9
Rome and Shapur II
The Persian Expedition of Julian (March-June, 363)

(A)
CHRONOLOGY AND ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCES

The preliminaries

Julian’s desire to avenge the frontier regions which had suffered from the recent Persian incursions and his refusal to discuss peace with an embassy from Persia: Libanius or. XVII, 19 and XVIII, 164. His boast that he would restore Singara: Ephrem, Hymni Contra Julianum II, 15. (On his refusal to defend Nisibis on account of its citizens’ loyalty to the Christian faith, see Sozomen, V, 3, 5=ELF 91). He commanded Arsak (Arsaces), the king of Armenia, to muster a large army and to join him later at a place to be designated: Amm. XXIII, 2, 2, Lib., or. XVIII, 215 and Soz., VI, 1, 2.¹ He ordered ships to be built in Samosata: Malalas, XIII,pp. , 21–329, 2 (=Magnus of Carrhae, FGrH 225, F 1). His enquiries at various famous oracles: Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica III, 21, 1–4. His intention to establish Hormisdas as ruler of Persia: Libanius, ep. 1402, 3. See also Libanius, ep. 737, 1–3 for an example of Roman optimism concerning the campaign.

From Antioch to Callinicum (5±27 March)

Upon leaving Antioch, Julian headed for Hierapolis via Litarbae² (5 March),³ Beroea (6 March) and Batnae (8 March). Cf. ELF 98 (= ep. 58, Wright). He was met by a delegation from the Antiochene curia at Litarbae and rejected their requests: ELF 98. See also Libanius, or. I, 132 and XVI, 1. (Malalas, XIII, p. 328, 6–19 suggests that he passed through Cyrrhus, but this is unlikely as Cyrrhus was not on the direct route from Antioch to Litarbae.) A colonnade collapsed at Hierapolis⁴ and killed fifty soldiers: Amm. XXIII, 2, 6. He remained there for three days and, after crossing the Euphrates, he reached Batnae (i.e. Sarug in Osrhoene) on 12 March: Zos. III, 12, 2. There another fifty soldiers were killed while foraging: Amm. XXIII, 2, 7–8. He came to Carrhae on 18 March after a forced march. Cf. Amm. XXIII, 3, 1 and Zos. III, 12, 2, Malalas, XIII, p. , 4 (=Magnus, F 2). He avoided Edessa because of its strong Christian connections: Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica III, 26, 1. At Carrhae he divided his forces: Amm. XXIII, 3, 4–5, Zos. III, 12, 3–5 and Sozomen, VI, 1, 2.⁵ He feigned a march across the Tigris and at some point between Carrhae and Nisibis he turned south towards Callinicum which he reached on 27 March.⁶ Cf. Amm. XXIII, 3, 6–7 and Zos. III, 13, 1. The next day he received a delegation of Saracen chieftains who presented him with a gold crown: Amm. XXIII, 3, 8. See also ELF 98, 401D (=ep. 58, Wright). On his refusal to pay them their usual bribe, see Amm. XXV, 6, 10. He was joined by the fleet under the command of Lucillianus:⁷ Amm. XXIII, 3, 9. See also Zos., III, 13, 2–3.

From Callinicum to Maiozamalcha (April-mid-June)

Julian set off from Callinicum for Circesium where he crossed the river Abora (the Chabur) on a bridge of boats: Amm. XXIII, 5, 1 and Zos. III, 14, 2. At Circesium he received a letter from Sallustius beseeching him to call off the campaign: Amm. XXIII, 5, 4. Leaving Circesium, the army marched southwards along the right bank of the Euphrates and passed Zaitha⁸ on 4 April (Amm. XXIII, 5, 7 and Zos. III, 14, 2). Julian was urged on by his theurgist/philosopher friends in his retinue to continue the campaign despite adverse omens: Amm. XXIII, 5, 10. Cf. Soc., III, 21, 6. His speech to the troops: Amm. XXIII, 5, 16– 23. See also Malalas, XIII, p. , 18–23 (=Magnus F 2–5). The army entered Assyria and the arrangement of the units for the march is given in Amm. XXIV, 1, 2 and Zos. III, 14, 1. The army passed the deserted city of Dura (Europos) on the opposite bank on 6 April: Amm. XXIII, 5, 8 and 12 and XXIV, 1, 5 and Zos. III, 14, 2. Anatha⁹ was captured on 11 April after a show of strength. Cf. Amm. XXIV, 1, 6–10, Zos. III, 14, 2–3 and Lib., or. XVIII, 218. On the fate of the prisoners, see Amm. XXIV, 1, 9, Lib., ep. 1367, 6 and Chron. Ps. Dionys., s. a. 674, CSCO 91, pp. , 24–180, 2. On 12 April, the force was struck by a hurricane and some grain-ships were sunk because sluice-gates were breached (through enemy action?) Cf. Amm. XXIV, 1, 11. After this an unnamed city was captured and burnt: ibid. XXIV, 1, 12.

The Persian garrison at the fortress of Thilutha¹⁰ decided to remain neutral and was bypassed (? 13 March). Cf. Amm. XXIV, 2, 1–2, Zos. III, 15, 1 and Lib., or. XVIII, 219. Achaiacala¹¹ was similarly bypassed and an abandoned fort was burnt: Amm. XXIV, 2, 2. Cf. Zos., III, 15, 2. Two days later (mid-April), the army crossed the Euphrates at Baraxmalcha¹² and entered Diacira¹³ which had been abandoned: Amm. XXIV, 2, 3 (? 17–19 March). The army then passed by Sitha and (recrossed the river? at) Megia (cf. Zos. III, 15, 3) and reached Ozogardana¹⁴ c. 22 April. Cf. Amm. XXIV, 2, 3 and Zos. III, 15, 3. The army rested there for two days. Hormisdas, leading a reconnaissance party, was ambushed by the Persians under the command of the Suren¹⁵ and Podosaces,

Map 5 Julian’s attempt against Ctesiphon

Phylarch of the Saracens.¹⁶ Cf. Amm. XXIV, 2, 4–5 and Zos. III, 15, 4–6. Shadowed by Persian forces (cf. Amm. XXIV, 2, 5), the Roman army reached Macepracta¹⁷ near the start of the Naarmalcha (Royal Canal)¹⁸: Amm. XXIV, 2, 6 and crossed the canal: Amm. XXIV, 2, 7–8 and Zos. III, 16–17. Pirisabora,¹⁹ a key fortress guarding the canal approach to Ctesiphon, was taken after siege (? 27–9 April). Cf. Amm. XXIV, 2, 9–22, Zos., III, 17, 3–18, 6, Lib., or. XVIII, 227–8 and Suidas , s. v. . See also Eunap., frag. 21 (=Blockley 27, 2, p. 39). On the day after the fall of Pirisabora, a Roman reconnaissance party was ambushed and routed by the Suren. Its commanders were relieved of their command by Julian: Amm. XXIV, 3, 1–2, Zos. III, 19,1–2 and Lib., or.

XVIII, 229. The army marched along the canal past Phissenia²⁰ but the advance was slowed by the Persians breaching the dams and turning the low ground into marsh-land. Cf. Amm. XXIV, 3, 10–11, Zos. III, 19, 3–4²¹ and Lib., or. XVIII, 222–6 and 232–4. At this point the Euphrates was divided into many small streams: Amm. XXIV, 3, 14. In this district they found an abandoned Jewish setlement:²² Amm. XXIV, 4, 1. Julian headed the bridging operation and led his army to Bithra²³ where they found the ruins of a palace: Zos. III, 19, 4. Maiozamalcha,²⁴ a well-fortified city, was taken after a laborious siege (? 10–13, May). Cf. Amm. XXIV, 4, 2–30, Zos. III, 20, 2–22, 7 and Lib., or. XVIII, 235– 42. The Romans then passed over a series of canals, and an attempt to stop them by the Persians was foiled: Amm. XXIV, 4, 31.

The relative ease with which the Roman army reached the outskirts of Ctesiphon is briefly mentioned in many other sources. See e.g., Lib., ep. 1402, 2– 3, Eutrop., X, 16, 1, Festus, brev., 28, p. . 18–19, Gregory Nazianzenus, or. V, 9, Socrates, III, 21, 3, Soz., VI, 1, 4, Malalas, XIII, p. , 23–330, 2 (=Magnus, F 3–6) and Zonaras, XIII, 13, 1.

The Roman army at Seleucia/Coche/Ctesiphon

The Romans came upon a palace built in Roman style and left it untouched (? 15 May). They also found the King’s Chase well stocked with game: Amm. XXIV, 5, 1–2, Zos. III, 23, 1–2 and Lib., or. XVII, 20 and XVIII, 243. At the site of the former Hellenistic city of Seleucia,²⁵ Julian saw the impaled bodies of the relatives of the Persian commander who surrendered Pirisabora: Amm. XXIV, 5, 4. Here Nabdates, former Persian commander of Maiozamalcha, who had surrendered to the Romans but had grown insolent, was burnt with 80 men: Amm. XXIV, 5, 4. A strong fortress was captured (? 16 May): ibid. XXIV, 5, 6–11. This could be the Meinas Sabath²⁶ mentioned in Zos. III, 23, 3. The fleet then sailed down the Naarmalcha and the army pushed on to Coche.²⁷ Cf. Amm. XXIV, 6, 1–2, Zos. III, 24, 2, Lib., or. XVIII, 245–7 and Malalas, XII, p. , 10–16 (=Magnus F 7).

Coche and Ctesiphon were both strongly defended: Greg. Naz., or. V, 10. Julian partially unloaded the fleet and used the boats to ferry soldiers across the Tigris: Amm. XXIV, 6, 4–6, Zos., III, 25–6, Lib., or. XVIII, 248–55, Greg. Naz., loc. cit. and Soc., VI, 1, 5–18. See also Eunap., frag. 22, 2 (=Blockley 27, 3, p. 39), Lib., or. I, 133 and XXIV, 37 Festus, brev. 28, pp. , 19–68, 3 and Malalas XIII, p. 330,16–19 (=Magnus, F 8). The Romans were victorious at a battle before the gates of Ctesiphon but were unable to exploit the victory because of ill-discipline. Cf. Amm. XXIV, 6, 8–16, Zos., III, 25, 5–7, Lib., or. XVII, 21 and XVIII, 248–55, Festus, brev. 28, p. 68, 3–7, Greg. Naz., loc. cit. and Sozomen, VI, 1, 7–8. Julian rejected the peace overtures from Shapur II: Lib., or. XVIII, 257–9 and Soc., III, 21, 4–8 (compressed chronology). See also Art. Pass. 69.

A council of war was held (at Abuzatha?)²⁸ and a decision to march inland was made (? 5 June). Cf. Amm. XXIV, 7, 1–3, Zos. III, 26, 1, Lib., or. XVIII, 261. See also Eunap., frag. 22, 3 (= Blockley, 27, 5, p. 41) and 27 (=Blockley, 27, 6, p. 41) and Zon., XIII, 13, 10. The transport fleet was burnt (11–15 June): Amm. XXIV, 7, 3–5, Zos., III; 26, 2–3, Lib., or. XVIII, 262–3, Ephr., HcJul. III, 15, Greg. Naz., or. V, 11–12, Soz., VI, 1, 9, Thdt., h.e. III, 25, 1, Festus, brev. 28, p. , 9, Zon., XIII, 13, 2–9. On the theory that Julian was led astray by one or more Persian double-agents, see Greg. Naz., or. V, 11, Ephr., HcJul. II, 18, Festus, brev. 28, p. 68, 9–10, Soc., III, 22, 9, Soz., VI, 1, 9–12, Philostorgius, VII, 15, Malalas, XIII, pp. 330, 20–332, 21 (=Magnus, F 9–11) and Art. Pass. 69.

