vives, and a brief fragment of the letter to the Corinthians (frag. 3). Meanwhile, as he informs Maximus in Letter 8, he and his soldiers openly sacrificed to the gods. He now regarded himself as conducting a war in the name of Hellenism. Some time in 361 he wrote the Kronia (Saturnalia), and says in Oration 4. 157 c that he sent it to his friend Sallust. Of this work Suidas has preserved a few lines (frag. 4).1 Meanwhile Constantius, who had achieved nothing conclusive against the Persians, had married, at Antioch, his third wife Faustina. Their only child, a daughter, was married later to the Emperor Gratian, but died young. Constantius had now no choice but to lead his army to defend Constantinople against Julian. But at Tarsus he fell ill, and on November 3, 361, died of a fever at Mopsucrene in Cilicia. When Julian heard the news he wrote Letters 8 and 13, in which he thanks the gods for his escape from civil war. He entered Constantinople in triumph as Emperor on December 11, 361. The greater number of the letters in this volume that can be dated were written after Julian's accession, in 362, from Constantinople and Antioch. He lost no time in inviting to his court his friends Maximus from Ephesus (Letter 8), Chrysanthius from Sardis,2 Eutherius the eunuch, his trusted court chamberlain (Letter 10), Eustathius (Letter 43), Priscus, and Basil (Letter 26). Chrysanthius and Basil did not accept this invitation, and Julian, when 1 Suidas, s.v. Empedotimus. 2 See Eunapius, Lives, p. 441, Wright. he had failed to persuade Chrysanthius to follow the example of Maximus and disregard the omens which were unfavourable to their journey, appointed him high priest of Lydia. In contrast with the wholesale butchery with which Constantius had begun his reign, Julian appointed a commission, partly composed of former officers of Constantius, to sit at Chalcedon across the Bosporus and try his enemies, especially those who had abetted the cruelties of Constantius or were accessory to the death of Gallus. Ammianus, 22. 3, describes the work of this commission, on which were Sallust, Mamertinus and Nevitta the Goth. Among those condemned to death were the notorious informer and agent of Constantius, Paul, nicknamed "the Chain," the eunuch Eusebius, chamberlain of Constantius (see Letter 4, p. 11), and the ex-prefect, the consul Florentius, whose oppression of the Gallic provincials is described in the same letter. Florentius managed to conceal himself till after Julian's death. On February 4, 362, Julian proclaimed religious freedom in the Empire, and ordered the restoration of the temples. All who had used them as quarries or bought portions of them for building houses were to restore the stone and marble.2 This often caused great hardship to individuals, and even Libanius, a devout pagan, more than once in his letters 3 intercedes with local officials on behalf of those affected by Julian's edict. The Emperor recalled the ecclesiastics who had been exiled by the Arian Constantius, 1 See Letter 53; Ammianus 14. 5. 6; 19. 12. 2 See Letter 29, to Count Julian, p. 99. 3 e. g. Letter 724, Foerster. xvii among them Aetius, to whom he wrote Letter 15, and the famous orthodox prelate Athanasius, for whom see Letters 24, 46, 47.1 It was perhaps easier to restore the temples than the half-forgotten ritual of the gods, but Julian enlisted the aid of a learned pagan, the Roman antiquarian and senator, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, whom in 362 he appointed Proconsul of Achaia, while for the rites appropriate to the oriental cults he certainly consulted Maximus of Ephesus, who initiated him into the Mysteries of Mithras. as Constantius, fully occupied with the persecution of non-Arian Christians, had not persecuted pagan intellectuals such as Libanius and Themistius the philosopher, while even pagan officials such Sallust had been promoted in his reign. But Julian gave instructions that pagans should be preferred to Christians for public offices (Letter 37), and, as the progress of "Hellenism" proved slower than he had hoped, he grew more intolerant. For evidence of definite persecution of the Christians in his brief reign we depend on Gregory Nazianzen, Socrates, Sozomen and other historians of the Church. But certain administrative measures referred to in the letters were aimed at the Christians. As a part of Julian's general policy of exacting service in their local senates from all well-to-do citizens, he deprived Christian clerics of their immunity from such service; 2 funerals were no longer allowed to 1 Cf. the account of the life of Athanasius, p. xxxix. 2 See Letter 39, To the Byzacians. Libanius, Oration 18. 148, praises this reform. For Julian's increase of the Senate at Antioch cf. Misopogon 367 D. Codex Theodosianus 12. 1. 50-56. take place in the daytime according to the Christian custom1; and one of his earliest reforms in connection with the use of the public post, the cursus publicus, directly affected Christian ecclesiastics. The privilege of free transport and the use of inns, horses and mules at the expense of the State had been granted to ecclesiastics by Constantine in 314; and in the reign of Constantius, when the bishops were summoned from all parts of the Empire to one synod after another, the system of public transport broke down under the burden.2 In an edict preserved in Codex Theodosianus 8. 5. 12, dated February 22, 362, Julian reserves to himself, except in certain cases, the right of granting evectio, or free transport. In Letters 8, 15, and 26 he authorises his correspondents to use State carriages and horses. Libanius says that this reform was so thoroughly carried out that often the animals and their drivers had nothing to do. But such withdrawals of privileges were pinpricks compared with the famous edict3 in which Julian reserved to himself the control of the appointments of teachers, and the rescript, Letter 36, in which he forbade Christians to read the pagan authors with their pupils. This meant that they must cease to teach, since all education was based on the reading of the poets, historians and philosophers. The Christian sophist Victorinus, who was then lecturing at Rome, and Prohaeresius at Athens, must resign their chairs. Julian offered a special exemption to 1 See Letter 56, the edict on funerals. 2 See Libanius, Oration, 18. 143; Ammianus 21. 16. 18. 3 The Latin edict, dated June 17, 362, survives in Codex Theodosianus 13. 3. 5. xix Prohaeresius, but the sophist, says Eunapius,1 refused the privilege. He could afford to wait in patience, for, like many another distinguished Christian, he consulted the omens through the pagan hierophant of Greece, and learned indirectly, but to his own reassurance, that Julian's power would be short-lived. Even Ammianus the pagan historian deplored the bigotry and malice of Julian's attempt to suppress Christian educators. "It was," he says, "a harsh measure, aud had better be buried in eternal silence." 2 The Christians interpreted it as excluding their children from education; Theodoret, 3. 4. 2, says as much, and quotes a saying of Julian's (frag. 7), whose context is lost, to the effect that the Christians arm their intellects to oppose Hellenism by means of the Hellenic masterpieces. Socrates, 3. 12. 7, quotes another saying of the same sort (frag. 6). These two quotations perhaps belong to lost rescripts aimed at Christian teachers, which followed the extant edict and rescript. Welleducated Christians can hardly have been consoled by the enterprise of a father and son named Apollinarius, who "within a very brief space of time," says Sozomen, 5. 18, converted the Bible into epics, tragedies, comedies, odes and dialogues for the education of Christian youths. But Christian teachers did not suffer much inconvenience, for Julian's prohibition can hardly have been enforced in the few months that preceded his 1 Lives, p. 513, Wright. obruendum perenni 2 22. 10. 7: illud inclemens silentio. He repeats this criticism in 25. 4. 20. Libanius, however, was delighted, and taunted Basil and Gregory as "barbarians." |