Priscus: I arrived not long after the fire. My season of teaching ended with the old year, and I travelled from Constantinople to Antioch in eight days, which is excellent time. Julian so completely reformed the state transportation system that travel was a pleasure. Not a bishop in sight, though there were several newly appointed high priests in the carriages and I confess I began to wonder if they were any improvement over the Christians. I suspect that had Julian lived, matters would have been just as they were under Constantius, only instead of being bored by quarrels about the nature of the trinity we would have had to listen to disputes about the nature of Zeus’s sex life… rather an improvement, come to think of it, but essentially the same thing.
I found Julian much changed. You of course were seeing a great deal of him then, but since you had not known him before, you could not have realized how nervous and ill-humoured he had become. The burning of the temple was not only a sacrilege in his eyes, it was a direct affront to his sovereignty. He always did have trouble keeping in balance his two roles of philosopher and king. The one might forgive and mitigate, but the other must be served, if necessary with blood.
My first day in Antioch, Julian insisted I go with him to the theatre. “At least we can talk if the play is too foolish.” Now it happens that I very much like comedy, particularly low farces. No joke is so old that it cannot delight me, if only by its dear familiarity. The comedy that night was The Frogs by Aristophanes. Julian hated it, even the rather good jokes about literary style which ought to have amused him. Julian was not without humour. He had a lively response to bores; some gift of mimicry; and he enjoyed laughing. But he was also conscious every moment of his sacred mission, and this tended to put him on guard against any form of wit which might turn against himself; heroes cannot survive mockery and Julian was a true hero, perhaps the last our race shall put forth.
I was delighted to be in Antioch that day. I enjoy the languorous weather, the perfumed crowds, the wide streets… As you can gather, I like the luxurious and “depraved” ways of your city. If I had the money, I would be living there right now. How I envy you! I was in a fine mood when we arrived at the theatre. We all were. Even Julian was like his old self, talking rapidly, waving with good humour to the crowds that cheered him. But then from the cheaper seats came the ominous cry, “Augustus! Augustus!”
And a chant began, “Everything plentiful, everything dear!” This kept on for half an hour, the voices growing louder until it seemed as if everyone in the theatre was bellowing those words. At last Julian motioned to the commander of the household troops, and a hundred guards appeared so swiftly that they gave the impression of being part of the programme as they gathered about the Emperor with drawn swords. The chanting promptly ceased, and the play, rather dismally, began. The next day the food riots started, but then you, as quaestor, know far more about all this than I.
Libanius: One curious aspect of human society is that preventive measures are seldom taken to avert disaster, even when the exact nature of the approaching calamity is perfectly plain. In March when the rains did not fall, everyone knew that there would be a small harvest; by May, it was obvious that there would be a food shortage; by June, famine. But though we often discussed this in the senate—and the people in the markets talked of little else but the uncommon dryness of the season—no plans were made to buy grain from other countries. All of us knew what was going to happen, and no one did anything.
There is a grim constant in this matter which might be worth a philosopher’s while to investigate. It was Julian’s bad luck to come to Antioch just when the shortages began. But though he could in no way be blamed for either the dry weather or the city fathers’ lack of foresight, the Antiochenes (whose emblem ought to be the scapegoat) immediately attributed the famine to him.
They claimed that the quartering and provisioning of his considerable army had driven up prices and made food scarce. This was true in a few commodities but not in grain, the essential food: corn for the army was imported directly from Egypt. Yet the people of the city were eager to abuse Julian. Why?
Bishop Meletius had declared that Julian’s fate was decided when he removed the bones of St Babylas from Daphne. That strikes me as a rather special point of view. Meletius also maintains that the people of the city turned against him the day he shut down the cathedral. I doubt this. Some were shocked of course, but the Antiochenes are not devout Christians; they are not devout anything, except voluptuaries. Not wanting to blame themselves for the famine, they blamed Julian, who had made himself ridiculous in their eyes by his continual sacrifices and grandiose revivals of archaic ceremonies.
I confess that even at the time I felt Julian was overdoing it. On one day at Daphne, he sacrificed a thousand white birds, at heaven knows what expense! Then a hundred bulls were sacrificed to Zeus.
Later, four hundred cows to Cybele. That was a particularly scandalous occasion. In recent years the rites of Cybele have been private affairs, involving as they do many ceremonies which are outrageous to ordinary morality. Julian decided to make the ceremonial public. Everyone was shocked at the ritual scourging of a hundred youths by the priestesses. To make matters worse, the youths had agreed to take part in the ceremony not out of faith but simply to curry fayour with the Emperor, while the priestesses were almost all of them recent initiates. The result was unhappy. Several young men were seriously hurt and a number of priestesses fainted at the sight of so much blood. The ultimate rites were a confused obscenity.
But Julian grimly persisted, on the ground that no matter how alarming some of these rites may appear to us, each is a part of our race’s constant attempt to placate the gods. Every ancient ceremony has its own inner logic, and efficacy. The only fault I find with Julian is that he was in too great a hurry.
He wanted everything restored at once. We were to return to the age of Augustus in a matter of months.
Given years, I am sure he could have reestablished the old religions. The people hunger for them. The Christians do not offer enough, though I must say they are outrageously bold in the way they adapt our most sacred rituals and festivals to their own ends. A clear sign that their religion is a false one, improvised by man in time, rather than born naturally of eternity.
From the beginning, the Christians tried to allay man’s fear of death. Yet they have still not found a way to release that element in each of us which demands communion with the One. Our mysteries accomplish this, which is why they are the envy of the Christians and the enduring object of their spite.
