Bread & Circuses

Julian the Apostate as Margaret Thatcher

An interesting article in Current Archaeology by Andrew Selkirk about whether Julian the Apostate was the classical answer to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher:

In the late 20th century, a British prime minister looked at her country, saw that it was in decline and set out to reverse that decline; her name was Margaret Thatcher. In the mid-fourth century a Roman emperor looked at the Roman Empire and saw that it was in decline and set out to reverse that decline: his name was Julian the Apostate.

Hmm. I am not convinced that the analogy is that close. Julian was hardly the first emperor to try and reverse the decline that he saw in Rome (Decius perhaps?), nor is it especially accurate to claim that he is  "the only noteworthy emperor in the fourth century after Constantine". Theodosius anyone? But it is worth a read.

Discorso su Helios re

A review last week at BMCR of a new-ish book on the Emperor Julian, specifically his Hymn to King Helios: Attilio Mastrocinque, Giuliano l'Apostata, Discorso su Helios re, Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 2011:

Attilio Mastrocinque here publishes the Italian translation and commentary of one of the most interesting writings by Emperor Julian, the Hymn to King Helios. Mastrocinque's work is particularly useful to historians of religion and philosophy of Late Antiquity since Julian's work is a theological treatise, composed on the occasion of the feast in honour of the Sun god—which was celebrated on December 25^th—and aimed at defining the nature of this supreme god and his intervention in the world. The objectives of the commentary, stated in the brief Preface, are in the first place to highlight the "political purpose of Julian's cosmological and theological thought" (p. VIII), and secondly, to point out the effects of Julian's thought on the political organization of the empire.

Full review here.

The Writings of Julian the Apostate

A review in BMCR of Nicholas Baker-Brian and Shaun Tougher's Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate by Hagith Sivan:

Three articles address the public image of the emperor as reflected in inscriptions, coins and artistic objects (Salway, López Sánchez, Varner). Salway includes a useful summary of the inscriptions that relate to Julian's reign, concluding that the genuine voice of the emperor rarely came through. López Sánchez follows Julian's coinage, stage by stage, focusing on the Arlesian mint and on the famous bull coinage, both less idiosyncratic than had been assumed. In fact, the coins conformed to established patterns of imperial coinage rather than to the emperor's personal preferences. Varner analyses the iconography of Julian portraiture on both coins and statues, tracing their artistic genealogy back to Aeneas, Numa, Marcus Aurelius and Pythagoras. The fine analysis offers a welcome corrective to the image of Julian the Hellenist. When need be, the emperor Julian knew how to conduct himself as a Roman.

Full review here.

Giuliano imperatore filosofo neoplatonico

Worth noting, a review at BMCR of Maria Carmen De Vita's Giuliano imperatore filosofo neoplatonico. Review by Gábor Buzási, Eötvös Loránd University:

The author's main question concerns Julian's character as a philosopher. She concludes that the emperor was neither a professional nor a dilettante but rather a pragmatist who aimed at achieving his religious and political goals partly through his rhetorical writings, in which he expressed his views in a typically non-systematic way (cf. pp. 326-7). Moreover, the author argues that Julian's thought, his explicit statements notwithstanding, did not depend on Iamblichus as much as is often believed, pointing to influence from earlier thinkers instead, including Middle Platonists. Finally, she also stresses the emperor's tendency to emulate Christian theology, an aspect of his thought relatively neglected in the past.

Full review here.

Review of The Last Pagan at UNRV

A good review of The Last Pagan, my biography of Julian the Apostate, at UNRV:

Let not the title fool you: the book is much more than a stale rehashing of Julian’s religious polemics against the rising Christian tide. Quite the contrary, the author explores Julian’s many sides: philosopher, writer, soldier, ruler – and member of a murderous imperial family. There are many strands woven deftly together to illuminate a three-dimensional drawing of a complex character from childhood to death. The author can describe the campaigns of the Western front in vivid detail, and then shift quite naturally to an exploration of Julian’s tax reforms. Moreover, he does so in a prose that is intelligent yet free of academic pretentiousness, fast paced and yet still sufficiently thorough.

Full review here.

Review of The Last Pagan

Haven't had one of these for a while. A review of The Last Pagan by Robert Eddy:

“Anyone thinking that the fourth-century CE was a long time ago is both right and wrong. Right in that 1,700 years is a long time in human history, but wrong in that certain religious and cultural controversies of that era have loud echoes in our own.”

