THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 036
The Last of the House of Constantine
3-7. The Last of the House of Constantine
Thus of the house of Constantine there only remained the Emperor's cousin Julian. Born in all probability in April 332, the child spent his early years in Constantinople; his mother Basilina, daughter of the praetorian praefect Anicius Julianus, died only a few months after the birth of her son, while his father Julius Constantius, younger brother of Constantine the Great, perished in the massacre of 337. From this Julian was spared by his extreme youth and was thereupon removed to Nicomedia and entrusted to the charge of a distant relative, by name Eusebius, who was at the time bishop of the city. When seven years of age, his education was undertaken by Mardonius, a "Scythian" eunuch — perhaps a Goth — who had been engaged by Julian's grandfather to instruct Basilina in the works of Homer and Hesiod. Mardonius had a passionate love for the classical authors, and on his way to school the boy's imagination was fired by the old man's enthusiasm. Already Julian's love for nature was aroused; in the summer he would spend his time on a small estate which had belonged to his grandmother; it lay eight stades from the coast and contained springs and trees with a garden. Here, free from crowds, he would read a book in peace, looking up now and again upon the ships and the sea, while from a knoll, he tells us, there was a wide view over the town below and thence beyond to the capital, the Propontis and the distant islands.
Suddenly, in 341, both he and his brother Gallus were banished to Marcellum, a large and lonely imperial castle in Cappadocia, lying at the foot of Mount Argaeus. Here for six years the two boys lived in seclusion, for none of their friends were allowed to visit them. Julian chafed bitterly at this isolation: in one of his rare references to this period he writes "we might have been in a Persian prison with only slaves for our companions." For a time the suspicions of Constantius seem to have gained the upper hand. At length Julian was allowed to visit his birthplace Constantinople. Here, while studying under Christian teachers as a citizen among citizens, his natural capacity, wit, and sociability rendered him dangerously popular: it was rumoured that men were beginning to look upon the young prince as Constantius's successor. He was bidden to return to Nicomedia in 349, where he studied philosophy and came under the influence of Libanius, although he was not allowed to attend the latter's lectures.
The rhetorician dates Julian's conversion to Neoplatonism from this period — "the mud-bespattered statues of the gods were set up in the great temple of Julian's soul." At last, in 351, when Gallus was created Caesar, the student was free to go where he would, and the Pagan philosophers of Asia Minor seized their opportunity. One and all plotted to secure the complete conversion of the young prince. Aedesius and Eusebius at Pergamuni, Maximus and Chrysanthius at Ephesus could hardly content Julian's hunger for the forbidden knowledge. It was at this time (351-2) when he was twenty years of age that he finally rejected Christianity and was initiated into the mysteries of Mithras, as he himself tells us.
The fall of Gallus, however, implicated the Caesar's brother and Julian was closely watched and conducted to Italy. For seven months he was kept under guard, and during the six months which he spent in Milan he had only one interview with Constantius which was secured through the efforts of the Empress Eusebia. When at length he was allowed to leave the Court and was on his way to Asia Minor, the trial of the tribune Marinus and of Africanus, governor of Pannonia Secunda, on a charge of high treason inspired Constantius with fresh fears and suspicions. Messages reached Julian ordering his return. But before his arrival at Milan Eusebia had won from the Emperor his permission for Julian to retire to Athens, love of study being a characteristic which might with safety be encouraged in members of the royal house. Men may have seen in this visit to Greece in 355 but a banishment; to Julian, nursing the perilous secret of his new-found faith, the change must have been pure joy. In Hellas, his true fatherland, he was probably initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, while he plunged with impetuous intensity into the life of the University. It was not to be for long, for he was soon recalled to sterner activities.
Since the death of Gallus, the Emperor had stood alone; although no longer compromised by the excesses of his Caesar, he was still beset by the old problems which appeared to defy solution. At this time the power of the central government in Gaul had been still further weakened. Here Silvanus, whose timely desertion of Magnentius had contributed to the Emperor's success at the battle of Mursa, had been appointed magister peditum. He had won some victories over the Alemanni but, driven into treason by Court intrigues, had assumed the purple in Cologne and fallen after a short reign of some 28 days a victim to treachery (August-September 355). In his own person Constantius could not take the command at once in Rhaetia and in Gaul, and yet along the whole northern frontier he was faced with danger and difficulty. He was haunted by the continual fear that some capable general might of his own motion proclaim himself Augustus, or like Silvanus be hounded into rebellion. A military triumph often advantaged the captain more than his master and might have but little influence towards kindling anew the allegiance of the provincials. A prince of the royal house could alone with any hope of success attempt to raise the imperial prestige in Gaul.
It was thus statecraft and no sinister machination against his cousin's life which led Constantius to listen to his wife's entreaties. He determined to banish suspicion and disregard the interested insinuations of the Court eunuchs: he would make of the philosopher scholar a Caesar, in whose person the loyalty of the West should find a rallying-point and on whom its devotion might be spent.
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