power of the central
government
in Gaul had been still further weakened.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
39 sqq.
## p. 57 (#87) ##############################################
338]
The War with Persia
57
so recently murdered : his self-denial should prove his innocence! . During
the next thirteen years three great and more or less independent interests
absorbed the energies of Constantius : the welfare and doctrine of the
Christian Church”, the long drawn and largely ineffective struggle
against Persia and lastly the assertion and maintenance of his personal
influence in the affairs of the West.
It was to Asia that Constantius hastened after his meeting with his
co-rulers. Before his arrival Nisibis had successfully withstood a Persian
siege (autumn 337 or spring 338), and the Emperor at once made
strenuous efforts to restore order and discipline among the Roman forces.
Profiting by his previous experience he organised a troop of mail-clad
horsemen after the Persian model—the wonder of the time—and raised
recruits both for the cavalry and infantry regiments; he demanded
extraordinary contributions from the eastern provinces, enlarged the
river flotillas and generally made his preparations for rendering effective
resistance to Persian attacks. The history of this border warfare is
a tangled tale and our information scanty and fragmentary. In
Armenia the fugitive king and those nobles who with him were loyal
to Rome were restored to their country, but for the rest the campaigns
resolved themselves in the main into the successive forays across
the frontier of Persian or Roman troops. Though Ludi Persici
(13–17 May) were founded, though court orators could claim that the
Emperor had frequently crossed the Tigris, had raised fortresses on its
banks and laid waste the enemy's territory with fire and sword, yet the
lasting results of these campaigns were sadly to seek : now an Arab
tribe would be induced to make common cause with Rome (as in 338)
and to harry the foe, now a Persian town would be captured and its
inhabitants transported and settled within the Empire, but it was rare
indeed for the armies of both powers to meet face to face in the open
field. Constantius persistently declined to take the aggressive; he
hesitated to risk any great engagement which even if successful might
entail a heavy loss in men whom he could ill afford to spare. Of one
battle alone have we any detailed account. Sapor had collected a vast
army; conscripts of all ages were enlisted, while neighbouring tribesmen
served for Persian gold. In three divisions the host crossed the Tigris
and by the Emperor's orders the frontier guards did not dispute the
passage. The Persians occupied an entrenched camp at Hileia or Ellia
near Singara, while a distance of some 150 stades lay between them and
the Roman army. Even on Sapor's advance Constantius true to his
defensive policy awaited the enemy's attack; it may be, as Libanius
asserts, that Rome's best troops were absent at the time. Beneath their
fortifications the Persians had posted their splendid mailed cavalry
1 For the above cf. Victor, Epit. xli. 20; Vita Artemii Martyris, AS. Boll.
Tom. viii. Oct. 20; Eutyches, Chron. dlex. Ol. 279; Seeck, Zeits. f. Numismatik, 1. c.
3 See Chap. v.
a
CH. III.
## p. 58 (#88) ##############################################
58
Reign of Constans
(338–360
(cataphracti) and upon the ramparts archers were stationed. On a mid-
summer morning, probably in the year 344 (possibly 348), the struggle
began. At midday the Persians feigned flight in the direction of their
camp, hoping that thus their horsemen would charge upon an enemy
disorganised by long pursuit. It was already evening when the Romans
drew near the fortifications. Constantius gave orders to halt until the
dawn of the new day; but the burning heat of the sun had caused
a raging thirst, the springs lay within the Persian camp and the troops
with little experience of their Emperor's generalship refused to obey his
commands and resumed the attack. Clubbing the enemy's cavalry, they
stormed the palisades. Sapor Aled for his life to the Tigris, while the
heir to his throne was captured and put to death. As night fell, the
victors turned to plunder and excess, and under cover of the darkness the
Persian fugitives re-formed and won back their camp. But success
came too late; their confidence was broken and with the morning the
retreat began.
Turning to the history of the West after the meeting of the Augusti
in 338, it would appear that Constantine forthwith claimed an authority
superior to that of his co-rulers'; he even legislated for Africa although
this province fell within the jurisdiction of Constans. The latter, how-
ever, soon asserted his complete independence of his elder brother and
in autumn (338? ) after a victory on the Danube assumed the title of
Sarmaticus. At this time (339) he probably sought to enlist the support
of Constantius, surrendering to the latter Thrace and Constantinople? .
Disappointed of his hopes, it would seem that the ruler of the West now
demanded for himself both Italy and Africa. Early in 340 he suddenly
crossed the Alps and at Aquileia rashly engaged the advanced guard of
Constans who had marched from Naissus in Dacia, where news had
reached him of his brother's attack. Constantine falling into an ambush
perished, and Constans was now master of Britain, Spain and the Gauls
(before 9 April 340). He proved himself a terror to the barbarians
and a general of untiring energy who travelled incessantly, making light
of extremes of heat and cold. In 341 and 342 he drove back an
inroad of the Franks and compelled that restless tribe “for whom
inaction was a confession of weakness to conclude a peace: he dis-
regarded the perils of the English Channel in winter, and in January 343
crossed from Boulogne to Britain, perhaps to repel the Picts and Scots.
His rule is admitted to have been at the outset vigorous and just, but
the promise of his early years was not maintained : his exactions grew
more intolerable, his private vices more shameless, while his favourites
were allowed to violate the laws with impunity. It would seem, however,
to have been his unconcealed contempt for the army which caused his
1 This is an inference drawn from his coinage.
2 Cf. the language of the Vita Artemii, 1. ο. ο δε Κωνστάντιος. . . το της εφας ασπά-
ζεται μέρος και τότε. . . κ. τ. λ.
>
## p. 59 (#89) ##############################################
350–352]
Death of Constans. Vetranio
59
.
a
fall. A party at Court conspired with Marcellinus, Count of the sacred
largesses, and Magnentius, commander of the picked corps of Joviani and
Herculeani, to secure his overthrow. Despite his Roman name Magnentius
was a barbarian: his father had been a slave and subsequently a freedman
in the service of Constantine. While at Augustodunum, during the
absence of the Emperor on a hunting expedition, Marcellinus on the
pretext of a banquet in honour of his son's birthday feasted the military
leaders (18 January 350); wine had fowed freely and the night was
already far advanced, when Magnentius suddenly appeared among the
revellers, clad in the purple. He was straightway acclaimed Augustus :
the rumour spread: folk from the country-side poured into the city:
Illyrian horsemen who had been drafted into the Gallic regiments joined
their comrades, while the officers hardly knowing what was afoot were
carried by the tide of popular enthusiasm into the usurper's camp.
Constans fled for Spain and at the foot of the Pyrenees by the small
frontier fortress of Helene was murdered by Gaiso, the barbarian emissary
of Magnentius. The news of his brother's death reached Constantius
when the winter was almost over, but true to his principle never to
sacrifice the Empire to his own personal advantage he remained in the
East, providing for its safety during his absence and appointing
Lucillianus to be commander-in-chief.
The hardships and oppression which the provinces had suffered under
Constans were turned by Magnentius to good account. A month after
his usurpation Italy had joined him and Africa was not slow to follow.