Now I am perfectly willing to grant that the Christian way is one way to knowing. But it is not the only way, as they declare. If it were, why would they be so eager to borrow from us? What most disturbs me is their curious hopelessness about this life, and the undue emphasis they put on the next. Of course eternity is larger than the brief span of a man’s life, but to live entirely within the idea of eternity is limiting to the spirit and makes man wretched in his day-to-day existence, since his eye must always be fixed not on this lovely world but on that dark door through which he must one day pass. The Christians are almost as death-minded as the original Egyptians, and I have yet to meet one, even my old pupil and beloved friend Basil, who has ever got from his faith that sense of joy and release, of oneness with creation and delight in what has been created, that a man receives when he has gone through those days and nights at Eleusis. It is the meagreness of Christian feeling that disconcerts me, their rejection of this world in fayour of a next which is—to be tactful—not entirely certain. Finally, one must oppose them because of their intellectual arrogance, which seems to me often like madness. We are told that there is only one way, one revelation: theirs. Nowhere in their tirades and warnings can one find the
modesty or wisdom of a Plato, or that pristine world of flesh and spirit Homer sang of. From the beginning, curses and complaints have been the Christian style, inherited from the Jews, whose human and intellectual discipline is as admirable as their continuining bitterness is limiting and blighting. I see nothing good ever coming of this religious system no matter how much it absorbs our ancient customs and puts to use for its own ends Hellenic wit and logic. Yet I have no doubt now that the Christians will prevail. Julian was our last hope, and he went too soon. Something large and harmful has now come into the life of this old world. One recalls, stoically, the injunction of Sophocles:
“And ever shall this law hold good, nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse.”
It is also significant that this death cult should take hold just as the barbarians are gathering on our borders. It is fitting that if our world is to fall—and I am certain that it will—the heirs of those who had originally created this beautiful civilization and made great art should at the end be art-less and worship a dead man and disdain this life for an unknown eternity behind the dark door. But I have given way to my worst fault! Prolixity! I have delivered myself of a small oration when I should have kept to the task at hand, Julian in Antioch.
Not only did the people regard Julian’s continual round of sacrifice as wasteful and ridiculous; they were alarmed by the Gallic troops who used to attend every sacrifice, pretending to do honour to the gods but really waiting for the banquet of smoking meat which followed. The moment Julian left the temple, the soldiers would devour the sacrificed animals and guzzle wine until they became unconscious.
Whenever a drunken legionnaire was carried like a corpse through the streets, the people would say,
“The Emperor has been praying again.” This did Hellenism little good in the eyes of the Antiochenes, who are so adept at vice that they never get drunk, and have the greatest contempt for those who do.
The trials of those supposedly responsible for the burning of the temple of Apollo also turned the city against Julian. As quaestor, I looked into the matter perhaps more closely than anyone. Now Julian honestly thought that the Christians had set the fire, but for once they were (probably) innocent. I talked many years later to the so-called priest of Apollo and he told me what he had not told the Board of Inquiry.
On 22 October, shortly after Julian left the temple precinct, the philosopher Asclepiades arrived, hoping to see the Emperor. Finding him gone, Asclepiades went inside and placed as an offering a small silver statue of the goddess Caelestis at the feet of Apollo, just inside the wood railing. He also lit a number of tapers and arranged them about the statue. Then he left. That was at sundown. Just before midnight, sparks from the expiring candles set fire to the railing. The season was dry; the night windy; the cedar wood ancient. The temple burned. Now if this fool had only told Julian the truth before the arrests, nothing would have happened, but he was almost as afraid of the Hellenic Emperor as he was of the Christians.
The whole episode was sad. Fortunately, no lives were lost. The Christians suffered nothing more serious than the shutting down of the cathedral. Later a number of bishops came to Julian to complain that he was causing them great hardship, to which he replied with some humour, “But it is your duty to bear these ‘persecutions’ patiently. You must turn the other cheek, for that is the command of your God.”
Julian Augustus
Late in the autumn a large crowd appealed to me in a public place by chanting that though everything was plentiful, prices were far too high. This was a clear indictment of the wealthy class of Antioch, who will do anything to make money, even at the risk of starving their own people. Just seven years ago they had taken advantage of the same sort of situation, and the people had rebelled. Lives were lost, property
destroyed. One would have thought that the burghers might have learned something from such recent history; but they had not.
The day after the demonstration, I sent for the leading men of the city. Before the meeting, I was briefed at length by Count Felix. We sat in the empty council chamber, a pile of papers on a table between us. A bronze statue of Diocletian looked disdainfully down at us. This was very much the sort of problem he used to enioy wrestling with. I don’t.
“These figures, Augustus, show a century of corn prices as they fluctuate not only from year to year but month to month.” The count beamed with pleasure. He got from lists of numbers that same rapture others obtain from Plato or Homer. “I have evenas you will notice—made allowances for currency fluctuations. They are listed here.” He tapped one of the parchments, and looked at me sharply to make sure that I was paying attention. I always felt with Count Felix that I was again a child and he Mardonius. But Felix was an excellent guide to the mysterious underworld of money. He believed, as did Diocletian, in the fixing of prices. He had all sorts of proof from past experiments that such a system would increase the general prosperity. When I was with him, he always convinced me that he was right.
But then in matters of money anyone can, momentarily at least, convince me of anything. After a brilliant, yet to me largely unintelligible, discourse, Felix advised me to set the price of corn at one silver piece for ten measures, a fair price in Antioch. We would then rigorously hold the price at this level, preventing the merchants from taking advantage of the seasoh’s scarcity.
In principle I agreed with Felix. “But,” I asked, “shouldn’t we allow the senate to set the price themselves? to restrain their own people?”
Count Felix gave me the sort of pitying look Mardonius used to when I had made some particularly fatuous observation. “You cannot ask a wolf not to eat an unprotected sheep. It is his nature. Well, it is their nature to make as much profit as they can.” I thought not. As it turned out, Felix was right.
At the appointed hour some three hundred of the leading burghers of Antioch were admitted to the council chamber. I kept Felix close beside me, as well as Salutius. As Count of the East my uncle Julian should have presided, but he was ill. The Antiochenes were a handsome, ceremonious, rather effeminate crew who smelled-though the day was hot-like three hundred gardens of Daphne; in that close room, their scent made my head ache.
