that stream, the latter forthwith burnt the whole of them sooner than aid his operations. Julian, however, by means of the shallows in the river caused by the summer-heat, passed over a body of troops, and destroyed or expelled the barbarians. He then set his troops to restore the fortifications of the town of Zabern (Tabernæ); and while they were thus engaged, Barbatio, as a further means of injuring Julian, seized the corn provided for them, consumed a part of it, and burned the remainder. Shortly after he was suddenly fallen on by the barbarians, defeated and driven to Basil. Then, as if he had gained a victory, he put his troops into winter-quarters, and returned to court to follow his usual course of maligning the Cæsar.

Chnodomar, the Alemanic king, supported by six other kings and ten princes of royal lineage, now prepared to attack the Cæsar, whose forces, as he learned from a deserter, were, by the departure of Barbatio, reduced to thirteen thousand men. The Germans occupied three days and nights in passing the Rhine, and an army of thirty-five thousand of their warriors was thus assembled at Strasburg (Argentoratum). Julian, who was encamped at a distance of twentyone miles from that place, advanced to attack them; his troops being arranged in two divisions, the one of horse, the other of foot. It was so late in the day when they came in view of the enemy, that he wished to defer the attack till the morning; but the impatience of his troops was not to be restrained. Placing himself, therefore, at the head of his guards, he went round encouraging the men to fight valiantly. The battle then began; the Roman cavalry which was on the right fought at first in a manner worthy of its fame; but as the Germans had mingled footmen through their cavalry, the heavy cuirassiers were thrown into confusion and retreated. Julian immediately rode up and rallied tham, and the combat of cavalry was renewed. The Roman infantry, led by Severus, though vigorously opposed, was at length completely successful; and the barbarians quitted the field with a loss of six thousand men, and many more were drowned in the Rhine, or slain by the darts of their pursuers as they were swimming across. Chnodomar himself was taken while attempting to escape and conducted to the Cæsar, by whom he was treated with kindness. He was afterwards sent to the emperor, who assigned him a residence at Rome, where

he ended his days. In this glorious and important victory the loss of the Romans had been only four tribunes and two hundred and forty-three men.

Julian resolved to follow up his success, passed the Rhine near Mentz, and advanced for a space of ten miles into the hostile territory, wasting the lands and burning the houses. The impediment of a deep dark forest occupied by the concealed bands of the Germans, and the appearance of the snow which now began to cover the ground, it being past the time of the autumnal equinox, warning him of the imprudence of any further advance, he decided to repass the river. Before, however, he quitted the soil of Germany, he repaired and garrisoned a fortress which Trajan had erected, and having granted the Alemans a truce for ten months, he departed.

The following summer (358) Julian turned his arms against the Franks. By the celerity of his movements he anticipated all resistance, and their tribes submitted to such terms as he thought fit to dictate. Then, as the truce with the Alemans had expired, he crossed the Rhine for the second time. Suomar, one of the most potent of the Alemanic princes, submitted at his approach. The territories of another named Hortorius, were wasted with fire and sword, and he was forced to sue for mercy. Both princes were obliged to restore all the captives in their hands, and to supply materials for the restoration of the towns which they had destroyed.

As the princes who dwelt beyond the territories of Suomar and Hortorius had likewise shared in the war, Julian prepared to cross the Rhine a third time in order to chastise them (359). As he was about to construct a bridge at Mentz the German princes marched with all their forces and occupied the further bank of the river. Their vigilance was such that there seemed but little prospect of the Romans being able to effect their design; but Julian caused three hundred men to drop down the stream one night in small boats, who very nearly succeeded in capturing the German princes as they were returning late from a banquet given by Hortorius, and their troops immediately dispersed to secure their families and property. The Romans then crossed the river unopposed, and wasted the lands in the usual manner; and the Alemanic kings, six in number, were glad to obtain peace on the conqueror's own terms. The number of Roman sub

jects delivered from captivity by this and the preceding treaties was not less than twenty thousand.

Julian's civil administration rivaled his military exploits. The ruined cities were restored, and as the agriculture of Gaul had suffered severely from the events of late years, a fleet of six hundred large vessels was built for the regular importation of corn from the better cultivated isle of Britain, in order to supply the towns and fortresses along the Rhine, the free navigation of which stream to the sea Julian had forced the Franks to concede. Julian also attended strictly to the administration of justice; and he alleviated, as far as was in his power, the burden of excessive taxation under which the people groaned. The usual residence of the Cæsar during the winter was Lutetia or Paris (Parisii), a town built on an island in the Seine, and approached by two wooden bridges; while a suburb, in which stood the imperial palace, spread over the left bank of the river. For this city Julian had an extreme partiality; and we find him amid the luxury and profligacy of Antioch dwelling on its memory with tender affection*.