The army of Illyricum was wavering in its fidelity when, upon the advice
of Constantia sister of Constantius, Vetranio, magister peditum of the
forces on the Danube, allowed himself to be acclaimed Emperor
(1 March, at Mursa or Sirmium) and immediately appealed for help to
Constantius. The latter recognised the usurper, sent Vetranio a diadem
and gave orders that he should be supported by the troops on the
Pannonian frontier. Meanwhile in Rome, the elect of the mob, Flavius
Popilius Nepotianus, cousin of Constantius, enjoyed a brief and bloody
reign of some 28 days until, through the treachery of a senator, he fell
into the hands of the soldiers of Magnentius, led by Marcellinus the
newly appointed magister officiorum.
In the East, Nisibis was besieged for the third and last time:
Sapor's object was, it would seem, permanently to settle a Persian colony
within the city. The siege was pressed with unexampled energy; the
Mygdonius was turned from its course, and thus upon an artificial lake
the fleet plied its rams but without effect. At length under the weight
of the waters part of the city wall collapsed; cavalry and elephants
charged to storm the breach, but the huge beasts turned in flight and
broke the lines of the assailants. A new wall rose behind the old, and
though four months had passed, Jacobus, Bishop of Nisibis, never lost
heart. Then Sapor learned that the Massagetae were invading his own
CH. III.
## p. 60 (#90) ##############################################
60
Gallus Caesar
(350–351
a
country and slowly the Persian host withdrew. For a time the Eastern
frontier was at peace (A. D. 350).
In the West while Magnentius sought to win the recognition of
Constantius, Vetranio played a waiting game. At last, the historians
tell us, the Illyrian Emperor broke his promises and made his peace
with Magnentius. A common embassy sought Constantius : let him
give Magnentius his sister Constantia to wife, and himself wed the
daughter of Magnentius. Constantius wavered, but rejected the pro-
posals and marched towards Sardica. Vetranio held the
Vetranio held the pass of Succi -
the Iron Gate of later times--but on the arrival of the Emperor gave
way before him. In Naissus, or as others say in Sirmium, the two
Emperors mounted a rostrum and Constantius harangued the troops,
appealing to them to avenge the death of the son of the great
Constantine. The army hailed Constantius alone as Augustus and
Vetranio sought for pardon. The Emperor treated the usurper with
great respect and accorded him on his retirement to Prusa in Bithynia
a handsome pension until his death six years later. Such is the story,
but it can hardly fail to arouse suspicion. The greatest blot on the
character of Constantius is his ferocity when once he fancied his
superiority threatened, and here was both treason and treachery, for
power had been stolen from him by a trick. All difficulties are removed
if Vetranio throughout never ceased to support Constantius, even though
the Emperor may have doubted his loyalty for a time when he heard
that the prudent general had anticipated any action on the part of
Magnentius by himself seizing the key-position, the pass of Succi. It is
obvious that their secret was worth keeping : it is ill to play with armies
as Constantius and Vetranio had done; while the clemency of an outraged
sovereign offered a fair theme to the panegyrists of the Emperor.
Marching against one usurper in the West, Constantius was anxious
to secure the East to the dynasty of Constantine: the recent success of
Lucillianus may have appeared dangerously complete. The Emperor's
nephew Gallus had, it would seem, for some time followed the Court,
and while at Sirmium Constantius determined to create him Caesar.
At the same time (15 March 351) his name was changed into Flavius
Claudius Constantius, he was married to Constantia and became frater
Augusti; forthwith the prince and his wife started for Antioch.
Meanwhile Magnentius had not been idle; he had raised huge sums
of money in Gaul, while Franks, Saxons and Germans trooped to the
support of their fellow-countryman, whose army now outnumbered
that of Constantius. The latter however took the offensive in the
spring of 351 and uniting Vetranio's troops with his own marched
towards the Alpine passes. An ambush of Magnentius posted in the
defiles of Atrans inflicted severe loss on his advance guard and the
Emperor was compelled to withdraw. Elated by this success, the
usurper now occupied Pannonia and passing Poetovio made for Sirmium.
## p. 61 (#91) ##############################################
351-353 ]
The Battle of Mursa
61
Throughout his reign the policy of Constantius was marked by an
anxious desire to husband the military forces of the Empire, and even
now he was ready to compromise and to avoid the fearful struggle between
the armies of Gaul and Illyricum. He despatched Philippus, offering to
acknowledge Magnentius as co-Augustus in the West, if he would
abandon any claim to Italy. The ambassador was detained, but his
proposals after some delay rejected; the usurper was so certain of victory
that his
envoy the Senator Titianus could even counsel Constantius to
abdicate. An attack of Magnentius on Siscia was repulsed and an effort
to cross the Save was also unsuccessful. Constantius then retired,
preferring to await the enemy in open country where he could turn to
the best advantage his superiority in cavalry. At Cibalae the army
took up an entrenched position, while Magnentius advanced on Sirmium,
hoping to meet with no resistance. Foiled in this he marched to Mursa
in the rear of Constantius' army. The latter was forced to relieve the
town and here on 28 September the decisive battle was fought. Behind
Constantius flowed the Danube and on his right the Drave: for him
flight must mean destruction. On both wings he posted mounted
archers and in the forefront the mailed cavalry (cataphracti) which he had
himself raised after the Persian model ; in the centre the heavy armed
infantry were stationed and in the rear the bowmen and slingers. Before
the struggle Silvanus with his horsemen deserted Magnentius. From
late afternoon till far into the night the battle raged; the cavalry of
Constantius routed the enemy's right wing and this threw the whole line
into confusion. Magnentius fled but Marcellinus continued the fight; the
Gauls refused to acknowledge defeat; some few escaped through the
darkness, but thousands were driven into the river or cut down
upon
the
plain. It is said that Magnentius lost 24,000 men, Constantius 30,000+.
The
usurper took refuge in Aquileia and garrisoned the passes of the
Alps; although his overtures were rejected and though his schemes to
murder the Caesar Gallus and thus to raise difficulties for Constantius in
the East were foiled, yet the exhaustion of his enemies and the approach
of winter made pursuit impossible. Constantius forthwith proclaimed
an amnesty for all the adherents of Magnentius except only those
immediately implicated in his brother's murder; many deserted the
pretender and escaped by sea to the victor. In the following year (352),
Constantius forced the passes of the Julian Alps, while his feet dominated
the Po, Sicily and Africa. At the news Magnentius fled to Gaul and
by November the Emperor was already in Milan, abrogating all the
fugitive's measures. In 353 Constantius crossed the Cottian Alps and
at length, three years and a half after his assumption of the purple,
Magnentius was surrounded in Lyons by his own troops, and finding his
* Zonaras states that Constantius had 80,000 men, Magnentius 36,000. Seeck
bas suggested that at this time Magnentius may have been besieging Sirmium.
CH. III.
## p. 62 (#92) ##############################################
62
Magnentius
(350—353
cause hopeless committed suicide, while his Caesar Decentius also perished
by his own hand.
The importance and significance of this unsuccessful bid for empire
may easily be overlooked. A Roman civil official at the head of some
discontented spirits at the Court hatches a plot against his sovereign,
and in order to win the support of the army alienated by the contempt
of Constans induces a barbarian general to declare himself Emperor.