I came straight to the point. I quoted that morning’s price for corn. “You ask the people to pay three times what the corn is worth. Now food is scarce but not so scarce as that, unless what I’ve been told is true, that certain speculators are keeping their corn off the market until the people are hungry and desperate and will pay anything.” Much clearing of throats at this, uneasy glances exchanged. “Naturally, I don’t believe these stories. Why would the leaders of any city wish to exploit their own people?
Foreigners, yes. Even the imperial court.” Dead silence at this.
“But not your own kind. For you are men, not beasts who devour their weaker fellows.”
After thus soothing them, I carefully outlined Count Felix’s plan. While I spoke, his lips moved, repeating silently along with me the exact arguments I had learned from him a few minutes before. The burghers were distraught. Not until I had thoroughly alarmed them, did I say, “But I know that I can trust you to do what is right.” There was a long exhalation of breath at this. They were all relieved.
I was then answered by the city prefect. “You may depend on us, Lord, in all things. We shall—and I know I speak for every man here—hold the price of grain at its usual level, though it must be taken into account that there is a shortage…”
“How many bushels?” I broke in. The prefect conferred a moment with several hard-faced men.
“Four hundred thousand bushels, Lord.”
I turned to Salutius. “Send to Chalcis and Hierapolis. They have the grain. Buy it from them at the usual cost.” I looked up at Diocletian; the heavy face was majestic yet contemptuous; how he had
despised the human race!
When the burghers of Antioch departed, Felix rounded on me. “You have done exactly the wrong thing! I know them better than you. They will hold the grain back. They will create a famine. Then they will sell, and every time you reason with them they’ll tell you: but this is the way it is always done. Prices always find their proper level. Do nothing. Rely on the usual laws of the market-place. Well, mark my words…” Felix’s long forefinger had been sawing the air in front of me when suddenly he froze, an astonished look on his face.“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked at me vaguely. Then he touched his stomach. “The fish sauce, Augustus,” he said, turning quite pale. “I should never touch it, especially in hot weather.” He ran quickly to the door, in much distress. I’m afraid that Salutius and I laughed.
“My apologies, Augustus,” he said. “But one greater than you calls!” On that light note Felix left us.
An hour later he was found seated on the toilet, dead. I shall never have such a good tax adviser again.
• • • Two weeks later I had a most unsettling vision. I had gone to pray at the temple of Zeus on Mount Kasios, which is in Seleucia, not far from Antioch. I arrived at the temple just before dawn. All preparations had been made for a sacrifice, and there was none of the confusion I had met with at Daphne. I was purified. I put on the sacred mantle. I said what must be said. The white bull was brought to the altar. As I lifted the knife, I fainted.
My uncle attributed this to the twenty-four-hour fast which preceded the sacrifice. No matter what the cause, I was suddenly aware that I was in danger of my life. I was being warned. No, I did not see the face of Zeus or hear his voice, but as a black green sea engulfed me, I received a warning: death by violence was at hand. Oribasius brought me to, forcing my head between my knees until consciousness returned.
That night, two drunken soldiers were heard to say that no one need worry about a Persian campaign because my days were numbered. They were arrested. Eight more were implicated. They were all Galileans who had been incited to this action by various trouble-makers, none of whom was ever named.
I was to have been killed at the next day’s military review, and Salutius made emperor.
Salutius was most embarrassed by this, but I assured him that I did not believe he was responsible for this hare-brained plot. “You could kill me so easily in far subtler ways,” I said quite amiably, for I respect him.
“I have no desire to kill you, Augustus, if only because I would kill myself before I ever allowed anyone to make me emperor.”
I laughed. “I felt that way once. But it is curious how rapidly one changes.” Then I said to him with perfect seriousness, “Should I die, you might well be my personal choice to succeed me.”
“No!” He was fierce in his rejection. “I would not accept the principate from Zeus himself.”
I think I believe him. It is not that he is modest or feels himself inadequate, quite the contrary. But he does feel (and this I gather by what he does not say) that there is some sort of—I cannot find any but a most terrible word to describe his attitude—“curse” upon the principate. As a man, he would be spared it. Perhaps he is right.
The ten soldiers were executed. I used the military review where I was to have been murdered as an occasion to announce that I would not make any further inquiry into the matter. I said that unlike my predecessor I was not afraid of sudden death by treachery. Why should I be when I had received a warning from Zeus himself? “I am protected by the gods. When they decide that my work is done then
—and not until then-will they raise their shield. Meanwhile, it is a most dangerous thing to strike at me.”
This speech was much cheered, largely because the army was relieved to discover that I was not one of
those relentless tyrants who wish to implicate as many as possible in acts of treason.
But while this matter ended well, my relations with the magnates of Antioch were rapidly deteriorating. Three months after our meeting, they had not only not fixed prices, they had kept off the market the corn I had myself imported from Hierapolls. Prices were sky-high: one gold solidus for ten bushels. The poor were starving. Riots were daily. I took action.
I set the price of corn at one silver piece for fifteen bushels, though the usual price was one for ten.
To force the merchants to unload their hoarded grain, I threw on to the market an entire shipment of corn sent me from Egypt for the use of the troops. The merchants then retreated to the countryside, forcing up the price of grain in the villages, thinking that I would not know what they were doing. But they had not counted on thousands of country people floeking to the city to buy grain. Their game was fully exposed.
I was now ruling by imperial decree and military force. Even so, the burghers, confident of my restraint (which they of course took to be weakness), continued to rob the poor and exploit the famine they had themselves created.
I again sent the senate a message, ordering the burghers to obey me. At this point several of the wealthier members (my own appointees) saw fit publicly to question my knowledge of the “intricacies of trade”. A report of this rebuke was sent me while the senate was still in session. I had had enough. In a rage, I sent troops to the senate house and arrested the entire body on a charge of treason. An hour later, thoroughly ashamed of myself, I rescinded the order, and the senators were let free. Criticism of me now went underground. Rude songs were sung and anonymous aliatribes copied and passed around.
