THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 040
Julian Caesar’s Rule in the West
3-11. Julian Caesar’s Rule in the West
When we turn to Julian's action in the civil affairs of the West, our information is all too scanty. It is clear that he approached his task with the passionate conviction that at all costs he would relieve the lot of the oppressed provincials. He took part in person in the administration of justice and himself revised the judgments of provincial governors; he refused to grant "indulgences" whereby arrears of taxation were remitted, for he well knew that these imperial acts of grace benefited the rich alone, for wealth when first the tribute was assessed could purchase the privilege of delay and thus in the end enjoy the relief of the general rebate. He resolutely opposed all extraordinary burdens, and when Florentius persistently urged him to sign a paper imposing additional taxation for war purposes he threw the document indignantly to the ground and all the remonstrances of the praef ect were without avail. In Belgica the Caesar's own representatives collected the tribute and the inhabitants were saved from the exactions alike of the agents of the praefect and of the governor.
So successful was his administration that where previously for the land-tax alone twenty-five aurei had been exacted seven aurei only were now demanded by the State. But reform was slow and in Julian's character there was a strain of restless impatience: he was intolerant of delays and of the irrational obstacles that barred the highway of progress; it galled him that he could not appoint as officials and subordinates men after his own heart. Admitted that Constantius sent him capable civil servants, yet these men who were to be the agents of reform were themselves members of the corrupt bureaucracy which was ruining the provinces. Indeed, might these nominees of his cousin be withstood? The undefined limits of his office might always render it an open question whether the assertion of the Caesar's right were not aggression upon imperial privilege.
Julian's conscious power and burning enthusiasm felt the cruel curb of his subordination. Constantius wished loyally to support his young relative, had given him the supreme command in Gaul after the first trial year and was determined that he should be supported by experienced generals, but Julian was far distant and his enemies at Court had the Emperor's ear; for them his successes and virtues but rendered him the more dangerous; the eunuch gang, says Ammianus, only worked the harder at the smithies where calumnies were forged. At times they mocked the Caesar's vanity and decried his conquests, at others they played upon the suspicions of Constantius: Julian was victor to-day, why not another Victorinus — an upstart Emperor of Gaul — to-morrow. Imperial messengers to the West were careful to bring back ominous reports, and Julian, who knew how matters stood and was not ignorant of his cousin's failings, may well have feared the overmastering influence of the Emperor's advisers.
Thus constantly checked in his plans of reform alike religious and political, already, it may be, hailed as Augustus by his soldiery and dreading the machinations of courtiers, he began, at first perhaps in spite of himself, to long for greater independence; in 359 he was dreaming of the time when he should be no longer Caesar. The war in the East gave him his opportunity
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