But though the Roman world was willing enough that Germans should
fight the Empire's battles in their defence, they were not prepared to see
another Maximin upon the throne; they refused to be reconciled to
Magnentius even by the admitted justice of his rule. The lesson of his
failure was well learned: the barbarian Arbogast caused not himself but
the Roman civilian Eugenius to be elected Emperor. Further, while in
this struggle the eastern and western halves of the Empire are seen
falling naturally and almost unconsciously asunder, the most powerful
force working for unity is the dynastic sentiment: Constantius claims
support as the legitimate successor of the house of Constantine and as
the avenger of the death of his son. His claim is not merely as the
chosen of senate or army but far more as the rightful heir to the throne.
This struggle throws into prominence the growth of the hereditary
principle and the warmth of the response which it could evoke from the
sympathies of the subjects of the Empire. No student of the history
of the fourth century can indeed afford to neglect the battle of Mursa ;
contemporaries were staggered at the appalling loss of life, for while
it is said that the Roman dead numbered 40,000 at Hadrianople
(A. D. 378), at Mursa 54,000 are reported to have been slain. It is
hardly too much to say that the defence of the Empire in the East was
crippled by this blow, and it must have been largely through the
slaughter at Mursa that Constantius was forced to make his fatal demand
that the troops of Gaul should march against Persia. Neither must the
military significance of the battle be forgotten : it lies in the fact that
this was the first victory of the newly formed heavy cavalry, and the
result of the impact of their charge, which carried all before it, showed
that it was no longer the legionary who was to play the most important
part in the campaigns of the future.
Meanwhile in Antioch Gallus was ruling as an oriental despot; there
was in his nature a strain of savagery, and his appointment as Caesar
seems to have awakened within him a brutal lust for a naked display of
unrestrained authority. His passions were only fed by the violence of
Constantia. The unsuccessful plot of Magnentius to assassinate the
Caesar aroused the latter's suspicions and a reign of terror began;
judicial procedure was disregarded and informers honoured, men were
condemned to death without trial and the members of the city council
imprisoned; when the populace complained of scarcity it was suggested
that the responsibility lay with Theophilus governor of Syria: the mob
:
## p. 63 (#93) ##############################################
332–354]
Fall of Gallus. Julian's Youth
63
took the hint and the governor perished. The feeling of insecurity was
rendered more intense by a rising among the Jews, who declared a certain
Patricius their King, and by the raids of Saracens and Isaurians upon
the country-side. The loyalty of the East was jeopardized. The reports
of Thalassius, the praetorian praefect, and of Barbatio, the Caesar's
Count of the guard, at length moved Constantius to action. On the
death of Thalassius (winter 353-4) Domitian was sent to Antioch as
his successor, directions being given him that Gallus was to be persuaded
to visit the Emperor in the West. The praefect's studied discourtesy
and overbearing behaviour enraged the Caesar; Domitian was thrown
into prison and the populace responding to the appeal of Gallus tore in
pieces both the praefect and Montius the quaestor of the palace. The
trials for treason which followed were but a parody of justice ; fear and
hate held sway in Antioch. Constantius himself now wrote to Gallus
praying his presence in Milan. In deep foreboding the Caesar started ;
on his journey the death of his wife, the Emperor's masterful sister,
further dismayed him, and after passing through Constantinople his
guard of honour became his gaolers ; stripped of his purple by Barbatio
in Poetovio, he was brought near Pola before a commission headed by
Eusebius, the Emperor's chamberlain, and bidden to account for his
administration in the East. The Court came to the required conclusion,
and Gallus was beheaded.
Thus of the house of Constantine there only remained the Emperor's
cousin Julian. Born in all probability
Born in all probability in April 332, the child spent his
early years in Constantinople; his mother Basilina, daughter of the
praetorian praefect Anicius Julianus, died only a few months after the
birth of her son, while his father Julius Constantius, younger brother of
Constantine the Great, perished in the massacre of 337. From this
Julian was spared by his extreme youth and was thereupon removed to
Nicomedia and entrusted to the charge of a distant relative, by name
Eusebius, who was at the time bishop of the city. When seven years
of
age, his education was undertaken by Mardonius, a “Scythian” eunuch-
perhaps a Goth—who had been engaged by Julian's grandfather to
instruct Basilina in the works of Homer and Hesiod. Mardonius had
a passionate love for the classical authors, and on his way to school the
boy's imagination was fired by the old man's enthusiasm. Already
Julian's love for nature was aroused ; in the summer he would spend his
time on a small estate which had belonged to his grandmother; it lay
eight stades from the coast and contained springs and trees with a garden.
Here, free from crowds, he would read a book in peace, looking up now
and again upon the ships and the sea, while from a knoll, he tells us,
there was a wide view over the town below and thence beyond to the
capital, the Propontis and the distant islands. Suddenly (in 341 ? )
both he and his brother Gallus were banished to Macellum, a large and
lonely imperial castle in Cappadocia, lying at the foot of Mount Argaeus.
CB. 1.
## p. 64 (#94) ##############################################
64
Julian and Paganism
[349–355
1
Here for six years the two boys lived in seclusion, for none of their friends
were allowed to visit them. Julian chafed bitterly at this isolation: in
one of his rare references to this period he writes “ we might have been
in a Persian prison with only slaves for our companions. ” For a time
the suspicions of Constantius seem to have gained the upper hand.
hand. At
length Julian was allowed to visit his birthplace Constantinople. Here,
while studying under Christian teachers as a citizen among citizens, his
natural capacity, wit and sociability rendered him dangerously popular :
it was rumoured that men were beginning to look upon
the
young
prince as Constantius' successor. He was bidden to return to Nicomedia
(349? ), where he studied philosophy and came under the influence of
Libanius, although he was not allowed to attend the latter's lectures. The
rhetorician dates Julian's conversion to Neoplatonism from this period :-
“the mud-bespattered statues of the gods were set up in the great
temple of Julian's soul. ” At last, in 351, when Gallus was created
Caesar, the student was free to go where he would, and the Pagan
philosophers of Asia Minor seized their opportunity. One and all
plotted to secure the complete conversion of the young prince: Aedesius
and Eusebius at Pergamum, Maximus and Chrysanthius at Ephesus
could hardly content Julian's hunger for the forbidden knowledge. It
was at this time (351-2) when he was twenty years of age (as he him-
self tells us) that he finally rejected Christianity and was initiated into
the mysteries of Mithras. The fall of Gallus, however, implicated the
Caesar's brother and Julian was closely watched and conducted to Italy.
For seven months he was kept under guard, and during the six months
which he spent in Milan he had only one interview with Constantius
which was secured through the efforts of the Empress Eusebia. When
at length he was allowed to leave the Court and was on his way
Asia Minor, the trial of the tribune Marinus and of Africanus, governor
of Pannonia Secunda, on a charge of high treason inspired Constantius
with fresh fears and suspicions. Messages reached Julian ordering his
return. But before his arrival at Milan Eusebia had won from the
Emperor his permission for Julian to retire to Athens, love of study
being a characteristic which might with safety be encouraged in members
of the royal house. Men may have seen in this visit to Greece (355)
but a banishment; to Julian, nursing the perilous secret of his new-found
faith, the change must have been pure joy. In Hellas, his true fatherland,
he was probably initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, while he plunged
with impetuous intensity into the life of the University. It was not to
be for long, for he was soon recalled to sterner activities.
