visit him, and readily accepted an invitation to a dinner. When he came, Philagrius retired to read his instructions, and, in obedience to them, he seized Vadomar, and forwarded him to the camp of Julian, where, being convicted by his own letter to Constantius, which had been intercepted, he was sent a prisoner into Spain. Julian, then putting himself at the head of some light troops, crossed the Rhine in the dead of the night, and so terrified the Germans, that they sought most humbly for pardon and peace. The ambassadors of Julian had met with so many obstacles and delays, that they did not overtake Constantius till he had reached Cæsarea in Cappadocia, on his way for the Persian war. The empress Eusebia and the princess Helena, whose influence might have prevented a rupture, were both dead; and Constantius, left to his own passions and the suggestions of his flatterers, returned a haughty answer, requiring Julian to renounce his usurped title, and accept a pardon on certain conditions. Julian caused the letter to be read out in presence of the army, with whose consent he declared himself ready to resign his dignity; but the loud shouts of Julian Augustus, which rose on all sides, inspired him with resolution, and he dismissed the imperial envoy with a letter of defiance. These transactions, it may be observed, had taken place at Paris in the preceding year, just before Julian's expedition against the Attuarians. Aware of the importance of bold and decisive measures in civil contests, and fearful of the arts of Constantius among the Germans, Julian resolved to advance at once into Illyricum. His soldiers readily agreed to follow him; and at Basil he divided his army into three divisions, of which one, under two officers named Jovius and Jovinus, was to go through the Alps and northern Italy; another, under Nevitta, the commander of the cavalry, was to proceed through Noricum; while, at the head of the third, Julian himself, entering the Black Forest, ́should make for the Danube, and go down that river in boats. This daring and judicious plan proved perfectly successful. Julian landed unexpectedly at Bononia, within nineteen miles of Sirmium, and seized Lucilian, the general of the cavalry, who was preparing to oppose him. At Sirmium he was joyfully received, and, being immediately joined by his remaining divisions, he advanced and secured the pass of Succi in Mount Hæmus. When Constantius heard of the advance of Julian, he gave up all thoughts of the Persian war for the present, and prepared to return and combat for his empire. But on his way he was attacked by a fever, caused, probably, by the agitation of his spirits, and he breathed his last at a little town near Tarsus, named Mopsucrenæ, in the forty-fifth year of his age, naming, it is said, Julian for his successor. CHAPTER IV.* JULIAN, JOVIAN. A. U. 1114-1117. A. D. 361-364. REFORMATIONS OF JULIAN. HIS RELIGION. JULIAN HIS TOLER-AT ANTIOCH. - ATTEMPT ΤΟ REBUILD THE PERSIAN WAR. ANCE. ELECTION OF JOVIAN. -SURRENDER OF TERRITORY TO THE PERSIANS. RETREAT OF THE Julian. A. U. 1114-1116. A. D. 361-363. JULIAN was at Naïssus when two officers of rank arrived, sent to inform him of the death of Constantius, and of his nomination to the empire. He therefore passed Mount Hæmus without delay, marched by Philippopolis to Perin-thus, and, on the 11th of December, he entered the capital amid the loud and joyful acclamations of the people. The imperial palace, like the abode of an Eastern monarch, swarmed with eunuchs and other ministers of luxury. The emoluments of these men were enormous, and their salaries and allowances formed an article of no trifling magnitude in the accounts of the treasury. We are told that, one day when Julian called for a barber to trim his hair, he saw a man most splendidly dressed enter the apartment. The emperor, in affected amazement, exclaimed, "It was a barber, and not a receiver-general of the finances, that I sent for." He then inquired of him respecting his salary and perquisites, and * Authorities: Zosimus, Ammianus, Julian, Libanius, the Epitomators, and the Ecclesiastical Historians. Q Q CONTIN. 29 found that, independently of a large salary and considerable perquisites, he had an allowance of twenty loaves a day, and fodder for an equal number of horses. Julian, regardless of justice, and of the claims of long, and, in some cases, faithful service, resolved on making a general clearance of the palace; and barbers, cooks, cupbearers, and others, to the number of some thousands, got leave to go whither they would, many probably to starve. The emperor was also resolved that those who had been the instigators or instruments of the cruelties and oppressions exercised under the late reign, should not escape with impunity. A commission composed of two civilians, Sallust, the upright prefect of the East, and Mamertinus, the consul elect, and of four generals, Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio, was appointed to sit at Chalcedon, to hear charges and pass sentences. As the number of the military men, some of whom were barbarians by birth, predominated in the tribunal, the decisions were as often the result of prejudice and faction as of justice. No one can condemn the execution of the chamberlain Eusebius, or of Apodemius, one of the chief agents in the destruction of Silvanus and Gallus, or of Paulus Catena, which last was burnt alive; but Justice herself seemed to Ammianus to have bewept the death of Ursulus, the treasurer, and to have convicted the emperor of ingratitude; for, when he was sent into Gaul, in want of almost every thing, Ursulus had directed the treasurer there to supply him with all that he should require. Julian made a futile effort to get rid of the charge, by averring that Ursulus was put to death without his knowledge. As little can the banishment of