Introduction: Approaching Julian

Abstract

The Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus died more than one and a half millennia ago –on the 26th of June 363 AD, only 20 months after the beginning of his sole reign. Nevertheless, his figure still arouses emotions to this day, with reactions ranging from fervent admiration to strong disapproval. Whoever deals with Julian necessarily takes sides. It starts with the name: Those who use the name Julian the Apostate single out his religious attitude as the defining characteristic of his personality and his reign. Those who prefer to call him the emperor Julian place him in the long line of Roman emperors. Admirers of Julian usually hold a critical attitude towards the alliance between emperor and church that was forged by Constantine the Great, Julian’s uncle. In this camp, Julian is considered an enlightened and tolerant monarch – a philosopher in an emperor’s garb, who fought Christianity in order to preserve or rather restore Greek culture in its true, unadulterated form. He held lofty ideals and led an exemplary way of life. He was a great general and statesman: According to his admirers, Julian saved Gaul from devastation at the hands of Germanic barbarians by his spirited warfare along the Rhine. In the east, he intended to put an end to the constant attacks of the Persians through offensive military operations. Above all, however, Julian strove for a fundamental reform of the late Roman ‘coercive state’. He diminished the tax burden, reduced the court staff, curbed the central bureaucracy, and strengthened municipal self-government. Julian also wanted to reverse the tendency toward an ‘absolutist’ understanding of the empire, which does not recognize any legal restrictions. The fact that the emperor in the end utterly failed does not, on this view, reflection his aims or capabilities. His failure was rather due to a contingent event, his early death. Views like these are still held today by renowned historians. In a German handbook on the history of the late Roman Empire, one reads: