History

But when we have come to another bend, abounding in harbours, which forms the last part of the curve of the bow, the island of Peuce juts forth, and around this dwell the Trogodytae, the Peuci, and other lesser tribes. Here is Histros, once a powerful city, and Tomi, Apollonia, Anchialos, and Odessos, besides many other cities which lie along the Thracian coast.

But the river Danube, rising near Augst, and the mountains near the Raetian frontier, extends over a wide tract, and after receiving sixty tributaries, nearly all of which are navigable, breaks through this Scythian shore into the sea through seven mouths.

The first of these, as their names are interpreted in the Greek tongue, is the aforesaid island of Peuce, the second Naracustoma, the third Calonstoma, the fourth Pseudostoma; but the Borionstoma and Stenostoma are far smaller than the others; the seventh is muddy and black like a swamp.

Now the entire Pontus throughout its whole circuit is misty, has sweeter waters than the other seas, and is full of shoals, since the air is often thickened and condensed from the evaporation of moisture, and is tempered by the great masses of water that flow into it; and, because the many rivers that pour into it from every side bring in mud and clods, it rises in shoals that are full of ridges.

And it is a well-known fact that fish from the remotest bounds of our sea come in schools to this retreat for the purpose of spawning, in order that they may rear their young more healthfully in its sweet waters, and that in the refuge of the hollows, such as are very numerous there, they may be secure from voracious sea-beasts; for in the Pontus nothing of that kind has ever been seen, except small and harmless dolphins.

But the part of that same Pontic gulf which is scourged by the north wind and by frosts is so completely bound in ice, that neither are the courses of the rivers believed to flow beneath the ice, nor can men or animals keep their footing on the treacherous and slippery surface, a defect which an unmixed sea never has, but only one which is mingled with water from rivers. But since I have been carried somewhat farther than I expected, let us hasten on to the rest of our story.

Another thing was added, to crown the present joys, something long hoped for it is true, but delayed by an extensive complex of postponements. For it was announced by Agilo and Jovius, who was later quaestor, that the defenders of Aquileia, through weariness of the long siege and having learned of the death of Constantius, had opened their gates, come out, and surrendered the instigators of the revolt; that these were burned alive (as was told above), and all the rest obtained indulgence and pardon for their offences.

But Julian, elated by his success, now felt more than mortal aspirations, since he had been tried by so many dangers and now upon him, the undisputed ruler of the Roman world, propitious Fortune, as if bearing an earthly horn of plenty, was bestowing all glory and prosperity; also adding this to the records of his former victories, that so long as he was sole ruler he was disturbed by no internal strife and no barbarians crossed his frontiers; but all nations, laying aside their former eagerness for repeated attacks, as ruinous and liable to punishment, were fired with a wonderful desire of sounding his praises.

Therefore, after everything that the times and the changed circumstances demanded had been arranged with careful deliberation, and the soldiers had by numerous addresses and by adequate pay been roused to greater readiness for carrying out the coming enterprises, exulting in the favour of all men, he hastened to go to Antioch, leaving Constantinople supported by great increase of strength; for it was there that he was born, and he loved and cherished the city as his natal place.

Accordingly, having crossed the strait, and passed by Chalcedon and Libyssa, where Hannibal the Carthaginian was buried, he came to Nicomedia, a city famed of old and so enlarged at the great expense of earlier emperors, that because of the great number of its private and public buildings it was regarded by good judges as one of the regions, so to speak, of the Eternal City.

When he saw that its walls had sunk into a pitiful heap of ashes, showing his distress by silent tears he went with lagging step to the palace: and in particular he wept over the wretched state of the city because the senate and the people, who had formerly been in a most flourishing condition, met him in mourning garb. And certain of them he recognised, since he had been brought up there under the bishop Eusebius, whose distant relative he was.

Having here also in a similar way generously furnished many things that were necessary for repairing the damage done by the earthquake, he went on past Nicaea to the borders of Gallograecia. From there he made a detour to the right and turned to Pessinus, in order to visit the ancient shrine of the Great Mother. It was from that town, in the second Punic war, that at the direction of the Cumaean verses her image was brought to Rome by Scipio Nasica.

Of its arrival in Italy, along with other matters relating to the subject, I have given a brief account by way of digression in telling of the acts of the emperor Commodus. But why the town was called by that name writers of history are not in agreement;

for some have maintained that since the image of the goddess fell from heaven, the city was named from πεσεῖν, which is the Greek word meaning to fall. Others say that Ilus, son of Tros, king of Dardania, gave the place that name. But Theopompus asserts that it was not Ilus who did it, but Midas, the once mighty king of Phrygia.

