WHY JULIAN BELIEVED CORRECT WORSHIP of the GODS COULD SAVE the ROMAN EMPIRE from CHAOS a Thesis Presented to the Faculty Of

Home , Julian (emperor), King of Rome, Marcellinus (consul 275)

WHY JULIAN BELIEVED CORRECT WORSHIP OF THE GODS COULD SAVE

THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM CHAOS

A Thesis

Presented to the faculty of the Department of Humanities and Religious Studies

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Humanities

Alejandra Meléndez-Silva

SPRING 2020

WHY JULIAN BELIEVED CORRECT WORSHIP OF THE GODS COULD SAVE

THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM CHAOS

A Thesis

Alejandra Meléndez-Silva

Approved by:

______, Committee Chair Dr. Jeffrey Brodd

______, Second Reader Dr. Bradley Nystrom

______Date

Student: Alejandra Meléndez-Silva

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and this thesis is suitable for electronic submission to the library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.

______, Graduate Coordinator ______Dr. Harvey Stark Date

Department of Humanities and Religious Studies

iii Abstract

WHY JULIAN BELIEVED CORRECT WORSHIP OF THE GODS COULD SAVE

THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM CHAOS

Alejandra Meléndez-Silva

The Roman emperor Julian is famously remembered for being Rome’s last pagan emperor and he has been vilified for his dislike of Christianity. Sufficient analysis of

Julian’s own perspective reveals a complex individual who does not conform with the simplified caricature of Julian “the Apostate” who was focused on assailing Christianity.

His aversion to the Christians was mainly motivated by the fact that they refused to participate in the state cult. This thesis will explore the relationship between properly honoring the gods and state health, its origins, and why it was essential to sacrifice to the gods. It will also focus on why Julian believed that Greco-Roman harmony in the Roman empire was broken, why it was so important for him to act in accordance with the ways of the past, and why he believed he was the only one that could once again restore this balance.

______, Committee Chair Dr. Jeffrey Brodd

______Date iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my readers for being part of this project:

Dr. Brodd for taking a chance on me since before I even started this program. It was serendipitous that the first person that I got in contact with who was a part of this department, is a Julian scholar, and that we were both interested in an emperor that is usually omitted from most Roman history books. It has been a joy to have been able to continue to work on Julian scholarship––something I thought that would have been more difficult to do because of how niche the topic is when compared to other topics in Roman history. You managed to understand what I was trying to do even when I somehow explained what I wanted in the most confusing and muddled way possible. Thank you for your patience and your support.

Dr. Nystrom for agreeing to be my second reader even though what I wanted to write my thesis on was not even clear to me. You have my sincerest gratitude for sticking with me.

It meant the world to me to feel so supported as I took on this project.

I would also like to thank Dr. Stark for helping this semester. You were always so kind and welcoming anytime I had any questions, it helped make my final semester less stressful.

Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Shinbrot. It meant a lot to me that when I was going to write a paper that was completely out of my comfort level, you told me that I could do it.

You had complete confidence in me. Every time I have struggled with something for school, I just recall that memory and you telling me that I can.

vi DEDICATIONS

I would like to thank Maria and Raul, my parents and my constant source of support.

Since I started this journey into the world of academia, they have never doubted my ability to meet every goal I have had to conquer along the way. The love that they have given me has kept me going even when things got too difficult and I could not see a path forward. They have worked very hard to support me and this has enabled me to be where

I am at today.

To Yvonne, who helped me out when I needed her most and never doubted that her little sister could pursue her dreams in academia.

For Adoración, who showed me you can go through hell and persevere. She maintained her dignity and became a fierce protector of the people she loved.

For Lusi, she was a wife, a mother, and teacher. She showed me that I could be a mother and a wife if I wanted. I could also do other things with my life as well. She taught me that I could do whatever I wanted to do with my life, be what I wanted to be, as long as I got a good education first.

To Amy, for being a good friend, never doubting me, and cheering me along as she watched me from the sidelines.

vii To Jimmy, who has stuck with me since high school and every bump along the way I have had since. Every time I needed a good friend, he has been there for me.

To Massimo, who helped me out during one of the most difficult periods of my life. I would not have gotten here without you.

Finally, to Todd, my husband. He has taken on this enormous burden of supporting me and the dogs (Peanut and Pongo) while I dedicated the first years of our marriage to completing this program. No matter how difficult things got for him, he never once asked me to stop what I was doing, he encouraged me as I worked through this program, and has made it so that I had the luxury of just focusing on earning my master’s. I could not have asked for a better or more supportive partner.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Acknowledgements ...... v

Dedications...... vii

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

2. HELLENISM, GRECO-ROMAN RELIGION, AND THE GODS...... 8

3. PROBLEMS BETWEEN THE CHRISTIANS AND THE ROMAN STATE...... 19

4. INTELLIGENCE A GIFT FROM THE GODS AND NEO-PLATONISM...... 26

5. WHAT MAKES A GOOD EMPEROR...... 33

6. CONCLUSION...... 40

Bibliography...... 42

ix 1

Chapter 1. Introduction

The Roman emperor Julian is best remembered for being Rome’s last pagan emperor and for his aversion of Christianity. He was the nephew of the emperor

Constantine, who is famously Rome’s first Christian emperor. By embracing the old

Greco-Roman gods and abandoning Christianity, which had become interlinked with his family’s legacy, Julian has earned the epithet “the Apostate.” When trying to understand the motives behind Julian’s dislike of the Christians, his apostasy from Christianity is usually cited as being the motivating factor. Highly regarded scholars like G. W.

Bowersock and Robert L. Wilken, write about Julian and they both focus on Julian’s apostasy as his motivating factor. However, this thesis will instead focus on Julian’s pro-

Hellenistic intentions and actions as revealed first and foremost on his own writings, and argue his Hellenism was the driving force behind his agenda as emperor of Rome. What this actually reveals was that his focus was not on antagonizing Christianity or his fellow

Roman citizens who were Christian. Rather, he sought to improve the health of the

Roman empire as a whole, believing that Rome’s health depended on proper worship of the gods. Julian was more in line with traditionally minded emperors, for whom pax deorum was considered essential for the well-being of the Roman state, than the anti-

Christian interpretation of him makes him out to be.

It is no secret how much Julian loathed anything having to do with Constantine.1

However, I believe that the spotlight put on dysfunctional family dynamics of the Neo-

Flavian Dynasty shifts the focus away from what I believe to be the most significant

1 This can easily be found throughout Julian’s writings.

2 reason which contributed to Julian’s aversion of Christianity: Christianity made it impossible to properly honor the gods. In order to accurately assess Julian’s actions, it is crucial that the historian takes fully into account his belief that the health of the Roman state was being negatively affected by having a group of Romans living within her borders that refused to engage in the religious rites of sacrificing to the gods. Christians were effectively creating a barrier between the state and the divine.

Towards the end of Hymn to King Helios, Julian prays to the god:

may he grant, and further may he, of his grace, endow my city as a whole with eternal existence, so far as is possible, and protect her; and for myself personally, may he grant that, so long as I am permitted to live, I may prosper in my affairs both human and divine; finally may he grant me to live and serve the state with my life, so long as is pleasing to himself and well for me and expedient for the Roman Empire!2

In Hymn to the Mother of the Gods, Julian calls Rome “that city beloved by the gods.”3

Julian knew that there had been a time-honored relationship between the Roman state and the gods. Thus, the health of the Roman state was tied in directly with the Roman emperor and the Roman people worshipping the gods correctly. This was the way things had been done for centuries. It was necessary for Julian to restore this break with long- established Roman traditions. If he could make it so that the Romans worshipped the gods as profusely as they had done in the past, the gods would once more bestow blessings upon the Roman empire. Under Julian’s command not only would the empire thrive but it would be better than it ever was before. In this paper, I will explore the deep-

2 Julian, The Works of the Emperor Julian, 3 vols., trans. W. C. Wright, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 1:431. 3 Julian, Julian, 1:445.

3 rooted connection between the proper worship of the gods and the health of the Roman state, how this was established since the very beginning of Rome’s history. I will make my case as to why honoring the gods correctly was at the center of Julian’s plan to rehabilitate the Roman state, why Julian believed that sacrificing was essential in maintaining a good relationship with the gods, and why Julian decided that the best way to save the empire was to restore traditional worship of the gods in accordance with his

Neo-Platonic Hellenist religious worldview.

