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On 5 March 363, despite a series of omens against the campaign, Julian departed from Antioch with about 65,000-83,000,[61][62] or 80,000–90,000 men,[63] and headed north toward the Euphrates. En route he was met by embassies from various small powers offering assistance, none of which he accepted. He did order the Armenian king Arsaces to muster an army and await instructions.[64] He crossed the Euphrates near Hierapolis and moved eastward to Carrhae, giving the impression that his chosen route into Persian territory was down the Tigris.[65] For this reason it seems he sent a force of 30,000 soldiers under Procopius and Sebastianus further eastward to devastate Media in conjunction with Armenian forces.[66] This was where two earlier Roman campaigns had concentrated and where the main Persian forces were soon directed.[67] Julian's strategy lay elsewhere, however. He had had a fleet built of over 1,000 ships at Samosata in order to supply his army for a march down the Euphrates and of 50 pontoon ships to facilitate river crossings. Procopius and the Armenians would march down the Tigris to meet Julian near Ctesiphon.[66] Julian's ultimate aim seems to have been "regime change" by replacing king Shapur II with his brother Hormisdas.[67][68] After feigning a march further eastward, Julian's army turned south to Circesium at the confluence of the Khabur ("Abora") and the Euphrates arriving at the beginning of April.[66] Passing Dura on April 6, the army made good progress, bypassing towns after negotiations or besieging those which chose to oppose him. At the end of April the Romans captured the fortress of Pirisabora, which guarded the canal approach from the Euphrates to Ctesiphon on the Tigris.[69] As the army marched toward the Persian capital, the enemy broke the dikes which crossed the land, turning it into marshland, so the army's progress was slowed.[70] Ctesiphon By mid-May, the army had reached the vicinity of the heavily fortified Persian capital, Ctesiphon, where Julian partially unloaded some of the fleet and had his troops ferried across the Tigris by night.[71] Before the gates of the city the Romans defeated the Persians (Battle of Ctesiphon), driving them back into the city.[72] Although the undeniable tactical success left the Roman army in control of the battlefield, the Persian capital was not taken, the main Persian army was still at large and approaching, while the Romans lacked a clear strategical objective.[73] In the council of war which followed, Julian's generals persuaded him not to mount a siege against the city, given the impregnability of its defenses and the fact that Shapur would soon arrive with a large force.[74] Julian not wanting to give up what he had gained and probably still hoping for the arrival of the column under Procopius and Sebastianus, set off east into the Persian interior, ordering the destruction of the fleet.[72] This proved to be a hasty decision, for they were on the wrong side of the Tigris with no clear means of retreat and the Persians had begun to harass them from a distance, burning any food in the Romans' path. A second council of war on 16 June 363 decided that the best course of action was to lead the army back to the safety of Roman borders, not through Mesopotamia, but northward to Corduene.[75][76] Death Sassanian relief of the investiture of Ardashir II showing Mithra, Shapur II and Ahura Mazda above a defeated Julian, lying prostrate Detail of the fallen Julian During the withdrawal, Julian's forces suffered several attacks from Sassanid forces.[76] In one such engagement on 26 June 363, the indecisive Battle of Samarra near Maranga, Julian was wounded when the Sassanid army raided his column. In the haste of pursuing the retreating enemy, Julian chose speed rather than caution, taking only his sword and leaving his coat of mail.[77] He received a wound from a spear that reportedly pierced the lower lobe of his liver, the peritoneum and intestines. The wound was not immediately deadly. Julian was treated by his personal physician, Oribasius of Pergamum, who seems to have made every attempt to treat the wound. This probably included the irrigation of the wound with a dark wine, and a procedure known as gastrorrhaphy, the suturing of the damaged intestine. On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the emperor died during the night.[78][79] As Julian wished, his body was buried outside Tarsus, though it was later removed to Constantinople.[80] In 364, Libanius stated that Julian was assassinated by a Christian who was one of his own soldiers;[81] this charge is not corroborated by Ammianus Marcellinus or other contemporary historians. John Malalas reports that the supposed assassination was commanded by Basil of Caesarea.[82] Fourteen years later, Libanius said that Julian was killed by a Saracen (Lakhmid) and this may have been confirmed by Julian's doctor Oribasius who, having examined the wound, said that it was from a spear used by a group of Lakhmid auxiliaries in Persian service.[83] Later Christian historians propagated the tradition that Julian was killed by Saint Mercurius.