THE CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS
CHAPTER III
CONSTANTINE'S SUCCESSORS TO JOVIAN AND THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA
DEATH had surprised Constantine when preparing to meet Persian
aggression on the Eastern frontier and it seems certain that the Emperor had
made no final provision for the succession to the throne, though later writers
profess to know of a will which parceled out the Roman world among the members
of his family. During his lifetime his three sons had been created Caesars and
while for his nephew Hanniballianus he had fashioned a kingdom in Asia, to his
nephew Delmatius had been assigned the Ripa Gothica. Possibly we are to see in
these latter appointments an attempt to satisfy discontent at Court; it may be
that Optatus and Ablabius, espousing the cause of a younger branch of the
imperial stock, had forced Constantine's hand and that it was for this interference
that they afterwards paid the penalty of their lives. But it would seem a more
probable suggestion that the Persian danger was thought to demand an older and
more experienced governor than Constantius, while the boy Constans was deemed
unequal to withstand the Goths in the north. At least the plan would appear to
have been in substance that of a threefold division of spheres itself suggested
by administrative necessity; Constantine was true to the principle of
Diocletian, and it was only a superficial view which saw in this devolution of
the central power a partition of the Roman Empire. Thus on the Emperor's death
there followed an interregnum of nearly four months. Constantine had, however,
been successful in inspiring his soldiers with his own dynastic views; they
feared new tumult and internal struggle and in face of the twenty year old
Constantius felt themselves to be the masters. The armies agreed that they
would have none but the sons of Constantine to rule over them, and at one blow
they murdered all the other relatives of the dead Emperor save only the child
Julian and Gallus the future Caesar; in the latter's case men looked to his own
ill health to spare the executioner. At the same time perished Optatus and
Ablabius. On 9 September 337 Constantius, Constantine II, and Constans each
assumed the title of Augustus as joint Emperors.
His contemporaries were unable to agree how far Constantius was to be
held responsible for this assassination. He alone of the sons of Constantine
was present in the capital, it was he who stood to gain most by the deed, the
property of the victims fell into his hands, while it was said that he himself
regarded his ill-success in war and his childlessness as Heaven's punishment
and that this murder was one of the three sins which he regretted on his
death-bed. In later times some, though considering the slaughter as directly
inspired by the Emperor, have yet held him justified and have viewed him as the
victim of a tragic necessity of state. Certainty is impossible but the
circumstances suggest that inaction and not participation is the true charge
against Constantius; the army which made and unmade emperors was determined
that there should be no rival to question their choice. The massacre had fatal
consequences; it was the seed from which sprang Julian's mistrust and ill-will:
in a panegyric written for the Emperor's eye he might admit the plea of
compulsion, but the deep-seated conviction remained that he was left an orphan
through his cousin's crime.
In the summer of 338 the new rulers assembled in Pannonia (or possibly
at Viminacium in Dacia, not far from the Pannonian frontier) to determine their
spheres of government. According to their father's division, it would
seem, Spain, Britain, and the two Gauls fell to Constantine: the two Italics,
Africa, Illyricum, and Thrace were subjected to Constans, while southward from
the Propontis, Asia and the Orient with Pontus and Egypt were entrusted to
Constantius. It was thus to Constantius that, on the death of Hanniballianus,
Armenia and the neighboring allied tribes naturally passed, but with this
addition the eastern Augustus appears to have remained content. The whole of
the territory subject to Delmatius, i.e. the Ripa Gothica which probably
comprised Dacia, Moesia I and II, and Scythia (perhaps even Pannonia and
Noricum) went to swell the share of Constans who was now but fifteen years of
age. But though both the old and the new Rome were thus in the hands of the
most youthful of the three emperors, the balance of actual power still seemed
heavily weighted in favor of Constantine, the ruler of the West; indeed, he
appears to have assumed the position of guardian over his younger brother. It
may be difficult to account for the moderation of Constantius, but Julian
points out that a war with Persia was imminent, the army was disorganized, and
the preparations for the campaign insufficient; domestic peace was the Empire's
great need, while Constantius himself really strengthened his own position by
renouncing further claims: to widen his sphere of government might have only
served to limit his moral authority. Further he was perhaps unwilling to demand
for himself a capital in which his kinsmen had been so recently murdered: his
self-denial should prove his innocence. During the next thirteen years three
great and more or less independent interests absorbed the energies of
Constantius: the welfare and doctrine of the Christian Church, the long drawn
and largely ineffective struggle against Persia and lastly the assertion and
maintenance of his personal influence in the affairs of the West.
The War with Persia
It was to Asia that Constantius hastened after his meeting with his
co-rulers. Before his arrival Nisibis had successfully withstood a Persian
siege (autumn 337 or spring 338), and the Emperor at once made strenuous
efforts to restore order and discipline among the Roman forces. Profiting by
his previous experience he organized a troop of mail-clad horsemen after the
Persian model — the wonder of the time — and raised recruits both for the
cavalry and infantry regiments; he demanded extraordinary contributions from
the eastern provinces, enlarged the river flotillas and generally made his
preparations for rendering effective resistance to Persian attacks. The history
of this border warfare is a tangled tale and our information scanty and
fragmentary. In Armenia the fugitive king and those nobles who with him were
loyal to Rome were restored to their country, but for the rest the campaigns
resolved themselves in the main into the successive forays across the frontier
of Persian or Roman troops. Though Ludi Persici (13-17 May) were founded,
though court orators could claim that the Emperor had frequently crossed the
Tigris, had raised fortresses on its banks and laid waste the enemy's territory
with fire and sword, yet the lasting results of these campaigns were sadly to
seek: now an Arab tribe would be induced to make common cause with Rome (as in
333) and to harry the foe, now a Persian town would be captured and its
inhabitants transported and settled within the Empire, but it was rare indeed
for the armies of both powers to meet face to face in the open field.
Constantius persistently declined to take the aggressive; he hesitated to risk
any great engagement which even if successful might entail a heavy loss in men
whom he could ill afford to spare. Of one battle alone have we any detailed
account. Sapor had collected a vast army; conscripts of all ages were enlisted,
while neighboring tribesmen served for Persian gold. In three divisions the
host crossed the Tigris and by the Emperor's orders the frontier guards did not
dispute the passage. The Persians occupied an entrenched camp at Hileia or
Ellia near Singara, while a distance of some 150 stades lay between them and
the Roman army. Even on Sapor’s advance Constantius true to his defensive
policy awaited the enemy's attack; it may be, as Libanius asserts, that Rome's
best troops were absent at the time. Beneath their fortifications the Persians
had posted their splendid mailed cavalry and upon the ramparts archers were
stationed. On a midsummer morning, probably in the year 344 (possibly 348),
the struggle began. At midday the Persians feigned flight in the direction of
their camp, hoping that thus their horsemen would charge upon an enemy disorganized
by long pursuit. It was already evening when the Romans drew near the
fortifications. Constantius gave orders to halt until the dawn of the new day;
but the burning heat of the sun had caused a raging thirst, the springs lay
within the Persian camp and the troops with little experience of their
Emperor's generalship refused to obey his commands and resumed the attack.
Clubbing the enemy's cavalry, they stormed the palisades. Sapor fled for his
life to the Tigris, while the heir to his throne was captured and put to death.
As night fell, the victors turned to plunder and excess, and under cover of the
darkness the Persian fugitives reformed and won back their camp. But success
came too late; their confidence was broken and with the morning the retreat
began.
Reign of Constans. 338-350
Turning to the history of the West after the meeting of the Augusti in
338, it would appear that Constantine forthwith claimed an authority superior
to that of his co-rulers; he even legislated for Africa although this province
fell within the jurisdiction of Constans. The latter, however, soon asserted
his complete independence of his elder brother and in autumn (338?) after a
victory on the Danube assumed the title of Sarmaticus. At this time (339) he
probably sought to enlist the support of Constantius, surrendering to the latter
Thrace and Constantinople. Disappointed of his hopes, it would seem that the
ruler of the West now demanded for himself both Italy and Africa. Early in 340
he suddenly crossed the Alps and at Aquileia rashly engaged the advanced guard
of Constans who had marched from Naissus in Dacia, where news had reached him
of his brother's attack. Constantine falling into an ambush perished, and
Constans was now master of Britain, Spain, and the Gauls (before 9 April 340).
He proved himself a terror to the barbarians and a general of untiring energy
who travelled incessantly, making light of extremes of heat and cold. In 341
and 342 he drove back an inroad of the Franks and compelled that restless tribe
"for whom inaction was a confession of weakness" to conclude a peace:
he disregarded the perils of the English Channel in winter, and in January 343
crossed from Boulogne to Britain, perhaps to repel the Picts and Scots. His
rule is admitted to have been at the outset vigorous and just, but the promise
of his early years was not maintained: his exactions grew more intolerable, his
private vices more shameless, while his favorites were allowed to violate the
laws with impunity. It would seem, however, to have been his unconcealed
contempt for the army which caused his fall. A party at Court conspired with
Marcellinus, Count of the sacred largesses, and Magnentius, commander of the
picked corps of Joviani and Herculeani, to secure his overthrow. Despite his
Roman name Magnentius was a barbarian: his father had been a slave and
subsequently a freedman in the service of Constantine. While at Augustodunum,
during the absence of the Emperor on a hunting expedition, Marcellinus on the
pretext of a banquet in honor of his son's birthday feasted the military
leaders (18 January 350); wine had flowed freely and the night was already far
advanced, when Magnentius suddenly appeared among the revellers, clad in the
purple. He was straightway acclaimed Augustus: the rumor spread: folk from the
countryside poured into the city: Illyrian horsemen who had been drafted into
the Gallic regiments joined their comrades, while the officers hardly knowing
what was afoot were carried by the tide of popular enthusiasm into the usurper's
camp. Constans fled for Spain and at the foot of the Pyrenees by the small
frontier fortress of Helene was murdered by Gaiso, the barbarian emissary of
Magnentius. The news of his brother's death reached Constantius when the winter
was almost over, but true to his principle never to sacrifice the Empire to his
own personal advantage he remained in the East, providing for its safety during
his absence and appointing Lucillianus to be commander-in-chief.