A second council of war was held (at Noorda?)²⁹ and the decision to head for Cordyene rather than to return via Assyria was confirmed (? 16 June). Cf. Amm. XXIV, 8, 2–5 and Zos. III, 26, 3. The army struck camp on 16 June: Amm. XXIV, 8, 5. The army marched due north towards the river Douros (Diayala?).³⁰

The Roman withdrawal

The Persians were encountered on the Douros and were defeated: Amm. XXV, 1, 1–3, Zos., III, 26, 4–5 and Lib. or. XVIII, 264. After crossing the Douros, the army marched east (?) towards Barsaphtas: Zos. III, 27, 1. Hucumbra (or Symbra)³¹ was reached c. 17 June: Amm. XXV, 1, 4 and Zos. III, 27, 2. [The account of Libanius (or. XVIII, 264–7) becomes very vague after the battle on the Douros and mentions only frequent skirmishes, giving no specific details.] The Romans began to suffer from shortage of supplies as the effects of the scorched-earth policy of the Persians were becoming apparent. Cf. Amm. XXV, 1, 10, Zos. III, 26, 4, John Chrys., de S.Babyla XXII/122, Thdt., h.e. III, 25, 4 and Zon. XIII, 13, 13–14. See, however, the denial by Libanius (or. XVIII, 264). The army continued its march up the right bank of the Tigris, passing Danabe,³² Synce and Accete. In between Danabe and Synce the Persians raided the Roman column and lost Adaces, a distinguished satrap, in the skirmish. Cf. Amm. XXV, 1, 5–6 and Zos. III, 27, 4. Accete was reached around 20 June and the Romans again found the crops burnt: Zos. III, 28, 1. The Persians attacked the Roman column as it passed through a district called Maranga (Zos.: Maronsa)³³ but were repelled with heavy losses (? 22 May). Cf. Amm. XXV, 1, 11–19 and Zos. III, 28, 2. The Romans however lost some ships because they lagged too far behind: Zos., loc. cit. A truce of three days was agreed upon after the battle: Amm. XXV, 2, 1. Toummara³⁴ on the Tigris was reached probably on 25 June after an exhausting march, during which the Romans regretted the earlier decision to burn the fleet: Zos. III, 28, 3. Another Persian attack was repelled: Zos., loc. cit.

Death of Julian (26 June)

Amm. XXV, 3, Zos. III, 28, 4–29, 1, Lib., or. XVIII, 268–74, Eunap., frag. 20 (=Blockley, 27, 8, p. 41) and 26 (=Blockley 28, 6, p. 45), Festus, brev. 28, p. 68. 11–16, Ephr., HcJul. III, 16, Greg. Naz., or. V, 13–14, John Chrys., de S.Babyla XXII/123, Soc., III, 21, 9–18, Soz., VI, 1, 13–16, Thdt., h.e. III, 25, 5–7, Philost., VII, 15, Malalas, XIII, pp. 331, 21–333, 6 (=Magnus, F 12–15), Art. Pass. 69.

Election of Jovian (27 June)

Amm. XXV, 51–7, Zos. III, 30, 1, Eunap., frag. 23 (=Blockley, 28, 1, pp. 41–2), Greg. Naz., or. V, 15, Soc., III, 22, 1–5, Soz., VI, 3, 1–6, Thdt., h.e. IV, 1, 1–6, Philost., VIII, 1 and Malalas, XIII, p. 333, 7–17. The withdrawal resumed: Amm. XXV, 6, 1. A Persian attack was repelled: ibid. XXV, 6, 2–3 and Zos. III, 30, 2–4. The body of Anatolius,³⁵ killed in the same battle as Julian, was recovered at Sumere and buried. Cf. ibid. XXV, 6, 4 and Zos., III, 30, 4. A few days later the army found refuge at Charcha³⁶ (? 29–30 June) and on 1 July it reached Dura³⁷ (not Europos), where they were delayed for four days by Persian attacks. Cf. Amm. XXV, 6, 9–11. The Romans seized a bridge-head on the opposite bank of the Tigris by a daring raid, but the raging current prevented the Tigris from being successfully bridged. Cf. Amm. XXV, 6, 11–7, 4 and Zos. III, 30, 4–5.

The peace negotiations (? 8±11 July)

Amm. XXV, 7, 5–14, Zos. III, 31, 1–2, Soc., III, 23, 7–8 and Ps.-Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle 7, trans. W.Wright, pp., Malalas, XIII, pp. 335, 1–336, 10 and Zon. XIII, 14, 4, 6. See also Lib., or. XXIV, 9. After the terms were settled, the Roman army continued its withdrawal via Hatra, Ur, (Singara) and Thilsaphata: Amm. XXV, 8, 4–12. At Thilsaphata,³⁸ the expeditionary force met up with the diversionary force under Procopius and Sebastianus: Amm. XXV, 8, 16. The surrender of Nisibis (? 25 Aug.): Amm. XXV, 8, 13–15 and 9, 1–3, Zos., III, 33, 1–34, 1, Eunap., frag. 29, ed. and trans. Blockley, pp. (=John of Antioch, frag. 181), Ephr., HcJul. II, 16–III, 8, John Chrys., de S. Babyla XXII/ 123, Philost., VIII and Malalas, XIII, pp. 336, 11–337, 2.

(B)
THE SOURCES (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF THEIR AUTHORS)

Agathias, historiae IV, 25, 6–7: In the twenty-fourth year of his (i.e. Shapur II’s) reign the city of Nisibis fell to the Persians. It had long been subject to the Romans, but Jovian their own emperor yielded it and gave it up. For Julian the previous Roman emperor had suddenly been killed while actually in the interior of the Persian kingdom, and Jovian was proclaimed by the generals and the armies and the rest of the throng there. 7. And since he had only just come to the throne, and affairs were naturally disturbed—and all this in the middle of enemy country too—he could not under these circumstances devote much time to settling the present situation. So, in order to rid himself of the need to stay in a strange and hostile country and wanting nothing so much as to return home quickly, he made a shameful and disgraceful truce, so bad that it is even now harmful to the Roman state, by which he made the empire contract into new boundaries and cut off the outer parts of his own territory.

(Cameron, p. 125)

Ammianus Marcellinus, XXIII, 2–XXV, 8. See Introduction, p. .

Artemii passio 69–70 (69.1–70.5, pp. 243–4, Kotter): Julian set out from Antioch with all his forces and marched against Persia. When he had arrived at Ctesiphon, he thought after accomplishing this great feat he would go on to other mightier deeds. The accursed emperor did not realize that he had been tricked. For having acquired a devilish devotion to idolatry and hoping through his godless deities to hold his emperorship for a long time and to become a new Alexander, and to overcome the Persians and to obliterate the name of the Christians for all time, he fell victim to his overweening purpose. For he met an aged Persian and was led astray by him (on the promise) that he would without trouble succeed to the kingdoms of the Persians and all their wealth; he drew him into the Carmanian desert, into trackless regions, ravines and desert-like and waterless areas with all his army. And when he had exhausted them with thirst and hunger and killed off all their cavalry, the Persian willingly confessed that he had led them astray so that they might be destroyed by him and he might not see his own native land laid waste by its worst enemies. Therefore they straightway cut this man up limb from limb and dispatched him to his death. But immediately, in this state of distress, they encountered against their will the army of the Persians. A battle occurred and while Julian himself was rushing here and there and organizing his men, he fell to the spear, so it is said, of a soldier; but, as others record, to the spear of a Saracen serving with the Persians. But in the true Christian version which is ours, the spear belonged to the Lord Christ who was ranged against him. For suddenly a bow from the skies stretched taut and launched a missile at him as at a target and it pierced through his side, and wounded him in the abdomen. And he wailed deeply and woefully and thought that our Lord Jesus Christ was standing before him and exulting over him. But he, filled with darkness and madness, received his own blood in his hands and sprinkled it into the air, and when he became breathless shouted out, saying: ‘You have won, Christ. Take your fill, Galilaean!’ Thus he ended his life in a most fearful and hateful manner after many reproaches had been heaped upon his own gods. 70. When the transgressor fell in the no-man’s land around the army, Jovian was proclaimed emperor by the army. He made a peace treaty with the Persians by which he handed over Nisibis without its inhabitants to the Persians. He then departed from there for the army was being destroyed by hunger and disease.

(Dodgeon)

Cedrenus, i, pp. 538, 16–23 and 539, 16–21: Having marched into Persia, he (Julian) was tricked by certain deserters into burning his ships. Afterwards he marched to his satisfaction through desert and rough country, and began to run out of all the necessities and provisions. The men with him began to suffer great distress. When the time for war arrived, while he went around the camp and drew up his men, he was struck with a lance from an unknown direction in the lower abdomen and as a result moaned aloud. He took the blood into his hand and sprinkled it into the air, saying, ‘You have won, Christ! Be satisfied, Nazarene.’…

He (Jovian) was proclaimed emperor by the whole army in the place in which the Transgressor was destroyed. He was tall in stature, so that not even one of the imperial robes fitted him. After one encounter in battle, peace was declared in unison (as at God’s command) both by the Romans and the Persians, and it was specified to last for thirty years.

(Dodgeon)

Chronicon ad AD 724 (Liber Calipharum), CSCO 6, pp. 133, 14ff. (Syriac): In the year 674 (Sel.=AD 363), the defiled Julian descended into the land of the Chaldaeans, to Bet Aramaye, where his ruin came about at the hand of the Romans (sic)…(and Julian was slain) on the twenty-seventh day of the month Iyyar (=May) of the year 674.

In the month of Haziran (=June) in the year 674 on a Friday by the bank of the great river Tigris, on the north side of Kaukaba (= Coche?) and Ctesiphon, in the region called Bet Aramaye³⁹ Jobininus (i.e. Jovian) assumed the great crown of the Roman Empire, and he made peace and concord, and put an end to the hostilities between both the mighty empires of the Romans and the Persians. However, in order that there should be peace between them and that he should free the Romans from the straits in which they were, he gave to the Persians all the area of the east belonging to Nisibis, certain of the villages which surround the city and the whole of Armenia together with the regions subject to Armenia (?)⁴⁰ itself. (The inhabitants of) Nisibis went into exile in the territory of the Edessenes in the month of Ab (August) in the year 674 and Nisibis was handed over to the Persians devoid of its inhabitants.

(Lieu, revised Brock)

Chronicon Ps.-Dionysianum, CSCO 91, p. , 23–180, 8 (Syriac): In the year 674 (Sel.=AD 363), the emperor Julian descended into Persia and devastated the entire region from Nisibis as far as Ctesiphon in Bet Aramaye. He took a large number of captives from there and settled them at Mt. Snsw. In the same year he died in Persia, struck by a dart thrown through the air. Jovian, commander of his army, then reigned in his place. He made peace between the two empires and ceded Nisibis to the Persians. The persecution came to an end in Persia because of the peace he made and all the churches were (re)opened. All the inhabitants of Nisibis went into exile to Amida in Mesopotamia and he constructed walls for them west of the city.