Since the death of Gallus, the Emperor had stood alone ; although
no longer compromised by the excesses of his Caesar, he was still beset
by the old problems which appeared to defy solution. At this time the
.
power of the central government in Gaul had been still further weakened.
Here Silvanus, whose timely desertion of Magnentius had contributed to
to
a
1
## p. 65 (#95) ##############################################
354–355]
Julian made Caesar
65
a
the Emperor's success at the battle of Mursa, had been appointed magister
peditum. He had won some victories over the Alemanni but, driven
into treason by Court intrigues, had assumed the purple in Cologne and
fallen after a short reign of some 28 days a victim to treachery
(August-September 355 ? ). In his own person Constantius could
not take the command at once in Rhaetia and in Gaul, and yet along
the whole northern frontier he was faced with danger and difficulty.
He was haunted by the continual fear that some capable general might
of his own motion proclaim himself Augustus, or like Silvanus be
hounded into rebellion. A military triumph often advantaged the
captain more than his master and might have but little influence to-
wards kindling anew the allegiance of the provincials. A prince of the
royal house could alone with any hope of success attempt to raise the
imperial prestige in Gaul. It was thus statecraft and no sinister machi-
nation against his cousin's life which led Constantius to listen to his
wife's entreaties. He determined to banish suspicion and disregard the
interested insinuations of the Court eunuchs: he would make of the
philosopher scholar a Caesar, in whose person the loyalty of the West
should find a rallying-point and on whom its devotion might be spent.
In the Emperor's absence Julian once more arrived in Milan (summer
355), but to him imperial favour seemed a thing more terrible than
royal neglect; Eusebia's summons to be of good courage was of no avail,
only the thought that this was the will of Heaven steeled his purpose.
Who was he to fight against the Gods? --After some weeks on 6 November
355 Julian was clothed with the purple by Constantius and enthusias-
tically acclaimed as Caesar by the army. Before leaving the Court the
Caesar married Helena, the youngest sister of Constantius; the union
was dictated by policy and she would seem never to have taken any
large place in the life or thought of Julian. The position of affairs in
Gaul was critical. Magnentius had withdrawn the armies of the West
to meet Constantius, and horde after horde of barbarians had swept
across the Rhine. In the north the Salii had taken possession of what
is now the province of Brabant; in the south the Alemanni under
Chnodomar had defeated the Caesar Decentius and had ravaged the
heart of Gaul. The rumour ran that Constantius had even freed the
Alemanni from their oaths and had given them a bribe to induce them
to invade Roman territory, allowing them to take for their own any land
which their swords could win. The story is probably a fabrication of
Julian and his friends, but the fact of the barbarian invasion cannot be
doubted. In the spring of 354 Constantius crossed the Juru and marched
to the neighbourhood of Basel, but the Alemanni under Gundomad
and Vadomar withdrew and a peace was concluded. In 355 Arbitio
was defeated near the Lake of Constance and the fall of Silvanus had
for its immediate consequence the capture of Cologne by the Franks.
Forty-five towns, not to speak of lesser posts, had been laid waste and
c. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. III,
## p. 66 (#96) ##############################################
66
Julian's First Campaign in Gaul
[354–356
the valley of the Rhine was lost to the Romans. Three hundred stades
from the left bank of the river the barbarians were permanently settled,
and their ravages extended for three times that distance. The whole of
Elsass was in the hands of the Alemanni, the heads of the municipalities
had been carried into slavery, Strassburg, Brumath, Worms, and Mainz
had fallen, while soldiers of Magnentius, who had feared to surrender
themselves after their leader's death, roamed as brigands through the
country-side and increased the general disorder. On 1 December 355,
Julian left Milan with a guard of 360 soldiers; in Turin he learnt of the
fall of Cologne and thence advanced to Vienne where he spent the winter
training with rueful energy for his new vocation of a soldier. For the
following year a combined scheme of operations had been projected :
while the Emperor advancing from Rhaetia attacked the barbarians in
their own territory, Julian was to act as lieutenant to Marcellus with
directions to guard the approaches into Gaul and to drive back any
fugitives who sought to escape before Constantius. The neutrality
of the Alemannic princes in the north had been secured in 354, while
internal dissension among the German tribes favoured the Emperor's
plans. The army in Gaul was ordered to assemble at Rheims and Julian
accordingly marched from Vienne, reaching Autun on 24 June. That
the barbarians should have constantly harried the Caesar's soldiers as
they advanced through Auxerre and Troyes only serves to show how
completely Gaul had been flooded by the German tribesmen. From
Rheims, where the scattered troops were concentrated, the army started
for Elsass pursuing the most direct route by Metz and Dieuze to Zabern.
Two legions of the rear-guard were surprised on the march and were
only with difficulty saved from annihilation. At this time Constantius
was doubtless advancing upon the right bank of the Rhine, for Julian
at Brumath drove back a body of the Alemanni who were seeking refuge
in Gaul. The Caesar then marched by Coblenz through the desolated
Rhine valley to Cologne. This city he recovered and concluded a peace
with the Franks. The approach of winter brought the operations to a
close and Julian retired to Sens. Food was scarce and it was difficult to
provision the army; the Caesar's best troops—the Scutarii and Gentiles-
were therefore stationed in scattered fortresses. The Alemanni had been
driven by hunger to continue their raids through Gaul and hearing of
the weakness of the garrison they suddenly swept down upon Sens. In
his heroic defence of the town Julian won his spurs as a military
commander. For thirty days he withstood the attack, until the
Alemanni retired discomfited. Marcellus had probably already ex-
perienced the ambition and vanity of the Caesar, his independence and
intolerance of criticism : an imperial prince was none too agreeable a
lieutenant. The general may even have considered that the Emperor
would not be deeply grieved if the fortune of war removed a possible
menace to the throne.
Whatever his reasons may have been, he
## p. 67 (#97) ##############################################
357]
Constantius at Rome
67
treacherously failed to come to the relief of the besieged. When the
news reached the Court he was recalled and deprived of his command.
Eutherius, sent by Julian from Gaul, discredited the calumnies of
Marcellus, and Constantius silenced the malignant whispers of the Court;
accepting his Caesar's protestations of loyalty, he created him supreme
commander over the troops in Gaul. The actual gains won by the
military operations of the year 356 may not have been great but that
their moral effect was considerable is demonstrated by the campaign of
357 and by the spirit of the troops at the battle of Strassburg; above
all, Julian was no longer an imperial figure-head, he now begins an inde-
pendent career as general and administrator.
In the spring of 357 Constantius, wishing to celebrate with high
pomp and ceremony the twentieth year of his rule since the death of
Constantine, visited Rome for the first time (28 April—29 May). The
city filled him with awe and wonder and he caused an obelisk to be
raised in the Circus Maximus as a memorial of his stay in the capital.
But to the historian the main interest of this visit lies in the fact that
as a Christian Emperor Constantius removed from the Senate-house the
altar of Victory? To the whole-hearted Pagans this altar came to
stand for a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire as they conceived it:
it was an outward and visible sign of that bond which none might loose
between Rome's hard-won greatness as a conquering nation and her
loyalty to her historic faith. They clung to it with passionate devotion
as to a time-honoured creed in stone-a creed at once political and
religious—and thus again and again they struggled and pleaded for its
retention or its restoration. The deeper meaning of what might seem a
matter of trifling import must never be forgotten if we are to understand
the earnest petition of Symmachus or the scorn of Ambrose. The Pagan
was defending the last trench : the destruction of the altar of Victory
meant for him that he could hold the fortress no longer.