The hardships and oppression which the provinces had suffered under
Constans were turned by Magnentius to good account. A month after his
usurpation Italy had joined him and Africa was not slow to follow. The army of
Illyricum was wavering in its fidelity when, upon the advice of Constantia
sister of Constantius, Vetranio, magister
peditum of the forces on the Danube, allowed himself to be acclaimed
Emperor (1 March, at Mursa or Sirmium) and immediately appealed for help to
Constantius. The latter recognized the usurper, sent Vetranio a diadem and gave
orders that he should be supported by the troops on the Pannonian frontier.
Meanwhile in Rome, the elect of the mob, Flavius Popilius Nepotianus, cousin of
Constantius, enjoyed a brief and bloody reign of some 28 days until, through
the treachery of a senator, he fell into the hands of the soldiers of
Magnentius, led by Marcellinus the newly appointed magister officiorum.
In the East, Nisibis was besieged for the third and last time: Sapor’s
object was, it would seem, permanently to settle a Persian colony within the
city. The siege was pressed with unexampled energy; the Mygdonius was turned
from its course, and thus upon an artificial lake the fleet plied its rams but
without effect. At length under the weight of the waters part of the city wall
collapsed; cavalry and elephants charged to storm the breach, but the huge
beasts turned in flight and broke the lines of the assailants. A new wall rose
behind the old, and though four months had passed, Jacobus, Bishop of Nisibis,
never lost heart. Then Sapor learned that the Massagetae were invading his own
country and slowly the Persian host withdrew. For a time the Eastern frontier
was at peace (A.D. 350).
Gallus Caesar. 350-351
In the West while Magnentius sought to win the recognition of
Constantius, Vetranio played a waiting game. At last, the historians tell us,
the Illyrian Emperor broke his promises and made his peace with Magnentius. A
common embassy sought Constantius: let him give Magnentius his sister
Constantia to wife, and himself wed the daughter of Magnentius. Constantius
wavered, but rejected the proposals and marched towards Sardica. Vetranio held
the pass of Succi —the Iron Gate of later times — but on the arrival of the
Emperor gave way before him. In Naissus, or as others say in Sirmium, the two
Emperors mounted a rostrum and Constantius harangued the troops, appealing to
them to avenge the death of the son of the great Constantine. The army hailed
Constantius alone as Augustus and Vetranio sought for pardon. The Emperor
treated the usurper with great respect and accorded him on his retirement to
Prusa in Bithynia a handsome pension until his death six years later. Such is
the story, but it can hardly fail to arouse suspicion. The greatest blot on the
character of Constantius is his ferocity when once he fancied his. superiority
threatened, and here was both treason and treachery, for power had been stolen
from him by a trick. All difficulties are removed if Vetranio throughout never
ceased to support Constantius, even though the Emperor may have doubted his
loyalty for a time when he heard that the prudent general had anticipated any
action on the part of Magnentius by himself seizing the key-position, the pass
of Succi. It is obvious that their secret was worth keeping: it is ill to play
with armies as Constantius and Vetranio had done; while the clemency of an
outraged sovereign offered a fair theme to the panegyrists of the Emperor.
Marching against one usurper in the West, Constantius was anxious to
secure the East to the dynasty of Constantine: the recent success of
Lucillianus may have appeared dangerously complete. The Emperor's nephew Gallus
had, it would seem, for some time followed the Court, and while at Sirmium
Constantius determined to create him Caesar. At the same time (15 March 351)
his name was changed into Flavius Claudius Constantius, he was married to
Constantia and became frater Augusti;
forthwith the prince and his wife started for Antioch. Meanwhile Magnentius had
not been idle; he had raised huge sums of money in Gaul, while Franks, Saxons,
and Germans trooped to the support of their fellow-countryman, whose army now
outnumbered that of Constantius. The latter however took the offensive in the
spring of 351 and uniting Vetranio’s troops with his own marched towards the Alpine
passes. An ambush of Magnentius posted in the defiles of Atrans inflicted
severe loss on his advance guard and the Emperor was compelled to withdraw.
Elated by this success, the usurper now occupied Pannonia and passing Poetovio
made for Sirmium.
The Battle of Mursa. 351-353
Throughout his reign the policy of Constantius was marked by an anxious
desire to husband the military forces of the Empire, and even now he was ready
to compromise and to avoid the fearful struggle between the armies of Gaul and
Illyricum. He dispatched Philippus, offering to acknowledge Magnentius as
co-Augustus in the West, if he would abandon any claim to Italy. The ambassador
was detained, but his proposals after some delay rejected; the usurper was so
certain of victory that his envoy the Senator Titianus could even counsel
Constantius to abdicate. An attack of Magnentius on Siscia was repulsed and an
effort to cross the Save was also unsuccessful. Constantius then retired,
preferring to await the enemy in open country where he could turn to the best
advantage his superiority in cavalry. At Cibalae the army took up an entrenched
position, while Magnentius advanced on Sirmium, hoping to meet with no
resistance. Foiled in this he marched to Mursa in the rear of Constantius'
army. The latter was forced to relieve the town and here on 28 September the
decisive battle was fought. Behind Constantius flowed the Danube and on his
right the Drave: for him flight must mean destruction. On both wings he posted
mounted archers and in the forefront the mailed cavalry which he had himself
raised after the Persian model; in the center the heavy armed infantry were
stationed and in the rear the bowmen and slingers. Before the struggle Silvanus
with his horsemen deserted Magnentius. From late afternoon till far into the
night the battle raged; the cavalry of Constantius routed the enemy's right
wing and this drew the whole line into confusion. Magnentius fled but
Marcellinus continued the fight; the Gauls refused to acknowledge defeat; some
few escaped through the darkness, but thousands were driven into the river or
cut down upon the plain. It is said that Magnentius lost 24,000 men,
Constantius 30,000. The usurper took refuge in Aquileia and garrisoned the
passes of the Alps; although his overtures were rejected and though his schemes
to murder the Caesar Gallus and thus to raise difficulties for Constantius in
the East were foiled, yet the exhaustion of his enemies and the approach of
winter made pursuit impossible. Constantius forthwith proclaimed an amnesty for
all the adherents of Magnentius except only those immediately implicated in his
brother's murder; many deserted the pretender and escaped by sea to the victor.
In the following year (352), Constantius forced the passes of the Julian Alps,
while his fleet dominated the Po, Sicily, and Africa. At the news Magnentius
fled to Gaul and by November the Emperor was already in Milan, abrogating all
the fugitive's measures. In 353 Constantius crossed the Cottian Alps and at
length, three years and a half after his assumption of the purple, Magnentius
was surrounded in Lyons by his own troops, and finding his cause hopeless
committed suicide, while his Caesar Decentius also perished by his own hand.
Magnentius
The importance and significance of this unsuccessful bid for empire may
easily be overlooked. A Roman civil official at the head of some discontented
spirits at the Court hatches a plot against his sovereign, and in order to win
the support of the army alienated by the contempt of Constans induces a
barbarian general to declare himself Emperor. But though the Roman world was
willing enough that Germans should fight the Empire's battles in their defense,
they were not prepared to see another Maximin upon the throne; they refused to
be reconciled to Magnentius even by the admitted justice of his rule. The
lesson of his failure was well learned: the barbarian Arbogast caused not
himself but the Roman civilian Eugenius to be elected Emperor. Further, while
in this struggle the eastern and western halves of the Empire are seen falling
naturally and almost unconsciously asunder, the most powerful force working for
unity is the dynastic sentiment: Constantius claims support as the legitimate
successor of the house of Constantine and as the avenger of the death of his
son. His claim is not merely as the chosen of senate or army but far more as
the rightful heir to the throne. This struggle throws into prominence the
growth of the hereditary principle and the warmth of the response which it
could evoke from the sympathies of the subjects of the Empire. No student of
the history of the fourth century can indeed afford to neglect the battle of
Mursa; contemporaries were staggered at the appalling loss of life, for while it
is said that the Roman dead numbered 40,000 at Hadrianople (A.D. 378), at Mursa
54,000 are reported to have been slain. It is hardly too much to say that the defense
of the Empire in the East was crippled by this blow, and it must have been
largely through the slaughter at Mursa that Constantius was forced to make his
fatal demand that the troops of Gaul should march against Persia. Neither must
the military significance of the battle be forgotten: it lies in the fact that
this was the first victory of the newly formed heavy cavalry, and the result of
the impact of their charge, which carried all before it, showed that it was no
longer the legionary who was to play the most important part in the campaigns
of the future.
Fall of Gallus.
Meanwhile in Antioch Gallus was ruling as an oriental despot; there was
in his nature a strain of savagery, and his appointment as Caesar seems to have
awakened within him a brutal lust for a naked display of unrestrained
authority. His passions were only fed by the violence of Constantia. The
unsuccessful plot of Magnentius to assassinate the Caesar aroused the latter's
suspicions and a reign of terror began; judicial procedure was disregarded and
informers honored, men were condemned to death without trial and the members of
the city council imprisoned; when the populace complained of scarcity it was
suggested that the responsibility lay with Theophilus governor of Syria: the
mob took the hint and the governor perished. The feeling of insecurity was rendered
more intense by a rising among the Jews, who declared a certain Patricius their
King, and by the raids of Saracens and Isaurians upon the country-side. The
loyalty of the East was jeopardized. The reports of Thalassius, the praetorian praefect, and of Barbatio,
the Caesar's Count of the guard, at length moved Constantius to action. On the
death of Thalassius (winter 353-4) Domitian was sent to Antioch as his
successor, directions being given him that Gallus was to be persuaded to visit
the Emperor in the West. The praefect’s studied discourtesy and overbearing behavior
enraged the Caesar; Domitian was thrown into prison and the populace responding
to the appeal of Gallus tore in pieces both the praefect and Montius the
quaestor of the palace. The trials for treason which followed were but a parody
of justice; fear and hate held sway in Antioch. Constantius himself now wrote
to Gallus praying his presence in Milan. In deep foreboding the Caesar started;
on his journey the death of his wife, the Emperor's masterful sister, further
dismayed him, and after passing through Constantinople his guard of honor
became his gaolers; stripped of his purple by Barbatio in Poetovio, he was
brought near Pola before a commission headed by Eusebius, the Emperor's
chamberlain, and bidden to account for his administration in the East. The
Court came to the required conclusion, and Gallus was beheaded.
Julian’s Youth
Thus of the house of Constantine there only remained the Emperor’s
cousin Julian. Born in all probability in April 332, the child spent his early
years in Constantinople; his mother Basilina, daughter of the praetorian
praefect Anicius Julianus, died only a few months after the birth of her son,
while his father Julius Constantius, younger brother of Constantine the Great,
perished in the massacre of 337. From this Julian was spared by his extreme
youth and was thereupon removed to Nicomedia and entrusted to the charge of a
distant relative, by name Eusebius, who was at the time bishop of the city.
When seven years of age, his education was undertaken by Mardonius, a “Scythian”
eunuch — perhaps a Goth — who had been engaged by Julian's grandfather to
instruct Basilina in the works of Homer and Hesiod. Mardonius had a passionate
love for the classical authors, and on his way to school the boy's imagination
was fired by the old man's enthusiasm. Already Julian's love for nature was
aroused; in the summer he would spend his time on a small estate which had
belonged to his grandmother; it lay eight stades from the coast and contained
springs and trees with a garden. Here, free from crowds, he would read a book
in peace, looking up now and again upon the ships and the sea, while from a
knoll, he tells us, there was a wide view over the town below and thence beyond
to the capital, the Propontis and the distant islands. Suddenly (in 341?) both
he and his brother Gallus were banished to Marcellum, a large and lonely
imperial castle in Cappadocia, lying at the foot of Mount Argaeus.
Julian and Paganism. 342-355
Here for six years the two boys lived in seclusion, for none of their
friends were allowed to visit them. Julian chafed bitterly at this isolation:
in one of his rare references to this period he writes "we might have been
in a Persian prison with only slaves for our companions." For a time the
suspicions of Constantius seem to have gained the upper hand. At length Julian
was allowed to visit his birthplace Constantinople. Here, while studying under
Christian teachers as a citizen among citizens, his natural capacity, wit, and
sociability rendered him dangerously popular: it was rumored that men were
beginning to look upon the young prince as Constantius' successor. He was
bidden to return to Nicomedia (349?), where he studied philosophy and came
under the influence of Libanius, although he was not allowed to attend the
latter's lectures. The rhetorician dates Julian's conversion to Neoplatonism
from this period: —“the mud-bespattered statues of the gods were set up in the
great temple of Julian’s soul”. At last, in 351, when Gallus was created
Caesar, the student was free to go where he would, and the Pagan philosophers
of Asia Minor: seized their opportunity. One and all plotted to secure the
complete conversion of the young prince. Aedesius and Eusebius at Pergamum,
Maximus and Chrysanthius at Ephesus could hardly content Julian's hunger for
the forbidden knowledge. It was at this time (351-2) when he was twenty years
of age (as he himself tells us) that he finally rejected Christianity and was
initiated into the mysteries of Mithras. The fall of Gallus, however,
implicated the Caesar's brother and Julian was closely watched and conducted to
Italy. For seven months he was kept under guard, and during the six months
which he spent in Milan he had only one interview with Constantius which was
secured through the efforts of the Empress Eusebia. When at length he was
allowed to leave the Court and was on his way to Asia Minor, the trial of the
tribune Marinus and of Africanus, governor of Pannonia Secunda, on a charge of
high treason inspired Constantius with fresh fears and suspicions. Messages
reached Julian ordering his return. But before his arrival at Milan Eusebia had
won from the Emperor his permission for Julian to retire to Athens, love of
study being a characteristic which might with safety be encouraged in members
of the royal house. Men may have seen in this visit to Greece (355) but a
banishment; to Julian, nursing the perilous secret of his new-found faith, the
change must have been pure joy. In Hellas, his true fatherland, he was probably
initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, while he plunged with impetuous
intensity into the life of the University. It was not to be for long, for he
was soon recalled to sterner activities.
Julian made Caesar. 354-355
Since the death of Gallus, the Emperor had stood alone; although no
longer compromised by the excesses of his Caesar, he was still beset by the old
problems which appeared to defy solution. At this time the power of the central
government in Gaul had been still further weakened. Here Silvanus, whose timely
desertion of Magnentius had contributed to the Emperor's success at the battle
of Mursa, had been appointed magister
peditum. He had won some victories over the Alemanni but, driven into
treason by Court intrigues, had assumed the purple in Cologne and fallen after
a short reign of some 28 days a victim to treachery (August-September 355?). In
his own person Constantius could not take the command at once in Rhaetia
and in Gaul, and yet along the whole northern frontier he was faced with danger
and difficulty. He was haunted by the continual fear that some capable general
might of his own motion proclaim himself Augustus, or like Silvanus be hounded
into rebellion. A military triumph often advantaged the captain more than his
master and might have but little influence towards kindling anew the allegiance
of the provincials. A prince of the royal house could alone with any hope of
success attempt to raise the imperial prestige in Gaul. It was thus statecraft
and no sinister machination against his cousin's life which led Constantius to
listen to his wife's entreaties. He determined to banish suspicion and
disregard the interested insinuations of the Court eunuchs: he would make of
the philosopher scholar a Caesar, in whose person the loyalty of the West
should find a rallying-point and on whom its devotion might be spent. In the
Emperor's absence Julian once more arrived in Milan (summer 355), but to him
imperial favor seemed a thing more terrible than royal neglect; Eusebia’s
summons to be of good courage was of no avail, only the thought that this was
the will of Heaven steeled his purpose. Who was he to fight against the Gods? —
After some weeks on 6 November 355 Julian was clothed with the purple by
Constantius and enthusiastically acclaimed as Caesar by the army. Before
leaving the Court the Caesar married Helena, the youngest sister of
Constantius; the union was dictated by policy and she would seem never to have
taken any large place in the life or thought of Julian. The position of affairs
in Gaul was critical. Magnentius had withdrawn the armies of the West to meet
Constantius, and horde after horde of barbarians had swept across the Rhine. In
the north the Salii had taken possession of what is now the province of
Brabant; in the south the Alemanni under Chnodomar had defeated the Caesar
Decentius and had ravaged the heart of Gaul. The rumor ran that Constantius had
even freed the Alemanni from their oaths and had given them a bribe to induce
them to invade Roman territory, allowing them to take for their own any land
which their swords could win. The story is probably a fabrication of Julian and
his friends, but the fact of the barbarian invasion cannot be doubted. In the
spring of 354 Constantius crossed the Jura and marched to the neighborhood of
Basel, but the Alemanni under Gundomar and Vadomar withdrew and a peace was
concluded. In 355 Arbitio was defeated near the Lake of Constance and the fall
of Silvanus had for its immediate consequence the capture of Cologne by the
Franks. Forty-five towns, not to speak of lesser posts, had been laid waste and
the valley of the Rhine was lost to the Romans. Three hundred stades, from the
left bank of the river the barbarians were permanently settled and their
ravages extended for three times that distance. The whole of Elsass was in the hands of the Alemanni, the heads of the
municipalities had been carried into slavery, Strasburg, Brumath, Worms, and
Mainz had fallen, while soldiers of Magnentius, who had feared to surrender
themselves after their leader's death, roamed as brigands through the
country-side and increased the general disorder.
Julian's First Campaign in
Gaul. 354-356
On 1 December 355, Julian left Milan with a guard of 360 soldiers; in
Turin he learnt of the fall of Cologne and thence advanced to Vienne where he
spent the winter training with rueful energy for his new vocation of a soldier.
For the following year a combined scheme of operations had been projected:
while the Emperor advancing from Rhaetia attacked the barbarians in their own
territory, Julian was to act as lieutenant to Marcellus with directions to
guard the approaches into Gaul and to drive back any fugitives who sought to
escape before Constantius. The neutrality of the Alemannic princes in the north
had been secured in 354, while internal dissension among the German tribes favored
the Emperor's plans. The army in Gaul was ordered to assemble at Rheims and
Julian accordingly marched from Vienne, reaching Autun on 24 June. That the
barbarians should have constantly harried the Caesar's soldiers as they
advanced through Auxerre and Troyes only serves to show how completely Gaul had
been flooded by the German tribesmen. From Rheims, where the scattered troops
were concentrated, the army started for Elsass pursuing the most direct route
by Metz and Dieuze to Zabern. Two legions of the rear-guard were surprised on
the march and were only with difficulty saved from annihilation. At this time
Constantius was doubtless advancing upon the right bank of the Rhine, for
Julian at Brumath drove back a body of the Alemanni who were seeking refuge in
Gaul. The Caesar then marched by Coblenz through the desolated Rhine valley to
Cologne. This city he recovered and concluded a peace with the Franks. The
approach of winter brought the operations to a close and Julian retired to
Sens. Food was scarce and it was difficult to provision the army; the Caesar's
best troops — the Scutarii and Gentiles — were therefore stationed in scattered
fortresses. The Alemanni had been driven by hunger to continue their raids
through Gaul and hearing of the weakness of the garrison they suddenly swept
down upon Sens. In his heroic defense of the town Julian won his spurs as a
military commander. For thirty days he withstood the attack, until the Alemanni
retired discomfited. Marcellus had probably already experienced the ambition
and vanity of the Caesar, his independence and intolerance of criticism: an
imperial prince was none too agreeable a lieutenant. The general may even have
considered that the Emperor would not be deeply grieved if the fortune of war
removed a possible e menace to the throne. Whatever his reasons may have
been, he treacherously failed to come to the relief of the besieged. When the
news reached the Court he was recalled and deprived of his command. Eutherius,
sent by Julian from Gaul, discredited the calumnies of Marcellus, and
Constantius silenced the malignant whispers of the Court; accepting his
Caesar's protestations of loyalty, he created him supreme-commander over the
troops in Gaul. The actual gains won by the military operations of the year 356
may not have been great but that their moral effect was considerable is demonstrated
by the campaign of 357 and by the spirit of the troops at the battle of Strasburg;
above all, Julian was no longer an imperial figure-head, he now begins an
independent career as general and administrator.