The similarity is in the battle between societies that promote – or at least tolerate diversity – and those that seek conformity.  The impression I had from the standard histories was that Julian was trying to substitute a version of Hellenistic polytheism as the state religion for Christianity which at the beginning of his eighteen month reign held that position.  The truth is, if Murdoch is right that Julian, who was raised a Christian, sought to be a “philosopher king” of all the nations in the empire and simply removed the special privileged position of the Christian hierarchy.

Seems to me we face a similar situation today.  Maybe this time the poly-theists will win.

Full review here.

Review of The Last Pagan

Haven't had one of these for a while. A review of The Last Pagan at Spiralnature.com:

Who was the last pagan emperor of Rome? When did he die? What did his contemporaries, and those who lived after him, think of him? These are all very basic questions. And they are ones that Mr. Murdoch (a fellow of the Royal Historical Society) answers in this enlightening and, more importantly, easily readable book. This is history told as biography, and relies less on dates and places and more on perceptions and actions – both those of the subject and those who wrote about him.

Although this is a book written for the general reading public, and not particularly aimed at Pagan readership, it contains a wealth of information concerning Pagan/Christian relations. It also shows a number of concerns expressed by Julian that are still valid today. As an example, on page 141 Julian is quoted as saying (in a letter to a pagan priest) “It is disgraceful that when no Jew has to beg and the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men will see that our people lack aid from us.”

Full review here.

Julian in the California Literary Review

I meant to post this last week. The California Literary Review ran a longish excerpt of The Last Pagan at the end of June:

At around midnight a man died in a tent roughly fifty-three miles north of the capital of what is now Iraq. It was the end of June, AD 363, and with him paganism died.

A month after his thirty-first birthday, Flavius Claudius Julianus, better known as Julian the Apostate, had been ruler of the Roman Empire for less than two years. He was dark haired, of average height for the era—around 5 foot 4 inches—and with a trim build. Underneath his hair, which he tended to wear combed down onto his forehead like all the members of his family, he had penetrating eyes, heavy eyebrows, a straight nose, and a rather large mouth with a pendulous lower lip that was hidden behind the bristly beard he wore trimmed to a point, like those you can see of the ancient Greek philosophers in the Louvre or the British Museum. It was a deliberate affectation, a sign of his deep love of Hellenic culture and passionate hatred of the Galileans, as he dubbed Christians. Many mocked him and called him a goat behind his back.

He had been wounded in battle, three months into a campaign in the East against the Persian Empire and its king, Shapur II. Although the Roman army had been advancing slowly in readiness for battle, Julian, who had gone on ahead to reconnoiter, had received word that the rearguard had been ambushed from behind. As he rode back to lend moral support to those in the rear, he was summoned by the news that the van, which he had just left, had been similarly attacked. Before he could restore the position, a troop of Parthian cuirassiers attacked the center and breached its left wing. The soldiers broke ranks in confusion—just as Alexander the Great’s had in India six centuries previously—at the sight, smell, and noise of elephants.

More here.

Words fail me

I am not entirely sure how to react to this one. The August issue of The Monthly Aspectarian (which is, I note from the strap "dedicated to awakening consciousness") has a nice note/review of The Last Pagan:

The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the Apostate, the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.

The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer, our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different.

It would be churlish to complain about any publicity and all attention is flattering. But I notice that the bio of Julian is reviewed along with Nurturing Your Self While Caring for Another by Rose Kaszycki and Juanita Liepelt; Wisdom Chi Kung: Practices for Enlivening the Brain with Chi Energy by Mantak Chia; and God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us About Our Origins and How We Should Live by Amit Goswami, Ph.D.

I wonder what Julian would have thought of this.

Julianus Apostata: Viimane pagan

The Last Pagan has been translated into Estonian.

Rooma keiser JULIANUS (331–363) on tuntud hüüdnimega APOSTATA (Usutaganeja). See märgib tema lahtiütlemist ristiusust ning püüet tõsta Rooma riigis taas au sisse muistsed paganlikud jumalad. Julianus jõudis valitseda vaid poolteist aastat. Pärast tema langemist lahingus pärslastega loobuti ametlikult paganausust, ristiusu kirik aga nägi tema surmas lausa Jumala karistust.

Julianus oli haritud ja aateline juht, tundis huvi filosoofia vastu ja püüdis õiglaselt valitseda. Ta ei hinnanud inimesi mitte nende rikkuse, vaid tegelike võimete ja omaduste järgi, kärpis bürokraatiat, ajas korruptsiooni ja pillamist piiravat majanduspoliitikat. Julianus oli ka vapper sõjamees ja osav sõnaseadja. Uurijatele on ta pärandanud hulga kirjutisi antiikaja mõistmiseks.

You can get hold of a copy here.