Julian (38 page)

"Get one from your wife!" shouted a cavalryman. The mob laughed good-naturedly. Worried that my life's great moment might turn unexpectedly into low foolery, I answered quickly,

"You don't want an emperor who wears a woman's jewels."

This went down well enough. Then a tall fellow named Marius, standard-bearer to the Petulantes, clambered on to the platform. He took from his neck the ring of metal which supports the chain that holds the regimental eagle in its place. He jerked the circlet free of the chain; then, holding the ring of metal high over my head, he shouted: "Hail, Julian Augustus!" As the mob repeated the phrase, Marius placed the battered circlet on my head. The thing was done. I motioned for silence, and got it. "You have this day made a solemn choice. I promise you that as long as I live you shall not regret it." Then recalling the usual form in these matters, I said, "To each man here today I give five gold pieces and a pound of silver. May heaven bless this day, and what we have together done."

Then I descended the steps of the tribunal two at a time and darted into the palace.

Julian Augustus

I went straight to my wife's room. She had already been told what had happened. She was sitting up in bed, attended by several women. Her hair had been combed and her sallow face was cruelly mocked by rouge. The women withdrew."It is done," I said.

"Good." She held my hands and for a moment I felt strength in her fingers. "Now there will be war."

I nodded. "But not immediately. I shall tell Constantius that this was none of my doing, and it was not. If he is wise, he will accept me as Augustus in the West."

"He won't." She let go my hands.

"I hope he does."

She was staring at me with eyes half shut (her vision had never been good and to see things clearly she was forced to squint). At last she murmured, "Julian Augustus."

I smiled. "By grace of a mob in the main square of a provincial town."

"By the grace of God," she corrected me.

"I think so. I believe so."

She was suddenly practical. "While you were in the square, one of my officers came to tell me there is a plot to murder you. Here. In the palace."

I did not take this too seriously. "I am well guarded."

She shook her head. "I trust this man. He is my best officer." Like all ladies of the imperial house, Helena not only had her own servants and attendants but her own bodyguard.

"I shall look into it." I rose to go.

"Decentius is behind the plot."

"Naturally."

As I crossed to the door, she said in a loud voice, "Hail, Augustus!" I turned and laughed, and said, "Hail, Augusta!"

Helena smiled. I had never seen her as happy as she was at that moment. Next I went to the council chamber, where all of my court was assembled, including Decentius.

I came straight to the point. "You are all witnesses that I did not in any way arouse the soldiers. Nor did I ask for this honour they have done me—illegally." There was a murmur of disappointment in the chamber. Decentius began to look hopeful. I gave him a friendly smile; I continued. "I shall report all of this to the Augustus, describing exactly what happened, and I shall pledge him, as always, my loyalty not only as a colleague but as a kinsman." Everyone was now quite puzzled. Decentius stepped forward.

"If that is… Caesar's decision." He was very bold to call me

"Caesar", but I respected his loyalty to his master. "Then Caesar must discipline his own troops. He must do as the Augustus wants, and send them to the East."

"My dear Tribune…" I sounded even to myself like the most honey-tongued of lawyers. "I am willing to give my life for the Emperor in any battle against barbarians. But I will not give it in this way. I have no intention of being murdered by an army I have devoted five years to training, an army which loves me perhaps too much and their Emperor too little. No, I shall not take back what they have given me." I suddenly recalled that I still wore the metal circlet. I took it off and held it up. "A piece of military equipment, no more." I let the circlet drop on the table in front of me.

"Nor do I have any intention of sending them East. For one thing, Tribune, they will not go. No matter what I or anyone says."

"Then, Caesar, do you mean to go against the Augustus?"

Decentius was stony.

I shook my head. "I shall try to obey him. But that may not be possible. We shall write Constantius today. But even better than our writing will be your own description of what happened here in Paris. I am sure that once you have explained to him our true situation, he will be sympathetic." There was a murmur of laughter.

"Very well, Caesar. Have I your permission to go?"

"You have it," I said.

Decentius saluted and left the chamber.