In the spring of 357 Constantius, wishing to celebrate with high pomp
and ceremony the twentieth year of his rule since the death of Constantine,
visited Rome for the first time (28 April-29 May). The city filled him with awe
and wonder and he caused an obelisk to be raised in the Circus Maximus as a
memorial of his stay in the capital. But to the historian the main interest of
this visit lies in the fact that as a Christian Emperor Constantius removed
from the Senate-house the altar of Victory. To the whole-hearted Pagans this
altar came to stand for a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire as they conceived it:
it was an outward and visible sign of that bond which none might lose between
Rome's hard-won greatness as a conquering nation and her loyalty to her
historic faith. They clung to it with passionate devotion as to a time-honored
creed in stone — a creed at once political and religious — and thus again and
again they struggled and pleaded for its retention or its restoration. The
deeper meaning of what might seem a matter of trifling import must never be
forgotten if we are to understand the earnest petition of Symmachus or the
scorn of Ambrose. The Pagan was defending the last trench: the destruction of
the altar of Victory meant for him that he could hold the fortress no longer.
The Battle of Strasburg. 357
From Rome the Emperor was summoned to the Danube to take action against
the Sarmatians, Suevi, and Quadi; he was unable to cooperate with Julian in
person, but dispatched Barbatio, magister
peditum, to Gaul in command of 25,000 troops. Julian was to march from the
north, Barbatio was to make Angst near Basel his base of operations, and
between the two forces the barbarians were to be enclosed. The choice of a
general, however, foredoomed the plan of campaign to failure. Barbatio, one of
the principal agents in the death of Gallus, was the last man to work in
harmony with Julian. The Caesar leaving Sens concentrated his forces only
13,000 strong at Rheims, and as in the previous year marched south to Elsass.
Finding the pass of Zabern blocked, he drove the barbarians before him and
forced them to take refuge in the islands of the Rhine. Barbatio had previously
allowed a marauding band of Laeti laden with booty to pass his camp and to
cross the Rhine unscathed, and later by false reports he secured the dismissal
of the tribunes Bainobaudes and the future emperor Valentinian, whom Julian had
ordered to dispute the robbers' return. He now refused to supply the Caesar
with boats; light-armed troops, however, waded across the Rhine to the islands
and seizing the barbarians' canoes massacred the fugitives. After this success
Julian fortified the pass of Zabern and thus closed the gate into Gaul; he
settled garrisons in Elsass along the frontier line and did all in his power to
supply them with provisions, for Barbatio withheld all the supplies which
arrived from southern Gaul. Having now secured his position, Julian received
the amazing intelligence that Barbatio had been surprised by the Germans, had
lost his whole baggage train and had retreated in confusion to Angst, where he
had gone into winter quarters. It must be confessed that this defeat of 25,000
men by a sudden barbarian foray seems almost inexplicable, unless it be that
Barbatio was determined at all costs to refuse in any way to co-operate with
the Caesar and was surprised while on the march to Angst. Julian's position was
one of great danger: the Emperor was far distant on the Danube, the Alemanni
previously at variance among themselves, were now reunited, Gundomad, the
faithful ally of Rome, had been treacherously murdered and the followers of
Vadomar had joined their fellow-countrymen. Barbatio's defeat had raised the
enemy's hopes; while Julian was unsupported and had only some 13,000 men under
his command. It was at this critical moment that a host of Alemannic tribesmen
crossed the Rhine under the leadership of Chnodomar and encamped, it would
seem, on the left bank of the river, close to the city of Strassburg which the Romans had apparently not yet recovered. On
the third day after the passage of the stream had begun, Julian learned of the
movement of the barbarians, and set out from Zabern on the military road to
Brumath, and thence on the highway which ran from Strassburg to Mainz towards
Weitbruch; here after a march of six or seven hours the army would reach the
frontier fortification and from this point they had to descend by rough and
unknown paths into the plain. On sight of the enemy despite the counsels of the
Caesar, despite their long march and the burning heat of an August day, the
troops insisted on an immediate attack. The Roman army was drawn up for battle,
Severus on rising ground on the left wing, Julian in command of the cavalry on
the right wing in the plain. Severus from this point of vantage discovered an
ambush and drove off the barbarians with loss, but the Alemanni in their turn
routed the Roman horse; although Julian was successful in staying their flight,
they were too demoralized to renew the conflict. The whole brunt of the attack
was therefore borne by the Roman centre and left wing, and it was a struggle of
footmen against footmen. At length the stubborn endurance of the Roman infantry
carried the day, and the Alemanni were driven headlong backwards toward the
Rhine. Their losses were enormous — 6000 left dead on the field of battle and
countless others drowned: Chnodomar was at last captured, and Julian sent the
redoubtable chieftain as a prisoner to Constantius. The victory meant the
recovery of the upper Rhine and the freeing of Gaul from barbarian incursions.
There would even seem to have been an attempt aid after the battle to hail
Julian as Augustus, but this he immediately repressed.
Julian on the Rhine. 357-358
The booty and captives were sent to Metz and the Caesar himself marched
to Mainz, being compelled to subdue a mutiny on the way; the army had
apparently been disappointed in its share of the spoil. Julian at once
proceeded to cross the Rhine opposite Mainz and to conduct a campaign on the
Main. His aim would seem to have been to strike still deeper terror into the
vanquished, and to secure his advantage in order that he might feel free to
turn to the work which awaited him in the north. Three chieftains sued for
peace after their land had been laid waste with fire and sword, and to seal
this success Julian rebuilt a fortress which Trajan had constructed on the
right bank of the Rhine. The great difficulty which faced the Caesar was the
question of supplies, and one of the terms of the ten months' armistice granted
to the Alemanni was that they should furnish the garrison of the Munimentum Trajani with provisions. It
was this pressing necessity which demanded both an assertion of the power of
Rome among the peoples dwelling about the mouths of the Meuse and Rhine, and
also the reestablishment of the regular transport of corn from Britain. During
the campaign on the Main, Severus had been sent north to reconnoiter; the
Franks now occupied a position of virtual independence in the district south of
the Meuse, and in the absence of Roman garrisons and with the Caesar fully
occupied by the operations against the Alemanni a troop of 600 Frankish
warriors were devastating the country-side. They retired before Severus and
occupied two deserted fortresses. Here for 54 days in December 357 and January
358 they were besieged by Julian who had marched north to support the magister equitum. Hunger compelled them
at last to yield, for the relief sent by their fellow-tribesmen arrived too
late.
Julian spent the winter in Paris, and in early summer advanced with
great speed and secrecy, surprised the Franks in Toxandria and forced them to
acknowledge Roman supremacy. Further north the Chamavi had been driven by the
pressure of the Saxons in their rear to cross the Rhine and to take possession
of the country between that river and the Meuse. The co-operation of Severus
enabled Julian to force them to submission, and it would appear that in
consequence they retired to their former homes on the Yssel. The lower Rhine
was now once more in Roman hands; the generalship of Julian had achieved what
the praefect Florentius had deemed that Roman gold could alone secure, and the
building of a fleet of 400 sea-going vessels was at once begun. The lower Rhine
secured, Julian forthwith (July-August) returned to his unfinished task in the
south. It was imperative that the ravaged provinces of Gaul should be
repeopled: their desolation and the honor of the Empire alike demanded that the
prisoners in the hands of the barbarians should be restored. The remorseless
ravaging of his land compelled Hortarius to yield, to surrender his Roman
captives and to furnish timber for the rebuilding of the Roman towns. The
winter past, Julian once more left Paris and with his new fleet brought the
corn of Britain to the garrisons of the Rhine. Seven fortresses, from Castra
Herculisin the land of the Batavi to Bingen in the south, were reconstructed,
and then in a last campaign against the most southerly tribes of the Alemanni,
those chieftains who had taken a leading part in the battle of Strasburg were
forced to tender their submission. It was no easy matter to secure the release
of the Roman prisoners, but Julian could claim to have restored 20,000 of these
unfortunates to their homes. The Caesar's work was done: Gaul was once more in
peace and the Rhine the frontier of the Empire.