(Lieu, revised Brock)

Ephrem Syrus, Hymni contra Julianum II, 15–22 and 27 and III, CSCO 174, p. , 23–82, 14 and 83, 11–85, 8:⁴¹

II
According to the tune ‘Rely on Truth’
15 But he (i.e. Julian) gave omens and promises and wrote and
(sent) to us
that he was setting out and subduing and would lay bare
Persia,
that he would rebuild Singara—the threat of his letter.⁴²
Nisibis [was taken] through his descent (into battle),
and by his diviners [he brought low] the host who believed in
him;
like a (sacrificial) lamb the city saved his camp.
RESPONSE: Blessed be he who blotted him out and saddened
all the sons of error.
16 (God) had appointed Nisibis, which was taken, as a mirror
so that we might see in it how the pagan, who had set out (i.e. for Persia)
because he took what was not his, lost what was his—
that city which proclaimed to the world
the disgrace of his diviners⁴³ and that [his] shame was
unending;
(God) had delivered it to a steadfast, untiring herald.
17 This is the herald who, with four mouths, cried out in the earth
the shame of his diviners,
and the gates, that during the siege were opened, also unlocked
our mouth to the praise of our redeemer.
Today the gates of that city are shut fast
so that through them the mouth of the pagans and the erring
is closed.
18 Let us seek the reason how and wherefore
they yielded that city, the shield of all cities.
The insane one (i.e. Julian) raved and set on fire his ships near
the Tigris.
The bearded ones deceived him,⁴⁴ and he did not perceive it,
he the goat who avowed that he knew the secrets;
he was deceived in visible things so he was put to shame in the
non-visible.
19 It is the city which had proclaimed the truth of its saviour;
the waters suddenly burst out and smote against it,
earthworks were brought low and elephants were drowned.
The (Christian) king by his sackcloth had preserved it,
the tyrant by his paganism debased the victory
of the city which prayer had crowned with triumph.
20 Truth was its wall and fasting its bulwark.
The Magians came threatening and Persia was put to shame through them,
Babel through the Chaldaeans and India through the
enchanters.
For thirty years truth had crowned it
(but) in the summer in which he established an idol within the
city
mercy fled from it and wrath pursued and entered it.
21 For empty sacrifices rendered void its fullness;
demons of the waste laid it waste with libations;
the (pagan) altar which was built uprooted and cast out
that sanctuary whose sackcloth had delivered us (i.e the city).
festivals of frenzy reduced to silence its feast, because the sons of error ministered, they made void its
ministrations.
22 The Magian who entered our place, kept it holy, to our shame,
he neglected his temple of fire and honoured the sanctuary,
he cast down the altars which were built through our laxity,
he abolished the enclosures, to our shame,
for he knew that from that one temple alone had gone out
the mercy which had saved us from him three times….
27 While the (our) king was a (pagan) priest and dishonoured our
churches,
the Magian king honoured the sanctuary.
He doubled our consolation because he honoured our
sanctuary,
he grieved and gladdened us and did not banish us.
(God) reproved that erring one through his companion in
error,
What the priest abundantly defrauded, the Magian made
abundant restitution.
III
According to the same tune
1 A fortuitous wonder! There met me near the city
the corpse of that accursed one which passed by the wall;
the banner which was sent from the East wind
the Magian took and fastened on the tower⁴⁵
so that a flag might point out for spectators
that the city was the slave of the lords of that banner.
RESPONSE: Praise to him who clothed his corpse in shame.
2 I was amazed as to how it was that there met and were present
the body and the standard, both at the same time.
And I knew that it was a wonderful preparation of justice
that while the corpse of the fallen one was passing,
there went up and was placed that fearsome banner so that it
might proclaim that
the injustice of his diviners had delivered that city.
3 For thirty years Persia made war in every way
and was not able to cross the boundary of that city.
Even when it was breached and lying low, the Cross went down
and saved it.
There I saw a foul sight,
the banner of the captor, which was fixed on the tower,
the body of the persecutor, which was lying on the bier.
4 Believe in ‘Yes and No’, the word that is true,
I went and came, my brethren, to the bier of the defiled one
and I stood over it and I derided his paganism,
I said: Is this he who exalted himself
against the living name and who forgot that he is dust?
(God) has returned him to within his dust that he might know
that he is dust.
5 I stood and was amazed at him whose humiliation I earnestly
observed.
For this is his magnificence, and this his pride, this is his majesty, and this his chariot, this is earth which is decayed.
And I debated with myself why, during his prime,
I did not see in anticipation his end, that it was this.
6 I was amazed at the many who, in order to try to please
the crown of a mortal, had denied him who gives life to all.
I looked above and below and marvelled, my brethren,
at our Lord in that glorious height,
and the accursed one in low estate, and I said: Who will be
afraid
of that corpse and deny the True One?
7 That the Cross when it had set out had not conquered
everything
was not because it was not able to conquer, for it is victorious,
but so that a pit might be dug for the wicked man,
who set out with his diviners to the East;
when he set out and was wounded, it was seen by the
discerning
that the war had waited for him so that through it he might be
put to shame.
8 Know that for this reason the war had lasted and delayed—
so that the pure one might complete the years of his reign
and that the accursed one might also complete the measure of
his paganism.
So when he completed his course and came to ruin,
then (both) sides were glad, then there was peace
through the believing King, the associate of the glorious ones.
9 The Just One was able to finish him off with every way of dying
but he kept him for that fearsome and bitter humiliation
so that on the day of his death there was arrayed before his
eyes everything— where is that divination which gave him assurance, and the goddess of weapons who did not come to help him, and the companies of his gods who did not come to save him?
10 The Cross of him who knows all went down before the army,
it endured and was mocked, ‘He does not save them!’
The king it kept in safety, the army it gave to destruction because it knew that paganism was within them.
Therefore let the cross of him who searches all be praised
for fools without discrimination reproached him at that time.
11 For they did not hold fast to the banner of him who redeems
all;
indeed, that paganism which they exhibited at the end
was evident to our Lord from the beginning.
Although he knew well that they were turning to paganism,
his cross saved them; and when they rejected him,
there they ate corpses, there they became a proverb.
12 When the (Jewish) people were defeated near Ai of the
faint-hearted,
Joshua tore his clothes before the ark of the covenant
and uttered dreadful words before the Most High;
there was a curse among the people and he did not know—
just as there was paganism hidden in the force
while, instead of the ark of the covenant, they were carrying
the Cross.
13 So justice herself had in wisdom summoned him,
not indeed by force did it guide his free will;
through enticement he set out towards that spear to be wounded.
He saw the fortifications which he subdued and he was proud;
but adversity did not incite him to turn back until he had gone down and fallen into the abyss.
14 Because he dishonoured him who had removed the spear of
Paradise,
the spear of justice passed through his belly.
They tore open that which was pregnant with the oracle of the
diviners, and (God)
scourged (him) and he groaned and remembered
what he wrote and published that he would do to the churches.
The finger of justice had blotted out his memory.
15 The king saw that the sons of the East had come and deceived
him,
the unlearned (had deceived) the wise man, the simple the
soothsayer.
They whom he had called, wrapped up in his robe,
had, through unlearned men, mastered his wisdom.
He commanded and burned his victorious ships,
and his idols and diviners were bound through the one deceit.
16 When he saw that his gods were refuted and exposed,
and that he was unable to conquer and unable to escape,
he was prostrated and torn between fear and shame.
Death he chose so that he might escape in Sheol
and cunningly he took off his armour in order to be wounded
so that he might die without the Galilaeans seeing his shame.
17 When he mocked and nicknamed the brethren ‘Galilaeans’:
behold in the air the wheels of the Galilaean King!
He thundered in his chariot, cherubim were carrying him.
The Galilaean made known and handed over
the flock of the diviner to the wolves in the wilderness
but the Galilaean flock increased and filled the earth.

(J.M.Lieu, ap. Lieu, 1986a:112–20)

Epitome de Caesaribus 43: After the administration of the Roman world had been brought under his control, Julian, being excessively eager for fame, set out against the Persians. 2. There he was led by a certain deserter into an ambush and when the Parthians (sic) were pressing him hard on this side and that, he rushed forth from his camp which had just been set up, having snatched up merely a shield. 3. And when he strove with ill-advised eagerness to rally his ranks for the battle, he was struck by one of the fleeing enemy with a lance. 4. He was brought back to his tent and again went out to encourage his men; he suffered a gradual loss of blood and expired around midnight, having stated earlier that he was deliberately giving no instructions concerning the succession, lest, as usually happens in a crowd with competing interests, he would bring hazard to a friend through jealousy, and danger upon the army through political disagreement.... 7. He had an inordinate desire for praise; his worship of the gods was full of superstition. He was more daring than is fitting for an emperor, whose personal safety should be preserved to the utmost for the security of all, and especially in time of war. 8. Thus his rather passionate desire for fame had won him over with the result that neither by earthquake nor by numerous presentiments, by which he was forbidden to attack Persia, was he induced to put an end to his eagerness, and not even the sight of a huge sphere falling at night from the heavens before the day of the war made him cautious.

(Dodgeon)

Eunapius, Fragmenta historica 20–2 and 26–7:

20. (=B 27, 8, p. 41) When the troop of mounted cataphracts over and above four hundred rushed down upon the rear-guard.

21. (=B 27, 2, p. 39) Some of the Parthians had wickerwork shields and wickerwork helmets woven in a traditional manner.

22. (=B 27, 1, p. 39) [He says] that the war against the Persians reached its peak under Julian and that either by invoking the gods or by calculation he comprehended from afar the disturbances of the Scythians, like waves on a smooth sea. Thereupon he says to someone in a letter, ‘The Scythians are now lying quiet, equally, they will not do so in the future’. His forethought for the future extended over such a period that he knew in advance that they would remain quiet only for his own time.

(=B 27, 3, pp. 39–40) [He says] that Julian, having previously revealed the plain before Ctesiphon as an orchestra for war, as Epaminondas said, now paraded it as a stage for Dionysus, providing relaxation and amusement for the troops.

(=B 27, 5, p. 41) [He says] that there was such an abundance of the provisions in the suburbs of Ctesiphon that the overriding danger faced by the troops was that of being destroyed by luxury.

(=B 27, 6, p. 41) [He says] that mankind, besides, seems generally inclined towards and readily given over to envy. And since the troops have no means of taking sides fairly about what is done, ‘From the tower’, they say, ‘they judged the Achaeans’, each one of them desirous of being versed in military matters and possessed of more than usual good sense. To some, then, any matter was the subject of foolishness, but he who followed the arguments right from the beginning went back to his own domain.

26. (=B 28, 6, p. 45) [Concerning the end of Julian the Apostate and Soldier, the reply of the oracle was as follows]

But when that time comes when you shall tame the Persian blood with your sceptre and bring them beneath your rule, driven back as far as Seleucia by your sword, then indeed a chariot bright as fire leads you to Olympus, a chariot swallowed up in the turmoil of whirlwinds and lightning, leaving behind the wretched distress of human limbs. And you shall come to the ancestral halls of the ethereal light, whence you came, led astray to take the form of a human body.