Then tired as I was, I called a meeting of the consistory. We spent the morning dictating a long letter to Constantius. In brief, I said that I had not incited the troops, that they had threatened me with death if I did not take the title Augustus, that I had accepted for fear they might select someone else, another Magnentius or Silvanus. I then requested that the legions be kept in Gaul. I promised, however, to send Constantius all the Spanish horses he needed (there had been some correspondence already on this subject), as well as a number of targeteers from the tribe of Laeti on the Rhine: good soldiers, eager for war.! requested that a new praetorian prefect be appointed; the other officers of state would be selected by me, as is usual. I ended with the hope that only harmony prevail between us, and so on.

There was a good deal of discussion as to how I should style myself. My own view prevailed. I signed the letter "Caesar", not "Augustus".

Eutherius offered to take the letter himself to Constantinople. Since he was my best advocate, I let him go.

•          •          •

The next few days were turmoil. Decentius left for Vienne. Eutherius departed for Constantinople. I sent Gaudentius packing. During this period, I did not show myself in public, nor wear the diadem, nor style myself Augustus. This was a time for caution. Though I had sent several messages to Florentius, I had heard nothing from Vienne except conflicting rumours: Florentius planned to take the field against me in the spring. Florentius had been recalled. Florentius was withdrawing to Spain, to Britain, to Morocco. In the absence of any word from the praetorian prefect himself, I replaced every governor in Gaul with men of my own choosing, and thus assured the loyalty of the cities.

Priscus
: Julian skips that spring and summer. I suppose because much of it is covered in his military history.

That spring, while we were at Paris, Constantius moved to Caesarea. There he assembled an army for the campaign against Persia. He was very good at assembling armies. His problem was that he never quite knew what to do with an army once he'd got it all together. He was joined at Caesarea first by Decentius, then by Florentius who had fled to Gaul, leaving his family to shift for themselves. To everyone's surprise, Julian later allowed the family to join Florentius, transporting them at state expense. Julian was determined to be merciful. He saw himself in the line of Marcus Aurelius. Actually, he was greater than that self-consciously good man. For one thing, he had a harder task than his predecessor. Julian came at the end of a world, not at its zenith. That is important, isn't it, Libanius, my fellow relic? We are given our place in time as we are given our eyes: weak, strong, clear, squinting, the thing is not ours to choose. Well, this has been a squinting, wall-eyed time to be born in. Fortunately, when most eyes see distortion as a matter of course, nothing bizarre is thought out of the way, and only a clear vision is abnormal.

Poor Eutherius had a most difficult embassy. Everything went wrong for him on the road. Because of his rank as chamberlain to the Caesar he was necessarily accompanied at many stages by other important officials. You know how it is when one travels at state expense. It is marvellous of course because it costs nothing, one gets the best horses, there is always a place to spend the night, and brigands seldom assault guests of the state. But one must contend with the highly placed bores (who are contending with us!). There is always the general who recalls old battles. The bishop who sputters at the thought of his colleagues' "heresies". The governor who was honest and can prove it as he returns home with a retinue of several hundred heavily burdened pack-horses.

Eutherius was taken over by officials. By now the world knew what had happened, and Julian's chamberlain was wined and dined so much en route that he lost many days' travel. Finally, braving storms at sea and the snows of Illyricum, he crossed to Constantinople only to learn that the Augustus was at Caesarea. So the embassy wearily pressed on. The chamberlain was received in late March.

Julian told me that Eutherius told him that he had never seen Constantius in such a rage. He fully expected to be slaughtered on the spot. But—luckily for Julian—Constantius was trapped. Though his every instinct (and his political cunning was always astute) told him that he must strike at Julian as soon as possible, he could not because Sapor was in Mesopotamia. Constantius was forced to stay in Asia. So he dismissed Eutherius non-committally; he also gave a letter to the tribune Leonas to be delivered to Julian personally.