Part of the reason why Julian has been so misunderstood some highly influential early opinions of Julian were set forth by hostile Christian authors. The texts that tend to demonize Julian were written by Christians like Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem the

Syrian, and John Chryosotom, their anti-Julian opinions were not uncommon. There were plenty of writers who to the task and responded to Julian’s writing, Against the

Galileans.4 As a consequence, the characterization of the “Apostate” took hold early on because for the most part those writing about him were Christians and they often portrayed Julian as being a sinister man. Turning to other ancient sources, we see that are very different perceptions of the emperor.

His friend, the pagan rhetor Libanius, wrote a beautiful eulogy to express the sadness of not only losing a good friend, but the sadness of Rome losing a good man as her emperor. He writes, “alas, great indeed is the grief that has beset not just the land of

Achaia but the whole empire where laws of Rome hold sway. It is perhaps greater in that part where Greeks live…Gone is the glory of the good; the company of the wicked and

4 What remains of Against the Galileans are fragments. Wright, Julian, 3:314.

4 licentious is uplifted.” 5 As a rhetor, Libanius had a flair for the dramatic. One can feel his anguish in his words. While there were other pagans in high ranking places of political power within the Roman empire,6 no one was able to take over for Julian and to succeed in igniting the rekindling of Hellenism throughout the Roman empire.

With Constantine’s conversion to Christianity there was a conversion explosion as more Romans abandoned their old gods and embraced Christianity. As Christianity spread throughout the empire and gained traction among the powerful and influential of

Rome, there was a perceived need to squash anything that could be regarded as a threat to

Christianity. Thus, Christians began a campaign of destroying the pagan temples that had stood for hundreds of years, or they repurposed pagan temples (particularly those that were important places of pilgrimage or learning), they destroyed pagan relics, and they demonized those with a favorable view of paganism––like Julian. It did not take long for the smears against Julian’s character to start. Gregory of Nazianzus,7 a contemporary and former friend of Julian, labeled him as instrument of the devil.8 Like so many other writers after him, when Gregory wrote about Julian it was to demonize the emperor and portray Julian much like a one-dimensional villain.9 As an enemy of Christendom, any

5 Libanius, (Or. 17. 1-2) quoted in Robert L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1894), 165. 6 For example, Salutius who was a pagan, refused the purple when Julian’s army wanted him to become the new emperor of Rome after Julian died in battle in 363 CE. G. W., Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1978), 118. 7 He would later become Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. He would also be known as Gregory the Theologian. 8 Robert Browning, The Emperor Julian (Berkeley: University of California Press 1976), 224. 9 Browning, 224.

5 human virtues he possessed, any accomplishments he had achieved that ended up benefiting the Roman state were made irrelevant.10

To get more of an unbiased opinion of Julian from one of his contemporaries,

Ammianus Marcellinus is, in the words of Bowersock, “a godsend.”11 He served in Gaul as an officer when Julian was Caesar12 and was with Julian at his disastrous Persian campaign where the emperor lost his life.13 Robert Browning writes that although

Ammianus writes sympathetically about Julian he is also critical of him.14 Browning briefly discusses Ammianus’ final assessment of Julian. He finds Julian heroic and is distinguished by his achievements and natural dignity.15 However, Ammianus does not hold back in his criticism of Julian’s shortcomings.16 Browning paraphrases Ammianus and writes that Julian “was inclined to flippancy, but trained himself how to avoid it; he talked too much; he was too much addicted to divination and other superstitious practices; sought popularity and was over fond of praise.”17 Of Julian’s infamous education edict18 issued in 362 CE, Bowersock writes that “the admiring Ammianus

10 Browning, 224. 11 Bowersock, Julian, 6. 12 Diocletian’s reign began in 284 CE over the course of the next ten years he implemented the tetrarchy. He split the empire into two parts, the east and west. Each empire had its own “Augustus” (senior emperor) to rule over it. They were in turn aided each by their own “Caesar” (junior emperor). The Caesars were to be the eventual successors of the Augusti. Thus, the tetrarchy was born. While the tetrarchy brought stability to the Roman empire, it was the beginning of the end for a unified Roman empire. By the time that Constantius became the emperor of Rome, the tetrarchy system had dissolved. However, Constantius continued to use Casears to help him rule over Rome. Both Gallus and Julian were made Caesars under Constantius’ reign. Anthony Kamm and Abigail Graham, The Romans: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2015), 114. 13 Bowersock, Julian, 6-7. 14 Browning, The Emperor, 225. 15 Browning, 225. 16 Browning, 225. 17 Browning, 225. 18 Julian demanded that those who were going to be teaching the classics had to be “men of upright character, and ought not to harbour in their souls opinions irreconcilable with what publicly profess.” This

6 judged [the education edict] deserving of everlasting silence.”19 What emerges from the writings of Ammianus is a more realistic portrait of Julian.20 He is neither the god-like figure of Libanius nor the demon of Nazianzus.

Julian was a prolific writer. Scholars such as Polymnia Athanassiadi are focusing more on Julian’s own writings to better understand him. There is no better source from which to get what Julian was like and what his motivations were, than Julian himself.

Source material aside, scholars have produced widely varying portals of the emperor. For the most part Julian has become one of those tragic characters in history. Depending on the scholar, their critique of Julian can be quite harsh,21 like he is a man on a fool’s errand.22 Or the scholar can have a more sympathetic view23 of him; he is seen as a man full of dreams and ambitious plans whose life was cut tragically short before he really even began to live.

By explaining the history which established the ties between proper worship of the gods and state health and why sacrifice was an essential component in honoring the gods, I shall explain why Julian believed that re-Hellenizing Rome was key to saving

made it impossible for Christians to teach the classic pagan texts because they did not believe in what was written in those texts, which were the core of the education system in place during the time that Julian lived. This would ensure that within a generation the educated elite of Rome would exclude the Christians. See Letter 36. Julian, Julian, 3:117-119. 19 Bowersock, Julian, 83. 20 Bowersock writes the scholars Edward Gibbon and Joseph Bidez both heavily relied on the writings of Ammianus when writing about Julian. While Ammianus’ analysis of Julian tries to be as neutral as possible, Bowersock notes that he wrote about Julian three decades after his death. Bowersock, Julian, 7. 21 Bowersock is an example of this. His view of Julian in his book Julian the Apostate, comes off as a very straight forward, no frills, sober, analysis of the emperor. 22 While Bowersock does not use this phrase, it is my assessment of his attitude toward Julian after reading his book. 23 Browning has a more romanticized view of Julian. He obviously admires him and goes so far as to compare his short reign to the short presidency of John F. Kennedy. Browning, The Emperor, 235.

Rome from chaos. With the use of Julian’s own writings, I shall make it clear that his primary concern was with nurturing the health of the Roman state by maintaining the pax deorum. I shall establish that Julian’s apostasy from Christianity was not the most important motive behind his dislike of Christianity.

Chapter 2. Hellenism, Greco-Roman Religion, and the Gods

In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon notes of Julina: “a devout and sincere attachment to the gods of Athens and Rome constituted a ruling passion of Julian.”24 Although Julian was a Roman, his culture was Hellenic. The Greeks had already been spreading their culture, language, values, virtues and gods to their neighbors before the time of Alexander the Great. But as Alexander spread his empire there was a more deliberate push to spread Hellenic culture. After his death Hellenism began to influence not only the places he conquered around the Mediterranean like Syria,

Palestine, Asia Minor, and Egypt, but spread elsewhere. The reason why Hellenism could take hold in vastly different places was because it adapted itself to the different indigenous cultures that were located around the Mediterranean.25 In Hellenism in Late

Antiquity, Bowersock writes that he believes that the reasons why Hellenism was able to flourish in so many different locations was because “it didn’t necessarily threaten local cultures, nor was it imperialistic…[it was] itself a modern idea, reflecting modern forms of cultural domination.”26 As time went by the meaning of the word “Hellenism” started to change. In late antiquity the word Hellênismos takes on a new meaning “that proclaims in the most eloquent way possible the relation between paganism and Greek culture.”27

So by Julian’s time “Hellenism” had become synonymous with paganism. Thus a

24 Edward, Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. Xxiii (vol. ii, p.432 ed. Bury) quoted in Rowland Smith, Julian’s Gods (London: Routledge 1995), 222. 25 G. W., Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990), xi. 26 Bowersock, xi. 27 Bowersock, 9.