Administrative Reforms
When we turn to Julian's action in the civil affairs of the West, our
information is all too scanty. It is clear that he approached his task
with the passionate conviction that at all costs he would relieve the lot of
the oppressed provincials. He took part in person in the administration of
justice and himself revised the judgments of provincial governors; he refused
to grant "indulgences" whereby arrears of taxation were remitted, for
he well knew that these imperial acts of grace benefited the rich alone, for
wealth when first the tribute was assessed could purchase the privilege of
delay and thus in the end enjoy the relief of the general rebate. He resolutely
opposed all extraordinary burdens, and when Florentius persistently urged him
to sign a paper imposing additional taxation for war purposes he threw the
document indignantly to the ground and all the remonstrances of the praefect
were without avail. In Belgica the Caesar's own representatives collected the
tribute and the inhabitants were saved from the exactions alike of the agents
of the praefect and of the governor. So successful was his administration that
where previously for the land-tax alone twenty-five aurei had been exacted seven aurei only were now demanded by the State. But reform was slow and in Julian's
character there was a strain of restless impatience: he was intolerant of
delays and of the irrational obstacles that barred the highway of progress; it
galled him that he could not appoint as officials and subordinates men after
his own heart. Admitted that Constantius sent him capable civil servants, yet
these men who were to be the agents of reform were themselves members of the
corrupt bureaucracy which was ruining the provinces. Indeed, might these
nominees of his cousin be withstood? The undefined limits of his office might
always render it an open question whether the assertion of the Caesar's right
were not aggression upon imperial privilege. Julian's conscious power and
burning enthusiasm felt the cruel curb of his subordination. Constantius wished
loyally to support his young relative, had given him the supreme command in
Gaul after the first trial year and was determined that he should be supported
by experienced generals, but Julian was far distant and his enemies at Court
had the Emperor's ear; for them his successes and virtues but rendered him the
more dangerous; the eunuch gang, says Ammianus, only worked the harder at the
smithies where calumnies were forged. At times they mocked the Caesar's vanity
and decried his conquests, at others they played upon the suspicions of
Constantius: Julian was victor today, why not another Victorinus — an upstart
Emperor of Gaul — tomorrow. Imperial messengers to the West were careful to
bring back ominous reports, and Julian, who knew how matters stood and was not
ignorant of his cousin's failings, may well have feared the overmastering
influence of the Emperor's advisers. Thus constantly checked in his plans of
reform alike religious and political, already, it may be, hailed as Augustus by
his soldiery and dreading the machinations of courtiers, he began, at first
perhaps in spite of himself, too long for greater independence; in 359 he was
dreaming of the time when he should be no longer Caesar. The war in the East
gave him his opportunity.
Constantius on the Danube.
355-359
While Julian had been recovering Gaul, Constantius had been engaged in a
series of campaigns on the Danube frontier, and for this purposes had removed
his court from Milan to Sirmium. An unimportant expedition against the Suevi in
Rhaetia in 357 was followed in 358 by lengthy operations in the plains about
the Danube and the Theiss against the Quadi and various Sarmatian tribes who
had burst plundering across the border. The barbarian territory was ravaged,
and through the Emperor's successful diplomacy one people after another
submitted and surrendered their prisoners. They were in most cases left in
possession of their lands under the supremacy of Rome, but the Limigantes were
forced to settle on the left instead of the right bank of the Theiss, while the
Sarmatae Liberi were given a king by Constantius in the person of their native
prince Zizais, and were themselves restored to the district which the
Limigantes had been compelled to leave. The latter however in the following
year (359), discontented with their new homes, craved that they might be
allowed to cross the Danube and settle within the Empire. This Constantius was
persuaded to permit, hoping thus to gain recruits for the Roman army and
thereby to lighten the burdens of the provincials. The Limigantes, once
admitted upon Roman territory, sought to avenge themselves for the losses of
the previous year by a treacherous onslaught upon the Emperor. Constantius
escaped and a general massacre of the faithless barbarians ensued. The
pacification of the northern frontier was now complete.
The Siege of Amida
Meanwhile in the East hostilities with Persia had ceased on any large
scale since 351, and in 356-7 the praefect Musonianus had been carrying on
negotiations for peace (through Cassianus, military commander in Mesopotamia)
with Tampsapor a neighboring satrap. But the moment was inopportune. Sapor
himself had at length effected an alliance with the Chionitae and Gelani and
now (spring 358) in a letter to the Emperor demanded the restoration of
Mesopotamia and Armenia; in case of refusal he threatened military action in
the following year. Constantius proudly rejected the shameful proposal, but
sent two successive embassies to Persia in the hope of concluding an honorable
peace. The effort was fruitless. Court intrigue deprived Ursicinus, Rome's
one really capable general in the East, of the supreme command, and in spite of
the prayers of the provincials he was succeeded by Sabinianus, who in his
obscure old age was distinguished only by his wealth, inefficiency and
credulous piety. During the entire course of the war inactivity was the one
prominent feature of his generalship. On the outbreak of hostilities in 359 the
Persians adopted a new plan of campaign. A rich Syrian, Antoninus by name, who
had served on the staff of the general commanding in Mesopotamia, was
threatened by powerful enemies with ruin. Having compiled from official sources
full information alike as to Rome's available ammunition and stores and the
number of her troops he fled with his family to the court of Sapor; here,
welcomed and trusted, he counseled immediate action: men had been withdrawn
from the East for the campaigns on the Danube, let the King no longer be
content with frontier forays, let him without warning strike for the rich
province of Syria unravaged since the days of Gallienus! The deserter's advice
was adopted by the Persians. On the advance of their army, however, the Romans,
withdrawing from Charrae and the open country-side burned down all vegetation
over the whole of northern Mesopotamia. This devastation and the swollen stream
of the Euphrates forced the Persians to strike northward through Sophene; Sapor
crossed the river higher in its course and marched towards Amida. The city
refused to surrender, and the death of the son of Grumbates, king of the
Chionitae, provoked Sapor to abandon his attack on Syria and to press the
siege. Six legions formed the standing garrison, a force which probably
numbered some 6000 men in all. But at the time of the Persian advance the
country-folk had all assembled for the yearly market, and when the peasantry
fled for refuge within the city walls Amida was densely overcrowded. None
however dreamed of surrender; Ammianus, one of the besieged, has left us a
vivid account of those heroic seventy-three days. In the end the city fell (6
Oct.) and its inhabitants' were either slain or carried into captivity. Winter
was now approaching and Sapor was forced to return to Persia with the loss of
30,000 men.
Julian and Constantius. 360-361
The sacrifice of Amida had saved the eastern provinces of the Roman
Empire, but the fall of the city also convinced Constantius that more troops
were needed if Rome was to withstand the enemy. Accordingly the Emperor sent by
the tribune Decentius his momentous order that the auxiliary troops, the Aeruli
Batavi Celtae and Petulantes, should leave Gaul forthwith, and with them 300
men from each of the remaining Gallic regiments. The demand reached Julian in
Paris where he was spending the winter (January? 360); for him the serious
feature of the despatch was that the execution of the Emperor's command was
entrusted to Lupicinus and Gintonius, while Julian himself was ignored. The
transference of the troops was probably an imperial necessity, but this could
not justify the form of the Emperor's despatch. The unrelenting malice of the
courtiers had carried the day; Constantius seems to have a lost confidence in
his Caesar. At first Julian thought to lay down his office; then he temporized:
he professed that obedience to the Emperor would imperil the safety of the
province, he raised the objection that the barbarians had enlisted on the
understanding that they should never be called upon to serve beyond the Alps,
Lupicinus was in Britain fighting the Picts and Scots, while Florentius, to
whose influence rumor ascribed the Emperor's action, was absent in Vienne.
Julian summoned him to Paris to give his advice, but the praefect pleaded the
urgency of the supervision of the corn supply and remained where he was. While
Julian played a waiting game, a timely broadsheet was found in the camp of the
Celtae and Petulantes. The anonymous author complained that the soldiers were
being dragged none knew whither, leaving their families to be captured by the
Alemanni. The partisans of Constantius saw the danger; should Julian still
delay, they insisted, he would but justify the Emperor's suspicions. His hand
was forced; he wrote a letter to Constantius, ordered the soldiers to leave their
winter quarters and gave permission for their families to accompany them;
Sintula, the Caesar's tribune of the stable, at once set out for the East with
a picked body of Gentiles and Scutarii. Unwisely, as events proved, the court
party demanded that the troops should march through Paris: there, they thought,
any disaffection could be repressed. Julian met the men outside the city and
spoke them fair, their officers he invited to a banquet in the evening. But
when the guests had returned to their quarters, there suddenly arose in the
camp a passionate shout, and crowding tumultuously to the palace the soldiers
surrounded its walls, raising the fateful acclamation, "Julianus
Augustus." Without the army clamored, within his room its leader wrestled
with the gods until the dawn, and with the break of a new day he was assured of
Heaven's blessing. When he came forth to face his men he might attempt to
dissuade them, but he knew that he would bow to their will. Raised upon a
shield and crowned with a standard bearer's torque, the Caesar returned to
his palace an Emperor. But now that the
irrevocable step was taken, his resolution seemed to have failed, and he
remained in retirement — perhaps for some days. The adherents of Constantius
took heart and a group of conspirators plotted against Julian's life. But the
secret was not kept, and the soldiers once more encircled the palace and would
not be contented until they had seen their Emperor alive and well. From this
moment Julian stifled his scruples and accepted accomplished fact. After the
flight of Decentius and Florentius he dispatched Eutherius and his magister officiorum Pentadius as
ambassadors to Constantius, while in his letter he proposed the terms which he
was prepared to make the basis of a compromise. He would send to the East
troops raised from the dediticii and
the Germans settled on the left bank of the Rhine — to withdraw the Gallic
troops would be, he professed, to endanger the safety of the province — while
Constantius should allow him to appoint his own officials, both military and
civil, save only that the nomination of the praetorian praefect should rest
with the elder Augustus, whose superior authority Julian avowed himself willing
to acknowledge. When the news from Paris reached Caesarea, Constantius
hesitated: should he march forthwith against his rebellious Caesar and desert
the East while the Persians were threatening to renew the attack of the
previous year, or should he subordinate his personal quarrel to the interests
of the State? Loyalty to his conception of an Emperor's duty carried the day
and he advanced to Edessa. The fact that the Persians in this year were able to
recover Singara, once more fallen into Roman hands, and to capture and garrison
Bezabde, a fortress on the Tigris in Zabdicene, while the Emperor remained
perforce inactive, serves to show how very earnest was his need of troops. Even
the attempt to recover Bezabde in the autumn was unsuccessful.
Meanwhile Constantius, ignoring Julian's proposals, made several
nominations to high officers in the West, and dispatched Leonas to bid the
rebel lay aside the purple with which a turbulent soldiery had invested him.