Then, after Julian had worshipped the deity and propitiated her with victims and vows, he returned to Ancyra. And as he continued his journey from there, the multitude annoyed him, some demanding the return of what had been wrested from them by violence, others complaining that they had unjustly been forced onto the boards of senators, while some, without regard to their own danger, exerted themselves to the point of madness to involve their opponents in charges of high treason.

But he, a judge more severe than a Cassius, or a Lycurgus, weighed the evidence in the cases with impartial justice and gave every man his due, never deviating from the truth, and showing particular severity towards calumniators, whom he hated because he had experienced the impudent madness of many such folk even to the peril of his life, while he was still a humble private citizen.

Of his patience in such matters it will suffice to give this single example, although there are many others. A certain man with great vehemence charged an enemy of his, with whom he was at bitter odds, of being guilty of high treason; and when the emperor ignored it, he repeated the same charge day after day. At last, on being asked who it was that he accused, he replied that it was a wealthy citizen. On hearing this, the emperor said with a smile: On what evidence have you come to this conclusion?

And the man answered: He is making himself a purple robe out of a silk cloak; and when after this he was bidden to depart in silence, but unpunished, as a low fellow making a serious charge against another of the same sort, he was none the less insistent. Whereupon Julian, wearied and disgusted with the man’s conduct, seeing his treasurer nearby, said to him: Have a pair of purple shoes given to this dangerous chatterbox, to take to his enemy (who he says, so far as I can understand, has had a cloak of that colour sewn for him), in order that he may be able to learn what insignificant rags amount to without great power.

But, although such conduct was laudable and worthy of imitation by good rulers, it was on the contrary hard and censurable that under his rule anyone who was sought by the curiales, even though protected by special privileges, by length of service in the army, or by proof that he was wholly ineligible by birth for such a position, could with difficulty obtain full justice; so that many of them through fear bought immunity from annoyance by secret and heavy bribes.

Thus proceeding on his way and arriving at the Gates, a place which separates the Cappadocians from the Cilicians, he received with a kiss the governor of the province, Celsus by name, whom he had known since his student days in Athens, gave him a seat in his carriage, and took him with him into Tarsus.

But hastening from there to visit Antioch, fair crown of the Orient, he reached it by the usual roads; and as he neared the city, he was received with public prayers, as if he were some deity, and he wondered at the cries of the great throng, who shouted that a lucky star had risen over the East.

Now, it chanced that at that same time the annual cycle was completed and they were celebrating, in the ancient fashion, the festival of Adonis (beloved by Venus, as the poet’s tales say), who was slain by the death-dealing tusk of a boar-a festival which is symbolic of the reaping of the ripe fruits of the field. And it seemed a gloomy omen, as the emperor now for the first time entered the great city, the residence of princes, that on all sides melancholy wailing was heard and cries of grief.

It was here that he gave a proof of his patience and mildness, slight, it is true, but surprising. He hated a certain Thalassius, a former assistant master of petitions, who had plotted against his brother Gallus. When this man had been prohibited from greeting the emperor and attending at court among the other dignitaries, some enemies of his, with whom he had a suit in the forum, gathered together next day a huge throng of his remaining foes and approaching the emperor, shouted: Thalas- sius, your majesty’s enemy, has lawlesslyrobbed us of our goods.

But, although Julian believed that this was an opportunity to ruin the man, he replied: I know that the person to whom you refer has given me just cause for offence, but it is proper for you to keep silence until he gives satisfaction to me, his opponent of higher rank. And he ordered the prefect who was sitting in judgement not to listen to their charge until he himself was reconciled with Thalassius, which shortly happened.

Passing the winter there to his heart’s content, he was meanwhile carried away by no incitements of the pleasures in which all Syria abounds; but as if for recreation devoting his attention to cases at law, not less than to difficult and warlike affairs, he was distracted by many cares, as with remarkable willingness to receive information he deliberated how he might give each man his due by righteous decisions, bringing the guilty to order with moderate punishments and protecting the innocent with the safety of their property.

And, although in arguing cases he was sometimes untimely, asking at some inopportune moment what the religion of each of the litigants was, yet it cannot be found that in the decision of any suit he was inconsistent with equity, nor could he ever be accused because of a man’s religious views, or for any other cause, of having deviated from the straight path of justice.