“Hellene” like Julian was a pagan.28 When Julian refers to others as Hellenes in his writings, he is specifically referring to fellow pagans such as himself. At no point does he refer to any Christian that may know Greek, or have studied the Classics, as a “Hellene.”

In her book Julian: An Intellectual Biography, Athanassiadi writes that not only did the Romans inherit a rich legacy from the Greeks but they also improved upon it. She writes, “the Greeks developed an admirable religious, philosophical and artistic tradition which their kinsmen, the Romans were able to perfect by enriching it with the best political constitution the world had known.”29 Julian was aware that because Rome adopted Greek values and virtues, they were able to prosper from a small city-state to a grand empire. In Hymn to the King Helios, Julian writes about the connection between the Romans and the Greeks and that it was by divine intervention that Rome took the reins from Greeks. He says that the god Apollo gifted the Greeks with oracles (who had a direct line of communication to the gods) which inspired the divine wisdom within the

Greeks, enabling them to “regulate their cities by means of religious and political ordnances.”30 Thus, the gods have set up a world that was civilized by the Greeks when they colonized the Mediterranean, thus readying the world to be governed by Rome.31

Julian writes of the Romans, “the Romans themselves not only belong to the Greek race,

28 For the purposes of this theis, I have chosen to use the word “pagan” in this instance because it is common scholarship. However, those ancient Greco-Romans that are currently labeled as “pagans” would have most likely not used this word to identify themselves. The origin of the word came from the Christians as a derogatory term to identify non-Christian people. “Paganus may have meant ‘hick’, because a pagus was a little village.” By default, the word is difficult to use because it already comes with a negative connotation. Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 35. 29 Polymnia Athanassiadi, Julian: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), 122. 30 Julian, Julian: 1:419. 31 Julian, 419.

10 but also the sacred ordinances and the pious belief in the gods which they have established and maintain are, from beginning to end, Greek.”32 So Julian believed that not only did the Romans inherit the civilized culture of the Greeks but also the religion of the

Greeks.33

It is important to establish the precedent upon which honoring the gods became tied to the health of the state and its affairs, as well as the importance of sacrificing to the gods. The Both the Greeks and the Romans believed that religion was meant to bring order to chaos. Hesiod’s Theogony34 is a creation myth of the Greek cosmology. In the myth Hesiod lists the order in which things came into being.35 He says that in the beginning there was only Chaos. Out of Chaos came everything else: the world, the universe, and the gods.36 The gods could be personifications of nature like the earth, the sea, thunder, volcanos, or other awe-inspiring natural phenomena. Or the gods could also be personifications of abstractions like love, war, virtue, and so forth. The creation of the gods enabled the universe to have order. The Greeks saw disorder or chaos as the natural

32 Julian, 419. 33 While there are a lot of similarities between Greek and Roman religion, Julian is not quite right in his belief that Roman and Greek religion was the same. When it came to religion, the Roman religion had many similarities with Greek religion, they had a lot of similar gods which originated from those early Indo-European gods both groups shared before they were either Greek or Roman. But the Romans also incorporated religious concepts from the other peoples that were living nearby like the Etruscans, into their own religion. For example, a form of divination practiced by the Romans was extispicium. This involved the sacrifice of an animal and its entrails would be inspected and interpreted by a haruspex. The haruspex was a man skilled with reading the entrails of the sacrificed animal and interpreting what he saw as signs from the gods. Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 378. 34 Hesiod lived about a millennium before Julian was born. But this did not matter to Julian. For Julian it was as though no time had passed between the time in which he lived and the time in which Hesiod lived. Hesiod was as relevant to Julian as if he was living in the fourth century. 35 Hesiod, Hesiod: Theogony Works and Days, Shield, trans. Apostolos N. Athanassakis 2nd ed., (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 14. 36 Hesiod, 14.

11 state of things and the supernatural forces of the gods restrained that chaos. So, there was this prevailing notion in Greek culture that there was always a struggle to maintain order, and once attained, it was very fragile and could easily be upset. Therefore, it was in the best interest of humans to make sure that the gods were “pleased” so that, the gods could continue to ensure the triumph of order over chaos.

In Jon D. Mikalson’s book Ancient Greek Religion, he writes that “worshippers wanted to honor the deity for the power the deity had and for the good things that deity provided. Greek gods wanted their devotees ‘honor’ and ‘respect,’ not ‘love.’”37 He goes on to say that the relationship between the gods and their believers was like that of the honor a subject owes a “good” king.38 When a Greek or a Roman was engaging in religious rites there were three objectives: to honor the god, to express gratitude to the god, and to obtain some sort of favor or benefit from the god.39

So, the relationship between the gods and men was one in which men would ask for blessings from the gods and in exchange, men would offer something to the gods that they wanted. There were different ways by which to please the gods: building temples in their honor, gifting them things that could be used to adorn their temples, writing songs or poems in honor of the gods, offering them drink (which can be used when giving a libation to a god), or offering them food40. The most important thing one could do to please the gods was to perform a sacrifice for them.

37 Jon D., Mikalson, Ancient Greek Religion (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010), ch. I, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csus/reader.action?docID=819395. 38 Mikalson, ch. I. 39 S. R. F., Price, “Between Man and God: Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult,” The Journal of Roman Studies 70, (1980): 23-43. 40 Mikalson, Ancient, ch. I.

There is a myth that explains why men have to do sacrifices to appease the gods.

Sacrifice was demanded by Zeus; it establishes man’s place as a subordinate to the gods.

The titan Prometheus made it his role to look after mortal men. He stole some fire from

Olympus, brought it down and gave it to the mortals. Soon they started to tame nature.

They were able to cook their food with fire, to keep warm when it was cold, and to have light in the darkness of night. As the race of men started to flourish, conflict began to arise between the gods and men. Hesiod sings:

When the gods and mortal men were settling their accounts at Mekone, Prometheus cheerfully took a great ox, carved it up, and set it before Zeus to trick his mind. He placed meat, entrails, and fat within a hide and covered them with the ox’s tripe, but with guile he arranged the white bones of the ox, covered them with glistening fat, and laid them down as an offer. Then indeed the father of the gods and men said to him: ‘Son of Iapetos, you outshine all other kings, but, friend, you have divided with self-serving zeal.’ These were sarcastic words of Zeus, whose counsels never perish, but Prometheus was a skillful crook and he smiled faintly, all the while mindful of his cunning scheme, and said: ‘Sublime Zeus, highest among the everlasting gods, choose of the two portions whichever your heart desires.’ …with both hands [Zeus] took up the white fat, And spiteful anger rushed through his mind and his heart when he saw the white bones of the ox laid out in deceit. From that time on the tribes of mortal men on earth Have burned the white bones for the gods on smoky altars.41

With the telling of this myth, Hesiod tells his audience of the precedent that established religious rites in which they partook. Prior to this taking place, men and gods would dine

41 Hesiod, Hesiod, 24-25.

13 together.42 The sacrifice replaced the familiarity humans had with the gods. Jean-Pierre

Vernant writes of the sacrificial ceremony, “in the sacrificial ceremony the festive side of joyous communication with the gods can never be separated from the other aspect of the ritual—recognized and proclaimed subordination to the gods, the resigned acceptance of the mortal condition, and the permanent abdication of all claims to what lies beyond the human.”43 By sacrificing men are showing they recognize their subordination to the gods and are now able to ask the gods for favors.44

If one did not have the means to sacrifice an animal every time they wanted to garner favors from the gods, there were other things that could be done. In Works and

Days, Hesiod advises his audience when he says:

In proportion to your means offer the gods sacrifices that are pure and unblemished, and burn choice thighs for them. At other times seek their favor with burning and libations when you go to sleep and when the holy light looms on the horizon, so that you may win their favor for your affairs.45

The point that Hesiod is trying to make is that everyone must do their part in honoring the gods. Perhaps if one is unable to throw an enormous feast, a simple sprinkling of wine for a libation will serve just as well, as long as the person is showing sincere devotion to the gods.