The letter, when read to the troops, served but to inflame their enthusiasm for
their general, and Leonas fled for his life. But Julian still hoped that un
understanding between himself and Constantius was even now not impossible. To
save his army from inaction he led them — not towards the East, but against the
Attuarian Franks on the lower Rhine. The barbarians, unwarned of the Roman
approach, were easily defeated and peace was granted on their submission. The
campaign lasted three months, and thence by Basel and Besancon Julian returned
to winter at Vienne, for Paris, his beloved Lutetia, lay at too great a
distance from Asia. Letters were still passing between himself and Constantius,
but his task lay clear before him: he
must be forearmed alike for aggression and defense. By a display of power he
sought to wrest from his cousin recognition and acknowledgment, while, with his
troops about him, he could at least sustain his cause and escape the shame of
his brother's fate. Recruits from the barbarian tribes swelled his forces, and
large sums of money were raised for the coming campaign. In the spring of 361
Julian by the treacherous capture and banishment of Vadomar removed all fears
of an invasion by the Alemanni, and about the month of July set out from Basel
for the East. By this step he took the aggressive and himself finally broke off
the negotiations; this was avowed by his appointment of a praefect of Gaul in
place of Nebridius, the nominee of Constantius, who had refused to take the
oath of allegiance to Julian. Germanianus temporarily performed the praefect's
duties but retired in favour of Sallust, while Nevitta was created magister armorum and Jovius quaestor.
As soon as he was freed from the Persian War, Constantius had thought to
hunt down his usurping Caesar and capture his prey while Julian was still in
Gaul; he had set guards about the frontiers and had stored corn on the Lake of
Constance and in the neighborhood of the Cottian Alps. Julian determined that
he would not wait to be surrounded, but would strike the first blow, while the
greater part of the army of Illyricum was still in Asia. He argued that present
daring might deliver Sirmium into his hands, that thereupon he could seize the
Pass of Succi, and thus be master of the road to the West. Jovius and Jovinus
were ordered to advance at full speed through North Italy, in command, it would
appear, of a squadron of cavalry. They would thus surprise the inhabitants into
submission, while fear of the main army, which would follow more slowly, might
overawe opposition. Nevitta he commanded to make his way through Rhaetia Mediterranea, while he himself
left Basel with but a small escort and struck direct through the Black Forest
for the Danube. Here he seized the vessels of the river fleet, and at once
embarked his men. Without rest or intermission Julian continued the voyage down
the river, and reached Bononia on the eleventh day. Under the cover of night,
Dagalaiphus with some picked followers was dispatched to Sirmium. At dawn his
troop was demanding admission in the Emperor's name; only when too late was the
discovery made that the Emperor was not Constantius. The general Lucilianus,
who had already begun the leisurely concentration of his men for an advance
into Gaul, was rudely aroused from sleep and hurried away to Bononia. The gates
of Sirmium, the northern capital of the Empire, were opened and the inhabitants
poured forth to greet the victor of Strasburg. Two days only did Julian spend
in the city, then marched to Succi, left Nevitta to guard the pass and retired
to Naissus, where he spent the winter awaiting the arrival of his army.
Julian's march from Gaul meant the final breach with Constantius; present task
was to justify his usurpation to the world. Thus the imperial pamphleteer was
born. One apologia followed another, now addressed to the senate, now to Athens
as representing the historic centre of Hellenism, now to some city whose
allegiance Julian sought to win. But he overshot the mark; the painting of the
character of Constantius men felt to be a caricature and the scandalous
portraiture unworthy of one who owed his advancement to his cousin's favors.
Meanwhile Julian strained every nerve to raise more troops for the coming campaign. He was not yet strong enough
to advance into Thrace to meet the forces under Count Martianus, and the news
from the West forced him to realize how critical his position might become.
Death and Character of
Constantius. 361
Two legions and a cohort stationed in Sirmium he did not dare to trust
and so gave the command that they should march to Gaul to take the place of
those regiments which formed part of his own army. On the long journey the
men's discontent grew to mutiny: refusing to advance, they occupied Aquileia
and were supported by the inhabitants who had remained at heart loyal to
Constantius. The danger was very real; the insurgents might form a nucleus of
disaffection in Italy and thus imperil Julian's retreat. He gave immediate
orders to Jovinus to return and to employ in the siege of Aquileia the whole of
the main force now advancing through Italy.
In the East Constantius had marched to Edessa (spring 361), where he
awaited information as to the plans of Sapor. It was only on the news of
Julian's capture of the pass of Succi that he felt that the war in the West
could be no longer postponed. At the same time Constantius learned of Sapor's
retreat, since the auspices forbade the passage of the Tigris. The Roman army
assembled at Hierapolis greeted the Emperor's harangue with enthusiasm, Arbitio
was dispatched in advance to bar Julian's progress through Thrace, and when
Constantius had made provision in Antioch for the government of the East he
started in person against the usurper. Fever however attacked him in Tarsus and
his illness was rendered still more serious by the violent storms of late
autumn. At Mopsucrenae, in Cilicia, he died on 3 November 361 at the age of 44.
Ammianus Marcellinus has given us a definitive sketch of the character of
Constantius. His faults are clear as day. To guard the Emperor from treason,
Diocletian had made the throne unapproachable, but this severance of sovereign
and people drove the ruler back on the narrow circle of his ministers. They
were at once his informants and his advisers: their lord learned only that
which they deemed it well for him to know. The Emperor was led by his favorites;
Constantius possessed considerable influence, writes Ammianus in bitter irony,
with his eunuch chamberlain Eusebius. The insinuations of courtiers ultimately
sowed mistrust between his Caesar Julian and himself. They played upon the suspicious
nature of the Emperor, their whispers of treason fired him to senseless
ferocity, and the services of brave men were lost to the Empire lest their
popularity should endanger the monarch's peace. Even loyal subjects grew to
doubt whether the Emperor's safety were worth its fearful price. To maintain
the extravagant pomp of his rapacious ministers and followers, the provinces labored
under an overwhelming weight of taxes and impositions which were exacted with
merciless severity, while the public post was ruined by the constant journeying
of bishops from one council to another. Yet though these dark features of the
reign of Constantius are undeniable, below his inhuman repression of those who
had fallen under the suspicion of treason lay a deep conviction of the
solemnity of the trust which had been handed down to him from father and
grandfather. For Constantius the consciousness that he was representative by
the grace of Heaven of a hereditary dynasty carried with it its obligation, and
the task of maintaining the greatness of Rome was subtly confused with the duty
of self-preservation, since a usurper's reign would never be hallowed by the
seal of a legitimate succession. With a sense of this responsibility
Constantius always sought to appoint only tried men to important offices in the
State, he consistently exalted the civil element at the expense of the military
and rigidly maintained the separation between the two services which had been
one of the leading principles of Diocletian's reforms. Sober and temperate, he
possessed that power of physical endurance which was shared by so many of his
house. In his early years he served as lieutenant to his father alike in East
and West and gained a wide experience of men and cities. Now on this frontier,
now on that, he was constantly engaged in the Empire's defense; a soldier by
necessity and no born general, he was twice hailed by his men with the title of
Sarmaticus, and in the usurpations of Magnentius and of Julian he refused to
hazard the safety of the provinces and loyally sacrificed all personal interests in face of the higher claims of his duty to the Roman world. He was
naturally cold and self-contained; he fails to awake our affection or our
enthusiasm, but we can hardly withhold our tribute of respect. He bore his
burden of Empire with high seriousness; men were conscious in his presence of
an overmastering dignity and of a majesty which inspired them with something
akin to awe.
By the death of Constantius the Empire was happily freed from the horrors
of another civil war: Julian was clearly marked out to be his cousin's
successor, and the decision of the army did not admit of doubt; Eusebius and
the Court party were forced to abandon any idea of putting forward another
claimant to the throne. Two officers, Theolaifus and Aligildus, bore the news
to Julian; fortune had intervened to favor his rash adventure, and he at once
advanced through Thrace by Philippopolis to Constantinople. Agilo was dispatched
to Aquileia and at length the besieged were convinced of the Emperor's death
and thereupon their stubborn resistance came to an end. Nigrinus, the
ringleader, and two other men were put to death, but soldiers and citizens were fully pardoned. When on 11
December 361 Julian, still but 31 years old, entered as sole Emperor his
eastern capital, all eyes were turned in wondering amazement on the youthful
hero, and for the rest of his life upon him alone was fixed the gaze of Roman
historians; wherever Julian is not, there we are left in darkness, of the West
for example we know next to nothing. The history of Julian's reign becomes
perforce the biography of the Emperor. In that biography three elements are
all-important: Julian's passionate determination to restore the Pagan worship;
his earnest desire that men should see a new Marcus Aurelius upon the throne,
and that abuses and maladministration should hide their heads ashamed before an
Emperor who was also a philosopher, and, in the last place, his tragic ambition
to emulate the achievements of Alexander the Great and by a crushing blow to
assert over Persia the pre-eminence of Rome.
Innumerable have been the explanations which men have offered for the
apostasy of Julian. They have pointed to his Arian teachers, have suggested
that Christianity was hateful to him as the religion of Constantius whom he
regarded as his father's murderer, while rationalists have paradoxically
claimed that the Emperor's reason refused to accept the miraculous origin and
the subtle theologies of the faith. It would be truer to say that Christianity
was not miraculous enough — was too rational for the mystic and enthusiast. The
religion which had as its central object of adoration the cult of a dead man
was to him human, all too human: his vague longings after some vast imaginative
conception of the universe felt themselves cabined and confined in the creeds
of Christianity. With a Roman's pride and a Roman's loyalty to the past as he
conceived it, the upstart faith of despised Galilaean peasants aroused at one
moment his scorn, at another his pity: a Greek by education and literary
sympathies, the Christian Bible was but a faint and distorted reflex of the
masterpieces which had comforted his solitary youth: a mystic who felt the
wonder of the expanse of the heavens, with a strain in his nature to which the
ritual excesses of the Orient appealed with irresistible fascination, it was
easy for him to adopt the speculations of Neoplatonism and to fall a victim to
the thaumaturgy of Maximus. The causes of Julian's apostasy lie deep-rooted in
the apostate's inmost being.