[84] Julian was succeeded by the short-lived Emperor Jovian who reestablished Christianity's privileged position throughout the Empire. Libanius says in his epitaph of the deceased emperor (18.304) that "I have mentioned representations (of Julian); many cities have set him beside the images of the gods and honour him as they do the gods. Already a blessing has been besought of him in prayer, and it was not in vain. To such an extent has he literally ascended to the gods and received a share of their power from him themselves." However, no similar action was taken by the Roman central government, which would be more and more dominated by Christians in the ensuing decades. Considered apocryphal is the report that his dying words were νενίκηκάς με, Γαλιλαῖε, or Vicisti, Galilaee ("You have won, Galilean"),[85] supposedly expressing his recognition that, with his death, Christianity would become the Empire's state religion. The phrase introduces the 1866 poem Hymn to Proserpine, which was Algernon Charles Swinburne's elaboration of what a philosophic pagan might have felt at the triumph of Christianity. Tomb Porphyry sarcophagi outside the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Julian's is the left-hand one. As he had requested, Julian's body was buried in Tarsus. It lay in a tomb outside the city, across a road from that of Maximinus Daia.[86] However, chronicler Zonaras says that at some "later" date his body was exhumed and reburied in or near the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, where Constantine and the rest of his family lay.[87] His sarcophagus is listed as standing in a "stoa" there by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.[88] The church was demolished by the Ottoman Turks after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Today a sarcophagus of porphyry, identified as Julian's, stands in the grounds of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul. Julian and religious issues Beliefs Julian's personal religion was both pagan and philosophical; he viewed the traditional myths as allegories, in which the ancient gods were aspects of a philosophical divinity. The chief surviving sources are his works To King Helios and To the Mother of the Gods, which were written as panegyrics, not theological treatises. While there are clear resemblances to other forms of Late Antique religion, it is controversial as to which variety it is most similar to. He learned theurgy from Maximus of Ephesus, a student of Iamblichus;[89] his system bears some resemblance to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus; Polymnia Athanassiadi has brought new attention to his relations with Mithraism, although whether he was initiated into it remains debatable; and certain aspects of his thought (such as his reorganization of paganism under High Priests, and his fundamental monotheism) may show Christian influence. Some of these potential sources have not come down to us, and all of them influenced each other, which adds to the difficulties.[90] According to one theory (that of G.W. Bowersock in particular), Julian's paganism was highly eccentric and atypical because it was heavily influenced by an esoteric approach to Platonic philosophy sometimes identified as theurgy and also Neoplatonism. Others (Rowland Smith, in particular) have argued that Julian's philosophical perspective was nothing unusual for a "cultured" pagan of his time, and, at any rate, that Julian's paganism was not limited to philosophy alone, and that he was deeply devoted to the same gods and goddesses as other pagans of his day. Because of his Neoplatonist background Julian accepted the creation of humanity as described in Plato's Timaeus. Julian writes, "when Zeus was setting all things in order there fell from him drops of sacred blood, and from them, as they say, arose the race of men."[91] Further he writes, "they who had the power to create one man and one woman only, were able to create many men and women at once...."[92] His view contrasts with the Christian belief that humanity is derived from the one pair, Adam and Eve. Elsewhere he argues against the single pair origin, indicating his disbelief, noting for example, "how very different in their bodies are the Germans and Scythians from the Libyans and Ethiopians."[93][94] The Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus was of the opinion that Julian believed himself to be Alexander the Great "in another body" via transmigration of souls, "in accordance with the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato".[95] Like Pythagoras, Julian was a vegetarian.[96] Restoration of Paganism as state religion Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by Edward Armitage, 1875 See also: henosis and henotheism After gaining the purple, Julian started a religious reformation of the state, which was intended to restore the lost strength of the Roman state. He supported the restoration of Hellenistic polytheism as the state religion. His laws tended to target wealthy and educated Christians, and his aim was not to destroy Christianity but to drive the religion out of "the governing classes of the empire — much as Buddhism was driven back into the lower classes by a revived Confucian mandarinate in 13th century China."