This relationship that the Greeks had with their gods had been established since the time of the Mycenaeans around 2200 BCE.46 Because of the conservative nature of

42 Sarah Hitch, King of Sacrifice: Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad (DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009), ch. 3 https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6166.3-the-gift-of-sacrifice#noteref_n.3. 43 Jean-Pierre Vernant (1989:53) quoted in Hitch, ch. 3. 44 Hitch, ch. 3. 45 Hesiod, Hesiod, 73. 46 Mikalson, Ancient, ch I.

Greek religious tradition, Greek worship stayed more or less the same through the different changes of political systems that the Greek city-states went through.47 Romans would weave this concept of giving the gods their due to have blessings bestowed upon them into an essential component of the very fabric of Rome itself.

Roman state religion developed from the rites individual families performed when

Rome was in its infancy, when it was still a “small farm” type agricultural society.48 The same gods that were asked to provide good weather, a plentiful harvest, and protection from anyone seeking to harm the family, were later asked by the state to provide blessings for its people.49 In her book As the Romans Did, Jo-Ann Shelton writes in her introduction to her chapter on religion and philosophy what differentiates the “state religion” of Rome from the other different religions throughout the empire. She explains:

it is called the state religion not simply because most people in Rome accepted it, and had accepted it for many hundreds of years, but especially because it was a religion, that according to the Romans, had ensured and could continue to ensure the preservation and prosperity of their state. Since the very existence of the state depended on the conscientious performance of religious rites.50

With the ever-growing success of Rome, centuries of military successes, and the expansion of her borders, Romans saw not only that their endeavors were blessed by the gods, but that it would be wise to make religion a state function.51 Like Greek religion, the conservative nature of Roman religion made it so that once certain mores associated with proper worship were established, they would not be changed. As Rome expanded, it

47 Mikalson, ch. 1. 48 Shelton, Romans, 361. 49 Shelton, 361. 50 Shelton, 360. 51 Shelton, 360.

15 came across different cultures and other gods. Instead of disrupting the worship of these gods, they were mainly incorporated into the Roman pantheon. They preferred to add on new institutions rather than replace the old ones.

As she is writing about the Roman religion, Shelton goes on to say how important each individual was to the state religion. She writes:

it was the purpose of the Roman religion to gain the good will of the divine forces and keep them benevolent; and since the benevolence of the gods could ensure the success and the prosperity of both the individual and the community, it was essential that all citizens strive to establish the correct relationship with the gods and maintain the pax deorum, ‘peace with the gods.’”52

It was the duty of the officers of state religion to preserve the pax deorum.53 Priesthoods were typically occupied by senators. Religion was a function of the state and thoroughly interconnected with the system of governance. Wealthy and educated men were obligated to serve the state; being a priest was one way that they could fulfill this obligation.54 Most of the priests were elected into office. As priests they learned complicated religious rituals and procedures, which were now in their charge.55 Shelton writes that being a priest “was a social distinction and therefore an office eagerly sought.”56 The highest office within Roman religion was that of pontifex maximus, who was the head priest and in charge of all the sixteen pontifices (priests) in the Roman empire.57 During the imperial period the Roman emperor automatically became the pontifex maximus.58

52 Shelton, 370. 53 Shelton, 386. 54 Shelton, 386. 55 Shelton, 386. 56 Shelton, 386. 57 Shelton, 386. 58 While Constantine and Julian were both pontifex maximus, Constantius chose not to take up this office because he was a Christian for all of his life.

Julian was not the only emperor to face a Rome whose citizens were losing faith in the state religion. For example, Shelton writes that by the late republican period many

Romans did not feel secure in their special relationship with the gods. Rome was going through turbulent times.59 She writes that

the first half of the first century BCE was a period of political chaos and civil disorder which all too often produced bloodshed. Finally, in 49 BCE, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, the uneasy alliance between him and Pompey erupted into civil war, a war that dragged on long after the death of [Pompey and] Caesar, after the death of Antony, until Augustus consolidated his powers in 30 BCE, and the republic became a dictatorship.60

After winning so many military confrontations (one glaring exception is the sack of

Rome by the Gauls in 387 BCE) and Rome constantly defeating her enemies, the Roman people entered a period of civil war that lasted about a century. The Romans started to believe that Rome was no longer blessed by the gods.

Karl Galinsky writes in his book Augustan Culture that during this chaotic time that there was decay of sacred buildings, temples and shrines.61 He writes that their state of ruin was depressing to witness for reasons other than their architectural aesthetics.62

The ruin of these religious sites reflected to the Romans how Rome was crumbling after years of political and civil unrest. In his Res Gestae Augustus writes, “I restored eighty- two temples of the gods in the city on the authority of the senate, neglecting none which required restoration at that time.” 63 Augustus knew the importance of maintaining the pax deorum in order for Rome to prosper. Julian is following in the footsteps of

59 Shelton, Romans, 391. 60 Shelton, 391. 61 Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 289. 62 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 289. 63 Augustus, Res Gestae (20.4) quoted in Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 290.

Auguijstus and all the other Roman emperors that tried to maintain pax deorum because they believed it was an essential component to maintaining the health of the state.

It was fundamental that every Roman citizen worshipped and respected the gods as the gods demanded or else the entire state could fall into chaos or be punished by the gods. Shelton includes a story that Suetonius writes in his The Lives of the Caesars, about

Claudius Pulcher in her book to illustrate how badly it can go for the state because of the actions of one impious individual. In 249 BCE the consul, Claudius Pulcher, was anxious to begin a sea battle off the coast of Sicily.64 He discovered that a group of sacred chickens they had were not eating. This was a bad omen, that should not have been ignored by Claudius Pulcher. A pious man would have done something to appease the gods and wait until the gods looked favorably upon him so that he could go to battle.

Instead, Claudius Pulcher became angry with the sacred chickens and threw them into the sea and lost the battle. This story shows what great power the Romans believed rested within the individual. One person could cause the gods to punish the entirety of Roman state because that single person failed to honor the gods properly.

This concept of the state religion and the prosperity of the state being connected to one another was a concept whose significance Julian clearly understood. In his book

Christians as the Romans Saw Them, Wilken writes, “Religious institutions were to be nurtured because they were part of the cultural heritage. The proper observance of religious rites insured the stability and well-being of the cities.”65 Julian was passionate

64 Shelton, Romans, 377. 65 Wilken, Christians, 171.

18 about following and honoring the traditions of the past. After all, it was inculcated on him when he was learning about the classical past which he admired greatly.

Wilken points out that it was more than just honoring the traditions of the past for

Julian. He writes that although Julian believed in the public and civil function of religion,

“he also exhibited all the signs of an exuberant convert––acquiescence in the face of a reality larger than himself, obedience to the will of the gods, a fervor––even fanaticism.”66 Wilken is not the only one to regard Julian’s religious conviction as being exuberant. Browning does not go so far as to call Julian a fanatic but that he does bring attention to Julian’s over exuberance to sacrifice. “Julian never missed an opportunity of participating in public sacrifice, often as officiant. He delighted in large-scale sacrifices, sometimes offing a hundred oxen at a time. Citizens often saw their emperor’s hands and clothes dripping with the blood of slaughtered beasts.”67 Bowersock goes further in his analysis of Julian’s religiosity than either Wilken or Browning. He goes so far as to call him a bigot because he was even intolerant of pagans that had beliefs that differed from his own. 68 It is ironic given how fanatical Julian was about his own beliefs, that he would write a scathing critique about Christians in which among other things, he would point out that their blind devotion was improper. Julian was also guilty of fanaticism, his just manifested itself differently than that of the Christians.

