interested in Julian’s conversion to paganism. He sees Maximus of Ephesus as primarily responsible for Julian’s religious fervor as well as for his desire to rule the empire. While publicly pious and serving as an official in the church of Nicomedia, he shows Julian secretly studying philosophy and reassuring his friends that soon, when he has gained power, their position will be greatly improved. Accounts like the one found in Socrates, which suggest that a cabal of pagans had been working for or at least hoping for Julian’s accession to the throne, have had some influence upon modern interpretations of his rise to power. John Drinkwater has, however, demonstrated that such an idea founders both on the ancient evidence and on common sense, since there was no reason to expect Julian’s accession at that point, nor could his pagan friends provide any means to protect him (Drinkwater 1983). Socrates’ account instead serves to blend Julian’s revolutionary political activity with his religious deviance by closely linking his usurpation with his paganism.

Sozomen’s account of Julian’s youth focuses primarily upon his early devotion to Christianity. By narrating the early events of Julian’s life in a flashback, after beginning with several anecdotes of Julian’s anti-Christian activities, the historian deftly highlights the contrast between the persecuting emperor and the pious child. Julian’s parents were Christian, he had been baptized, he had received biblical instruction, and he was raised by bishops (5.2.7).
Sozomen’s account of the massacre is taken from Socrates, and he skips Julian’s early schooling to go directly to his exile at Macellum (5.2.9). In this beautiful place, Sozomen claims, Julian and his brother had the perfect Christian upbringing, where they studied the Bible, went to church, and showed proper devotion to the cult of the martyrs. Sozomen provides an anecdote, missing from Socrates, which he found in the work of Julian’s contemporary Gregory Nazianzen. Julian and Gallus worked together to build an edifice to house the remains of the martyr St Mamas (5.2.12–13). Julian struggled to build up his side of the monument, but each piece was thrust away as he tried to set it up. The message that Mamas was sending only became apparent later, however. While Sozomen is dependent upon Socrates for many of the details of Julian’s advanced education, he shows himself to be more psychologically insightful in his account of the young Julian’s attraction to Maximus of Ephesus (5.2.16–17). He concurs with Socrates that Maximus both encouraged Julian to hate Christianity and assured him that he would be emperor one day. Julian was susceptible to favorable prophecies and divination in general, Sozomen suggests, because his uncertain relationship with Constantius cast a constant pall of fear over his mind. Constantius wavered several times between executing Julian to prevent the risk of usurpation and elevating him to imperial power as a colleague. It thus seems not unlikely that this uncertainty predisposed him to find particular solace in the theurgic power to control the doings of the gods.