Taurus, the ex-prætorian prefect, be justified, whose only offence was loyalty to the prince whom he served. On the whole, however, the number of those who suffered death or banishment was not considerable, and most of them deserved their fate. The love of justice, and the correct sense of the duties of a ruler, which Julian had displayed when a Cæsar in Gaul, did not desert him on the imperial throne in Constantinople; and, had it not been for one fatal circumstance, he might have been the object of general applause and admiration. But Julian had renounced the religion of the empire, and adopted that of ancient Greece, which he entertained the chimerical idea of restoring to its primitive importance; and, in the pursuit of this object, he did not attend sufficiently to the principles of justice and equity. From his change of faith he has been styled the Apostate, unjustly, as appears to us, for of his sincerity there can be no doubt; and, however we may lament for, pity, or even despise those who change from conviction, we are not justified in condemning or reviling them. Gallus and Julian, after the massacre of their relatives, had been committed to the charge of Eusebius, the bishop of Nicomedia. They were instructed in the articles of faith and practice then prevalent, with all of which they complied without any hesitation; and Julian, it was remembered, had publicly read the Holy Scriptures in the church of that city. But, while the rude, sullen Gallus became a steady and bigoted believer, the milder and more philosophic and studious Julian took a distaste to the religion in which he was instructed. He had been made familiar with the great writers of ancient Hellas by his tutor, the eunuch Mardonius; and the admiration he felt for the works of Homer and other eminent poets, the veneration for antiquity, and the brilliant colors with which the ancient poetic Olympus stood invested, as contrasted with the grovelling superstition with which he was surrounded; and the noble spirit and glorious deeds of the believers in the ancient creed, compared with the base arts and paltry actions of the men of his own time, — all combined to operate on the mind of the young prince, and he became a believer in the theology of Homer and Hesiod. But it was not the charming poetic creed of the early and best days of Hellas that Julian adopted; it was the absurd, contemptible mysticism of the New Platonists; and as, in his Christianity, he neglected the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, confounding it with the intricate metaphysics and abject superstition which then prevailed in the church, so, in his paganism, he lost the poetic creed of the old times in the tasteless, unsubstantial vagaries and allegories of the school of Alexandria. In fact, he had not that original vigor of intellect which would have emancipated him from the spirit of the age. Superstition was the prevailing sentiment, and the philosophic emperor was in his way as deeply immersed in it as the most grovelling ascetic. According to the emperor's own account, he was a Christian till he reached his twentieth year. He then, after being instructed by various sophists, was, by the archimage Maximus, secretly initiated at Ephesus with all those ceremonies which imposture and superstition had imported from Asia, and incorporated with the mythic faith of Hellas. During his short abode, some years after, at Athens, Julian was solemnly initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis. Still he was to outward appearance a Christian, and the empress Eusebia had not probably a shade of doubt respecting the faith of her distinguished protégé. In Gaul he appears to have still dissembled, and to have openly assisted at the Christian worship, while in his closet he offered his homage to the Sun and Hermes. When he assumed the imperial dignity, he disdained all further concealment of his sentiments, and boldly proclaimed himself a votary of the ancient gods. It may be, perhaps, laid down as an axiom in history, that when once a religious or political system has gone out of use among any people, its permanent restoration is an impossibility. The power of a monarch or of a political party may reëstablish it for a time, but when the hand that sustained it is gone, it sinks back into its previous state of neglect and impotence. The efforts of Julian to restore paganism, must, therefore, even had his life been prolonged, have proved utterly abortive. The system had long been crumbling to pieces from internal feebleness and decay; the theism on which it was founded, and of whose various forms its beautiful mythes were merely the expositions,* had long been unknown; and the mystic views of the New Platonists, which Julian had adopted, were totally opposite to its spirit. To this should be added, that Christianity, corrupt as it then was, had, by its noble spirit of benevolence and charity, by the sublimity of its original principles, and by the organization of its hierarchy, a moral power such as the old religion had not possessed at any period of its prevalence. When we view the attempt of Julian in this light, we may feel disposed to pity, while we deride the folly of the imperial fanatic. Julian was by nature just and humane; he was also a philosopher and statesman enough to know that persecution, if it does not go the full length of extermination, adds strength, and numbers, and energy, to the persecuted and irritated party. He, therefore, instead of imitating Diocletian, proclaimed a general toleration. The pagans were directed to open their temples, and offer victims as heretofore; the contending sects of Christians were commanded to abstain from harassing and tormenting each other. The catholic prelates and clergy, whom the Arian Constantius * See the author's Mythology of ancient Greece and Italy. |