Inspired by such eloquent words as these, and even more by prophecies, they say he was most agreeably exalted above mortal destruction….

There is an oracle which was given to him while he was waiting at Ctesiphon:

(=B 27, 6, p. 41) Zeus, the all-wise, once destroyed a race of Earth-born giants most hateful to the blessed ones who dwell in the Olympian halls. Julian the godlike, Emperor of the Romans, contending for the cities and long walls of the Persians, fighting hand-to-hand, destroyed them with fire and the valiant sword, subdued without pause their cities and many races. Seizing also, with heavy fighting, the German soil of those people of the west he laid waste their land.

(M.Morgan)

B 29, 1 (=John of Antioch, frag. 181, FGH IV, pp. 606–7) He (i.e. Jovian) reigned after Julian…. Coming to Nisibis, a populous city, he spent only two days there. He exhausted all its resources and had neither a kindly word nor an act of philanthropy for the inhabitants. …As I have said, when he became Emperor of the Romans after Julian, he was so eager to enjoy his rank which had befallen him that he ignored everything else. He fled from Persia and hurried to get within (the boundaries of) the Roman provinces in order to proclaim his new found fortune. He ceded to the Persians the city of Nisibis, which had long been subject to the Romans. Therefore they mocked him in ditties, parodies and in the so-called famosi (lampoons) because of his surrender of Nisibis.

(Lieu)

Eutropius, X, 16, 1–2: Julian then became sole emperor, and made war, with a vast force, upon the Parthians; in which expedition I was also present. Several towns and fortresses of the Persians he induced to surrender, and some he took by storm. After laying waste to Assyria, he fixed his camp for some time at Ctesiphon. 2. As he was returning victorious, and mingling rashly in the thick of a battle, he was killed by the hand of an enemy, on the 26th of June, in the seventh year of his reign, and the thirty-second of his life, and was enrolled among the gods.

(Watson, pp. 533–4, altered)

Festus, breviarium 28–9 (pp. 67, 14–69, 6): Julian, who was of proven good fortune against the external enemies of the empire, lacked moderation in the war against the Persians. With great magnificence, as befitting the ruler of the whole world, he raised his menacing standards against the Parthians (sic), and advanced his fleet, stocked with provisions, along the Euphrates. In the course of his intrepid advance, a great many Persian towns and strongholds either surrendered to him or were captured by force of arms. Having pitched his camp opposite to Ctesiphon on the bank where the Tigris joins the Euphrates, he spent the day in athletic contests to relieve the enemy of their watchfulness. In the middle of the night he embarked his soldiers and suddenly carried them across to the far bank. They struggled over the escarpment, where the ascent would have been difficult even in daytime when no one was trying to stop them. They threw the Persians into confusion by the unexpected terror and the armies of their entire nation were turned to flight. The soldiers would have victoriously entered the open gates of Ctesiphon if the opportunity for booty had not been greater than their concern for victory. After winning such great glory, when he received a warning from his retinue concerning the return, he put greater trust in his own purpose and burnt his fleet. He was misled by a deserter who had surrendered for the purpose of leading him astray, and was induced to follow a direct route to Madaeana (Media?). Retracing his route upstream along the Tigris (with the river on his right), he exposed the flank of his troops. When he wandered along the column too incautiously, after the dust was stirred up and he lost sight of his own men, he was pierced through the abdomen as far as the groin by the lance of an enemy horseman. Amidst the excessive loss of blood, when in spite of having been wounded he had restored the ranks of his army, and after a long address to his companions, he breathed forth his lingering life.

29 Jovian took over an army that was victorious in battle but confused at the sudden death of their departed emperor. There was a lack of supplies and a very extensive march ahead of them on their return. The Persians also delayed the progress of the column by frequent sallies, at one moment upon the vanguard, then the rear, also upon the flanks of the centre. After several days were spent, so great was the respect for the name of Rome that the first talk of peace came from the Persians, and the army, consumed by famine, was allowed to be brought back on imposed terms prejudicial to the interests of the Roman state (something which had never happened before): namely, that Nisibis and part of Mesopotamia should be handed over, and in this Jovian acquiesced, being inexperienced in government and more desirous of the emperorship than of good renown.

(Dodgeon)

Gregory Nazianzenus,⁴⁶ orationes V, 8–13, ed. Bernardi, pp.: Having levied in these parts a double force, one military, the other of the demons who led him on (in which he placed the more confidence of the two), he marched against the Persians, placing his trust rather in his senseless daring than in the strength of his armed forces, not being able to discern, very wise as he was, that courage and rashness however similar they may be in sound,⁴⁷ are yet widely different from each other in reality as much as what we call manliness and unmanliness…

9. Now, the first steps in his enterprise, excessively audacious and much celebrated by those of his own party, were as follows. The entire region of Assyria that the Euphrates flows through, and skirting Persia, there unites itself with the Tigris; all this he took and ravaged, and captured some of the fortified towns, in the total absence of anyone to hinder him, whether he had taken the Persians unawares by the rapidity of his advance, or whether he was out-generalled by them and drawn on by degrees further and further into the snare (for both stories are told); at any rate, advancing in this way, with his army marching along the river’s bank and his flotilla upon the river supplying provisions and carrying the baggage, after a considerable interval he reached Ctesiphon, a place which, even to be near, was thought by him half the victory, by reason of his longing for it.

10. From this point, however, like sand slipping from beneath the feet, or a great storm bursting upon a ship, things began to go black for him; for Ctesiphon is a strongly fortified town, hard to take, and very well secured by a wall of burnt brick, a deep ditch, and the swamps coming from the river. It is rendered yet more secure by another strong place, the name of which is Coche, furnished with equal defences as far as regards garrison and artificial protection, so closely united with it that they appeared to be one city, the river separating both between them. For it was neither possible to take the place by general assault, nor to reduce it by siege, nor even to force a way through by means of the fleet principally, for he would run the risk of destruction; being exposed to missiles from higher ground on both sides, he left the place in his rear, and did so in this manner. He diverted a not inconsiderable part of the river Euphrates, the greatest of rivers, and rendered it navigable for vessels, by means of a canal, of which ancient vestiges are said to be visible; and thus joining the Tigris a little in front of Ctesiphon, he saved his boats from one river by means of the other river, in all security; in this way he escaped the danger that menaced him from the two garrisons. But, as he advanced, a Persian army suddenly started up, and continually received fresh reinforcements, but did not think it advisable to stand in front and fight it out, without the greatest necessity (although it was in their power to conquer, from their superior numbers); but from the tops of the hills and narrow passes they shot arrows and threw darts, whenever opportunity served, and thus readily prevented his further progress. Hence he is reduced to great perplexity, and, not knowing to what side to turn, he finds out an unlucky solution for the difficulty.

11. A Persian of considerable standing, following the example of that Zopyrus employed by Cyrus in the case of Babylon, then pretended that he had had some quarrel, or rather a very great one and for a very great cause, with his king, and was on that account very hostile to the Persian cause, and well-disposed towards the Romans. He gained the emperor’s confidence through his pretence as follows: ‘Your Highness, what means all this, why are there so many shortcomings in so important an enterprise? What need is there of this provision-fleet, this superfluous burden—a mere incentive to cowardice; for nothing is so unfit for fighting, and fond of laziness, as a full belly, and the having the means of saving oneself in one’s own hands? But if you will listen to me, you will burn this flotilla: what a relief to this fine army will be the result! You yourself will take another route, better supplied and safer than this; along which I will be your guide (being acquainted with the country as well as any man living), and will cause you to enter into the heart of the enemy’s country, where you can obtain whatever you please, and so make your way home; and me you shall then recompense, when you have actually ascertained my good will and sound advice.’

12. And when he had said this, and gained credence to his story (for rashness is credulous, especially when God goads it on), everything went wrong at once. The boats became the prey of the flames. They were low on victuals. Everywhere there was ridicule, and the whole venture resembled a suicide attempt. Hope vanished when the guide disappeared along with his promises. They were surrounded by the enemy and battle waged on all sides. It was difficult to advance and provisions were not easy to procure. In despair, the army became disenchanted with their commander. There was no hope for safety left, but one wish alone, as was natural under the circumstances, the ridding themselves of bad government and bad generalship.

13. Up to this point, such is the universal account; but thence-forward, one and the same story is not told by all, but different accounts are reported and made up by different people, both those present at the battle, and those not present; for some say that he was hit by a dart from the Persians, when engaged in a disorderly skirmish, as he was running hither and thither in his consternation; and the same fate befell him as it did to Cyrus, son of Parysatis, who went up with the Ten Thousand against his brother Artaxerxes, and by fighting inconsiderately threw away the victory through his rashness. Others, however, tell some such story as this respecting his end: that he had gone up upon a lofty hill to take a view of his army and ascertain how much was left him for carrying on the war; and that, when he saw the number considerable and superior to his expectation, he exclaimed, ‘What a dreadful thing if we shall bring back all these fellows to the land of the Romans!’ as though he begrudged them a safe return. Whereupon one of his officers, being indignant and not able to repress his rage, ran him through the bowels, without caring for his own life. Others tell that the deed was done by a barbarian jester, such as follow the camp, ‘for the purpose of driving away ill humour and for amusing the men when they are drinking.’⁴⁸ Some give this honour to one of the Saracens. At any rate, he received a wound truly seasonable (or mortal) and salutary for the whole world, and by a single cut from his executioner he pays the penalty for the many entrails of victims to which he has trusted (to his own destruction); but what surprises me, is how the vain man, that fancied he learned the future from that means, knew nothing of the wound about to be inflicted on his own entrails! The concluding reflection is for once very appropriate: the liver of the victim was the approved means for reading the future, and it was precisely in that organ that the arch-diviner received the fatal thrust.

(King, pp. 91–7, revised.)

Jerome, chronicon, s. aa. 363–4, p. , 6–20, GCS (revised according to the text of Schoene): Julian, on setting out against Persia, promised our blood to the gods after his victory. Whereupon the Apostate was led by a certain bogus traitor into the desert and lost his army through hunger and thirst. When he incautiously wandered off his ranks, it so happened that he was pierced by a lance from an enemy cavalryman whom he met, and died at the age of thirty-two. Jovian who was primicerius from the (corps of) the domestici was made emperor. Jovian reigned for eight months.

(s.a. 364) Jovian was compelled by the necessity of the events to cede Nisibis and a large part of Mesopotamia to the king of the Persians.

(Dodgeon)

John Chrysostom,⁴⁹ de S.Babyla contra Julianum et Gentiles XXII (122–4, Shatkin, cf. PG 50.569–70):…For in fact Julian, at the head of an army whose numbers had never been surpassed under any previous emperor, was fully expecting to overrun the whole of Persia on the spur of the moment, as it were, and without any effort. However, he fared as wretchedly and pitiably as if he was accompanied by an army of women and young children rather than men. For one thing, he brought them to such a pitch of desperation through shortage of provisions that they were reduced to consuming some of their cavalry horses and slaughtering others as they wasted away of hunger and thirst. You would have thought Julian was in league with the Persians, anxious not to defeat them but to surrender his own forces, for he had led them into such a barren and inhospitable region that he in fact surrendered without being defeated.