From Rome the Emperor was summoned to the Danube to take
action against the Sarmatians, Suevi and Quadi; he was unable to co-
operate with Julian in person, but despatched Barbatio, magister peditum,
to Gaul in command of 25,000 troops. Julian was to march from the
north, Barbatio was to make Augst near Basel his base of operations,
and between the two forces the barbarians were to be enclosed. The
choice of a general, however, foredoomed the plan of campaign to failure.
Barbatio, one of the principal agents in the death of Gallus, was the last
man to work in harmony with Julian. The Caesar leaving Sens concen-
trated his forces only 13,000 strong at Rheims, and as in the previous
year marched south to Elsass. Finding the pass of Zabern blocked, he
drove the barbarians before him and forced them to take refuge in the
islands of the Rhine. Barbatio had previously allowed a marauding band
of Laeti laden with booty to pass his camp and to cross the Rhine
Symm, Rel, ini. 6.
1
CH. INI.
5--2
## p. 68 (#98) ##############################################
68
The Battle of Strassburg
(357
unscathed, and later by false reports he secured the dismissal of the
tribunes Bainobaudes and the future emperor Valentinian, whom Julian
had ordered to dispute the robbers' return. He now refused to supply
the Caesar with boats ; light-armed troops, however, waded across the
Rhine to the islands and seizing the barbarians' canoes massacred the
fugitives. After this success Julian fortified the pass of Zabern and thus
closed the gate into Gaul; he settled garrisons in Elsass along the
frontier line and did all in his power to supply them with provisions, for
Barbatio withheld all the supplies which arrived from southern Gaul.
Having now secured his position, Julian received the amazing intelligence
that Barbatio had been surprised by the Germans, had lost his whole
baggage train and had retreated in confusion to Augst, where he had
gone into winter quarters. It must be confessed that this defeat of
25,000 men by a sudden barbarian foray seems almost inexplicable, unless
it be that Barbatio was determined at all costs to refuse in any way to
co-operate with the Caesar and was surprised while on the march to
Augst. Julian's position was one of great danger: the Emperor was
far distant on the Danube, the Alemanni previously at variance among
themselves, were now re-united, Gundomad, the faithful ally of Rome, had
been treacherously murdered and the followers of Vadomar had joined
their fellow-countrymen. Barbatio's defeat had raised the enemy's hopes,
while Julian was unsupported and had only some 13,000 men under his
command. It was at this critical moment that a host of Alemannic
tribesmen crossed the Rhine under the leadership of Chnodomar and
encamped, it would seem, on the left bank of the river, close to the city of
Strassburg which the Romans had apparently not yet recovered. On the
third day after the passage of the stream had begun, Julian learned of
the movement of the barbarians, and set out from Zabern on the military
road to Brumath, and thence on the highway which ran from Strassburg
to Mainz towards Weitbruch ; here after a march of six or seven hours
the army would reach the frontier fortification and from this point they
had to descend by rough and unknown paths into the plain. On sight
of the enemy despite the counsels of the Caesar, despite their long march
and the burning heat of an August day, the troops insisted on an im-
mediate attack. The Roman army was drawn up for battle, Severus on
rising ground on the left wing, Julian in command of the cavalry on the
right wing in the plain. Severus from his point of vantage discovered
an ambush and drove off the barbarians with loss, but the Alemanni in
their turn routed the Roman horse ; although Julian was successful in
staying their flight, they were too demoralised to renew the conflict.
The whole brunt of the attack was therefore borne by the Roman centre
and left wing, and it was a struggle of footmen against footmen.
length the stubborn endurance of the Roman infantry carried the day,
and the Alemanni were driven headlong backwards toward the Rhine.
Their losses were enormous—6000 left dead on the field of battle and
At
## p. 69 (#99) ##############################################
357–358]
Julian on the Rhine
69
countless others drowned : Chnodomar was at last captured, and Julian
sent the redoubtable chieftain as a prisoner to Constantius. The victory
meant the recovery of the upper Rhine and the freeing of Gaul from
barbarian incursions. There would even seem to have been an attempt
after the battle to hail Julian as Augustus, but this he immediately
repressed. The booty and captives were sent to Metz and the Caesar
himself marched to Mainz, being compelled to subdue a mutiny on the
way; the army had apparently been disappointed in its share of the
spoil
. Julian at once proceeded to cross the Rhine opposite Mainz and
to conduct a campaign on the Main. His aim would seem to have been
to strike still deeper terror into the vanquished, and to secure his
advantage in order that he might feel free to turn to the work which
awaited him in the north. Three chieftains sued for
peace after their
land had been laid waste with fire and sword, and to seal this success
Julian rebuilt a fortress which Trajan had constructed on the right bank
of the Rhine. The great difficulty which faced the Caesar was the question
of supplies, and one of the terms of the ten months' armistice granted to
the Alemanni was that they should furnish the garrison of the Muni-
mentum Trajani with provisions. It was this pressing necessity which
demanded both an assertion of the power of Rome among the peoples
dwelling about the mouths of the Meuse and Rhine, and also the re-
establishment of the regular transport of corn from Britain. During the
campaign on the Main, Severus had been sent north to reconnoitre; the
Franks now occupied a position of virtual independence in the district
south of the Meuse, and in the absence of Roman garrisons and with the
Caesar fully occupied by the operations against the Alemanni a troop of
600 Frankish warriors were devastating the country-side. They retired
before Severus and occupied two deserted fortresses. Here for 54 days
in December 357 and January 358 they were besieged by Julian who
had marched north to support the magister equitum. Hunger compelled
them at last to yield, for the relief sent by their fellow-tribesmen arrived
too late. Julian spent the winter in Paris, and in early summer ad-
vanced with great speed and secrecy, surprised the Franks in Toxandria
and forced them to acknowledge Roman supremacy. Further north the
Chamavi had been driven by the pressure of the Saxons in their rear to
cross the Rhine and to take possession of the country between that river
and the Meuse. The co-operation of Severus enabled Julian to force
them to submission, and it would appear that in consequence they re-
tired to their former homes on the Yssel. The lower Rhine was now
once more in Roman hands; the generalship of Julian had achieved what
the praefect Florentius had deemed that Roman gold could alone secure,
and the building of a fleet of 400 sea-going vessels was at once begun.
The lower Rhine
secured, Julian forthwith (July-August) returned to his
unfinished task in the south. It was imperative that the ravaged pro-
vinces of Gaul should be repeopled: their desolation and the honour of
сн. п.
## p. 70 (#100) #############################################
70
Administrative Reforms
(355–360
the Empire alike demanded that the prisoners in the hands of the
barbarians should be restored. The remorseless ravaging of his land
compelled Hortarius to yield, to surrender his Roman captives and to
furnish timber for the rebuilding of the Roman towns. The winter past,
Julian once more left Paris and with his new feet brought the corn of
Britain to the garrisons of the Rhine. Seven fortresses, from Castra
Herculis in the land of the Batavi to Bingen in the south, were recon-
structed, and then in a last campaign against the most southerly tribes
of the Alemanni, thosė chieftains who had taken a leading part in the
battle of Strassburg were forced to tender their submission. It was no
easy matter to secure the release of the Roman prisoners, but Julian
could claim to have restored 20,000 of these unfortunates to their homes.
