Julian - Philosopher and Emperor.

JULIAN; PHILOSOPHER AND EMPEROR, AND THE LAST STRUGGLE OF PAGANISM AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, by Alice Gardner. I think History should be History, and not Propaganda. And so it is with some pleasure that I present this rare History of the man who did not succeed in saving the world. Julian was a Pagan from birth, and never became a Christian, thus he cannot be called an Apostate - one who abandons his religion. Julian saw that the new religion was determined to take over the Roman Empire and destroy learning and the Pagan world in the name of a man who very probably never lived. Or to be more precise, he saw that the new movement was more a political movement in the name of a religion. On the death of Constantine the soldiers of the Army took it upon themselves to assure that no ruler would come to power that was not of the religion Constantine had embraced, and so killed all who were in line, and might be risen to the rank of Emperor. But this view of a spontaneous slaughter by soldiers is questioned in this and other Histories. The Story of the slaughter in this History is to be found on page 28, and it goes like this: "Constantine had been essentially a soldier-Emperor, rejoicing in the good-will of the legions which he had often led to victory. His brothers and their sons seem never to have been conspicuous in military affairs. This contrast, being apprehended, was probably the chief cause of a movement among the troops (which was at least not checked by the sons of Constantine) against the sons of Dalmatius and all the other members of the Imperial family except the direct descendants of the late Emperor. The result was one of those horrible occurrences that so frequently darken the history of Oriental dynasties: Constantius, who seems to have been the favorite and the most able son of Constantine, after celebrating his father’s obsequies, in very magnificent style, at Constantinople, either instigated or sanctioned after the event a general family massacre. In this way his two cousins, who had received a claim to part of the Imperial authority, two uncles (including Julian’s father), and some other kinsmen (including Julian’s eldest brother) fell victims to the rage of the soldiery and to the jealousy of the eldest branch of the family. Julian himself only escaped in consequence of his extreme youth, his brother Gallus through a fortunate sickness which seemed likely to secure his removal without involving anyone in blood-guiltiness. According to Julian’s statement, made long afterwards, Constantius subsequently reproached himself for these murders, and regarded his own childlessness as a divine judgment on his crime. But for the time, the absence of rivals made the three brothers secure in their possession of authority, while their cousins, Gallus and Julian, having lost their nearest and most natural protectors, led from the first a precarious life, at the mercy of those who had deeply injured them, and against whom they needed to be ever on their guard." As we know, Julian became Emperor and made a valiant effort to rescue the Empire from the grasp of the Christians, he failed, and Europe was cast into the Christians Dark.
Emmett F. Fields