66 Wilken, 172. 67 Browning, The Emperor, 173-174. 68 Bowersock, Julian, 82.

Chapter 3. Problems Between the Christians and the Roman State

Julian’s most anti-Christian writing is his Against the Galileans. Cyril of

Alexandria disliked it so much that he wrote a retort quoting Julian’s critiques and addressing them. This writing earned Julian an entire chapter in Wilken’s book,

Christians as the Romans Saw Them. In his writing Julian critiques both Christianity and the Christians. A lot of his outrage comes from the fact that Christians not only denied the existence of the gods but that they did everything in their power to eradicate the worship of them.69 A very frustrated Julian writes in Against the Galileans, “it is from the new-fangled teaching of the Hebrews that you have seized upon this blasphemy of the gods who are honored among us; but the reverence for every higher nature, characteristic of our religious worship, combined with the love of the traditions of our forefathers, you have cast off.”70 As mentioned before, both the Greeks and the Romans were very conservative in their ways of acting. It was a societal value to act in a way that was compliant with what Romans called mos maiorum, which meant “the way of the ancestors” and served through the centuries as a grounding ethos of the Romans’ very conservative culture. Basically, Romans looked to long established values and principles of the past as a guide to how to live their day-to-day lives. Mos maiorum affected Roman religion, society, and politics. By abandoning the gods, the Christians went against mos maiorum. Thus, the Christians were destroying the very ties to the customs that had made

69 Smith, Julian’s Gods, 222. 70 Julian, Julian, 3:391.

Rome so powerful. With Julian’s love of the gods and veneration of past ways, it is easy to understand why he saw the Christians as reckless anarchists.

The Christians believed in the same god as the Jews. However, Julian’s feelings towards the Jews were not as harsh as they were towards the Christians. He admired that

Jews followed their ancient traditions and tried to preserve these ancient customs as much as possible.71 Julian could have seen Jewish faith as somewhat paralleling the Roman tradition of mos maiorum, following the way of the ancestors. Another reason why Julian was so tolerant of the Jews was that he believed that their beliefs were remarkably similar to his own.

Julian followed both Iamblichus’ and Plotinus’ concepts of the One or the

Good.72 This god presides over the intelligible world (Plato’s realm of Ideas).73 As W. C.

Wright explains, “Iamblichus had imported into the Neo-Platonic system the intermediary world of intellectual gods.”74 Of these gods Helios-Mithra was the supreme god.75 He bestows on the intellectual gods the creative uniting forces that he has received from “his transcendental counterpart among the intelligible gods.”76 The final component of Julian’s god is Helios, who governs over sense-perception, which is visibly represented by the sun.77 Ultimately all of the gods are just manifestations of Helios or

71 Wilken, Christians, 179. 72 Wright, Julian, 1:349. 73 Wright, 1:349. 74 Wright, 1:349. 75 Wright, 1:349. 76 Wright, 1;349. 77 Wright, 1:349

21 the Good. Although the gods may look like they are acting of their own accord, in the end they are acting in accordance to the will of the Good.

Wilken writes, “the Greeks conceived of one supreme being that ruled over all, but they also believed that each nation or people had its own deities who were to be worshipped along with one God––not, however, with the same veneration.”78 In Against the Galileans Julian seems to espouse the belief that the god of the Jews is just a regional or tribal god. The reason for this is that Julian writes that if the god of the Jews was the god of all, why did he focus all of his attention on the happenings of a small tribe and not the entire world? He writes of this god:

he even looked on for myriads, or if you prefer, for thousands of years, while men in extreme ignorance served idols [the gods], as you call them, from where the sun rises to where he sets, yes and from North to South, save only that little tribe which less than two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. For if he is the God of all of us alike, and the creator of all, why did he neglect us? Wherefore it is natural to think that the God of the Hebrews was not the begetter of the whole universe with lordship over the whole, but rather, as I said it before, that he is confined within limits, and that since his empire has bounds we must conceive of him as only one of the crowd of other gods.79

One could interpret that Julian believed that the Jews were misguided to worship a regional deity and that the Good was not being properly worshipped and given its correct place in the hierarchy of deities. However, Julian’s views on the god of the Jews were more complex than this passage in Against the Galileans suggests.

If Julian only viewed the god of the Jews as a regional god, it would come off as contradictory that on occasion in other writings Julian makes clear that he identifies this

78 Wilken, Christians 180. 79 Julian, Julian, 3:345.

22 god as none other than the universal demiurge described in Plato’s Timaeus. For example, in his letter To the High-priest Theodorus, Julian writes of this same god as “a god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names.”80 So Julian does not sincerely believe that the god of the Jews was just a regional god. It is possible that he was being rhetorical when writing about this god in Against the Galileans, rather than setting forth his sincere belief.

The sect of Jews that splintered from the mainstream Jewish religion believed that with the arrival of Jesus and his sacrifice––his crucifixion––it was no longer necessary to engage in sacrifices that had been performed at the Jewish Temple.81 He had made the ultimate sacrifice. He took on the sin of humanity when he was on the cross. In his article “Between Man and God: Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult,” S. R. F. Price writes, “[for the Christians] the only possible sacrifice was the repetition of this ultimate sacrifice in the form of the eucharist. This resulted in real problems for the Christians in their contacts with pagan sacrifices. They were happy to pray for the state, but not sacrifice.”82 In refusing to participate in the sacrificial rites the Christians were harming the Roman state.

At one point in Against the Galileans Julian links the rejection of the gods with the rejection of the state. He asks, “why were you so ungrateful to our gods as to desert

80 Julian, Julian, 3:61. 81 Price, “Between,” 36. 82 Price, 36.

23 them for the [god of the] Jews?”83 This is mainly addressed to those that converted to

Christianity and did not come from a Jewish cultural heritage. He cannot fathom why they would shift their allegiance to a regional god when Rome itself had so many blessings bestowed upon her by the Hellenic deities. He writes of Rome:

[Numa]84 was he who established most of the laws concerning temple worship. Now these blessings, derived from a divine possession and inspiration which receded both from Sibyl85 and the other who at that time uttered oracles in their native tongue, were manifestly bestowed on the city by Zeus. And the shield86 that fell from the clouds…and yet ye, misguided men, though there is preserved among us that weapon which flew down from heaven, which mighty Zeus or father Ares sent down to give us a warrant, not in the world but in deed, that he will forever hold his shield before our city, you have ceased to adore and reverence it, but you adore the word of a cross and draw its likeness on your foreheads and engrave it on your housefronts.87

With cult worship so tied in with civic duty it is no wonder that Julian saw Christians as a small pocket of people within her borders actively hurting the state. Not only were the

Christians failing in their job as citizens of Rome but he felt that the Christians themselves were not even practicing their faith correctly.

Julian saw Christianity as an offshoot of the Jewish faith. He did not understand why if the Christians worship the same holy texts they act so differently. Although Julian believed Jews to be worshipping incorrectly, Christianity seemed much worse to him. He

83 Julian, Julian, 3:379. 84 Numa was the legendary second king of Rome. Before Rome was an empire it was a republic, and before that it was a kingdom. The kingdom began with the founding or Rome by Romulus (Rome’s first king) traditionally thought to have happened on April 21, 753 BCE. Numa is best remembered for giving Rome its first legal system. He is also remembered for his piety. He was so pious that he communicated directly with the gods. 85 Through the centuries, from the monarchal period according to tradition, the Sibylline Books served as a vital means of divination and had great influence over the affairs of the state. 86 Wright explains what shield Julian is talking about. He writes that “a small shield, ancile, on whose preservation the power of Rome was supposed to depend, was said to have fallen from the sky in Numa’s reign.” See footnote 5. Wright, Julian, 3:371. 87 Julian, Julian, 3:373.

24 did not believe that Jesus was divine because in the Old Testament Moses taught that there was only one God.88 In Against the Galileans he points this out, he asking them,

"why is it that you do not abide even by the traditions of the Hebrews or accept the law which God gave to them? Nay, you have forsaken their teaching even more than ours, abandoning the religion of your forefathers and giving yourselves over to the predictions of the prophets?”89 Their fervent belief in a religion that went against a religious norm that long had been establish over the course of hundreds of years, made the Christians out to be a group that engaged in superstitio.90

Wilken defines superstitio as “beliefs and practices that were foreign and strange to the Romans.” Not only did Julian believe the Christians to be incorrect in their faith but also that they acted in a very un-Roman way with their blind faith. For Romans, the overexuberance of the Christians and their acceptance to be martyred for their faith was not a positive trait. The Romans believed that Christianity was a superstitio. In their book

Religions of Rome Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price write that “the traditional

Roman distinction seems to have made no…assumption about truth and falsehood; when

Romans in the early empire debated the nature of religio and superstitio they were discussing instead different forms of human relations with the gods.91 This is captured in

Seneca’s formulation that ‘religio honours the gods, superstitio wrongs them.