The Caesar's work was done : Gaul was once more in peace and the
Rhine the frontier of the Empire.
When we turn to Julian's action in the civil affairs of the West, our
information is all too scanty. It is clear that he approached his task
with the passionate conviction that at all costs he would relieve the lot
of the oppressed provincials. He took part in person in the administra-
tion of justice and himself revised the judgments of provincial governors;
he refused to grant “indulgences” whereby arrears of taxation were
remitted, for he well knew that these imperial acts of grace benefited
the rich alone, for wealth when first the tribute was assessed could
purchase the privilege of delay and thus in the end enjoy the relief of
the general rebate. He resolutely opposed all extraordinary burdens,
and when Florentius persistently urged him to sign a paper imposing
additional taxation for war purposes he threw the document indignantly
to the ground and all the remonstrances of the praefect were without avail.
In Belgica the Caesar's own representatives collected the tribute and the
inhabitants were saved from the exactions alike of the agents of the praefect
and of the governor. So successful was his administration that where
previously for the land-tax alone twenty-five aurei had been exacted
seven aurei only were now demanded by the State. But reform was slow
and in Julian's character there was a strain of restless impatience: he
was intolerant of delays and of the irrational obstacles that barred the
highway of progress ; it galled him that he could not appoint as officials
and subordinates men after his own heart. Admitted that Constantius
sent him capable civil servants, yet these men who were to be the agents of
reform were themselves members of the corrupt bureaucracy which was
ruining the provinces. Indeed, might these nominees of his cousin be
withstood ? The undefined limits of his office might always render it
an open question whether the assertion of the Caesar's right were not
aggression upon imperial privilege. Julian's conscious power and burn-
ing enthusiasm felt the cruel curb of his subordination. Constantius
wished loyally to support his young relative, had given him the supreme
command in Gaul after the first trial year and was determined that he
## p. 71 (#101) #############################################
355–359]
Constantius on the Danube
71
should be supported by experienced generals, but Julian was far distant
and his enemies at Court had the Emperor's ear; for them his successes
and virtues but rendered him the more dangerous ; the eunuch gang,
says Ammianus, only worked the harder at the smithies where calumnies
were forged. At times they mocked the Caesar's vanity and decried his
conquests, at others they played upon the suspicions of Constantius:
Julian was victor to-day, why not another Victorinus—an upstart
Emperor of Gaul-to-morrow. Imperial messengers to the West were
careful to bring back ominous reports, and Julian, who knew how matters
stood and was not ignorant of his cousin's failings, may well have feared
the overmastering influence of the Emperor's advisers. Thus constantly
checked in his plans of reform alike religious and political, already, it
may be, hailed as Augustus by his soldiery and dreading the machinations
of courtiers, he began, at first perhaps in spite of himself, to long for
greater independence; in 359 he was dreaming of the time when he
should be no longer Caesar. The war in the East gave him his opportunity.
While Julian had been recovering Gaul, Constantius had been engaged
in a series of campaigns on the Danube frontier, and for this purpose
had removed his court from Milan to Sirmium. An unimportant
expedition against the Suevi in Rhaetia in 357 was followed in 358 by
lengthy operations in the plains about the Danube and the Theiss
against the Quadi and various Sarmatian tribes who had burst plundering
across the border. The barbarian territory was ravaged, and through
the Emperor's successful diplomacy one people after another submitted
and surrendered their prisoners. They were in most cases left in
possession of their lands under the supremacy of Rome, but the Limi-
gantes were forced to settle on the left instead of the right bank of
the Theiss, while the Sarmatae Liberi were given a king by Constantius
in the person of their native prince Zizais, and were themselves restored
to the district which the Limigantes had been compelled to leave. The
latter however in the following year (359), discontented with their new
homes, craved that they might be allowed to cross the Danube and settle
within the Empire. This Constantius was persuaded to permit, hoping,
thus to gain recruits for the Roman army and thereby to lighten the
burdens of the provincials. The Limigantes, once admitted upon Roman
territory, sought to avenge themselves for the losses of the previous year
by a treacherous onslaught upon the Emperor. Constantius escaped
and a general massacre of the faithless barbarians ensued. The pacifica-
tion of the northern frontier was now complete.
Meanwhile in the East hostilities with Persia had ceased on any large
scale since 351, and in 356–7 the praefect Musonianus had been carrying
on negotiations for peace (through Cassianus, military commander in
Mesopotamia) with Tampsapor a neighbouring satrap. But the moment
was inopportune. Sapor himself had at length effected an alliance with
the Chionitae and Gelani and now (spring 358) in a letter to the Emperor
CH. III.
## p. 72 (#102) #############################################
72
The Siege of Amida
(359–360
:
demanded the restoration of Mesopotamia and Armenia ; in case of
refusal he threatened military action in the following year. Constantius
proudly rejected the shameful proposal, but sent two successive embassies
to Persia in the hope of concluding an honourable peace. The effort
was fruitless. Court intrigue deprived Ursicinus, Rome's one really
capable general in the East, of the supreme command, and in spite of the
prayers of the provincials he was succeeded by Sabinianus, who in his
obscure old age was distinguished only by his wealth, inefficiency and
credulous piety. During the entire course of the war inactivity was the
one prominent feature of his generalship. On the outbreak of hostilities
in 359 the Persians adopted a new plan of campaign. A rich Syrian,
Antoninus by name, who had served on the staff of the general
commanding in Mesopotamia, was threatened by powerful enemies with
ruin. Having compiled from official sources full information alike as to
Rome's available ammunition and stores and the number of her troops he
fled with his family to the court of Sapor; here, welcomed and trusted,
he counselled immediate action : men had been withdrawn from the
East for the campaigns on the Danube, let the King no longer be con-
tent with frontier forays, let him without warning strike for the rich
province of Syria unravaged since the days of Gallienus! The deserter's
advice was adopted by the Persians. On the advance of their army,
however, the Romans, withdrawing from Charrae and the open country-side,
burned down all vegetation over the whole of northern Mesopotamia.
This devastation and the swollen stream of the Euphrates forced the
Persians to strike northward through Sophene; Sapor crossed the river
higher in its course and marched towards Amida. The city refused
to surrender, and the death of the son of Grumbates, king of the
Chionitae, provoked Sapor to abandon his attack on Syria and to press
the siege. Six legions formed the standing garrison, a force which
probably numbered some 6000 men in all. But at the time of
the Persian advance the country-folk had all assembled for the yearly
market, and when the peasantry fled for refuge within the city walls
Amida was densely overcrowded. None however dreamed of surrender ;
Ammianus, one of the besieged, has left us a vivid account of those heroic
seventy-three days. In the end the city fell (6 Oct. ) and its inhabitants
were either slain or carried into captivity. Winter was now approaching
and Sapor was forced to return to Persia with the loss of 30,000 men.