As luck would have it, the day Leonas arrived in Paris, Julian was to take part in some sort of festival which was to be heavily attended not only by the troops but by the Parisians. Now ,Julian dearly loved showing off in front of a crowd, an unexpected trait in a philosopher. Knowing pretty much what was in the letter, Julian presented Leonas to the mob, telling them why he was in Paris. Then, in front of thousands, Julian read the letter aloud from beginning to end. When he came to the part where he was ordered to remain in his rank as Caesar, the crowd roared back as though rehearsed. "Augustus! Julian Augustus!"

The next day Julian gave Leonas a letter for Constantius; I gather it was conciliatory; among other things, he accepted Constantius's appointment of the quaestor Nebridius as praetorian prefect, and he signed himself "Caesar". One ought to have all his letters at hand. I suppose they can be found in the archives at Constantinople, although I am not sure what the current policy is as to his papers. Some years ago when a student of mine-a Christianwanted to examine certain of Julian's state papers, he was not allowed to see them. In fact, the chamberlain's office was most suspicious, which is suspicious. But that was in Valens's time. Maybe things have changed. You will doubtless find out when you edit these papers.

In June Julian took the field against those Franks who live near Kellen; they were the last of the tribes to molest Gaul. Despite the bad roads and thick forests that protected their home across the Rhine, he defeated them easily. But I was not with him. Just before he took to the field, I departed for Athens.

The day I was to leave, I went to say good-bye to Julian in his study, a room always referred to by his friends as the Frigidarium. I have never known a room to be so cold. But Julian seemed not to mind it. And of course after he nearly suffocated that first winter, he never heated the room properly again. In warm weather, however, it was pleasantly cool, and the last I saw of him at Paris was on a fine June day. I found Oribasius also waiting outside the study door.

"He has a bishop with him," said Oribasius.

"No doubt converting him."

"No doubt."

Then the door opened and a scowling, red-faced man sailed past us.

Julian came to the door and pulled us inside. His eyes gleamed. He had obviously been enjoying himself. "You should have heard him!"

"What sort of bishop is he?" I asked. "Arian or Athanasian or…"

"Political. That was Epictetus, bishop of Civitavecchia. His interests, I suspect, are secular rather than religious. Constantius sent him to me, with a most extraordinary message." Julian threw himself on the military cot by the window. (Though he nowhere in his memoir mentions it, he often dictated while lying down; after reading some of his late-night essays, I used to accuse him of talking in his sleep. To which he would answer, "In sleep the gods speak to us, so what I say in my sleep must be divine.")

"My colleague, the Augustus, proposes that if I step down as Caesar, abandon the army of Gaul, return to Constantinople as a private person, my life will be safe."

Both Oribasius and I laughed; but I was uneasy. "It's absurd, of course," I said, "yet what is the alternative if you don't?"

"The bishop was not specific. The implication is that sooner or later Constantius will deal with me."

"Much later," said Oribasius. "He is having his difficulties in Persia. It will be at least a year before he can march against us."

Julian shook his head. "I'm not sure." He swung his legs over the cot and reached over to a near-by folding table on which lay the usual sheaf of agents' reports. "All sorts of news." He tapped the papers. "Here is an order we intercepted from Constantius to the prefect of Italy: gather three million bushels of wheat, have them ground at Bregentz—that's on Lake Constance-and store the grain in several cities, all on the border of Gaul. Then here's another order for wheat to be stored on the Italian side of the Cottian Alps. He means to invade Gaul. There's no doubt of that."

"But when?" Even though I was leaving and would soon be safe (not being a hero, my constant interest is the preservation of my own life), I did care what happened to my friend.

"Who knows? We can only hope Sapor involves him in a major campaign. Meanwhile, I have all that grain." He grinned like a boy.

"I've ordered it confiscated and held for my own use." He paused; then: "All I need is a year."

"And after that?" I looked at him closely, for Julian had never before spoken of any time other than the immediate future. As well as we all knew him, none of us had any idea of the extent of his ambition, or the nature of his long-range plan.

He answered cautiously, again flat on his back, one hand tugging at his youthful beard, which glinted gold as fox fur in the bright June night. "In one year I shall be secure in Gaul,
and
in Italy." Now it was out. To cross the Alps would indeed mean war.