The worst was a savagely witty attack, composed in elegant anapaests. Thousands were amused by it. I read it, with anger. These things always hurt no matter how used one is to abuse. I was called a bearded goat (as usual), a bulbbutcher, an ape, a dwarf (though I am above the middle height), a meddler in religious ceremonies (yet I am Highest Priest).
I was so much affected by this attack that on the same day that I read it I wrote an answer in the form of a satire called “BeardHater”. This was written as though it were an attack by me upon myself, composed in the same style as the unknown author’s work. Under the guise of satirizing myself, I made very plain my quarrel with the senate and people of Antioch, pointing out their faults, much as they had excoriated mine. I also gave a detailed account of how the speculators had deliberately brought on famine. My friends were appalled when I published this work, but I do not in any way regret having done so. I was able to say a number of sharp and true things. Priscus thought the work ordinary and its publication a disaster. He particularly objected to my admitting that I had lice. But Libanius felt that I had scored a moral victory against my invisible traducers.
Libanius: I do regard “Beard-Hater” highly. It is beautifully composed and though there are echoes in it of many other writers (including myself!) I found it altogether impressive. Yet Julian somewhat misrepresents me in suggesting that I approved of the work and thought its effect good. How could I? It was an unheard-of gesture. Never before had an emperor attacked his own people with a pamphlet! The sword and the fire, yes, but not literature. Nor had any emperor ever before written a satire upon himself.
Antioch laughed. I remonstrated with friends and fellow senators, reminding them that the patience of even this unusual emperor could be strained too far. But though the arrest of the senate had certainly frightened them, the subsequent countermanding of the order had convinced them that Julian was mad, but in a harmless way. There is of course no such thing as a harmlessly mad emperor, but my constant exhortations were ignored. Luckily, I was able to save Antioch from Julian’s wrath, for which I was credited at the time. All this, naturally, has been forgotten or twisted by malice into something other
than the truth. There is nothing so swiftly lost as the public’s memory of a good action. That is why great men insist on putting up monuments to themselves with their deeds carefully recorded, since those they saved will not honour them in life or in death. Heroes must see to their own fame. No one else will.
I should note—I will note when I assemble this material for the final edition—that the senate did have a case against Julian. Though a few senators were speculators, most of them had not taken advantage of the famine. Their only fault had been negligence in not preparing for the scarcity, but if negligence in statesmen were a capital offence there would not be a head left in any senate in the world.
When Julian’s message was read to us, it was received most respectfully. Yet everyone agreed that his abrupt underpricing of grain would result in a worse shortage than the overpricing of the speculators.
As it turned out, the senate was right. The grain which had been sold so dramatically below cost was soon gone, and the shortage was as bad as before.
I suspect Julian of wanting to make himself popular with the mob. He had hoped to win their support against the wealthy Christian element, but he failed. Our people can be bought rather cheaply, but they are far too frivolous to remain bought. Also, he neglected to hold down the price of other commodities, and it is the luxuries, finally, that are the key to the Antiochene heart. So his attempt at price-control was a failure, just as Diocletian’s had been. Perhaps if Count Felix had lived the thing might have worked, for he was most brilliant in these matters and all his life had searched for a prince who could put into effect his quite elaborate system of economic controls. Myself, I tend to believe with the conservative element that inflation and scarcity must be endured periodically and that in time all things will come more or less to rights. But then I am neither trader nor fiscal agent… merely Stoic!
Count Felix, incidentally, had literary ambitions, and I once spent a pleasant afternoon with him at Daphne in the house of a mutual friend. The count read us a most entertaining set of verses on—I believe—the pleasures of agriculture. Odd because he was very much a city man. I remember his saying that my essay “For Aristophanes” had opened his eyes to a whole new view of that superb writer.
Julian Augustus
Shortly before noon on 2 December, a messenger came to me with the appalling news that once again Nicomedia had been struck by earthquake. Everything that had been rebuilt was thrown down. As soon as I heard the news I went outside. The day was dark and cold, and a thin rain fell. I walked to the garden just north of the riding ring, and there I prayed to Zeus and to Poseidon. All day I prayed, while the rain continued to fall and the cold wind to rise. Not until sundown did I stop. Two days later I learned that the tremors ceased at exactly the moment I began my prayers in the garden. So what had been the worst of signs became the best: the gods still look favourably upon me, and answer my prayers.
A week later I was deeply saddened, though not surprised, to learn that my uncle Julian had died in his sleep. The Galileans promptly declared that he had been struck down by the Nazarene for having removed the treasure from the charnel house in Antioch. But of course his illness preceded this act by some years. Actually, I am surprised that he lived as long as he did, considering the gravity of his illness, I can only assume Asklepios must have blessed him.
I was fond of my uncle. He was a good and loyal functionary; he was also the last human link with my parents. His only fault was the common one of avarice. He could never get enough money. In fact, our last meeting was spoiled by a small quarrel about the Bithynian farm my grandmother had left me. He was furious when I gave it to a philosopher friend, even though the land was not worth one of the gold vases he used to display in his dining-room. I seemed to have missed the fault of avarice. I have no desire to own anything. No. On second thought, I am greedy about books. I do want to own them. I think I might commit a crime to possess a book. But otherwise, I am without this strange passion which seems to afflict most men, even philosophers, some close to me.
Priscus: An allusion to our friend Maximus. He was at this time buying real estate in Antioch with the money he obtained from selling offices and titles. Looking back on those days, I curse myself for not having leathered my own nest. Unlike Julian, I am rather greedy, but I am also proud and the excessiveness of my pride prevents me from asking anyone for anything. I cannot easily accept a gift. Yet I could steal, if I thought I would not be caught. Julian’s uncle was an amiable man, though overzealous as an official. He once told me that his sister Basilina, Julian’s mother, had been extraordinarily ambitious. When she was pregnant with Julian, he asked her what sort of life she wanted for her child, and she replied, “There is only one life for a son of mine. He must be emperor.”
