HISTORY

OF THE

DECLINE AND FALL

OF

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

CHAPTER XXIV.

RESIDENCE OF JULIAN AT ANTIOCH.-HIS SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITION AGAINST THE PERSIANS.-PASSAGE OF THE TIGRIS. THE RETREAT AND DEATH OF JULIAN.-ELECTION OF JOVIAN.-HE SAVES THE ROMA?! ARMY BY A DISGRACEFUL TREATY.

THE philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of the CESARS,* is one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.+ 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 Caesars was spread below

* See this fable, or satire, p. 306–336, of the Leipzig 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 five hundred and fifty-seven 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), &

VOL. III.

B

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 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† was not excluded from this honourable 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. Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged with a blush, that fame, or power, or pleasure, had been the important object of their labours: 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 composition (the Cæsars of Julian) is enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates with freedom the vices miscellaneous composition, either in prose or verse. But the Cæsars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is perplexed to which class he should ascribe them. [Horace (A. P. 220-250) is the best authority for the origin, meaning, and object of Satires.-ED.]

*This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in the sixth eclogue 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 more 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

A.D. 362.]

EMBASSIES FROM THE EAST.

3

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 ardour, 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 vigour, the emperor, who was instructed by the experience, and animated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and memorable achievement. 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 war. He despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that the rapacious barbarians of

mankind had much greater obligations to Socrates than to Alexander. (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.) * Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum donis optimates mittentibus... ab usque Divis et Serendivis. Ammian. 20, 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. 6. 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 neighbourhood of China. [M. Letronne, to whom Dean Milman refers, in a commentary on this note, supposed that the names of Diva Gens or Divorum regio, which the Romans gave to the eastern coast of Hindostan, had some connection with those of the Divy point, of Devipatnam, Devidan, and other places in that country. It is much more probable, that in their unfrequent and scanty intercourse, some mariners picked up from the natives a few words of a language which they did not understand, and hearing perhaps dhi, a village, often repeated, framed from it a name for the people, quite unknown to those whom it designated.-ED.]

Ammianus,

+ These embassies had been sent to Constantius. who 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

the Danube would be restrained from any future violation of the faith of treaties, by the terror of his name, and the additional fortifications 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 informed that the throne of Constantius was filled by a prince of a very different character, he condescended to make some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures, towards a negotiation of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness of Julian, who sternly declared, that he would never consent to hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt, that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations. The generals were named; a formidable army was destined for this important service and Julian, marching from Constantinople through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent desire to march into the heart of Persia was checked by the indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his wisest friends, who represented the necessity of allowing the salutary interval of winter-quarters, to restore the exhausted strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of the eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays of their sovereign.t

If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal condiscrimine 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 Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of Mesopotamia or Assyria. (Cæsares, p. 324.) The design of the Persian war is declared by Ammianus (22, 7. 12), Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p. 305, 306),

A.D. 362.]

LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE PEOPLE.

5

nection with the capital of the east would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch.* The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverend age, announced the universal corruption of the capital of the east. The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured from the adjacent cities;† a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his subjects; and the effeminate orientals could neither imitate, nor admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated by ancient custom to the honour of the gods, were the only occasions on which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been first invented by their ancestors; they contented themselves with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were

*The Satire of

Zosimus (1. 3, p. 158), and Socrates (1. 3, c. 19). Julian, and the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature which the abbé de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de Julien, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.

+ Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus, comedians; Cæsarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza, gladiators; Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of Hudson's Minor Geographers.

The

† Χριστὸν δὲ ἀγαπῶντες ἔχετε πολιοῦχον ἀντὶ τοῦ Δίος. people of Antioch ingenuously professed their attachment to the Chi (Christ), and the Kappa (Constantius). Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.