For that is desirable and proper judgement, when, after examination of all the circumstances, just is distinguished from unjust; and that he might not depart from this, he was as careful as of dangerous rocks. Now this he was able to accomplish for the reason that, recognising the hastiness of his somewhat excitable disposition, he allowed his prefects and associates freely to curb his impulses, when they led him away from what was fitting, by a timely admonition; and at times he showed that he regretted his errors and was glad to be corrected.

And when the defenders of causes greeted him with the greatest applause, declaring that he understood perfect justice, he is said to have replied with emotion: I should certainly rejoice and show my joy, if I were praised by those whom I knew to have also the power to blame me in case I was wrong in deed or word.

But it will suffice, in place of many examples of the clemency that he showed in judicial processes, to set down this one, which is neither out of place nor ill-chosen. When a certain woman had been brought before the court, and contrary to her expectation saw that her accuser, who was one of the court servants that had been discharged, wore his girdle, she loudly complained at this act of insolence. Whereupon the emperor said: Go on with your charge, woman, if you think that you have been wronged in any way; for this man has thus girt himself in order to go through the mire the more easily ; it can do little harm to your cause.

And these and similar instances led to the belief, as he himself constantly affirmed, that the old goddess of Justice, whom Aratus takes up to heaven because she was displeased with the vices of mankind, had returned to earth during his reign, were it not that sometimes Julian followed his own inclination rather than the demands of the laws, and by occasionally erring clouded the many glories of his career.

For after many other things, he also corrected some of the laws, removing ambiguities, so that they showed clearly what they demanded or forbade to be done. But this one thing was inhumane, and ought to be buried in eternal silence, namely, that he forbade teachers of rhetoric and literature to practise their profession, if they were followers of the Christian religion.

At about that same time, that notorious state- secretary Gaudentius, who (as I said before) had been sent to Africa by Constantius to oppose Julian there, and also Julianus, a former vice-governor, an intemperate partisan of the same faction, were brought back in chains and punished with death.

Then, too, Artemius, sometime military commander in Egypt, since the Alexandrians heaped upon him a mass of atrocious charges, suffered capital punishment. After him the son of Marcellus, at one time commander of the cavalry and infantry, was publicly executed, on the ground that he had aspired to the throne. Finally, even Romanus and Vincentius, tribunes of the first and the second corps of the targeteers, were convicted of designs beyond their powers and exiled.

Hardly had a brief time elapsed, when the Alexandrians, on learning of the death of Artemius, whom they dreaded, for fear that he would return with his power restored (for so he had threatened) and do harm to many for the wrong that he had suffered, turned their wrath against the bishop Georgius, who had often, so to speak, made them feel his poisonous fangs.

The story goes that he was born in a fullery at Epiphania, a town of Cilicia, and flourished to the ruin of many people. Then, contrary to his own advantage and that of the commonwealth, he was ordained bishop of Alexandria, a city which on its own impulse, and without ground, is frequently roused to rebellion and rioting, as the oracles themselves show.

To the frenzied minds of these people Georgius himself was also a powerful incentive by pouring, after his appointment, into the ready ears of Constantius charges against many, alleging that they were rebellious against his authority; and, forgetful of his calling, which counselled only justice and mildness, he descended to the informer’s deadly practices.

And, among other matters, it was said that he maliciously informed Constantius also of this, namely, that all the edifices standing on the soil of the said city had been built by its founder, Alexander, at great public cost, and ought justly to be a source of profit to the treasury.

To these evil deeds he had added still another, which soon after drove him headlong to destruction. As he was returning from the emperor’s court and passed by the beautiful temple of the Genius, attended as usual by a large crowd, he turned his eyes straight at the temple, and said: How long shall this sepulchre stand? On hearing this, many were struck as if by a thunderbolt, and fearing that he might try to overthrow even that building, they devised secret plots to destroy him in whatever way they could.

And lo! on the sudden arrival of the glad news that told of the death of Artemius, all the populace, transported by this unlooked-for joy, grinding their teeth and uttering fearful outcries, made for Georgius and seized him, maltreating him in divers ways and trampling upon him; then they dragged him about spread-eagle fashion, and killed him.

And with him Dracontius, superintendent of the mint, and one Diodorus, who had the honorary rank of count, were dragged about with ropes fastened to their legs and both killed; the former, because he overthrew an altar, newly set up in the mint, of which he had charge; the other, because, while overseer of the building of a church, he arbitrarily cut off the curls of some boys, thinking that this also was a fashion belonging to the pagan worship.