Julian used to describe his mother (from hearsay) as having been quite blond. She was indeed.
According to her brother, she was an albino. I once made love to an albino girl in Constantinople. She had the most extraordinary blood-red eyes, like an animal’s. The hair of course was absolutely white, including the pubic hair. I believe she was called Helena.
Libanius: How interesting
Julian Augustus
On 1 January 363, I became consul for the fourth time in association with Sallust. Naturally, there were many complaints, since Sallust was not of senatorial rank. But I ignored custom. Sallust is my right arm at Gaul. I also appointed Rufinus Aradius as Count of the East and filled a number of other offices, mostly in the West. I was now ready for the Persian campaign. I waited only upon the weather.
On the Kalerids of January I went to the temple of the Genius of Rome to make sacrifice. Here, on the steps, were assembled most of the city’s priests and high officials. As I was completing the ritual, I happened to look up just as one of the priests fell the length of the steps. Later I learned that the priest who had fallen was not only the oldest but he had fallen from the highest step, dead of a heart attack.
By nightfall all Antioch had interpreted this to mean that he who is highest (oldest) in the state will fall from his great place (the top step), dead. So my days are supposed to be numbered. But I interpret the omen another way. The dead priest was on the top stair. Our highest rank is consul. There are two consuls. The dead priest was the oldest priest. Sallust is many years my senior. If either of us dies, the omen suggests it will be Sallust, not I. Of course the whole thing might possibly have no significance at all. Perhaps I should listen more to Priscus, who does not believe in signs.
Priscus: Indeed I don’t! I am sure that if the gods (who probably don’t exist) really wanted to speak to us, they could find a better messenger than the liver of a bull or the collapse of an old priest during a ceremony. But Julian was an absolute madman on this subject. And I must say, even though I don’t believe in omens, I was impressed by the number of disasters reported. Among them: the second earthquake at Nicomedia, the first in the Jewish temple, the burning of the temple of Apollo, and as if all these “signs” were not bad enough, Julian sent to Rome for a consultation of the Sibylline books. As we all know, these “books” are a grab bag of old saws and meaningless epithets, much rewritten at morhents of crisis. But bogus or not, their message to him was clear: Do not go beyond the boundaries of the empire this year. I never heard him reinterpret that sentence. I can’t think why I am recording all this. I don’t believe any of it, but then Julian did, which is the point. True or false, these signs affected his actions.
There was one more bit of nonsense. The day that Julian left Antioch for Persia, an earthquake shook
Constantinople. I told Maximus that if he told Julian what had happened, I would kill him. As far as I know, he never said a word.
Julian Augustus
Late in February I completed plans for the Persian campaign. Word was sent the legions that we would start moving east during the first week of March. I also sent a message to Tarsus, instructing the governor that his city would be my winter quarters, as I would not return to Antioch. My private letter to the governor was immediately known to the senate of Antioch, and they were most contrite. Would I not reconsider? I would not. And so I was ready to depart, in good spirits, except for the fact that Oribasius, suddenly ill of fever, was not able to accompany me. This was a blow. But I shall see him later in the year at Tarsus.
The day before I left Antioch, I had a final meeting with Libanius. Getting to know this wise man was perhaps the only good experience I had in that terrible city. He had been unable to attend a dinner I had given the night before, because of gout. But the next day he felt somewhat better and was able to join me while I was exercising at the riding ring.
It was the first spring-like day. Air warm, sky vaporous blue, first flowers small but vivid among winter grass. I was practising sword-play with Arintheus and though we had both started the exercise in full winter uniform, by the time Libanius had joined us, we were half-stripped and sweating freely in the sun.
Libanius sat benignly on a stool while we banged at one another. Arintheus has the body of a god and is far more agile than I, but my arms are stronger than his, so we are well matched. Besides it is not humanly possible for a mere army commander to defeat an emperor, even in mock combat.
Finally, Arintheus, with a mighty cry, struck my shield a fierce blow which caused me to stagger back.
He was almost upon me with his blunt practice sword when I raised my hand majestically and said, “We must receive the quaestor Libanius.”
“As usual, when I’m winning,” said Arintheus, throwing his weapons to the nearest soldier to catch.
Then, wearing only undershorts, he sauntered off.
“The young Alcibiades,” said Libanius, appreciatively, watching the muscular figure as it disappeared into the barracks. I wrapped myself in a cloak, breathing hard. “Let’s hope he doesn’t take to treason like the original.” I sat in my folding chair. There was a long pause. Aware then that Urbanius had something private to say to me, I motioned for the guards to fall back to the edge of the riding ring.
Ulbanius was unexpectedly nervous. To put him at his ease, I asked him a question about philosophy.
Answering me, he recovered his poise. Even so, it was some time before he got the courage to say,
“Augustus, I have a son. A boy of five. His mother…” He stopped, embarrassed.“His mother is a slave?”
“A freedwoman. She was my slave.”
I was amused by this unexpected sign of vigour in one in whom I had thought such things had long since been forgotten. But then Libanius had rather a scandalous reputation when he first taught at Constantinople. He was often in trouble with young girls of good family (and young boys, too), if one is to believe his envious rivals. I do and I don’t. There is usually some truth to gossip, except when it concerns me!
“This child—his name is Cimon—cannot of course be made my legal heir. Up till now I’ve been able to provide for him. But when I die, he’ll be penniless, no better than a slave. In fact, he could be sold into slavery if he were not protected.”
“You want me to recognize him as your legal heir?”
“Yes, Augustus. The law of course . .”
“… is quite clear. It cannot be done. But I can get round it by special decree. Make out a deposition, and I’ll present it myself to the Consistory.” He thanked me profusely. I had never before seen Libanius humanly moved; it was most impressive. Usually, he is entirely the philosopher, serene and explicit, his only passion that for ideas. But now he was a father, and I was touched.
We then spoke of the coming campaign. I asked him to come with me, but he pleaded infirmity and I was forced to agree that a man with failing sight and severe gout would find life in the field torture.
“But I do wish, my dear friend,” (now that Libanius was no longer a subject asking a fayour of his ruler, he reverted to being teacher with pupil) “you would reconsider this military adventure.”
“Reconsider? I have no choice. We are at war.”
“We have been at war for many years with Persia. But war does not necessarily mean invasion this year.”
“But the omens…”
“The omens are not good. I have heard about the Sibylline books.”
There are no secrets. I cursed silently to myself, wondering who had betrayed me. I had expressly forbidden the priests from Rome to tell anyone what the books advised. “I have reinterpreted the prophecy,” I said flatly. “Besides, both Delphi and Delos are favourable.”
“Augustus.” He was now solemn. “I am sure that you will defeat Persia. I have perfect faith in your destiny. I only wish that you would put off going until next year. You have set in motion a hundred reforms. Now you must see to it that they take effect. Otherwise, the Galileans will undo everything the moment you are out of sight. You cannot control them from the field or even from the ruins of Ctesiphon.”
Libanius is right of course and I continually worry, particularly now, at what is happening in my absence. But I told him what I believe to be true: that as conqueror of Persia I would be more than ever awesome to the Galileans, who would see in my victory a clear sign of heaven’s favour to me. This useful end is worth a few months’ confusion at home.
Libanius was not convinced, but he said no more and we talked of other matters. I find him inspiring, though somewhat longwinded, a traditional fault of great teachers. I am sure that I would be longwinded, too, except for the fact that in conversation I can never sustain any subject for very long. I shift rapidly from point to point, expecting those who are listening to fill in the gaps. They often don’t. But in talking with Libanius there are no gaps or incompleted sentences. Listening to him is like being read to from a very long book, but what a splendid book!
• • • Since I am writing these notes as history as well as for my own amusement, I should perhaps set down the reasons for this present war with Persia. One of the faults of most historians is that they take too much for granted. They assume that the reader must know the common things they know; therefore, they tell only the uncommon things, details ferreted out of archives and from private conversations. It is frustrating to read most history, because so many times one can see the author hovering on the verge of explaining some important fact and then shying away out of fear of dullness; everyone knows that:, the author says to himself, and I won’t bore the reader (and myself) by telling him what he already knows.
But if one is writing to be read a hundred years from now or, with luck (and a continued interest in one’s period), even a thousand years, like great Homer, then all those things we take so much for granted today will be quite unknown to those who come after. So we must explain things that every schoolboy now living knows. For instance, everyone knows that Constantius would not eat fruit, but is it likely that anyone will know—or care—in the next century? Yet it is a point to be made about him, and worth exploring on religious grounds.
I confess that I do have some hope of being read by the future, not because of my negligible literary art nor because of my deeds (though I hope they will be great), but because I am an emperor and I mean to be candid. Such autobiographies cannot help but be interesting. Marcus Aurelius is the supreme example. But the other memoirs which have come down to us are also interesting, especially the commentaries of Julius Caesar and the fascinating if calculated memoirs of Octarian Augustus. Even Tiberius’s clumsy autobiography is interesting, particularly his attack on Sejanus… There! I have strayed from my point. I ask the pardon of my poor secretary, who can barely keep his eyes open as I talk, faster and faster, for in my fatigue I often have the most extraordinary bursts of clarity. At such moments the gods are near; my beloved Hermes hovers at my side. But in the interest of good form, I shall of course revise all that I have dictated, cutting out those parts where I tend to ramble.
The future will want to know why I am invading Persia. I am quite sure that there are many at this very moment who do not understand what I am trying to do. It is of course taken for granted that we must protect our boundaries and occasionally annex new provinces. Though Salutius and the literary men who are with me know how this war started, I am confident that neither Nevitta nor Arintheus has the slightest idea why I have taken the field against Sapor. Nor do they care. They think I want plunder and military glory, because that is what they want. Well!, I am not without a certain love of worldly glory
—though I deplore it in myself—but that is not why I must prosecute this war. Persia (or Parthin as we ceremonially call it in imitation of our ancestors) has always been the traditional enemy of Rome. There have been occasional generations of peace, but for the most part we have been in conflict ever since the wars against Mithridates brought Rome to Parthia’s border four centuries ago.
The present war began in an almost frivolous way. Some thirty years ago an adventurer named Metradorus made an expedition to India. He was received generously by the king of India, who presented him with a number of gifts from the king to the Emperor Constantine. As I piece together the story, this Metradorus was a singular liar and schemer. When he returned home he gave Constantine the Indian presents but claimed that they were his own gifts to the emperor. Then, afraid that Constantine might wonder why there was no gift from the king of India, Metradorus declared that there had indeed been many rich gifts, but that the Persians had confiscated them en route, in the name of Sapor.
Constantine, partly out of greed, partly out of policy, wrote Sapor, demanding that he return the gifts. Sapor did not deign to answer him. Constantine sent another angry letter (copies are to be found in the Sacred Archives). Finally, Sapor answered: he demanded Mesopotamia and Armenia as rightful territories of the Persian crown; there was no mention of the presents. Constantine declared war on Sapor, but before he could take the field he was dead.
For most of Constantius’s reign, Sapor was relatively inactive. He had political problems in his own country. But then in 358, he sent Constantius a most arrogant embassy, again demanding Mesopotamia and Armenia. Much alarmed, Constantius sent an embassy to Ctesiphon, headed by Count Lucillianus and my cousin Procopius. Our ambassadors were duly alarmed by Sapor, and they advised Constantius to maintain the status quo. But even this was not possible when Sapor laid siege to the border city of Amida, leading his army in person; an innovation, by the way, for in the old days the Great King never appeared in battle, his life being considered too sacred to risk in combat.
Amida fell. It was a terrible defeat for Rome. Sapor was surprisingly merciful to the inhabitants.