The sacrifice of Amida had saved the eastern provinces of the Roman
Empire, but the fall of the city also convinced Constantius that more
troops were needed if Rome was to withstand the enemy. Accordingly
the Emperor sent by the tribune Decentius his momentous order that
the auxiliary troops, the Aeruli Batavi Celtae and Petulantes, should
leave Gaul forthwith, and with them 300 men from each of the remaining
Gallic regiments. The demand reached Julian in Paris where he was
spending the winter (January ? 360); for him the serious feature of the
## p. 73 (#103) #############################################
360]
“ Julianus Augustus”
73
despatch was that the execution of the Emperor's command was entrusted
to Lupicinus and Gintonius', while Julian himself was ignored. The
transference of the troops was probably an imperial necessity, but this
could not justify the form of the Emperor's despatch. The unrelenting
malice of the courtiers had carried the day; Constantius seems to have
lost confidence in his Caesar. At first Julian thought to lay down his
office; then he temporised : he professed that obedience to the Emperor
would imperil the safety of the province, he raised the objection that the
barbarians had enlisted on the understanding that they should never be
called upon to serve beyond the Alps, Lupicinus was in Britain fighting
the Picts and Scots, while Florentius, to whose influence rumour ascribed the
Emperor's action, was absent in Vienne. Julian summoned him to Paris
to give his advice, but the praefect pleaded the urgency of the supervision
of the corn supply and remained where he was. While Julian played
a waiting game, a timely broadsheet was found in the camp of the
Celtae and Petulantes. The anonymous author complained that the
soldiers were being dragged none knew whither, leaving their families to
be captured by the Alemanni. The partisans of Constantius saw the
danger; should Julian still delay, they insisted, he would but justify the
Emperor's suspicions. His hand was forced; he wrote a letter to
Constantius, ordered the soldiers to leave their winter quarters and gave
permission for their families to accompany them ; Sintula, the Caesar's
tribune of the stable, at once set out for the East with a picked body
of Gentiles and Scutarii. Unwisely, as events proved, the court party
demanded that the troops should march through Paris : there, they
thought, any disaffection could be repressed. Julian met the men outside
the city and spoke them fair, their officers he invited to a banquet in the
evening. But when the guests had returned to their quarters, there
suddenly arose in the camp a passionate shout, and crowding tumultu-
ously to the palace the soldiers surrounded its walls, raising the fateful
acclamation,“Julianus Augustus. ” Without, the army clamoured, within
his room its leader wrestled with the gods until the dawn, and with the
break of a new day he was assured of Heaven's blessing. When he
came forth to face his men he might attempt to dissuade them, but he
knew that he would bow to their will. Raised upon a shield and
crowned with a standard bearer's torque, the Caesar returned to his
palace an Emperor. But now that the irrevocable step was taken, his
resolution seemed to have failed him and he remained in retirement-
perhaps for some days. The adherents of Constantius took heart and
a group of conspirators plotted against Julian's life. But the secret was
not kept, and the soldiers once more encircled the palace and would not
be contented until they had seen their Emperor alive and well. From
this moment Julian stifled his scruples and accepted accomplished fact.
After the flight of Decentius and Florentius he despatched Eutherius
i Or Sintula. Amm, xx. 4. 3.
сн. п.
## p. 74 (#104) #############################################
74
Julian and Constantius
[ 360–361
!
and his magister officiorum Pentadius as ambassadors to Constantius,
while in his letter he proposed the terms which he was prepared to make
the basis of a compromise. He would send to the East troops raised
from the dediticii and the Germans settled on the left bank of the
Rhine—to withdraw the Gallic troops would be, he professed, to
endanger the safety of the province—while Constantius should allow
him to appoint his own officials, both military and civil, save only that
the nomination of the praetorian praefect should rest with the elder
Augustus, whose superior authority Julian avowed himself willing to
acknowledge. When the news from Paris reached Caesarea, Constantius
hesitated : should he march forthwith against his rebellious Caesar and
desert the East while the Persians were threatening to renew the attack
of the previous year, or should he subordinate his personal quarrel to the
interests of the State ? Loyalty to his conception of an Emperor's duty
carried the day and he advanced to Edessa. The fact that the Persians
in this year were able to recover Singara, once more fallen into Roman
hands, and to capture and garrison Bezabdê, a fortress on the Tigris in
Zabdicene, while the Emperor remained perforce inactive, serves to show
how very earnest was his need of troops. Even the attempt to recover
Bezabdê in the autumn was unsuccessful. Meanwhile Constantius,
ignoring Julian's proposals, made several nominations to high officers in
the West, and despatched Leonas to bid the rebel lay aside the purple
with which a turbulent soldiery had invested him.
## p. 57 (#87) ##############################################
338]
The War with Persia
57
so recently murdered : his self-denial should prove his innocence! . During
the next thirteen years three great and more or less independent interests
absorbed the energies of Constantius : the welfare and doctrine of the
Christian Church”, the long drawn and largely ineffective struggle
against Persia and lastly the assertion and maintenance of his personal
influence in the affairs of the West.
It was to Asia that Constantius hastened after his meeting with his
co-rulers. Before his arrival Nisibis had successfully withstood a Persian
siege (autumn 337 or spring 338), and the Emperor at once made
strenuous efforts to restore order and discipline among the Roman forces.
Profiting by his previous experience he organised a troop of mail-clad
horsemen after the Persian model—the wonder of the time—and raised
recruits both for the cavalry and infantry regiments; he demanded
extraordinary contributions from the eastern provinces, enlarged the
river flotillas and generally made his preparations for rendering effective
resistance to Persian attacks. The history of this border warfare is
a tangled tale and our information scanty and fragmentary. In
Armenia the fugitive king and those nobles who with him were loyal
to Rome were restored to their country, but for the rest the campaigns
resolved themselves in the main into the successive forays across
the frontier of Persian or Roman troops. Though Ludi Persici
(13–17 May) were founded, though court orators could claim that the
Emperor had frequently crossed the Tigris, had raised fortresses on its
banks and laid waste the enemy's territory with fire and sword, yet the
lasting results of these campaigns were sadly to seek : now an Arab
tribe would be induced to make common cause with Rome (as in 338)
and to harry the foe, now a Persian town would be captured and its
inhabitants transported and settled within the Empire, but it was rare
indeed for the armies of both powers to meet face to face in the open
field. Constantius persistently declined to take the aggressive; he
hesitated to risk any great engagement which even if successful might
entail a heavy loss in men whom he could ill afford to spare. Of one
battle alone have we any detailed account. Sapor had collected a vast
army; conscripts of all ages were enlisted, while neighbouring tribesmen
served for Persian gold. In three divisions the host crossed the Tigris
and by the Emperor's orders the frontier guards did not dispute the
passage. The Persians occupied an entrenched camp at Hileia or Ellia
near Singara, while a distance of some 150 stades lay between them and
the Roman army. Even on Sapor's advance Constantius true to his
defensive policy awaited the enemy's attack; it may be, as Libanius
asserts, that Rome's best troops were absent at the time. Beneath their
fortifications the Persians had posted their splendid mailed cavalry
1 For the above cf. Victor, Epit. xli. 20; Vita Artemii Martyris, AS. Boll.
Tom. viii. Oct. 20; Eutyches, Chron. dlex. Ol. 279; Seeck, Zeits. f. Numismatik, 1. c.