At the court of Constantius, Julian and his exploits were at first merely subjects of merriment to the eunuchs and the other favorites. His personal appearance and his manners were ridiculed in the presence of the emperor. He was called a she-goat, and no man (in allusion to the philosophic beard which he cherished), a chattering mole, an ape in purple, and so forth; nay, so far did courtly adulation and imperial folly proceed, that in the laureled letters sent to the provinces to announce the victory at Strasburg, Constantius was actually declared to have gained it in person! But the fame of Julian was not to be obscured by petty arts like these, and the plan was adopted of alarming the jealousy of the emperor by dwelling on the talents and virtues of the Cæsar, and hinting at the probability of his casting off his allegiance. As this was the subject on which Constantius was most susceptible of alarm, their stratagem easily succeeded; and a scheme for depriving him of the power to rebel was devised. In the spring of 360, a tribune and a notary arrived at Paris with orders for four entire divisions of the auxiliaries, and drafts of three hundred men each from

* Misopogon, p. 340.

the other corps to proceed without delay to join the imperial standard in the East. Julian represented in vain that the Germans had entered the Roman service on the express condition of not being sent beyond the Alps, and that a breach of faith like this might put a total end to further enlistments: he also urged the unprotected condition in which Gaul would be left by the withdrawal of so large a portion of the troops belonging to it; the imperial envoys would hear of nothing but obedience, and Julian was obliged to issue his orders for the march of the troops. His judicious advice that they should not pass through Paris was also despised, and ere long they approached that city. Julian went forth to meet them; he addressed them, extolling their former exploits, and urging them to yield a cheerful obedience to the imperial commands. He then invited the principal officers to an entertainment, from which they departed sad and dejected at the idea of quitting their lenient prince, and their natal soil. At the approach of night the discontent of the troops broke out into action; they seized their arms, and surrounding the palace with loud shouts proclaimed Julian Augustus. During the night the entrances of the palace were secured against them; but at dawn Julian was obliged to come forth. His resistance, his menaces, his entreaties, his arguments were of no avail; he was forced to yield to their violence, and accept the proffered dignity. They raised him triumphantly on a shield, they proclaimed him Augustus, and then desired him to produce a diadem. On his saying that he did not possess one, they called for his wife's collar or bracelet; but Julian deemed a female ornament inauspicious, and refused to use it; for a similar reason he rejected a horse-trapping. At length, a standard-bearer took a collar from his own neck, and placed it on the head of the Cæsar, who having promised a donative of five gold pieces and a pound of silver to each man, was at length permitted to retire into the palace.

In the manifesto which Julian some time after addressed to the Athenians, he declared in the most solemn manner that he was totally ignorant of the designs of the army; and he was a man of so much probity and had such a veneration for truth, that it is difficult to refuse him our belief. That judicious and honest historian Ammianus, who was a contemporary, hints not a suspicion on the subject; yet when we consider the ordinary conduct of men in such circumstances, and recollect that Julian must have been aware that the as

sumption of empire was almost the only security against his sharing the fate of his brother, we find it impossible not to feel somewhat incredulous. The question is, therefore, one of the many which must remain for ever uncertain. That Julian was determined to retain the empire which he had accepted is beyond doubt; but he was most anxious to shun the guilt of the effusion of blood in civil war. On the day following that of his elevation, he assembled the troops, and addressing them with his usual eloquence, obtained from them an assurance, that if the emperor of the East would acknowledge him, they would remain quietly in Gaul: he at the same time pledged himself, that promotion, both civil and military, should henceforth go by merit and not by favour. Those officers who were known to be attached to Constantius were deposed and secured, but no blood was shed. Julian wrote to that emperor, excusing what had occurred, and requiring the confirmation of his dignity, but offering to acknowledge the supremacy of the elder emperor, and to supply him annually with Spanish horses and with barbarian recruits.

While Julian was waiting the return of his ambassadors from the East, he increased his army by proclaiming a general pardon to the bands of outlaws which had arisen in consequence of the persecution of the adherents of Magnentius, and they cheerfully accepted it, and crowded to his standard. He then crossed the Rhine for the fourth time to chastise the perfidy of the Attuarians, a Frankish tribe; and this object being effected, he marched southwards and took up his winter-quarters at Vienne. As this city was full of Christians, and a great part of his army followed the Christian creed, Julian, who, as we shall presently show, had long since adopted a different faith, condescended to play the hypocrite for probably the last time, and went publicly to the church on Christmas-day.

Early in the spring (361) Julian learned that Vadomar, an Alemanic prince, had committed ravages to the south of the Danube; and there appeared reason for believing that the German was acting in obedience to secret instructions from Constantius, who wished to find occupation for his rival in Gaul. Julian resolved to employ artifice; and he sent the notary Philagrius, furnished with secret instructions to entrap the German prince. When Philagrius came to the Rhine, Vadomar, thinking his proceedings unknown, passed over to