123. Even those who were eye-witnesses or forced to experience the many disasters which befell the campaign could hardly begin to describe the full picture, for it defies description. To come to the gist of the matter, Julian died disgracefully and without honour—for some say that he was mortally wounded by one of his own baggage-bearers, out of resentment at the appalling predicament of the army. Another version says that he died at the hands of an unknown assassin, recounting only that he was struck down and that he requested that he should be buried in Cilicia, where his body remains to this day.

124. When he had perished thus ignominiously, the soldiers, realizing that they were in dire straits, prostrated themselves before the enemies and gave pledges to surrender the most secure of all our fortresses (i.e. Nisibis) which acted as an unbreachable circuit wall to our empire. They were humanely treated by the barbarians and thus a few of them were able to escape and returned home utterly exhausted physically. Though ashamed of what they had agreed upon in the treaty, they were constrained by the pledges to abandon their ancestral captivity. For the inhabitants of that city were treated with hostility by those from whom they would expect to receive favours inasmuch as they, like a bulwark, had placed everyone within a safe haven, always putting themselves forward on behalf of everyone else in the face of all dangers. Yet they were moved to alien territory, abandoning their own houses and fields, and wrenched from their ancestral possessions and suffering all this at the hands of their own kinsmen. Such are the blessings we have enjoyed from this noble prince.

(M.Morgan)

John Lydus, de mensibus IV, 118, p. 155, 23–157, 9: Julian is said by Libanius and the many other augurs to have uttered the Homeric phrase concerning his return from the War against the Persians:

‘I stand in awe of the Trojans and the long-robed Trojan women.’ (Iliad, VI, 442)

After he had crossed the Tigris, he took control of many cities and garrisons of the Persians and in every other respect proved irresistible before the Persians. Nonetheless, he was destroyed by guile and all his army with him. For two Persians cut off their own ears and noses and came and deceived Julian, complaining that they had suffered the indignities at the hands of the Persian king. Nevertheless they were able, if Julian followed them, to bring him to victory over Gorgo herself, queen of Persia. Julian forgot his pressing destiny and at the same time the story of Zopyrus in Herodotus and Sinon in Vergil; he fired his ships by which he was carried along the Euphrates, for the purpose supposedly was not to give the Persians the licence of using them. His army carried some modest supplies and he followed behind his treacherous guides. They led him into an arid and waterless wilderness and revealed their trickery: they themselves —for what else was to be expected?—were destroyed, but the emperor discovered he could neither advance in that same direction nor turn back and he perished in a pitiable manner. When a large part of the army had fallen, the Persians launched an attack upon him as he was sick, but they were worsted and then attacked a second time. Now he did not even have twenty thousand men, when before he had led one hundred and seventy thousand. However, Julian fought most valiantly. One man from the Persian division of the so-called Saracens guessed the identity of the emperor from his purple robe, and cried out in his own language ‘malchan’ (meaning ‘the king’). And he let loose with a swish his scimitar (Gk.: ) and pierced Julian’s abdomen. Oribasius brought him back to the camp and advised him to make his final settlement, and, after Julian had nominated Jovian as emperor, he died.

(Dodgeon)

Ps. Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle 7 (Syriac): In the year 609 (AD 297–298) the Greeks got possession of the city of Nisibis, and it remained under their sway for sixty-five years. After the death of Julian in Persia which took place in the year 674 (AD 362–363), Jovian, who reigned over the Greeks after him, preferred peace above everything, and for the sake of this he allowed the Persians to take possession of Nisibis for one hundred and twenty years, after which they were to restore it to its (former) masters.

(Wright, pp. 6–7)

Julian (Imperator), ELF 98: (To Libanius) I travelled as far as Litarbae,—it is a village of Chalcis,—and came upon a road that still had the remains of a winter camp of Antioch. The road, I may say, was partly swamp, partly hill, but the whole of it was rough, and in the swamp lay stones which looked as though they had been thrown there purposely, as they lay together without any art, after the fashion followed also by those who build public highways in cities and instead of cement make a deep layer of soil and then lay the stones close together as though they were making a boundary-wall.⁵⁰ When I passed over this with some difficulty and arrived at my first halting-place, it was about the ninth hour, and then I received at my headquarters the greater part of your (i.e. the Antiochene) senate. You have perhaps learned already what we said to one another and, if it be the will of heaven, you shall know it from my lips.

From Litarbae I proceeded to Beroea, and there Zeus, by showing a manifest sign from heaven, declared all things to be auspicious. I stayed there for a day and saw the Acropolis and sacrificed to Zeus in imperial fashion a white bull…. Next, Batnae entertained me, a place like nothing that I have ever seen in your country, except Daphne; though not long ago, while the temple and statue were still unharmed, I should not have hesitated to compare Daphne with Ossa and Pelion or the peaks of Olympus, or Thessalian Tempe, or even to have preferred it to all of them put together….

Thus much, then, I was able to write to you from Hierapolis about my own affairs. But as regards the military or political arrangements, you ought, I think, to have been present to observe and pay attention to them yourself. For, as you well know, the matter is too long for a letter even three times as long as this. But I will tell you of these matters also, summarily, and in a very few words. I sent an embassy to the Saracens and suggested that they could come if they wished. That is one affair of the sort I have mentioned. For another, I dispatched men as wide-awake as I could obtain, that they might guard against anyone’s leaving here secretly to go to the enemy and inform them that we are on the move. After that I held a court martial and, I am convinced, showed in my decision the utmost clemency and justice. I have procured excellent horses and mules and have mustered all my forces together. The boats to be used on the river are laden with corn, or rather with baked bread and sour wine. You can understand at what length I should have to write in order to describe how every detail of this business was worked out and what discussions arose over every one of them.

(Wright, iii, pp. 201–9)

Libanius, ep. 737: (To Pappos) I rejoice in receiving your letter, not only because the letter from a friend is most welcome, but also because there are signs that your country (i.e. Mesopotamia) is being freed from the enemies. This is exactly what Julian is hoping to achieve. Those who had appeared before (i.e. Constantius and his generals) in the past had made the enemies more audacious. 2. Most worthy Pappos, to rejoice in the present security is justified, so that the smile would not desert the face of him who is accustomed to good cheer. 3. The Persians will act as men who are accustomed to war against the gods customarily do. Every one of them (i.e. the gods) will pick up their arms and attack them (i.e. the Persians) and instruct them to flee. 4. Your son wishes to be a rhetor and his talents are not inferior to his desires. He should therefore learn to be more modest. When one of the young shows this, he draws me and receives more from me than any other. 5. Write to him, therefore, (and tell him) to guard his morals and you would not need to beseech me. (June, 362).

(Dodgeon) Libanius, ep. 1220: (To Scylacius) Although I had not yet ceased from my tears, you cast me into a state of greater lamentation with your letter, so precisely did you discuss both the good things we once enjoyed and the ones we might have had, if one of the gods had given back to us the man who won the victories. 2. For those whom he smote praise him (Julian) more now than those on whose behalf he stood in line of battle. But of these peoples two cities (Caesarea and Antioch) danced for joy, and for one of them I feel ashamed. 3. Yet they can be forgiven. For the man who wishes to be mischievous considers his enemy to be the fellow who does not allow him to be mischievous, and, should it happen that his teacher of morality dies, the man who is unable to be moral rejoices at his freedom now to work mischief. We live in the company of such a crowd that is hostile both to gods and to Julian, about whom you entertain the right opinion when you enrol him among the chorus of the gods. 4. I myself have also come to this conclusion and at the same time I groan when I reckon what hopes were held and what was the outcome. Indeed if he (Julian) is with the Higher Powers, my affairs at any rate are worse. For with regard to my affairs let them be stated as follows. 5. For what would it have been like if he had arrived from Persia and you from Phoenicia, he leading prisoners and you on your way to see the prizes of his labours, and I to speak something about his achievements, a small contribution for his great efforts, and that he should relate his own story! A swarm of jackdaws would have come, food for laughter to you and me, that did not know how to speak but tried to strike others to counter their own ignorance. 6. Such an assembled audience an evil day took from us. Many attacked me with arms and I might never have held out, if he (Mercury) had not hurried me away who also stole away Mars in chains. Now someone in hiding has launched an arrow, and I have been indicted for committing awful crimes, but again one of the gods blunted the missile and I remain at my post and hope to be undisturbed. 7. It would have pleased the archers like these to relax their bowstrings (at Julian) but the land of the Persians has been sufficiently wasted. However, I have been requesting an account of what was done from friends among those who returned and those who it was likely would not neglect a written account of such events. Each said that he had an account and would give it but none did, and not even orally did he inform me, for he who has passed on his way is disregarded, but each man’s zeal is entirely upon his own affairs. 8. Certain soldiers who did not formerly know me, gave me the list of some days and route distances and names of places; but nowhere an account of his achievements that can fully explain, but obscurity and shadow that will be insufficient for (the talk of) the compiler. 9. If indeed you also are eager for this knowledge, apprise me of it and the talk of the soldiers will reach you; for these have written their accounts, but I hoped for others. (AD 363)

(Dodgeon)

Libanius, ep. 1367: (To Modestus) 1. Do you see how far conscientiousness can get you? Previously you had high offices and now you enjoy the same confidence, and in no way did your public responsibility end with the old regime. 2. The reason for this is that at that time you did not belong to those who bought their offices or those who used their offices for purposes of personal gain, even though that would have been possible and those who wanted to be just were laughed at. Clearly, the divine one (i.e. Julian) whom the Persians so hate discovered this and thus accorded to you as a reward for your voluntary poverty the highest office next to that of the Emperor, though to Julian (not the emperor) he gave a task requiring the greatest degree of righteousness, such as Rhadamanthys had. 3. Bithynia may be the limit of his district, but his love carries him over to you; for as such a good friend was close by, he was drawn irresistibly to him. Thus he will enjoy the most pleasant society, but the courier freed me from a great fear into which I had been driven by the tidings which had previously reached here: that in the capital city there was much suffering and many ill deeds. 4. What he did report was that some of those thoroughly despicable people without any home were right out of control, while the larger and better part of the population remained calm. You yourself [he said] had acted impeccably, but had bent before the storm and quickly arranged an understanding. Your return to the town was glorious and marvelled at everywhere, for you were surrounded by masses of people and your praise was in every mouth. Your team of horses could not be seen, it was surrounded by the rejoicing crowd. 5. The (military) courier reported this, but I let it be known, driving out one set of tidings with another, the false with the true. But your letter has crossed the Euphrates, no wonder then that it only arrived late in the Emperor’s hands. 6. The latter is advancing, overrunning the Persian Empire. Where he is at the moment, he alone would know best. The prisoners of war tell us what he is achieving, and they tell that he is making quick progress and that the towns are in ruins. But we do not know what to do with all the prisoners. 7. I have said this to excuse the delay of the (military) courier and to give you joy and myself pleasure. (AD 363)

(Dodgeon)