Reform. 361-362
His first acts declared his policy: he ordered the temples to be opened
and the public sacrifices to be revived; but the Christians were to be free to
worship, for Julian had learned the lesson of the failure of previous
persecutions, and by imperial order all the Catholic bishops banished under
Constantius were permitted to return. Those privileges, however, which the
State had granted to the churches were now to be withdrawn: lands and temples
which had belonged to the older religion were to be surrendered to their
owners, the Christian clergy were no longer to claim exemption from the common
liability to taxation or from duties owed to the municipal senates. With
Julian's accession Christianity had ceased to be the favored religion, and it
was therefore contended that reason demanded alike restitution and equality
before the law. Meanwhile a Court was sitting at Chalcedon to try the partisans
of Constantius. Its nominal president was Sallust (probably Julian's friend
when in Gaul), but the commission was in reality controlled by Arbitio, an
unprincipled creature of Constantius. Julian may perhaps have intended to show
impartiality by such a choice, but as a result justice was travestied, and
though public opinion approved of the deaths of Paul the notary and of
Apodemius, who were principally responsible for the excesses committed in the
treason trials of the late reign, and may have welcomed the fate of the
all-powerful chamberlain Eusebius, men were horror-struck at the execution of
Ursulus, who as treasurer in Gaul had loyally supported Julian when
Caesar; his unpopularity with the troops was indeed his only crime, and
the Emperor did not mend his error by raising the weak plea that he had been
kept in ignorance of the sentence. Julian's next step was the summary
dismissal of the horde of minor
officials of the palace who had served to make the Court circle under
Constantius a very hot-bed of vice and corruption. The purge was sudden and
indiscriminate; it was the act of a young man in a hurry. The feverish ardor of
the Emperor's reforming energy swept before it alike the innocent and the
guilty. Such impatience appeared unworthy of a philosopher, and so far from
awaking gratitude in his subjects served rather to arouse discontent and alarm.
Julian at Antioch. 363
But already Julian was burning to undertake his great expedition against
Persia, and refused to listen to counselors who suggested the folly of
aggression now that Sapor was no longer pressing the attack. The Emperor's
preparations could best be made in Antioch and here he arrived probably in late
July 363. On the way he had made a détour to Visit Pessinus and Ancyra; the lukewarm devotion of Galatia had discouraged
him, but in Antioch where lay the sanctuary of Daphne he looked for earnest support
in his crusade for the moral regeneration of Paganism. The Crown of the East
(as Ammianus styles his native city) welcomed the Emperor with open arms, but
the enthusiasm was short-lived. The populace gay, factious, pleasure-loving,
looked for spectacles and the pomp of a Court; Julian's heart was set on a
civil and religious reformation. He longed for amendment in law and
administration, above all for a remodeling of the old cult and the winning of
converts to the cause of the gods. He himself was to be the head of the new
state church of Paganism; the hierarchy of the Christians was to be adopted —
the country priests subordinated to the high priest of the province, the high
priest to be responsible to the Emperor, the pontifex maximus. A new spirit was to inspire the Pagan clergy; the
priest himself was to be no longer a mere performer of public rites, let him
take up the work of preacher, expound the deeper sense which underlay the old
mythology and be at once shepherd of souls and an ensample to his flock in holy
living. What Maximin Daza had attempted to achieve in ruder fashion by forged
acts of Pilate, Julian's writings against the Galilaeans should effect: as
Maximin had bidden cities ask what they would of his royal bounty, did they but
petition that the Christians might be removed from their midst, so Julian was
ready to assist and favour towns which were loyal to the old faith. Maximin had
created a new priesthood recruited from men who had won distinction in public
careers: his dream had been to fashion an organization which might successfully
withstand the Christian clergy; here too Julian was his disciple. When pest and
famine had desolated the Roman East in Maximin's days, the helpfulness and
liberality of Christians towards the starving and the plague-stricken had
forced men to confess that true piety and religion had made their home with the
persecuted heretics: it was Julian's will that Paganism should boast its public
charity and that an all-embracing service of humanity should be reasserted as a
vital part of the ancient creed. If only the worshippers of the gods of Hellas
were once quickened with a spiritual enthusiasm, the lost ground would be
recovered. It was indeed to this call that Paganism could not respond. There
were men who clung to the old belief, but theirs was no longer a victorious
faith, for the fire had died upon the altar. Resignation to Christian
intolerance was bitter, but the passion which inspires martyrs was nowhere to
be found. Julian made converts — the Christian writers mournfully testify to
their numbers —but he made them by imperial gold, by promises of advancement or
fear of dismissal. They were not the stuff of which missionaries could be fashioned.
The citizens were disappointed of their pageants, while the royal enthusiast
found his hopes to be illusions. Mutual embitterment was the natural result.
Julian was never a persecutor in the accepted meaning of that word: it was the
most constant complaint of the Christians that the Emperor denied them the
glory of martyrdom, but Pagan mobs knew that the Emperor would not be quick to
punish violence inflicted on the Galilaeans: when the Alexandrians brutally
murdered their tyrannous bishop, George of Cappadocia, they escaped with an
admonition; when Julian wrote to his subjects of Bostra, it was to suggest that
their bishop might be hunted from the town. If Pessinus was to receive a boon
from the Emperor, his counsel was that all her inhabitants should become
worshippers of the Great Mother; if Nisibis needed protection from Persia, it
would only be granted on condition that she changed her faith. In the schools
throughout the Empire Christians were expounding the works of the great Greek
masters; from their earliest years children were taught to scorn the legends which
to Julian were rich with spiritual meaning. He that would teach the scriptures
must believe in them, and given the Emperor's zealous faith, it was but
reasonable that he should prohibit Christians from teaching the classic
literature which was his Bible. If Ammianus criticized the edict severely, it
was because he did not share the Emperor's belief; the historian was a tolerant
monotheist, Julian an ardent worshipper of the gods. The Emperor's conservatism
and love of sacrifice alike were stirred by the records of the Jews. A people
who in the midst of adversity had clung with a passionate devotion to the
adoration of the God of their fathers deserved well at his hands. Christian
renegades should see the glories of a restored temple which might stand as an
enduring monument of his reign. The architect Alypius planned the work, but it
was never completed. The earth at this time was troubled by strange upheavals,
earthquakes, and ocean waves, and by some such phenomenon Jerusalem would seem
to have been visited; perhaps during the excavations a well of naphtha was
ignited. We only know that Christians, who saw in Julian's plan a defiance of
prophecy, proclaimed a miracle, and that the Emperor did not live to prove them
mistaken.
The Persian Expedition. 363
Thus in Antioch the relations between the sovereign and his people were
growing woefully strained. Julian removed the bones of Saint Babylas from the
precinct of Daphne and soon after the temple was burned to the ground.
Suspicion fell upon the Christians and their great church was closed. A
scarcity of provisions made itself felt in the city and Julian fixed a maximum
price and brought corn from Hierapolis and elsewhere, and sold it at reduced
rates. It was bought up by the merchants, and the efforts to coerce the senate
failed. The populace ridiculed an Emperor whose aims and character they did not
understand. The philosopher would not stoop to violence but the man in Julian
could not hold his peace. The Emperor descended from the awful isolation which
Diocletian had imposed on his successors; he challenged the satirists to a duel
of wits and published the Misopogon. It was to sacrifice his vantage-ground.
The chosen of Heaven had become the jest of the mob, and Julian's pride could
have drained no bitterer cup. When he left the city for Persia, he had
determined to fix his court, upon his return, at Tarsus, and neither the
entreaties of Libanius nor the tardy repentance of Antioch availed to move him
from his purpose
Here but the briefest outline can be given of the oft-told tale of
Julian's Persian expedition. Before it criticism sinks powerless, for it is a
wonder-story and we cannot solve its riddle. The leader perished and the rest
is silence: with him was lost the secret of his hopes. Julian left Antioch on 5
March 363 and on the 9th reached Hierapolis. Here the army had been
concentrated and four days later the Emperor advanced at its head, crossed the
Euphrates and passing through Batnae halted at Charrae. The name must have
awakened gloomy memories and the Emperor's mind was troubled with premonitions
of disaster; men said that he had bidden his kinsman Procopius mount the throne
should he himself fall in the campaign. A troop of Persian horse had just burst
plundering across the frontier and returned laden with booty; this event led
Julian to disclose his plan of campaign. Corn had been stored along the road
towards the Tigris, in order to create an impression that he had chosen that
line for his advance; in fact the Emperor had determined to follow the
Euphrates and strike for Ctesiphon. He would thus be supported by his fleet
bearing supplies and engines of war. Procopius and Sebastianus he entrusted
with 30,000 troops — almost half his army—and directed them to march towards
the Tigris. They were for the present to act only on the defensive, shielding
the eastern provinces from invasion and guarding his own forces from any
Persian attack from the north. When he himself was once at grips with Persia in
the heart of the enemy's territory, Sapor would be forced to concentrate his
armies, and then, the presence of Julian's generals being no longer necessary
to protect Mesopotamia, should a favourable opportunity offer, they were to act
in concert with Arsaces, ravage Chiliocomum, a fertile district of Media, and
advance through Corduene and Moxoene to join him in Assyria. That meeting never
took place: from whatever reason Procopius and Sebastianus never left
Mesopotamia. Julian reviewed the united forces — 65,000 men — and then turned
south following the course of the Belias (Belecha) until he reached Callinicum
(Ar-Rakka) on 27 March.
Ctesiphon
Another day's march brought him to the Euphrates, and here he met the
fleet under the command of the tribune Constantianus and the Count Lucillianus.
Fifty warships, an equal number of boats designed to form pontoon bridges, and
a thousand transports—the Roman armada seemed to an eyewitness fitly planned to
match the magnificent stream on which it floated. Another 98 miles brought the
army to Diocletian's bulwark fortress of Circesium (Karkisiya). Here the Aboras
(Khabfir) formed the frontier line; Julian harangued the troops, then crossed
the river by a bridge of boats and began his march through Persian territory.