Even so, we have lost an important city, and our border defences are dangerously weakened. When I succeeded Constantius, I looked through all his military papers and talked with his commanders, but I could not find what if any plan he had for defeating Sapor. I was forced to start from the beginning.
Now I am ready.
It is my plan to conquer Persia in three months. I have no alternative. For if I fail none of the reforms I have proposed will ever come to pass, nor can our state long survive between the continual
harassment of the Goths on our borders to the north and the Persians to the east. Also, and I confess it honestly, I want the title Parthicus after my name and an arch to my memory in the forum at Rome. Not since Alexander has a Greek or Roman commander conquered Persia, although some, like Pompey, pretended to, after small victories. I dream of equalling Alexander. No, I must be honest: I dream of surpassing him! And are we not one, in any case? I want India. I want China beyond. Upon the shore of that blood-dark sea to the farthest east, I would set the dragon standard and not simply for the glory (though the very thought of it makes me dizzy… oh, where is philosophy now?), but to bring the truth about the gods to all those lands bending towards the sun, the god from whom all life flows. Also, Persia is to me a holy land, the first home of Mithras and Zarathrustra. It will be, for me, a homecoming.
I always keep a biography of Alexander at my bedside. It is finished with living it. He intended to write an account of his Persian campaign and the notes he made during those last months are fascinating.
I hope my occasional commentary has not been too burdensome. I think it is always good to get as many viewpoints as possible of the same event, since there is no such thing as absolute human truth.
You should be pleased at Julian’s final reference to you. He admired you tremendously. I cannot think what he meant when he called you “long-winded”. You are merely thorough. But then Julian was often like a child whose span of attention is capricious. I shall be very curious to see what you do with this memoir. By the way, whatever happened to your son Cimon? Did Julian make him your legal heir?
Naturally, one has heard of Cimon’s exploits as a lawyer, but I never realized he was a child of yours.
You are full of surprises.
Libanius to Priscus
Antioch, July 380
I have been working for some weeks on my preface to the memoir of Julian, which will, I hope, set this work in its proper historical frame. May I say that your notes have been of the greatest-perhaps even decisive—value to me? Just this morning as I was reviewing the last pages of the work, so tragically cut short, I noticed a phrase of yours which had escaped my attention. You say that Julian was planning to write an account of his Persian campaign. You then add: “the notes he made during those last months are fascinating”. Is there more text? I had thought the memoir was all that was left. Do let me know, for I am impatient to start a final “shaping” of the work.
Yesterday I paid a call on my old friend Bishop Meletius. You recall him, I am sure, from your visit here. He is much aged and rather fragile, but he has kept all his wits. I intimated that! might be doing a new work on Julian, using previously unpublished material. He thinks this might be a mistake.
“Theodosius is a Spaniard,” he said, meaning, I suppose, that the Emperor has all the stern uncompromising violence of that race. “It is one thing to send him a graceful essay ‘On Avenging Julian’, whose merit was literary rather than political”, (I thought my work highly political) “but it is quite something else to challenge the Church, especially now that the Emperor has been saved by Christ.” I never know if Meletius is serious or not. His tendency to be ironic has so increased with age that he seems never to mean what he says.
Meletius also told me that the Emperor expects to be in Constantinople this autumn. So I shall wait until then to see him. I also learned that the poisonous Gregory, now a bishop, is urging that a new Ecumenical Council meet next year, probably in the capital. There is also talk that he is angling to be made bishop of Constantinople. No doubt of it, his career has been a success. But then those people usually do well. I extend my best wishes to your wife Hippia, and of course to yourself.
Added: Julian died before he was able to legitimize my son. Due to religious bigotry and the continuing perseverance of academic enemies, none of Julian’s successors was willing to do the humane thing in this matter. I now pin my hopes—without much hopeon Theodosius.
Priscus to Libanius
Athens, September 580
You must forgive me for not answering your letter earlier, but I have been ill. A mild stroke has drawn down the side of my mouth in a peculiarly sinister way. I now look like one of the infernal deities and country folk make the sign to ward off the evil eye when they see me tottering along the road to the Academy.
Happily, my mind is not affected. If it is, then—equally happily—I don’t know it. So all’s well.
It is now definite that Theodosius will spend the winter at Constantinople and you ought to go see him. It’s only a ten-day journey. He is reasonable, I am told, but much impressed by his miraculous recovery. Whether he would sanction your project is another matter, but you can lose nothing by trying.
He won’t eat you. Also your being a friend of the Empress in the West will do you no harm. She is most active politically and, some say, had a hand in her husband’s raising Theodosius to the purple. Use her name freely. But then I hardly need advise the famous quaestor of Antioch in how to put a case!
Yes, Julian left a considerable journal describing the day-by-day campaign. I have been annotating it with a thought perhaps of publication, though I should need at least some of your courage to go through with it, for this work is far more dangerous than the memoir. Julian knew all about the plot against his life; as did I. I also know what he did not, the identity of his murderer.
I have nearly finished the work of annotation. I have been slowed up recently as a result of my stroke, but I hope to get at it soon again. If I decide not to punish, I should of course be pleased to sell you the work at the same price you paid for the memoir. The cost of copying is still what it was here at Athens.
If anything, it has gone up.
I hope your vision is not any worse; at our age nothing gets better. My student Glaucon was delighted to meet you last spring when he delivered the manuscript, but saddened to find your sight so greatly impaired. Oribasius used to have a non-surgical cure for cataract, but I have forgotten it. Look in his encyclopedia. It should be in the latest edition, but if you don’t have that, look it up in Galen. That’s probably where he got it from.
Hippia sends you her best wishes, as always. She is eternal. She will bury us all. She certainly looks forward to burying me. We spend quite a lot of time eyeing one another, each speculating on which will outlast the other. Until this stroke, I thought I had a clear edge. Now I’m not so sure. She was quite thrilled when I was sick, and gay as a girl for several days “looking after” me.