Libanius, ep. 1402, 1–3: (To Aristophanes) I think that rumour even now has done as of old and has instructed the Greeks in the sufferings of the barbarians; for you know how such a thing was accomplished by it in earlier times, when it announced the victory of the conquering army to an army on the point of battle and gave it heart—if therefore a report has not yet come to you, then let the Greeks know that the descendants of Darius and Xerxes are being punished by them as they see their own cities destroyed by fire— these were the men who two years ago were razing ours to the ground. 2. For when the emperor launched his offensive in the spring in an area which they did not consider, the Assyrians were immediately taken, (also) many villages and a few cities; for there were not many. Then the Persian woke up and was dismayed and fled, but he (Julian) pursued and captured everything without a battle; or rather the majority without a battle; he killed six thousand who came on a reconnaissance and at the same time for a fight, if the chance arose. 3. This is the news from the men who spend their lives on the flying camels—for may their speed be honoured by the title of ‘wings’—and there is a hope that the emperor will come leading (in captivity) the present ruler and handing over the (Persian) government to the fugitive (i.e. Hormisdas)…. (AD 363)

(Dodgeon)

Libanius, ep. 1508: (To Seleucus) I wept over the letter and I said to the gods, ‘What is the meaning of this, o gods?’ And I gave the letter to those among the others whom I particularly trust and I saw the letter having the same effect on them also. For each man calculated the circumstances in which you have been compelled to live, compared with what you deserved to meet with. 2. But I shall tell you with what (thoughts) I reassured both them and myself; and indeed I think this will please you. I was reminded of the famous Odysseus, who, when he had pulled down Troy, was crossing the sea, as you know, but we neither require tree branches before our ‘naked manhood’ nor even would we need them, nor are we berated by the household servants and your household is free of all drunken behaviour. 3. But if you are excluded from cities and their baths, just think how many men, when they can spend their time in the city, choose their pleasures in the countryside and judge them more agreeable than the uproar in town. But if you were Achilles and you had to accompany the Centaur on Pelion, what would you have done? Would you have run off to the city and considered the mountain a misfortune? 4. Do not, by Zeus, beat yourself, Seleucus, nor forget those famous generals who had no sooner put up their trophies than one was in chains, and the others were fleeing into exile. For we learnt those stories (in school) not so we might suffer but so that in a crisis we might gain relief from them. 5. You have now an opportunity to show off your courage and you lament, and although you did not fear the Persians you consider the trees a dread terror; and when you endured the sun along the Tigris but have the shade of foliage in Pontus, you desire the market-places in the towns and say that you are lonely. This should be the last thing to happen to a literary man. For how would you be abandoned by Plato, Demosthenes and that famous band who must stay wherever you wish? 6. Therefore converse with these and compile the history of the war which you promised, and as you regard a prize so great you will be unaffected by your present circumstances. This also made Thucydides’ exile easy to bear, and I would have explained it entirely if you did not well understand it. 7. Be assured that by your writing you will gratify everyone. For in company with many you saw what was done, but of those who saw only you have a voice worthy to record the events.

(Dodgeon)

Libanius, or. I, 132–4: When our city council escorted him on his way with prayers that they might be forgiven the charges against them, he replied that, if heaven preserved him, he would favour with his presence Tarsus in Cilicia. Though I have no doubt that you will react to this’, he went on, ‘by pinning your hopes upon him who will be your envoy, yet he too will have to go there with me.’ Then without a tear he embraced me in my tears, with his gaze now fixed on the ruin of Persia. He sent me a first letter from the frontier of the Empire, and marched on, ravaging the countryside, plundering villages, taking fortresses, crossing rivers, mining fortifications and capturing cities. 133. There was no messenger to tell us of any of these achievements, but we rejoiced just as if we saw them, confident that events would happen as they did, as we looked to him. But here Fortune played her usual trick. The army had revelled in the slaughter and rout of the Persians and in the athletic competitions and horse races, on which the inhabitants of Ctesiphon had gazed from their battlements with no grounds to trust even their thickness of wall: the Persians had decided to come as suppliants with prayers and gifts, knowing that it was against common sense for a man to oppose heaven’s will. Then, as their envoys remounted their horses, a spear pierced the side of our wise Emperor, and with the victor’s blood it drenched the land of the vanquished, and the pursuers it delivered into the hand of the fugitive. 134. It was by means of a deserter that the Persians found their good fortune, but we in Antioch discovered it through no human agency: earthquakes were the harbingers of woe, destroying the cities of Palestine-Syria either wholly or in part. We were sure that by these afflictions heaven gave us a sign of some great disaster, and, as we prayed that our guess should be right, the bitter news reached our ears that our great Julian was dead, that some nonentity held the throne, and that Armenia, and as much of the rest of the Empire as they liked, was in Persian hands.

(Norman, pp. 78–9)

Libanius, or. XVII, 19–22: You should not, then, my dear friend, have rejected the Persian embassy, when it asked for peace and was submissive to your will. But the sufferings of the lands near the Tigris, ravaged and derelict, the victim of many incursions, every one of which caused the transfer of our wealth into Persian hands, diverted your attention. You thought it tantamount to treason to desire peace and to refrain from exacting punishment. 20. But there! Heaven opposed you, or, rather, you tried to exact a punishment disproportionate to the crime. There was the land of Assyria, queen of the Persian domains, shaded with tall palms and other trees of all kinds, their strongest storehouse of gold and silver, with magnificent palaces built therein, with herds of boars, deer and all the animals of the chase contained within their enclosures, with forts towering aloft into mid-air beyond the strength of hostile hand, with villages comparable to cities and with unparalleled prosperity. 21. Here he directed his attack, and he so harried and overwhelmed them, himself all smiles and allowing his troops to make merry amongst it, that the Persians would need to colonize it and a man’s lifetime would not be enough to repair the disaster. Moreover, the incredible ascent of the bank, the night battle that slew a vast number of Persians, the trembling that seized their limbs and, in their cowardice, the vision from afar of the ravaging of their lands—all this was part of the punishment he inflicted upon them.

22. Restore to us then, supreme consul of the gods, your namesake who invoked you so often at the year’s beginning. His colleague, despite his advanced years, you have allowed to complete his year—but he was overcome in its midcourse. And while he lay slain, we at Daphne were worshipping the Nymphs with choric dance and other delights, ignorant of the disaster that had befallen us.

(Norman, i, pp. 263–5)

Libanius, or. XVIII, 212–75: See Introduction, p. .

Libanius, or. XXIV, 9:1 feel that the gods were angered against that emperor (i.e. Jovian) and so he was compelled to make peace on terms such that the enemy gained more than they could ever have dreamed of, the whole of Armenia, the acquisition of the important frontier city (of Nisibis) and many strong fortresses.

(Norman, i, p. 497)

Magnus of Carrhae: see under Malalas.

Malalas, XIII, pp. 328, 5–337, 11: Then he left and went through the city of Cyrrhus against the Persians…. (=Magnus of Carrhae, FGrH 225 F) 1. Marching against Sabbourarsakios (i.e. Shapur II), king of the Persians, the Emperor Julian reached Hierapolis. There he sent [p. 329] for ships to be built in Samosata, a city of Euphratensis, some from wood and others from skins, as the extremely wise Magnus of Carrhae, the historian who was with the Emperor Julian, has noted. 2. He left Hierapolis and came to the city of Carrhae where he found two routes, one leading to the city of Nisibis which once belonged to the Romans, and the other going to the Roman fortress called Circesium which lies between the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Aborras, which the Roman Emperor Diocletian established. Julian then divided his army and sent Nisibis sixteen thousand armed men with two commanders, Sebastianus and Procopius. 3. Julian himself reached the fortress of Circesium and left in that fortress six thousand soldiers whom he found stationed there, together with four thousand additional armed men with two commanders, Accameus and Maurus. 4. He left there and crossed the river Aborras by a bridge while the ships, the number of which was one thousand two hundred and fifty, reached the river Euphrates. 5. He assembled his army, taking with him the magister Anatolius and Salustius the Praetorian Prefect and his magistri militum, and climbed up to a high platform from which he addressed the army, commending them and urging them to fight keenly and in a disciplined manner against the Persians. 6. The Emperor then [p. 330] ordered them to board the ships while he himself went on board the ship which had been prepared for him. He commanded 1,500 brave men from the unit of lancers (lanciarii) and javelin-throwers (mattiarii) to go ahead as advance scouts and gave orders that his standards be carried and that Count Lucianus, a man highly skilled in war, should be with him. This man sacked many Persian fortresses lying along the Euphrates and on islands in the middle of the water and killed the Persians in them. He stationed Victor and Dagalaiphus behind the rest of the boats to guard the host. 7. Then the Emperor set out with all the army through the great canal which joins the Euphrates to the Tigris. He reached the Tigris itself, where the two rivers join and form a great lake and crossed into Persia in the region of those who are called the Mauzanites, near the city of Ctesiphon where the Persian king lived. 8. Then the Emperor Julian, having gained the upper hand, encamped in the plain of that city, Ctesiphon, intending to go on with his own Senate as far as Babylon and take the area there.

9. King Sabbourarsakios, thinking that Julian, the Roman Emperor, was coming via Nisibis, hastened against him with his whole force. Then he was informed [p. 331] that Julian, the Roman Emperor, was behind him, taking Persian regions and that the Roman generals with a large force were coming against him from the front, and, realizing that he was in the middle, he fled to Persarmenia. Then, to avoid being overtaken, he secretly sent two of his councillors with their noses cut off with their consent, to Julian the Roman Emperor, to deceive him. These two Persians, with their noses cut off, came to the Roman Emperor wanting, as they said, to betray the Persian king because he had punished them. 10. The Emperor Julian was deceived by their oaths and followed them with all his army, and they diverted him for one hundred and fifty miles, deceiving him, to a waterless desert until the twenty-fifth day of the month of Desius or of Junius. 11. He found there ancient, fallen walls of a city called Bubion, and another place whose buildings were standing but which was deserted, and this was called Asia. The Emperor Julian entered it with all the Roman army and encamped there. While in this area, they were without food and there was not even any fodder for the animals, for it was a wilderness. When all the Roman army realised that the Emperor had been deceived and had led them astray and brought them to desert areas, they turned to utter disorderliness. 12. On the next day, the twenty-sixth of June, he brought out the Persians who had misled him and examined them. They confessed with the words ‘For the sake of our country and our king, that [p. 332] he might be saved, we gave ourselves to death and deceived you. Now, as your slaves, we die.’ He believed them and did not kill them but gave them his promise if they would lead the army out of the desert area.

13. About the second hour of the same day, the Emperor Julian was walking among the army and urging them not to behave in an undisciplined manner when he was wounded by someone unknown. He went into his tent and died during the night as Magnus, whom we referred to earlier, relates. 14. However, Eutychianus, the historian from Cappadocia, who was a soldier and a vicarius of his unit of the Primoarmeniaci (Legio I Armeniaca ?), and who was himself present in the war, wrote that the Emperor Julian entered Persian territory by way of the Euphrates for fifteen days’ marching. There he was victorious and conquered and took everything as far as the city called Ctesiphon which was the seat of the Persian king. The latter fled to the territory of the Persarmenians, while Julian decided with his Council and his army to set out for Babylon on the next day and to take it by night. 15. While he slept he saw in a dream an adult man, wearing a cuirass, approaching him in his tent near the city of Ctesiphon, in a city called Asia, and smiting him with a spear. Distraught, he awoke and cried out. The eunuchs of the bed-chamber and the body-guard and the unit who guarded the tent arose and came to him with royal torches. When [p. 333] the Emperor Julian realised that he had been fatally wounded in the armpit, he asked them, ‘What is the name of the village where my tent is?’, and they told him that it was called Asia. Then he immediately cried out, ‘O Sun, you have slain Julian’, and having lost blood, he died at the fifth hour of the night in the year 411 of the era of Antiochus the Great.