In spite of omens and disregarding the gloomy auguries of the Etruscan
soothsayers, the Emperor set his face for Ctesiphon; he would storm high Heaven
by violence and bend the gods to his will. From its formation the invading army
was made to appear a countless host, for their marching column extended over
some ten miles, while neither the fleet nor the land forces were suffered to
lose touch with each other. Some of the enemy's forts capitulated, the
inhabitants of Anatha being transported to Chalcis in Syria, some were found
deserted, while the garrisons of others refusing to surrender professed
themselves willing to abide by the issue of the war. Julian was content to
accept these terms and continued his unresting advance. Historians have blamed
this rash confidence, whereby he endangered his own retreat. It is however to
be remembered that a siege in the fourth century might mean a delay of many
weeks, that the Emperor's project was clearly to dismay Persia by the rapidity
of his onset and that it would seem probable that his plan of campaign had been
from the first to return by the Tigris and not by the Euphrates. The Persians
had intended a year or two before to leave walled cities untouched and strike
for Syria, Julian in his turn refused to waste precious time in investing the
enemy's strongholds, but would deal a blow against the capital itself. The
march was attended with many difficulties: a storm swept down upon the camp,
the swollen river burst its dams and many transports were sunk, the passage of
the Narraga was only forced by a successful attack on the Persian rear which
compelled them to evacuate their position in confusion, a mutinous and
discontented spirit was shown by the Roman troops and the Emperor was forced to
exert his personal influence and authority before discipline was restored;
finally the Persians raised all the sluices and, freeing the waters, turned the
country which lay before the army into a widespread marsh. Difficulties however
vanished before the resource and promptitude of the Emperor, and the advance
guard under Victor brought him news that the country up to the walls of
Ctesiphon was clear of the enemy. On the fall of the strong fortress of
Maiozamalcha, the fleet followed the Naharmalcha (the great canal which united
Euphrates and Tigris), while the army kept pace with it on land. The
Naharmalcha, however, flows into the Tigris three miles below Ctesiphon, and thus
the Emperor would have been forced to propel his ships up stream in his attack
on the capital. The difficulty was overcome by clearing the disused Canal of
Trajan, down which the fleet emerged into the Tigris to the north of Ctesiphon.
From the triangle thus formed by the Naharmalcha, the Tigris, and the canal of
Trajan, Julian undertook the capture of the left bank of the river. Protected
by a palisade, the Persians offered a stubborn resistance to the Roman night
attack. The five ships first dispatched were repulsed and set on fire; on the
moment "it is the signal that our men hold the bank," cried the
Emperor, and the whole fleet dashed to their comrades' support. Julian's
inspiration won a field of battle for the Romans. Underneath a scorching sun
the armies fought until the Persians — elephants, cavalry, and foot — were
fleeing pell-mell for the shelter of the city walls; their dead numbered some
2500. Had the pursuit been pressed, Ctesiphon might perhaps have been won that
day, but plunder and booty held the victors fast. Should the capital be
besieged or the march against Sapor begun?
Death of Julian. 363
It would almost seem that Julian himself wavered irresolute, while
precious days were lost. Secret proposals of peace led him to underestimate the
enemy's strength, while men, playing the part of deserters, offered to lead him
through fertile districts against the main Persian army. Should he weary his
forces and damp the spirit of his men by an arduous siege, he might not only be
cut off from the reinforcements under Procopius and Sebastianus, but might find
himself caught between two fires—Sapor's advance and the resistance of the
garrison. To conclude a peace were unworthy of one who took Alexander for his
model better with his victorious troops to strike a final and conclusive blow,
and possibly before the encounter effect a junction with the northern army.
Crews numerous enough to propel his fleet against the stream he could not
spare, and if he were to meet Sapor, he might be drawn too far from the river
to act in concert with his ships: they must not fall into the enemy's hands,
and therefore they must be burned. The resolution was taken and regretted too
late; twelve small boats alone were rescued from the flames. Julian's plans
miscarried, for the army of the north remained inactive, perhaps through the
mutual jealousy of its commanders, and Arsaces withheld his support from the
foe of Sapor. The Persians burned their fields before his advance, and the rich
countryside which traitorous guides had promised became a wilderness of ash
and smoke. Orders were given for a retreat to Corduene; amidst sweltering heat,
with dwindling stores, the Romans beheld to their dismay the cloud of dust upon
the horizon which heralded Sapor's approach. At dawn the heavy-armed troops of
Persia were close at hand and only after many engagements were beaten off with
loss. After a halt of two days at Hucumbra, where a supply of provisions was
discovered, the army advanced over country which had been devastated by fire,
while the troops were constantly harassed by sudden onsets. At Maranga the
Persians were once more reinforced; two of the king's sons arrived at the head
of an elephant column and squadrons of mailed cavalry. Julian drew up his
forces in semicircular formation to meet the new danger; a rapid charge
disconcerted the Persian archers, and in the hand-to-hand struggle which
followed the enemy suffered severely. Lack of provisions, however, tortured the
Roman army during the three days' truce which ensued. When the march was
resumed Julian learned of an attack upon his rear. Unarmed he galloped to the
threatened point, but was recalled to the defense of the vanguard. At the same
time the elephants and cavalry had burst upon the centre, but were already in
flight when a horseman's spear grazed the Emperor's arm and pierced his ribs.
None knew whence the weapon came, though rumor ran that a Christian fanatic had
assassinated his general, while others said that a tribesman of the Taieni had
dealt the fatal blow. In vain Julian essayed to return to the field of battle;
his soldiers magnificently avenged their Emperor, but he could not share their
victory. Within his tent he calmly reviewed the past and uncomplaining yielded
his life into the keeping of the eternal Godhead. Death in mercy claimed
Julian. The impatient reformer and champion of a creed outworn might have
become the embittered persecutor. Rightly or wrongly after generations would
know him as the great apostate, but he was spared the shame of being numbered
among the tyrants. He was born out of due time and therein lay the tragedy of
his troubled existence; for long years he dared not discover the passionate
desires which lay nearest his heart, and when at length he could give them
expression, there were few or none fully to understand or sympathize. His work
died with him, and soon, like a little cloud blown by the wind, left not a
trace behind.
The Shameful Peace
The next day at early dawn the heads of the army and the principal
officers assembled to choose an Emperor. Partisans of Julian struggled with
followers of Constantius, the armies of the West schemed against the nominee of
the legions of the East, Christianity and Paganism each sought its own
champion. All were however prepared to sink their differences in favor of
Sallust, but when he pleaded ill-health and advanced age, a small but
tumultuous faction carried the election of Jovian, the captain of the imperial
guard. Down the long line of troops ran the Emperor's name, and some thought
from the sound half-heard that Julian was restored to them. They were
undeceived at the sight of the meagre purple robe which hardly served to cover
the vast height and bent shoulders of their new ruler. Chosen as a
whole-hearted adherent of Christianity, Jovian was by nature genial and
jocular, a gourmand and lover of wine and women — a man of kindly disposition
and very moderate education. The army by its choice had foredoomed itself to dishonor;
its excuse, pleads Ammianus, lay in the extreme urgency of the crisis. The
Persians, learning of Julian's death and of the incapacity of his successor,
pressed hard upon the retreating Romans; charges of the enemy's elephants broke
the ranks of the legionaries while on the march, and when the army halted their
entrenched camp was constantly attacked. Saracen horsemen took their revenge
for Julian's refusal to give them their customary pay by joining in these
unceasing assaults. By way of Sumere, Charcha, and Dara the army retired, and
then for four whole days the enemy harassed the rear-guard, always declining an
engagement when the Romans turned at bay. The troops clamored to be allowed to
cross the Tigris: on the further bank they would find provisions and fewer
foes, but the generals feared the dangers of the swollen stream. Another two
days passed — days of gnawing hunger and scorching heat. At last Sapor sent
Surenas with proposals of peace. The king knew that Roman forces still remained
in Mesopotamia and that new regiments could easily be raised in the Eastern
provinces: desperate men will sell their lives dearly and diplomacy might win a
less costly victory than the sword. Four days the negotiations continued, and
then when suspense had become intolerable the Thirty Years' Peace was signed.
All but one of the five satrapies which Rome under Diocletian had wrested from
Persia were to be restored, Nisibis and Singara were to be surrendered, while
the Romans were no longer to interfere in the internal affairs of Armenia.
"We ought to have fought ten times over", cries the soldier Ammian,
"rather than to have granted such terms as these!" But Jovian desired
(by what means it mattered not) to retain a force which should secure him against
rivals — Was not Procopius who, men said, had been marked out by Julian as his
successor, at the head of an army in Mesopotamia? Thus the shameful bargain was
struck, and the miserable retreat continued. To the horrible privations of the
march were added Persian treachery and the bitter hostility of the Saracen
tribesmen. At Thilsaphata the troops under Sebastianus and Procopius joined the
army, and at length Nisibis was reached, the fortress which had been Rome's
bulwark in the East since the days of Mithridates. The citizens prayed with
tears that they might be allowed single-handed to defend the walls against the
might of Persia; but Jovian was too good a Christian to break his faith with
Sapor, and Bineses, a Persian noble, occupied the city in the name of his
master. Procopius, who had been content to acknowledge Jovian, now bore the
corpse of Julian to Tarsus for burial, and then, his mission accomplished,
prudently disappeared. The army in Gaul accepted the choice of their eastern
comrades, but Jovian's success was short-lived. In the depth of winter he
hurried from Antioch towards Constantinople and with his infant son,
Varronianus, assumed the consulship at Ancyra. At Dadastana he was found dead
in his bedroom (16 Feb. 364), suffocated some said by the fumes of a charcoal
stove.
Many versions of his death were current, but apparently no contemporary
suspected other than natural causes. On his accession the Pagan party had
looked for persecution, the Christians for the hour of their retaliation. But
though the Christian faith was restored as the religion of the Empire, Jovian's
wisdom or good nature triumphed and he issued an edict of toleration: he had
thereby anticipated the policy of his successor.