[97] He restored pagan temples which had been confiscated since Constantine's time, or simply appropriated by wealthy citizens; he repealed the stipends that Constantine had awarded to Christian bishops, and removed their other privileges, including a right to be consulted on appointments and to act as private courts. He also reversed some favors that had previously been given to Christians. For example, he reversed Constantine's declaration that Majuma, the port of Gaza, was a separate city. Majuma had a large Christian congregation while Gaza was still predominantly pagan. On 4 February 362, Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee freedom of religion. This edict proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, and that the Roman Empire had to return to its original religious eclecticism, according to which the Roman state did not impose any religion on its provinces. Practically however, it had as its purpose the restoration of paganism at the expense of Christianity.[citation needed] Coptic icon showing Saint Mercurius killing Julian. According to a tradition, Saint Basil (an old school-mate of Julian) had been imprisoned at the start of Julian's Sassanid campaign. Basil prayed to Mercurius to help him, and the saint appeared in a vision to Basil, claiming to have speared Julian to death. Since the persecution of Christians by past Roman Emperors had seemingly only strengthened Christianity, many of Julian's actions were designed to harass and undermine the ability of Christians to organize resistance to the re-establishment of paganism in the empire.[98] Julian's preference for a non-Christian and non-philosophical view of Iamblichus' theurgy seems to have convinced him that it was right to outlaw the practice of the Christian view of theurgy and demand the suppression of the Christian set of Mysteries.[99] In his School Edict Julian required that all public teachers be approved by the Emperor; the state paid or supplemented much of their salaries. Ammianus Marcellinus explains this as intending to prevent Christian teachers from using pagan texts (such as the Iliad, which was widely regarded as divinely inspired) that formed the core of classical education: "If they want to learn literature, they have Luke and Mark: Let them go back to their churches and expound on them", the edict says.[97] This was an attempt to remove some of the power of the Christian schools which at that time and later used ancient Greek literature in their teachings in their effort to present the Christian religion as being superior to paganism.[citation needed] The edict was also a severe financial blow, because it deprived Christian scholars, tutors and teachers of many students. In his Tolerance Edict of 362, Julian decreed the reopening of pagan temples, the restitution of confiscated temple properties, and the return from exile of dissident Christian bishops. The latter was an instance of tolerance of different religious views, but it may also have been seen as an attempt by Julian to foster schisms and divisions between different Christian sects, since conflict between rival Christian sects was quite fierce.[100] His care in the institution of a pagan hierarchy in opposition to that of the Christians was due to his wish to create a society in which every aspect of the life of the citizens was to be connected, through layers of intermediate levels, to the consolidated figure of the Emperor — the final provider for all the needs of his people. Within this project, there was no place for a parallel institution, such as the Christian hierarchy or Christian charity.[101] Juventinus and Maximus The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches retell a story concerning two of Julian's bodyguards who were Christian. When he came to Antioch, he prohibited the veneration of the relics. The two bodyguards opposed the edict, and were executed at Julian's command. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches remember them as saints Juventinus and Maximus. Charity Because Christian charities were open to all, including pagans, it put this aspect of the Roman citizens lives out of the control of the Imperial authority and under that of the Church. Thus Julian envisioned the institution of a Roman philanthropic system, and cared for the behaviour and the morality of the pagan priests, in the hope that it would mitigate the reliance of pagans on Christian charity, saying: "These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes."[102] Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Temple rebuilt.[103] A personal friend of his, Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort: Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt. The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to the Galilee earthquake of 363, and to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time.[104] Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian the Hellene".[105] |
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