Then the army, before the Persian enemy should learn of this, went to the tent of Jovian, a count among the officials of the bodyguard (comes domesticorum), who had the rank of a stratelates. They led him—not knowing what had happened —to the royal tent, as if the Emperor Julian wanted him. When they had entered the tent, they held him there and hailed him as Emperor on the twenty-seventh of the month of Desius or Junius before the dawn. The rest of the army, some of which was encamped at Ctesiphon and some at a great distance, did not know what had happened until dawn, because they were some way away. Thus the Emperor Julian died when he was thirty-three years old.

After the rule of Julian the Apostate, Jovian the son of Varronianus became emperor; he was crowned by the army (there) in Persia during the consulship of Sallustius. He was a strong Christian and reigned for seven months.

Scarcely had he become emperor when he addressed the entire army and the senators [p. 335] in his company, shouting out in person, ‘If you wish me to be your emperor, you must all be Christians.’ And all the army and the senators shouted their approval. Jovian himself and his army left the desert for the fertile land of Persia and he pondered anxiously how he might leave Persia. When Sabbourarsakios, the Persian king, learnt of the death of the emperor Julian, he was distressed by a great anxiety. From the country of Persarmenia he dispatched as envoy one of his highest nobility called Suren to the Roman emperor, with a request and plea for peace. The holy Emperor Jovian gladly received him and consented to receive his embassy for peace, stating that he was also sending an ambassador to the Persian king. When Suren, the Persian ambassador, heard this, he asked the Emperor Jovian to sign a peace treaty immediately and forthwith. And Jovian gave the appointment to a senator of his, the patrician Arintheus, and entrusted the entire negotiations to him. He agreed to stick to what was sanctioned by him or was signed. The emperor disdained in person to make a peace treaty with a man of senatorial rank, albeit a Persian envoy. A relaxation of hostilities for three days was granted for the deliberations about peace. An agreement was struck [p. 336] between the Roman patrician Arintheus and Suren, the Persian senator and ambassador; the Romans would give to the Persians all the so-called province of Mygdonia and its chief city called Nisibis, empty and with only its walls, without its inhabitants. And when this was settled and a peace was put into writing, the Emperor Jovian took with him one of the satraps, a Persian in the company of the ambassador and called Junius. The purpose of this was to safeguard him and his expedition out of Persian territory and (for the Persians) to take over the province and its main city. When the Emperor Jovian reached the city of Nisibis, he did not enter it, but encamped outside its walls. But Junius the Persian satrap entered the city in accordance with the emperor’s command and raised the Persian standard on one of the towers. The Roman emperor ordered all the citizens, down to the last man, to depart with all their possessions. Silvanus, who was a count by rank and a governor of the same city, went out to him and fell at the emperor’s feet, begging him not to betray the city to the Persians. He did not persuade him. For the emperor said that he had sworn an oath and did not wish to have a reputation for perjury in everyone’s estimation. Outside the city wall of Amida he encircled another city and called it Nisibis, and there he made a settlement of all the people [p. 337] from the territory of Mygdonia, and including their governor Silvanus.

Then, crossing into Mesopotamia, he immediately raised all the aspirations of the Christians, gave the control of affairs to Christians and dispatched Christian governors and commanders over the whole Orient. And quitting the Orient the same emperor Jovian, after the completion of his peace treaty with Persia for a brief period, speedily set out for Constantinople with his army on account of the winter; for the weather was severe. And during his return he reached the territory of Galatia; and he died a natural death in the village called Dadastana at the age of sixty.

(Dodgeon)

Orosius, adversus paganos VII, 30, 4–31, 2: Moreover, Julian, when he was preparing war against the Parthians (sic) and was taking with him to destined destruction Roman forces brought together from all sides, vowed the blood of Christians to his gods, intending to persecute the churches openly if he should be able to win a victory. 5. Indeed, he ordered an amphitheatre to be constructed at Jerusalem, in which on his return from the Parthians he might offer the bishops, monks, and all the saints of the locality to beasts deliberately made more ferocious and might view them being torn apart. 6. Thus, after he moved his camp from Ctesiphon, being led into the desert by a treacherous traitor, when his army began to perish from the force of thirst, the heat of the sun, and especially when affected by the difficulty of marching through the sands, the emperor, anxious because of the danger of the situation as he wandered rather carelessly over the wastes of the desert, was struck by a lance of a cavalryman of the enemy whom he met, and died. Thus, the merciful God ended these evil plans by the death of their evil author.

31 In the one thousand one hundred and seventeenth year after the founding of the City, Jovian, in a very critical state of affairs, was made the thirty-seventh emperor by the army, and when, being caught in an unfavourable locality and being surrounded by the enemy, he possessed no chance to escape, he made a treaty with Shapur, the king of the Persians, although, as some think, little worthy yet quite necessary. 2. For, that he might free the Roman army, safe and sound, not only from an attack of the enemy, but also from the dangers of the locality, he conceded the town of Nisibis and part of upper Mesopotamia to the Persians.

(Deferrari, pp. 334–5)

Philostorgius, historia ecclesiastica VII, 15: The apostate Julian undertook an expedition against the Persians, relying upon the prophecies of the heathen oracles in different quarters, that his might would prove irresistible. But a certain old man, one of those who had long since been discharged from the Persian service, approached the Apostate as he was making war in Persia. And when he had brought the Romans into the greatest straits by leading them into a pathless desert, in which a very great portion of the army perished, he gave the enemy, like the prey of a hunter, into the hands of his countrymen. For the Persians rushed upon the Romans, having joined to their forces as allies some Saracen horsemen who were armed with spears. One of them thrust a spear at Julian, which struck him forcefully on the thigh near the groin; and when the spear was drawn out, it was followed by a quantity of bile and blood also. Subsequently, one of the body-guard of the emperor immediately attacked the Saracen who had wounded the king, and cut off his head: while the Romans immediately placed the mortally wounded Julian on a shield, and carried him off into a tent. Many even thought that the fatal blow was struck by Julian’s own friends, so sudden and unexpected was it, and so much at a loss were they to know where it came from. But the wretched Julian took up in his hands the blood which flowed from his wound, and cast it up towards the sun, exclaiming in a clear voice, ‘Take thy fill!’ and he added curses upon the other gods as villains and destroyers. In his train was a most distinguished physician, one Oribasius, a native of the Lydian city, Sardis. But the wound was far beyond all medical art, and carried Julian off after three days of suffering, after he had enjoyed the dignity of Caesar for five years, and the imperial throne two years and a half from the death of Constantius. Philostorgius in this passage writes that Julian sprinkled his blood towards the sun and cursed his gods. But most historians write that he used this act as an expression of hatred against our Lord and only true God, Jesus Christ.’

(Walford, pp. 483–4, revised)

Socrates, historia ecclesiastica III, 21: The emperor meanwhile invaded the country of the Persians a little before spring, having learnt that the races of Persia were greatly enfeebled and totally spiritless in winter. 2. For from their inability to endure cold, they abstain from military service in that season, and it has become a proverb that ‘a Mede will not draw his hand from underneath his cloak.’ And well knowing that the Romans were inured to brave all the rigours of the atmosphere, he let them loose on the country. 3. After devastating a considerable tract of country, including numerous villages and fortresses, they next assailed the cities; 4. and having invested the great city of Ctesiphon, he reduced the king of the Persians to such straits that the latter sent repeated embassies to the emperor, offering to surrender a portion of his dominions, on condition of his quitting the country, and putting an end to the war. 5. But Julian was unaffected by these submissions, and showed no compassion to a suppliant foe: nor did he think of the adage, ‘To conquer is honourable, but to be more than conqueror gives occasion for envy.’ 6. Giving credit to the divinations of the philosopher Maximus, with whom he continually discoursed, he was deluded into the belief that his exploits would not only equal, but exceed those of Alexander of Macedon; so that he spurned with contempt the entreaties of the Persian monarch. 7. He even supposed, in accordance with the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato on ‘the transmigration of souls,’ that he was possessed of Alexander’s soul, or rather that he himself was Alexander in another body. 8. This ridiculous fancy deluded him and caused him to reject the negotiations for peace proposed by the king of the Persians. 9. Wherefore the latter, convinced of the uselessness of them, was constrained to prepare for conflict, and therefore on the next day after the rejection of his embassy, he drew out in order of battle all the forces he had. 10. The Romans indeed censured their prince for not avoiding an engagement when he might have done so with advantage: nevertheless they attacked those who opposed them, and again put the enemy to flight. 11. The emperor was present on horseback, and encouraged his soldiers in battle; but confiding simply in his hope of success, he wore no armour. 12. In this defenceless state, a javelin was thrown at him unexpectedly and pierced his arm and entered his side. 13. In consequence of this wound he died, and the identity of the killer was unknown. Some say that a certain Persian deserter hurled the javelin; others assert that one of his own men was the author of the deed, which indeed is the best corroborated report. 14. But Callistus, one of his body-guards, who celebrated this emperors deeds in heroic verse, says, in narrating the particulars of this war, that the wound of which he died was inflicted by a demon. 15. This is possibly a mere poetical fiction, or perhaps it was really the fact; for vengeful furies have indeed destroyed many persons. 16. Be the case however as it may, this is certain, that the ardour of his natural temperament rendered him incautious, his learning made him vain, and his affectation of clemency exposed him to contempt. 17. Thus Julian ended his life in Persia, as we have said, in his fourth consulate, which he bore with Sallust his colleague. 18. This event occurred on the 26th of June, in the third year of his reign, and the seventh from his having been created Caesar by Constantius, he being at that time in the thirty-first year of his age.

(Zenos, p. 90, revised)

Sozomen, historia ecclesiastica V, 3, 5 and VI, 1, 1–14 and 3, 1–2: When the inhabitants of Nisibis sent to implore his (i.e. Julian’s) aid against the Persians, who were on the point of invading the Roman territories, he refused to assist them because they were wholly Christianized, and would neither reopen their temples nor resort to the sacred places; he threatened that he would not help them, nor receive their embassy, nor approach to enter the city before he should hear that they had returned to paganism.

(Hartranft, p. 328)

VI, 1 I have narrated in the preceding book the occurrences which took place in the Church, during the reign of Julian. This emperor, having determined to carry on the war with Persia, made a rapid transit across the Euphrates in the beginning of spring, and, passing by Edessa from hatred to the inhabitants, who had long professed Christianity, he went on to Carrhae, where there was a temple of Jupiter, in which he offered up sacrifice and prayer. 2. He then selected twenty thousand armed men from among his troops, and sent them towards the Tigris, in order that they might guard those regions, and also be ready to join him, in case he should require their assistance. He then wrote to Arsacius, king of Armenia, one of the Roman allies, to join him in the war. 3. In this letter Julian manifested the most unbounded arrogance; he boasted of the high qualities which had, he said, rendered him worthy of the empire, and acceptable to the gods for whom he cared; he reviled Constantius, his predecessor, as an effeminate and impious emperor, and threatened Arsacius in a grossly insulting way; and since he understood that he was a Christian, he intensified his insults, or eagerly and largely uttered unlawful blasphemies against Christ, for he was accustomed to dare this in every case. He told Arsacius that unless he acted according to his directions, the God in whom he trusted would not be able to defend him from his vengeance. 4. When he considered that all his arrangements had been duly made, he led his army through Assyria.