[Seneca, On Mercy II.5.1].’” 92

88 Wilken, Christians, 179. 89 Julian, Julian, 3:389. 90 Wilken, Christians, 50. 91 Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A Sourcebook, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 216. 92 Seneca, On Mercy II.5.1, quoted in Beard, North, and Price, Religions, 216.

Cicero says that to distinguish religio93 from superstitio, one need not only look at what philosophers say on the matter but the ancestors too.94 He clarifies that superstitio was founded in the “groundless fear of the gods,” while religio was founded in “pious worship of the gods.”95 Boiling down Cicero’s point for a Roman, what differentiates religio from superstitio is that at the heart of religion lies rationality, while at the heart of superstitio lies irrationality. Once more Christianity can be seen as hurting Rome. Faith whose base was fear or blind devotion was especially troubling to Julian because he saw rationality as a gift from the gods that was bestowed upon mankind.

93 Although the word “religion” comes from the Latin word religio, they do not mean the same thing. Religio was dutiful respect of the deities. This concept was tied into the Roman value of pietas. Karl Galinsky defines pietas as, “representing the time-honored Roman ideal of societal responsibility, which includes a broad spectrum of obligations to the family, country, and the gods.” Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 86. 94 Wilken, Christians, 60. 95 Cicero, Nat. D. 1.117; 2.72, quoted in Wilken, Christians, 60.

Chapter 4. Intelligence A Gift from the Gods and Neo-Platonism

Julian says several times in his writings that by creating men with intelligence and the ability to reason, the gods were gifting men with a treasure beyond measure. This notion is typical of someone who has had a traditional classical education like Julian had.

From an early age Julian was given an education worthy of a young prince that was a member if the Neo-Flavian dynasty.96 His tutor Mardonios was a learned man enamored with Greek literature and culture.97 He managed to instill in Julian a lifelong love for

Hellenic culture, “with a genuine appreciation of beauty, and firm…old-fashioned moral standards.”98 He happily inhaled Hesiod, the tragedians, Aristophanes, Plato, and above all Homer.99 This education combined with Julian’s insatiable intellectual curiosity set him up to also develop a love of philosophy as he matured –specifically Platonic and

Neo-Platonic thought.

The writer Salutius 100 wrote a short Neo-Platonic treatise, Concerning the Gods and the Universe. He had actually been Julian’s old confidant. At the start of Concerning the Gods and the Universe, Salutius writes about intelligence and its importance. He writes that “those who would learn from the gods need to have been well educated from

96 Despite his hatred of his family, Julian recognizes that the education they allowed him to have is quite possibly the best thing they could have done for him. 97 Browning, The Emperor, 17. 98 Browning, 17. 99 Browning, 17. 100 In Appendix III, Bowersock clears up a misconception about who wrote On the Gods and the Universe (125). This writing has been commonly attributed to Julian’s praetorian prefect of the Gauls and consul Flavius Sallustius. Bowersock says that the author was most likely Julian’s praetorian prefect of the East, Saturninius Secundus Salutius. For the rest of this paper I will be using a translation of this writing translated by Arthur Darby Nock. Although Nock identifies the author as “Sallustius,” and for the sake of integrity when citing his translation I do too, in the text of the thesis I use the likely correct name, “Salutius,” to identify the author of Concerning the Gods and the Universe. Bowersock, Julian, 125.

27 childhood and must not be bred up among foolish ideas; they must also be good and intelligent by nature, in order that they may have something in common with the subject.”101 First and foremost the path to have a better understanding of the gods comes through rationality, cultivated by a life-long pursuit of knowledge. A critique that Julian has against the Christians was that he believed that Christianity appealed to the part of the mind that was concerned with fables and childish foolishness.102

An irritated Julian wanted to know why the Christians believe in the story of the

Tower of Babel and not the myth of Aloadae.103 He writes, “you demand that we should believe this account, while you yourselves disbelieve Homer’s narrative.”104 Both stories are about humans trying to build structures to ascend to heaven and Olympus, respectively. The separation between the divine and mortal realms was created by the divine. What mortals desire cannot overrule the will of the divine. At their core these stories have the same message: it is idiotic to think that one can ascend to the realm of the divine by barging in. Since the message of these stories is the same why would one believe one of these stories and dismiss the other?

Julian says that if one were to think of the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:

1-9),105 they would conclude that it is total nonsense.106 Even if all the humans in the

101 Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe, trans. Arthur Darby Nock (Germany, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966), 3. 102 Julian, Julian, 3:319. 103 Julian, 3:349-351. 104 Julian, 3:349-351. 105 The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel is an attempt to explain why the humans that inhabit this planet are so different from one another. The ancient Hebrews noticed that when they encountered different peoples, each group with different physical features, language, and culture. If humans all descended from Adam, they had to come up with an explanation that addressed why all of the diversity they were seeing was possible. 106 Julian, Julian, 3:351.

28 world were to gather, and communicate with each other the plan of building a tower to reach heaven, it would not work.107 Men would not be able to reach heaven if the whole world was turned into bricks.108 He asks, “then do you, who believe that this so obvious fable is true, and moreover think that God was afraid of the brutal violence of men, and for this reason came down to earth to confound their languages, do you, I say, still venture to boast of your knowledge of God?”109 If this story is to be taken literally it cannot be compatible with the Judeo-Christian notion of God. The Tower of Babel reaching heaven would erase that barrier between the divine and mortal created by God himself when Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. And this story shows God fearing the potential of men if they were united on an organized front. Surely, an all-powerful

God would have no reason to fear the machinations of men, whatever they may be. So, it follows, that in order for the all-powerful Judeo-Christian God to be the same being as the God in the story of the Tower of Babel, this story cannot be taken literally. This is how the Neo-Platonists came see these myths. Myths were supposed to inspire contemplation of the divine thus affording better understanding of the gods.

Salutius addresses the subject of the ancients’ purpose in devising myths.110 He says that the purpose of myths is to arouse intellectual pursuit in those who hear them, and not just listen to them without contemplation.111 Salutius writes that “consideration of those who have employed myths justifies us in saying that myths are divine; for indeed

107 Julian, 3:351. 108 Julian, 3:351. 109 Julian, 3:351. 110 Sallustius, Concerning, 3. 111 Sallustius, 3.

29 the inspired among poets, and the best philosophers, and the founders of solemn rites, and the gods themselves in oracles have employed myths.”112 When poets like Homer or

Hesiod start to tell their tales, they invoke the power of the Muse (or for Hesiod, who identifies nine of them, Muses) to inspire them. Homer’s famous first lines of the

Odyssey are, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story…”113 With these words

Homer is imploring the Muse to breathe into him some of her divine essence. He is to be the conduit for her to reveal divine knowledge as the tale is told. In Works and Days,

Hesiod says to them: “come! Let us hear from you…”114 Singing poets like Homer and

Hesiod had a special connection with the divine. Of Homer and Hesiod, Julian says that they were “divinely inspired with a sacred frenzy for the truth.”115 They are chosen to bestow this gift upon humanity. In the beginning of The Theogony, Hesiod sings about how the Muses came to him on Mt. Helikon while he was tending his sheep and taught him “beautiful song.”116

Hesiod takes his role of conduit of the divine very seriously. He knows his stories are gifts from the gods. In the Theogony, Hesiod says that myths are so powerful that if a man is grieving and has had so much sorrow that he is in effect, cried out.117 In hearing of the glories of ancient men and hymns about the gods that dwell in Olympus, this hypothetical man will be soothed in his grief. The gift (the myths) that the gods are

112 Sallustius, 3. 113 Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Garden City NY: Anchor Books, 1963) 1. 114 Hesiod, Hesiod, 65. 115 Julian, Julian, 1:317. 116 Hesiod, Hesiod, 11. 117 Hesiod, Hesiod, 13.

30 offering him will divert his mind from his suffering.118 Through myths, Salutius assures his reader that there are gods, but it is up to those with an exalted mind to determine what their nature is, what they are capable of and who they are.119

A question arises in regard to myths and sacrifice. If myths are not meant to be taken literally and are supposed to be tools one uses to better understand the divine, why should one sacrifice to the gods? Why does Julian believe that it is essential for the

Romans to continue to perform their sacrifices to honor the gods so that the Roman state can prosper? Salutius provides the answer to these questions. To address this point, one needs to understand what the Neo-Platonists believed about the essence of the gods.

