THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 042
Julianus Augustus
3-14. Julianus Augustus
The sacrifice of Amida had saved the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, but the fall of the city also convinced Constantius that more troops were needed if Rome was to withstand the enemy. Accordingly the Emperor sent by the tribune Decentius his momentous order that the auxiliary troops, the Aeruli Batavi Celtae and Petulantes, should leave Gaul forthwith, and with them 300 men from each of the remaining Gallic regiments. The demand reached Julian in Paris where he was spending the winter (January 360); for him the serious feature of the despatch was that the execution of the Emperor's command was entrusted to Lupicinus and Gintonius, while Julian himself was ignored.
The transference of the troops was probably an imperial necessity, but this could not justify the form of the Emperor's despatch. The unrelenting malice of the courtiers had carried the day; Constantius seems to have lost confidence in his Caesar. At first Julian thought to lay down his office, then he temporised: he professed that obedience to the Emperor would imperil the safety of the province, he raised the objection that the barbarians had enlisted on the understanding that they should never be called upon to serve beyond the Alps, Lupicinus was in Britain fighting the Picts and Scots; while Florentius, to whose influence rumour ascribed the Emperor's action, was absent in Vienne. Julian summoned him to Paris to give his advice, but the praefect pleaded the urgency of the supervision of the corn supply and remained where he was
While Julian played a waiting game, a timely broadsheet was found in the camp of the Celtae and Petulantes. The anonymous author complained that the soldiers were being dragged none knew whither, leaving their families to be captured by the Alemanni. The partisans of Constantius saw the danger; should Julian still delay, they insisted, he would but justify the Emperor's suspicions. His hand was forced; he wrote a letter to Constantius, ordered the soldiers to leave their winter quarters and gave permission for their families to accompany them; Sintula, the Caesar's tribune of the stable, at once set out for the East with a picked body of Gentiles and Scutarii. Unwisely, as events proved, the court party demanded that the troops should march through Paris: there, they thought, any disaffection could be repressed.
Julian met the men outside the city and spoke them fair, their officers he invited to a banquet in the evening. But when the guests had returned to their quarters, there suddenly arose in the camp a passionate shout, and crowding tumultuously to the palace the soldiers surrounded its walls, raising the fateful acclamation, "Julianus Augustus." Without the army clamoured, within his room its leader wrestled with the gods until the dawn, and with the break of a new day he was assured of Heaven's blessing. When he came forth to face his men he might attempt to dissuade them, but he knew that he would bow to their will. Raised upon a shield and crowned with a standard bearer's torque, the Caesar returned to his palace an Emperor.
But now that the irrevocable step was taken, his resolution seemed to have failed, and he remained in retirement — perhaps for some days. The adherents of Constantius took heart and a group of conspirators plotted against Julian's life. But the secret was not kept, and the soldiers once more encircled the palace and would not be contented until they had seen their Emperor alive and well. From this moment Julian stifled his scruples and accepted accomplished fact.
After the flight of Decentius and Florentius he despatched Eutherius and his magister officiorum Pentadius as ambassadors to Constantius, while in his letter he proposed the terms which he was prepared to make the basis of a compromise. He would send to the East troops raised from the dediticii and the Germans settled on the left bank of the Rhine — to withdraw the Gallic troops would be, he professed, to endanger the safety of the province — while Constantius should allow him to appoint his own officials, both military and civil, save only that the nomination of the praetorian praefect should rest with the elder Augustus, whose superior authority Julian avowed himself willing to acknowledge.
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