He took a great many towns and fortresses, either through treachery or by battle, and thoughtlessly proceeded onwards, without reflecting that he would have to return by the same route. He pillaged every place he approached, and pulled down or burnt the granaries and storehouses. 5. As he was journeying up the Euphrates, he arrived at Ctesiphon, a very large city, whither the Persian monarchs had now transferred their residence from Babylon. The Tigris flows near this spot. As he was prevented from reaching the city with his ships, by a part of the land which separated it from the river, he judged that either he must pursue his journey by water, or quit his ships and go to Ctesiphon by land; and he interrogated the prisoners on the subject. Having ascertained from them that there was a canal which had been blocked up in the course of time, he caused it to be cleared out, and, having thus effected a communication between the Euphrates and the Tigris, he proceeded towards the city, his ships floating along by the side of his army. 6. But the Persians appeared on the banks of the Tigris with a formidable display of horse and many armed troops, of elephants, and of horses; and Julian became conscious that his army was besieged between two great rivers, and was in danger of perishing, either by remaining in its present position, or by retreating through the cities and villages which he had so utterly devastated that no provisions were obtainable; therefore he summoned the soldiers to see horse-races, and proposed rewards to the fleetest racers. 7. In the meantime he commanded the officers of the ships to throw over the provisions and baggage of the army, so that the soldiers, I suppose, seeing themselves in danger by the lack of necessary provisions, might turn about boldly and fight their enemies more desperately. After supper he sent for the generals and tribunes and commanded the embarkation of the troops. They sailed along the Tigris during the night and came at once to the opposite banks and disembarked; 8. but their departure was perceived by some of the Persians, who defended themselves and encouraged one another, but those still asleep the Romans readily overcame. At daybreak, the two armies engaged in battle; and after much bloodshed on both sides, the Romans returned by the river, and encamped near Ctesiphon.

9. The emperor, being no longer desirous of proceeding further but wishing only to return to the (Roman) empire, burnt his vessels, as he considered that they required too many soldiers to guard them; and he then commenced his retreat along the Tigris, which was to his left. The prisoners, who acted as guides to the Romans, led them to a fertile country where at first they found an abundance of provisions. 10. Soon after, an old man who had resolved to die for the liberty of Persia, allowed himself to be taken prisoner, and was brought before the emperor. On being questioned as to the route, and seeming to speak the truth, he persuaded them to follow him as capable of transporting the army very speedily to the Roman frontiers. 11. He observed that for the space of three or four days’ journey this road would be difficult, and that it would be necessary to carry provisions during that time, as the surrounding country was sterile. The emperor was deceived by the discourse of this wise old man, and approved the march by this route. 12. On advancing further, after the lapse of three days, they rushed headlong into an uncultivated region. The old prisoner was put to torture. He confessed that he had exposed himself voluntarily to death for the sake of his country, and was therefore prepared willingly to endure any sufferings that could be inflicted on him.

The Roman troops were now worn out by the length of the journey and the scarcity of provisions, and the Persians chose this moment to attack them.

13. In the heat of the conflict which ensued, a violent wind arose; and the sky and the sun were totally concealed by the clouds, while the air was at the same time mixed with dust. During the darkness which was thus produced, a horseman, riding at full gallop, directed his lance against the emperor, and wounded him mortally. After throwing Julian from his horse, the unknown assailant secretly went away. Some conjectured that he was a Persian; others, that he was a Saracen. 14. There are those who insist that he who struck the blow was a Roman soldier, who was indignant at the imprudence and temerity which the emperor had manifested in exposing his army to such peril….⁵¹

3 After the decease of Julian, the government of the empire was, by the unanimous consent of the troops, tendered to Jovian. When the army was about to proclaim him emperor, he announced himself to be a Christian and refused the sovereignty, nor would he receive the symbols of empire; but when the soldiers discovered the cause of his refusal, they loudly proclaimed that they were themselves Christians.

2. The dangerous and disturbed condition in which affairs had been left by Julian’s strategy, and the sufferings of the army from famine in an enemy’s country, compelled Jovian to conclude a peace with the Persians, and to cede to them some territories which had been formerly tributary to the Romans.

(Hartranft, pp. 345–7, revised.)

Suidas, s. v. (A2094), ed. Adler, i, p. 190, 6–8: For the first person to emerge () out of the tunnel was Magnus, a manly and exceptionally daring person.⁵²

(Lieu)

Theodoret, historia ecclesiastica III, 21 and 25, 1–6, GCS: No sooner had the Persians heard of the death of Constantius than they took heart, proclaimed war, and marched over the frontier of the Roman empire. Julian therefore determined to muster his forces, though they were a host without a God to guard them. 2. First he sent to Delphi, to Delos and to Dodona, and to the other oracles and enquired of the seers if he should march. They bade him march and promised him victory. One of these oracles I subjoin in proof of their falsehood. It was as follows: ‘Now we gods all started to get trophies of victory by the river beast and of them I, Ares, bold raiser of the din of war, will be leader.’ 3. Let them that style the Pythian a God wise in word and prince of the muses ridicule the absurdity of the utterance. I who have found out its falsehood will rather pity him who was cheated by it. The oracle called the Tigris ‘beast’ because the river and the animal bear the same name. 4. Rising in the mountains of Armenia, and flowing through Assyria, it discharges itself into the Persian gulf. Beguiled by these oracles, the unhappy man indulged in dreams of victory, and after fighting with the Persians had visions of a campaign against the Galileans….

25 Julian’s folly was yet more clearly manifested by his death. He crossed the river that separates the Roman Empire from the Persian, brought over his army, and then forthwith burnt his boats, so making his men fight not in willing, but in forced obedience. 2. The best generals are wont to fill their troops with enthusiasm, and, if they see them growing discouraged, to cheer them and raise their hopes; but Julian, by burning the bridge of retreat, cut off all good hope. A further proof of his incompetence was his failure to fulfil the duty of foraging in all directions and providing his troops with supplies. 3. Julian had neither ordered supplies to be brought from Rome, nor did he make any bountiful provision by ravaging the enemy’s country. He left the inhabited world behind him, and persisted in marching through the wilderness. 4. His soldiers had not enough to eat and drink; they were without guides; they were marching astray in a desert land. Thus they saw the folly of their most wise emperor. 5. In the midst of their murmuring and grumbling, they suddenly found him who had struggled in mad rage against his Maker wounded to death. Ares who raises the war-din had never come to help him as he promised; Loxias had given lying divination; he who rejoices in the thunderbolts had hurled no bolt on the man who dealt the fatal blow; the boasting of his threats was dashed to the ground. 6. The name of the man who dealt that righteous stroke no one knows to this day. Some say that he was wounded by an invisible being, others by one of the Nomads who were called Ishmaelites; others by a trooper who could not endure the pains of famine in the wilderness.

(Jackson, pp. 104–6)

Theophanes, chronographia, A.M. 5855, pp. , 19–53, 4: Julian dispatched many men in different places to both oracles and places of divination so that he might seem to be undertaking war against Persia under the guardianship of demons. Many different oracular responses were brought to him, and one I shall mention says: ‘Now all we gods have set off to carry the trophies of victory by the bestial river; I, Ares, raising the din of war, am leading them.’ Assured by these words, he prepared for the war against Persia and levied a heavy fine on the Christians…. He worked much great harm against the Christians and announced that he would do more after the Persian war, but he wretchedly came to .the end of his cursed life in it. For while on foreign territory he was killed by divine justice. He was emperor for two years and nine months, and he died in Persia on the twenty-sixth day of the month of January (sic) in the sixth indiction. He was then thirty-one years of age.

(Dodgeon)

Zonaras, XIII, 13, 1–14, 6 (iii, pp. 213, 18–217, 13, Dindorf):⁵³ He (i.e. Julian) advanced against the Persians and at first was successful; he took some cities, killed many people, acquired a lot of booty and prisoners, and besieged Ctesiphon. 2. Then suddenly affairs turned to the worse for him and he and the majority of his army perished. 3. For the Persians in despair decided to rush headlong into destruction in order to do something really terrible to the Romans. 4. Therefore two men in the guise of deserters hurried to the Emperor and promised him victory over the Persians if he followed them. 5. They advised him to leave the river and burn the galleys he had brought along with the other cargo vessels, 6. so that the enemy could not use them; while they would lead his army to safety through a different way. It would quickly and safely reach the inner parts of Persia and conquer it with ease. 7. The wicked man in his derangement believed them although many told him, and even Hormisdas himself, that it was a trap. But he set fire to his ships and burnt them all except twelve. 8. There were seven hundred galleys and four hundred cargo vessels. 9. After they had been completely burnt, when many of the tribunes objected that what was said by the deserters was a trap and a trick, he reluctantly agreed to examine the false deserters. Questioned under torture, they disclosed their conspiracy.

10. Some, therefore, say that Julian was deceived in this way. Others say he gave up the siege of Ctesiphon because of its strength and, since the army was running out of necessities, he considered returning; 11. as they were leaving, the Persians came into view behind them and harried the rear. 12. The Gauls who were guarding the rear resisted the enemy bravely and killed many of them, not only ordinary men but even some nobles amongst them. 13. However, the Romans were hard-pressed by lack of necessities, 14. so Julian, uncertain as to what he should do and from where he ought to return, chose to make the journey through the mountains. 15. The Persians discovered this, mustered there and attacked the Romans. On the left wing the Romans were victorious but on the right they were defeated. 16. When Julian realized this, he hastened to aid those who were being worsted. 17. Because of the weight, and the heat of the sun,— for the season was warm—he took off his helmet. 18. And so, when he was in the midst of the enemy, he was hit in the side by a spear. 19. It is said that a violent wind blew then and thick gloom covered the air there and, because the great number of soldiers were stirring up a lot of dust, they did not know where they (the enemy) were or what they were doing. 20. So it was not clear from where the spear which wounded him was thrown, whether it was by an enemy or by one of his own men or from some divine power: for even that is said in songs. 21. Therefore they say he took some blood from the flowing wound in the hollow of his hand and scattered it in the air, saying ‘Take your fill, Nazarene!’…

14 The tribune Jovian was chosen to occupy the throne which was vacated by the death of Julian. He was a pious man. He was the son of Count Varronianus. 2. At first he refused the authority which had deferred to him; and when he was asked the reason, he cried: ‘It is because I am Christian, and I do not want to rule over pagans.’ 3. The soldiers cried with one voice, as if in unison, that they were Christians as well as he. 4. He accepted the title of emperor, and made a treaty with the Persians which was hardly honourable, but necessary at the time. 5. He conceded two famous cities to them, Nisibis and Singara, and transferred the inhabitants of them elsewhere, who, stressed by the violence of grief, spoke to him in terms far removed from the respect which they owed him. 6. He abandoned to them (i.e. the Persians) some provinces and rights which had belonged to the Romans for a long time. When the hostages had been handed over from one side to the other, the Romans left to return to their country; but they suffered great discomfort throughout their whole journey, and were extremely hard pressed by hunger and thirst.

(Dodgeon)

Zosimus, historia nova, III, 12–34. See Introduction, p. .