About the nature of the gods Salutius says that that which is divine “is free from needs.”120 This means that the divine exists in a state of perfection. Sacrifices must be done for our benefit, not that of the divine.121 Since the divine attention of the gods extends everywhere, the habit of sacrificing ensures that the communion with the gods is kept in constant flow, thus we attain their blessings.122 He writes that

all fitness is produced by imitation and likeness. That is why temples are a copy of heaven, altars of earth, images of life (and that is why they are made in the likeness of living creatures), prayers of the intellectual element, letters of the unspeakable powers on high, plants and stones of matter, and the animals that are sacrificed of the unreasonable life in us. From all these things the gods gain nothing (what is there for a god to gain?), but we gain union with them.123

118 Hesiod, 13. 119 Sallustius, Concerning, 4. 120 Sallustius, 29. 121 Sallustius, 29. 122 Sallustius, 29. 123 Sallustius, 29.

Through this form of communication with the gods, souls are able to unite with the gods.

The mortal mingles with the immortal––the rational with the irrational. Two opposing forces manage to come together. This is what the end goal is when sacrificing: to connect with the divine even if it is for a fleeting moment.

Because everything men possess is given to them by the gods, Salutius says that there are offerings for each specific gift that the gods have given men.124 Of the harvest, the first fruits are offered as a sacred gift. In terms of the body men possess, consecrated ornaments offered to the gods.125 And for the gift of life, sacrifices are performed for the gods.126 Perhaps the most important thing he says to justify the reason why sacrifices have to be done is that “prayers divorced from sacrifices are only words, prayers with sacrifices are animated words, the word giving power to life and the life animation to the word.”127 This is the reason while is not a new idea is, why Julian was so adamant on the need for sacrifices to be performed. He believed sacrifice to be an essential component in one’s ability to connect with the gods.

Julian’s religion can be thought of as combining a Homeric enthusiasm for animal sacrifice with fourth-century Neo-Platonic philosophy. Of Julian’s excited willingness to participate in sacrifices Ammianus Marcellinus even writes that “if [Julian] had returned from the Parthians [Persia], there would soon have been a scarcity of cattle” (25.4, 17).

Julian believed it was necessary to maintain this transcendent element in religion where

124 Sallustius, 29. 125 Sallustius, 29. 126 Sallustius, 29. 127 Sallustius, 29.

32 sacrifice transformed prayer; it infused it with life. Ordinary words were now imbued with the divine. This was the way men could commune with the divine. At the heart of the success of Rome was its connection to the divine. In order for Rome to once more be at its apex, it had to go back to its roots. It was critical for Julian to be the emperor that would restore this balance throughout the empire.

Chapter 5. What Makes a Good Emperor

Julian’s life when his cousin Constantius was emperor was a living hell

(Constantius reigned as sole emperor of Rome from 350 CE until Julian was declared

Augustus by his troops in 360 CE).128 He escaped into the safe worlds that books provided him; there was sense of order in those worlds. His escapism inadvertently ended up shaping the type of emperor he would become. He looked to the past to see how he could make himself into the type of emperor that could restore the order Rome so desperately needed. He was well-schooled in Roman history and was able look to past

Roman emperors and see what their successes and failures were when they ruled over

Rome. For Julian it was a miracle that he managed to make it into adulthood and somehow became emperor. He believed that Helios had personally chosen him to rule over Rome. Athanassiadi writes that Helios had become Julian’s “personal guide, protector and savior, and to his coreligionists Julian would never tire of acknowledging

128 Julian was under the impression that Constantius had ordered the assassination of his father Julius, his uncle Dalmatius, and his eldest sibling. Historians seems to agree with Julian that Constantius was most likely behind this conspiracy. When Constantine died, he left the empire to be ruled by the three sons as co- emperors. This ended up being a total disaster. The brothers fought against each other for sole rule of the empire. In the end Constantius was victorious. However, this was not enough. He felt that his half-uncles could still be a threat to him. There was a supposed note discovered in Constantine’s hand saying he had been poisoned by his half-brother Dalmatius and Julius. So, a troop was sent out and massacred most of the male members of Julian’s family. His older brother Gallus was spared because the men sent out to do the slaughter saw Gallus was sick and thought he would soon die on his own. Julian was also spared because he was only five years old. As members of the imperial family, Julian and Gallus posed a direct threat to the rule of Constantius. If there was a coup and he was deposed, one of his cousins could easily be made into an emperor. As a consequence, Julian and his brother were under constant surveillance. As they got older, they had to make sure they did not do a single thing that could make Constantius think that they were trying to attain power and influence to overthrow him. There is no doubt that these two brothers must have been living under constant fear and an incredible amount of stress. It is no wonder that Julian turned to books for a little respite from the life that he lived. The rage the brothers must have constantly had to suppress and instead appease the whims of Constantius in order to live another day must have been an unbearable task they had to do over and over again. Still Gallus slipped up and Constantius had him executed for trying to usurp his power. Browning, The Emperor, 34-35.

34 this allegiance which he regarded as the sole source of his success.129 Julian writes about the relationship between Helios, himself and Rome: “he cares for the whole human race in common, but especially for my own city [Rome] , even as also he brought into being my soul from eternity, and made it his follower.”130 Since he had received the blessings of Helios and was given this enormous task of ruling Rome, he wanted to make sure he did what was best for the state and what Helios wanted. When Rome was at its zenith, during what historians have come to label the period of the “Five Good Emperors,” there was one emperor that Julian regarded as the very best that Rome had ever had.

Julian wrote a satire titled The Caesars. In it, Julian writes about a banquet in heaven attended by all of Rome’s past emperors. He also includes Alexander the Great131 and Julius Caesar132 in this meeting. This banquet was hosted by the entire pantheon of gods. While enjoying the festivities, the gods set up a contest between these men to see which one of them was the best head of state that had ever ruled. The men start boasting about the great deeds they had achieved when they reigned in the past. This writing is not

129 Athanassiadi, Julian, 67. 130 Julian, Julian, 1:431. 131 Alexander the Great did not rule over Rome. I guess that Julian included him in this because of how much he admired him. In his short life he was able to expand his empire far and wide. Athanassiadi writes that Julian became “irresistibly attracted by the charismatic figure of a man who throughout late antiquity was regarded not only as an ideal leader of men, but… a warrior and a civilizer, whom many a Roman emperor had dreamed of imitating.” Athanassiadi, Julian, 224. 132 Caesar was never an emperor of Rome. The imperial period of Rome starts with the rule of Augustus, which is why Caesar is not categorized as an emperor. However, he was a man that changed the course of Roman history. He was one of the greatest military tacticians Rome ever had. His armies were well oiled machines and his men were fiercely loyal to him. He outmaneuvered the political enemies that tried to limit his power. He earned the love of the Roman people by building temples, public works, giving them free grain, just to name a few examples. He established the line of emperors of Rome when he named his great- nephew Octavian as his heir. These are just some of the great things Caesar is known for. The influence he had was not just felt in his lifetime but echoed long after his death. It is no wonder that Julian included such an important figure in Rome history in this banquet.

