dom.137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause, presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious persecution.138 These present hardships, intolerable as they might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a cruel and crafty tyrant; who suspended the exe• cution of his revenge till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimulation; that the amphitheatres would stream with the blood of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of the common benefits of nature and society.139 Every calumny 140 that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it was their duty. to respect, and their interest to flatter. They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen resolution that their submission was no longer the effect of weakness 137 Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He praises the rioters of Caesarea, τούτων δὲ τῶν μεγαλοφυῶν καὶ θερμῶν εἰς εὐσεβείαν. See Sozomen, 1. v. 4, 11. Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their behavior was not dans l'ordre commun; but he is perfectly satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival of these blessed martyrs. 138 Julian determined a lawsuit against the new Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and his sentence, though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by his successors. Sozomen, L. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p. 791. 139 Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p. 114) pretends to speak from the information of Julian's confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen. 140 Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91) charges the Apostate with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively affirms, that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See Theodoret, 1. iii. e 26, 27; and and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by persezution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church, we shall be convinced, that, before the emperor could have extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his country in the horrors of a civil war.141 the equivocal candor of the Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet contemporary malice could not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially in the West, which Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont so faintly rejects, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1295-1315.) 141 The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying, (Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop ar 1 people, (Orat. xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are alleged by Tillemont, (Mém. Eosies. tom. vii. p. 675.) CHAPTER XXIV. KhoIDENCE OF JULIAN AT ANTIOCH. HIS SUCCESSFUL EXPEPASSAGE OF THE TIGRIS. ELECTION OF DITION AGAINST THE PERSIANS. JOVIAN. THE philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of the CESARS,1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.2 During the freedom and equality of the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate, and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the table of the Cæsars was spread below the Moon in the upper region of the air. The tyrants who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Cæsars successively advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who disguised the 1 See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig edition of Julian's works. The French version of the learned Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct; and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious notes. 'Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of the Greek satyrs, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the tragedy; and the Latin satires, (from Satura,) a miscellaneous composition, either in prose or But the Cæsars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the eritic is perplexed to which class he should ascribe them.* verse. • See also Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach's observations. -- M 461 wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a Bacchanal As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits; but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more decisive and conspicuous.5 Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame, or power, or pleasure had been the important object of their labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love, a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value of this agreeable somposition (the Cæsars of Julian) is enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes, in every line the censure or approbation of his own conduct. In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude. In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy the most active vigor, the emperor, who was instructed by the experience, and ani This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in the sixth clogue of Virgil. Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the Christian religion On this occasion, the interpreters are compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author. Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.) war. 6 mated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signal. ize his reign by some more splendid and memorable achieve ment. The ambassadors of the East, from the continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, had respectfully saluted the Roman purple. The nations of the West esteemed and dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and He despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of his name, and the additional fortifica tions with which he strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to chastise the haughty nation which had so long resisted and insulted the majesty of Rome. As soon as the Persian monarch was • Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum donis optimates mittentibus ab usque Divis et Serendivis. Ammian. xx. 7. This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China.* Ammianus, who 7 These embassies had been sent to Constantius. unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the reign of Julian. Gothos sæpe fallaces et perfidos; hostes quærere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercatores Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur. (Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic slaves threatened and subdued their masters. • Alexander reminds his rival Cæsar, who depreciated the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony had felt the The name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to the probable conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mém. Acad. p. 127,) was applied by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Ganges. The name may be traced in Devipatnam, Dévidan, Dévicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy. M. Letronne, p. 121, considers the freedman with his embassy from Ceylon to have been an impostor. — M. |