Not content with this, the inhuman mob loaded the mutilated bodies of the slain men upon camels and carried them to the shore; there they burned them on a fire and threw the ashes into the sea, fearing (as they shouted) that their relics might be collected and a church built for them, as for others who, when urged to abandon their religion, endured terrible tortures, even going so far as to meet a glorious death with unsullied faith; whence they are now called martyrs. And these wretched men who were dragged off to cruel torture might have been protected by the aid of the Christians, were it not that all men without distinction burned with hatred for Georgius.

The emperor, on hearing of this abominable deed, was bent upon taking vengeance, but just as he was on the point of inflicting the extreme penalty upon the guilty parties, he was pacified by his intimates, who counselled leniency. Accordingly, he issued an edict expressing, in the strongest terms, his horror at the outrage that had been committed, and threatened extreme measures in case in the future anything was attempted contrary to justice and the laws.

Meanwhile, Julian was preparing a campaign against the Persians, which he had long before planned with lofty strength of mind, being exceedingly aroused to punish their misdeeds in the past, knowing and hearing as he did that this savage people for almost three score years had branded the Orient with the cruelest records of murder and pillage, and had often all but annihilated our armies.

He was inflamed besides with a twofold longing for war, first, because he was tired of inactivity and dreamed of clarions and battle; and then, exposed as he had been in the first flower of his youth to warfare with savage nations, while his ears were still warm with the prayers of kings and princes who (as it was believed) could more easily be vanquished than led to hold out their hands as suppliants, he burned to add to the tokens of his glorious victories the surname Parthicus.

But his idle and envious detractors, seeing these mighty and hasty preparations, cried out that it was shameful and ruinous that through the exchange of one man for another so many untimely disturbances should be set on foot; and they devoted all their efforts to putting off the campaign. And they repeatedly said, in the presence of those who they thought could repeat to the emperor what they had heard, that if he did not conduct himself with more moderation in his excessive prosperity and success, like plants that grow rank from too great fertility, he would soon find destruction in his own good fortune.

But though they kept up this agitation long and persistently, it was in vain that they barked around a man as unmoved by secret insults, as was Hercules by those of the Pygmies, or by those of the Lindian peasant Thiodamas.

But Julian, being a man of uncommonly high spirit, no less carefully considered the importance of his campaign, and used every effort to make corre- sponding preparations.

Nevertheless, he drenched the altars with the blood of an excessive number of victims, sometimes offering up a hundred oxen at once, with countless flocks of various other animals, and with white birds hunted out by land and sea; to such a degree that almost every day his soldiers, who gorged themselves on the abundance of meat, living boorishly and corrupted by their eagerness for drink, were carried through the squares to their lodgings on the shoulders of passers-by from the public temples, where they indulged in banquets that deserved punishment rather than indulgence; especially the Petulantes and the Celts, whose wilfulness at that time had passed all bounds.

Moreover, the ceremonial rites were excessively increased, with an expenditure of money hitherto unusual and burdensome. And, as it was now allowed without hindrance, everyone who professed a knowledge of divination, alike the learned and the ignorant, without limit or prescribed rules, were permitted to question the oracles and the entrails, which sometimes disclose the future; and from the notes of birds, from their flight, and from omens, the truth was sought with studied variety, if anywhere it might be found.

While these things were thus going on, as if in time of peace, Julian devoted to many interests, entered upon a new way of consultation, and thought of opening the prophetic springs of the Castalian fount; this, it is said, Caesar Hadrian had blocked up with a huge mass of stones, for fear that (as he himself had learned from the prophetic waters that he was destined to become emperor), others also might get similar information. And Julian, after invoking the god, decided that the bodies which had been buried around the spring, should be moved to another place, under the same ceremonial with which the Athenians had purified the island of Delos.

At that same time, on the twenty-second of October, the splendid temple of the Daphnaean Apollo, which that hot-tempered and cruel king Antiochus Epiphanes had built, and with it the statue of the god, a copy of that of the Olympian Zeus and of equal size, was reduced to ashes by a sudden fire.

The unexpected destruction of this shrine by so terrible an accident inflamed the emperor with such anger, that he ordered stricter investigations than usual to be made, and the greater church at Antioch to be closed. For he suspected that the Christians had done the deed, aroused by jealousy and unwillingness to see the temple enclosed by a magnificent colonnade.