35 just a puff piece that Julian wrote to glorify the past. It shows that when looking at the past Julian could examine it with a critical lens. For example, he has Silenus refer to both

Alexander the Great133 and Trajan134 as drunks.135

Most emperors have their say in The Caesars. Some give a long-impassioned speeches not only talking about their past glories and why they deserve to be crowned the best by the gods, but they also take the opportunity to justify why they may have done unsavory deeds while trying to achieve greatness. The length of the speeches varies by who is giving the speech. For example, Caesar spends a lot of time trying to appeal to his audience much like he did when he was alive.136 Others like Caligula and Nero are immediately escorted out of the banquet because they are not worthy of taking up a seat next to the gods.137 Through each emperor’s words, one can get a sense of how Julian felt about them and their reign. When it is Marcus Aurelius’138 turn to speak and make his

133 The cause of death of Alexander the Great is one of history’s great mysteries. He fell ill when returning home from India. He was in Persia and spent a couple of days sick before passing away. His symptoms could be attributed to any number of different causes, one of which was alcohol poisoning. His health took a turn for the worse after intense consumption of alcohol. Alexander the Great was a figure that cast a large shadow throughout antiquity. It seems like every great leader wanted to achieve what he had achieved and then some. So, the fact that Julian is able to look at this almost god-like figure and point to the fact that he was a flawed man that struggled with controlling his passions (in this case the desire to drink excessively) shows he could be objective when examining the character of someone for which he had great deal admiration. 134 Trajan was one of the five great emperors that ruled Rome during its golden era. He was one of the “Five Good Emperors” who ruled Rome during its golden era, a group that also includes Marcus Aurelias. As mentioned before, Julian was able to see greatly respected figures for who they were, flaws and all. 135 Julian, Julian, 2:373. 136 Julian, 2:375-381. 137 Julian, 2:353-355. 138 Julian’s description of Marcus Aurelius sounds a lot like someone describing a god. He calls him beautiful and dignified and writes that the effect of all of his studies can be been in the expression of his eyes and his brows. He is dressed in simple clothes without anything flashy and wearing the characteristically long beard that distinguished philosophers. He describes Marcus’ body as “shining and transparent, like light most pure and stainless.” Julian, 2:371.

36 case to the gods for why he should win the contest, he is the only one to decline.139 He only tells Zeus and the other gods, “I have no need to make a speech or to compete. If you did not know all that concerns me it would indeed be fitting for me to inform you.

But since you know and nothing at all is hidden from you, do you of your own accord assign me such honour as I deserve.”140 While Julian does not outright say it, it is fairly obvious that both Constantine and Constantius are the worst emperors141 at the banquet.

Julian’s admiration for Marcus is clear. He thinks of him as the wisest of all of these men that had a hand in shaping Rome. Marcus knows a lesson none of the other men at the banquet know: when to speak and when to keep quiet.142 It is no surprise that by the end of The Caesars the gods name him the winner of contest. Marcus is who Julian believes is the best emperor Rome has had.

In declaring Marcus as the winner of the contest, Julian puts not only a man who has an insatiable thirst for the truth above some of the greatest men in history, but Julian deems Marcus’ piety143 as a part of what won him the contest. Julian believed that

when a man is naturally well endowed, and moreover receives the education of our literature, he becomes actually a gift of the gods to mankind, either by kindling the light of knowledge, or by founding some kind of political

139 This is quite tantalizing. While this makes sense within the context of The Caesars, it robs the reader of how Julian thinks Marcus would judge his own life if he were able to look back upon it. 140 Julian, Julian, 2:395. 141 I would like to clarify this point. It seems like he dismisses arguably Rome’s most infamous emperors Caligula and Nero, because he sees them as monsters unable to be good, unable to rationalize. With Constantine and Constantius, there is more accountability. They can rationalize, they can control their impulses, but they choose not to do so. They would rather succumb to Pleasure rather than try to overcome their desires and vices. This is how I perceive he views his uncle and cousin, not only from reading The Caesars, but from also reading his other writings. 142 Julian, Julian, 2:395. 143 Towards the end of The Caesars, Hermes asks Marcus, “…what did you think the noblest ambition in life?” The emperor responds, “To imitate the Gods.” Julian, 2:407.

constitution, or by routing numbers of his country’s foes, or even by travelling far over the earth and far by sea and thus providing himself a man of heroic mould.144

At the end of The Caesars, the gods allow Marcus to join them as a citizen of heaven.145

For Julian, Marcus perfectly embodied the type of emperor he was striving to be. Marcus was able to belong to both the Hellenic tradition and was able to embody traditional

Roman ideals.

Because Julian had such regard for Marcus it is important to take a brief look into what he wrote about what made a man good, and by extension how these lessons could be applied to a leader. When Marcus was the emperor of Rome, he meditated about different topics and wrote them in his journal. His journal was later made public and his

Meditations is one of the most widely read texts written by a Stoic philosopher.

Meditations in parts reads like Marcus is doing self-reflection but also like he is addressing a reader and advising them how best to live their life and deal with the troubles that may arise in one’s life.

In the beginning of Meditations, Marcus is looking back upon his life and pointing out the life lessons he learned from the important people in his life. He describes his father as a humble man who carried himself with honor and dignity.146 His father

“was neither a superstitious worshiper of the gods nor an ambitious pleaser of men.” At the very beginning of Meditations, Marcus writes about this important Roman value which was discussed in Chapter 2––to steer clear of superstitio. It was just as important

144 Julian, Julian, 3:387. 145 Athanassiadi, Julian, 200. 146 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. Meric Casaubon (New York: The Heritage Press, 1956), 7.

38 to Marcus that religion should correlate with the rational as it was for Julian. One of the harshest critiques Julian has of the rule of Constantine and Constantius was that in embracing Christianity, the emperors were helping to steer Rome away from the state cult in favor of irrationality.

In Meditations, Marcus writes that one should act with the commanding part of one’s soul to be neither affected by the desire for pleasure nor the aversion to pain.147

When the contest is about to come to an end in The Caesars, Hermes asks Constantine,

“what was the height of your ambition?”148 Constantine replies, “To amass great wealth, and then to spend it liberally so as to gratify my own desires and the desires of my friends.”149 Julian believes that this was the precise reason why he was a bad emperor. He does not act using reasoning. He rejected this precious gift that the gods bestowed upon men. His actions as a bad emperor had dire consequence on the state.

Marcus writes, “that which doth not hurt the city itself, cannot hurt any citizen.”150 He goes on to say that one should

look back upon things of former ages, as the manifold of changes and conversations of several monarchies and commonwealths. We may also foresee things in their future, for they shall all be of the same kind; neither is it possible that they should leave the tune, or break the concert that is now begun, as it were, by these things that are now done and brought to pass in the world.151

147 Aurelius, Meditations, 78. 148 Julian, Julian, 3:411. 149 Julian, 3:411. 150 Aurelius, Meditations, 77. 151 Aurelius, 120.

To elaborate on these points, what hurts the state also hurts the citizens.152 It is a good idea to look into the past and study not just the history of one’s country but of others.

Marcus thinks that the more one studies the more one will be able to predict some events that happened in the past. This can teach a ruler how to avoid mistakes that can cause harm to his state and a lot of suffering to his people. With the aid of Helios his savior and guide, and those wise men whose ideas Julian could always have at hand when looking through his books, Julian believed that he was equipped to take on the difficulties that would arise with ruling over Rome.

152 Hesiod echoes a similar sentiment to this, when he writes in Work and Days that “people pay for the reckless deeds and evil plans of kings.” Hesiod, Hesiod, 71.

Chapter 6. Conclusion

When looking at Julian’s short reign and the relationship he had with the

Christians, it is clear that his aversion to them stems from his deep-seated belief that their religion was harming the Roman state. He truly believed that by refusing to honor the gods with the proper respect they deserved, the Christians were breaking away from a tradition that had ensured the prosperity of Rome since its beginnings. He understood the weight of the office he had inherited and that a good emperor was one who acts first and foremost for the well-being of the state. He believed himself to be chosen by Helios to rule Rome and he had to make sure he could live up to the task of being appointed by a god to serve Rome.

At the end of Hymn to the King Helios, Julian writes of the blessings he wants the god to bestow upon him. He writes, “I pray that Helios, the King of All, may be gracious in recompense for this my zeal: and may he grant me a virtuous life and more perfect wisdom and inspired intelligence, and when fate wills, the gentlest exit that may be from life.”153 Unfortunately for Julian he did not get that gentle exit he prayed to receive. He died on June 26, 363 CE just nineteen months into his reign as sole emperor of Rome. He had idolized the past and tried to restore the Greco-Roman harmony the empire once had, believing this to be a contributing factor to Rome’s greatness. While his reign is deserving of criticism, those who have regarded Julian as first and foremost “the

Apostate” and believe his apostasy to be the driving force behind Julian’s aversion to the

Christians, have misunderstood him. By reading Julian’s own writings a complex

153 Julian, Julian, 1:433-435.

41 character emerges. He was flawed, obsessive, passionate, intelligent, but above all he was a man that wanted to save Rome.

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