Libanius: On top of everything else, Priscus is a thief. Our agreement was plain. I was to get everything Julian left for the original price. Then he holds back the most important work of all and there is nothing I can do but submit to this robbery and pay the price! I must say I hope Hippia will soon be a widow. Priscus is a terrible man!
Priscus to Libanius
Athens, October 380
Here is the journal, as I promised. I have done extensive notes, which you are free to use in any way
you like. I have been somewhat weakened as a result of my stroke, but so far neither my memory nor the ability to string together sentences seems to be affected. Some of these notes have been dictated, as you will notice when you see Hippia’s childish handwriting. I pay her to be my secretary. She will do anything for money. To this day she denounces me for not having made us a fortune when, as a friend of Julian’s, it would have been so easy, as you well know. Though of course your fortune was made long before Julian became Emperor. I was much impressed the first time I visited you at your Antioch mansion and you told me, with perfect casualness, that you had just sent a cargo ship to Crete. Fortunate Cimon to have such a wealthy father! I am sure Theodosius will legitimize him for you.
I have talked—very discreetly—to several people close to the court and they agree that the Emperor would probably stop publication of any work which showed Julian in too favourable a light. Needless to say, I did not mention that there was both a memoir and a journal in existence. But it is perfectly plain that if Theodosius and his bishops knew about these works they would do everything possible to destroy them, just as they labour so devotedly to distort the history of Julian’s reign. It is the perquisite of power to invent its own past. Julian must be obliterated or at least made monster before the Christian Empire can properly be born. I don’t mean to sound discouraging, but there it is. I must confess that I’m relieved to have got Julian’s papers out of my house and into your most capable hands. I tell you these things simply to put you on your guard, for one of those I talked to at some length was the celebrated Ausonius, who is very much in favour at court. I flattered him unmercifully when he visited here last month.
Ausonius is a small stately man who gives an impression of great dignity and power until he starts to speak. Then one knows he is simply one of us, a nervous clerk, embarrassingly anxious to be admired.
He also stammers. He was pleased, he told us in his speech at the proconsul’s reception, to be in such a distinguished assemblage of intellectuals and magistrates, particularly because he liked to think of himself as a “sort of bridge between the two”. We wagged our tails fiercely at this to show that we loved him and wanted fayours. When he finished, he nicely took my arm and told me how much he admired me. What could I do but quote his own poetry to him?
“I have always admired you, P-P-Priscus, and I am g-g-glad to find you still alive and well.”
“So am I, Consul.” I beamed down at the absurd figure in its consular robe. t then praised his many books, and he praised my many silences. The academicians all about us watched me with a quite satisfying envy. Then, rather skilfully I think, I brought Julian into the conversation.
Ausonius frowned. “We aren’t very happy with him of course. Not at all. No, not at all.”
I murmured the ancient saw about the rarity of human happiness. Almost any quotation from Sophocles has a soothing effect.
“Theodosius is most displeased about the body. Most unhappy. But she insisted.”
“What body? Who insisted?” I was at sea.
“His. Julian’s. It’s been m-m-moved. From Tarsus to Constantinople. The Emperor Gratian ordered it, or to be p-p-precise, his w-w-wife?’ P’s, W’s and M’s are Ausonius’s main obstacles. Having told you this, I shall no longer try to dramatize his speech. After much spluttering, I learned that your friend the Empress Postuma, last of the Flavians, suddenly realized that her blood was also Julian’s and that the new dynasty’s legitimacy rests upon that frail fact. So Postuma got her husband Gratian to move Julian’s remains from Tarsus to the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople. At this very moment Julian’s body is lying beside Constantine’s mother Helena. How each would have hated that proximity!
Though Ausonius did not mention it, I suspect that both Postuma and Gratian are aware for the first time what a great man Julian was. They live in Gaul, and for the Gauls Julian is the only emperor since Augustus. I am told by everyone who comes from there that he is still spoken of with awe and affection, and that the common people believe that he is not really dead but sleeping beneath a mountain, guarded
by the dragon of his house, and should the West ever be in danger, Julian will awaken and come to the defence of the Rhine. It will take some doing to destroy his legend in Europe.
We spoke of you. Ausonius admires you. Who does not? He told me that Theodosius admired your
“graceful” (!) essay “On Avenging Julian”, but took it as a rhetorical exercise. I am sure that is not how you intended it, but I suggest you allow the imperial adjective to be your own.
“What would be the feeling in court if I were to publish a book about Julian, covering, say, the Persian campaign?”
Ausonius picked a word beginning with “m” and nearly choked to death. Finally, in bursts, he told me, “Never! Theodosius and Gratian both regard him as the devil. Only out of courtesy to Libanius, who is old, did Theodosius accept the essay. But nothing more. Ever! We don’t mean to persecute pagans of course,” (the
“we” reminded me of Maximus; do all busy friends of princes use “we” in that awful way?) “but we shall make it as disagreeable as possible for them to worship in the old way. You’ve read the two edicts?
There will be others. I can give no details of course. Premature.”
“But Libanius was able to write a defence of Julian.”
“Once. Only. We’ve also heard he’s planning a book about Julian.” (No, I did not tell him.)
“Discourage him, as a friend. Also, there is a private matter he would like attended to. I’m not free to say what it is, but he has already sent us a request. Well, one hand washes the other, as they say. Do tell him.” I suppose this refers to the matter of your natural son Cimon. Anyway, that is the gist of my talk with Ausonius. Perhaps you can do better yourself face to face with the Emperor.
Here then is the journal. Some of it is cryptic. There are many lacunae. I have tried to provide as many missing pieces as possible. For weeks now I have been reliving that tragic time and I am amazed at how much I was able to recall when I set what is left of my mind to the task.
My mouth is still ominously twisted but vision and speech are unimpaired, to the surprise of my doctor. I almost wrote “disappointment”. Doctors like for one’s decline to be orderly and irrevocable.
How is your gout? Your eyesight? Hippia, whose exquisite penmanship you have been reading, sends you her respects (she has given me such a sweet smile!), as do I.