3 See Chap. v.
a
CH. III.
## p. 58 (#88) ##############################################
58
Reign of Constans
(338–360
(cataphracti) and upon the ramparts archers were stationed. On a mid-
summer morning, probably in the year 344 (possibly 348), the struggle
began. At midday the Persians feigned flight in the direction of their
camp, hoping that thus their horsemen would charge upon an enemy
disorganised by long pursuit. It was already evening when the Romans
drew near the fortifications. Constantius gave orders to halt until the
dawn of the new day; but the burning heat of the sun had caused
a raging thirst, the springs lay within the Persian camp and the troops
with little experience of their Emperor's generalship refused to obey his
commands and resumed the attack. Clubbing the enemy's cavalry, they
stormed the palisades. Sapor Aled for his life to the Tigris, while the
heir to his throne was captured and put to death. As night fell, the
victors turned to plunder and excess, and under cover of the darkness the
Persian fugitives re-formed and won back their camp. But success
came too late; their confidence was broken and with the morning the
retreat began.
Turning to the history of the West after the meeting of the Augusti
in 338, it would appear that Constantine forthwith claimed an authority
superior to that of his co-rulers'; he even legislated for Africa although
this province fell within the jurisdiction of Constans. The latter, how-
ever, soon asserted his complete independence of his elder brother and
in autumn (338? ) after a victory on the Danube assumed the title of
Sarmaticus. At this time (339) he probably sought to enlist the support
of Constantius, surrendering to the latter Thrace and Constantinople? .
Disappointed of his hopes, it would seem that the ruler of the West now
demanded for himself both Italy and Africa. Early in 340 he suddenly
crossed the Alps and at Aquileia rashly engaged the advanced guard of
Constans who had marched from Naissus in Dacia, where news had
reached him of his brother's attack. Constantine falling into an ambush
perished, and Constans was now master of Britain, Spain and the Gauls
(before 9 April 340). He proved himself a terror to the barbarians
and a general of untiring energy who travelled incessantly, making light
of extremes of heat and cold. In 341 and 342 he drove back an
inroad of the Franks and compelled that restless tribe “for whom
inaction was a confession of weakness to conclude a peace: he dis-
regarded the perils of the English Channel in winter, and in January 343
crossed from Boulogne to Britain, perhaps to repel the Picts and Scots.
His rule is admitted to have been at the outset vigorous and just, but
the promise of his early years was not maintained : his exactions grew
more intolerable, his private vices more shameless, while his favourites
were allowed to violate the laws with impunity. It would seem, however,
to have been his unconcealed contempt for the army which caused his
1 This is an inference drawn from his coinage.
2 Cf. the language of the Vita Artemii, 1. ο. ο δε Κωνστάντιος. . . το της εφας ασπά-
ζεται μέρος και τότε. . . κ. τ. λ.
>
## p. 59 (#89) ##############################################
350–352]
Death of Constans. Vetranio
59
.
a
fall. A party at Court conspired with Marcellinus, Count of the sacred
largesses, and Magnentius, commander of the picked corps of Joviani and
Herculeani, to secure his overthrow. Despite his Roman name Magnentius
was a barbarian: his father had been a slave and subsequently a freedman
in the service of Constantine. While at Augustodunum, during the
absence of the Emperor on a hunting expedition, Marcellinus on the
pretext of a banquet in honour of his son's birthday feasted the military
leaders (18 January 350); wine had fowed freely and the night was
already far advanced, when Magnentius suddenly appeared among the
revellers, clad in the purple. He was straightway acclaimed Augustus :
the rumour spread: folk from the country-side poured into the city:
Illyrian horsemen who had been drafted into the Gallic regiments joined
their comrades, while the officers hardly knowing what was afoot were
carried by the tide of popular enthusiasm into the usurper's camp.
Constans fled for Spain and at the foot of the Pyrenees by the small
frontier fortress of Helene was murdered by Gaiso, the barbarian emissary
of Magnentius. The news of his brother's death reached Constantius
when the winter was almost over, but true to his principle never to
sacrifice the Empire to his own personal advantage he remained in the
East, providing for its safety during his absence and appointing
Lucillianus to be commander-in-chief.
The hardships and oppression which the provinces had suffered under
Constans were turned by Magnentius to good account. A month after
his usurpation Italy had joined him and Africa was not slow to follow.
The army of Illyricum was wavering in its fidelity when, upon the advice
of Constantia sister of Constantius, Vetranio, magister peditum of the
forces on the Danube, allowed himself to be acclaimed Emperor
(1 March, at Mursa or Sirmium) and immediately appealed for help to
Constantius. The latter recognised the usurper, sent Vetranio a diadem
and gave orders that he should be supported by the troops on the
Pannonian frontier. Meanwhile in Rome, the elect of the mob, Flavius
Popilius Nepotianus, cousin of Constantius, enjoyed a brief and bloody
reign of some 28 days until, through the treachery of a senator, he fell
into the hands of the soldiers of Magnentius, led by Marcellinus the
newly appointed magister officiorum.
In the East, Nisibis was besieged for the third and last time:
Sapor's object was, it would seem, permanently to settle a Persian colony
within the city. The siege was pressed with unexampled energy; the
Mygdonius was turned from its course, and thus upon an artificial lake
the fleet plied its rams but without effect. At length under the weight
of the waters part of the city wall collapsed; cavalry and elephants
charged to storm the breach, but the huge beasts turned in flight and
broke the lines of the assailants. A new wall rose behind the old, and
though four months had passed, Jacobus, Bishop of Nisibis, never lost
heart. Then Sapor learned that the Massagetae were invading his own
CH. III.
## p. 60 (#90) ##############################################
60
Gallus Caesar
(350–351
a
country and slowly the Persian host withdrew. For a time the Eastern
frontier was at peace (A. D. 350).
In the West while Magnentius sought to win the recognition of
Constantius, Vetranio played a waiting game. At last, the historians
tell us, the Illyrian Emperor broke his promises and made his peace
with Magnentius. A common embassy sought Constantius : let him
give Magnentius his sister Constantia to wife, and himself wed the
daughter of Magnentius. Constantius wavered, but rejected the pro-
posals and marched towards Sardica. Vetranio held the
Vetranio held the pass of Succi -
the Iron Gate of later times--but on the arrival of the Emperor gave
way before him. In Naissus, or as others say in Sirmium, the two
Emperors mounted a rostrum and Constantius harangued the troops,
appealing to them to avenge the death of the son of the great
Constantine. The army hailed Constantius alone as Augustus and
Vetranio sought for pardon. The Emperor treated the usurper with
great respect and accorded him on his retirement to Prusa in Bithynia
a handsome pension until his death six years later. Such is the story,
but it can hardly fail to arouse suspicion. The greatest blot on the
character of Constantius is his ferocity when once he fancied his
superiority threatened, and here was both treason and treachery, for
power had been stolen from him by a trick. All difficulties are removed
if Vetranio throughout never ceased to support Constantius, even though
the Emperor may have doubted his loyalty for a time when he heard
that the prudent general had anticipated any action on the part of
Magnentius by himself seizing the key-position, the pass of Succi. It is
obvious that their secret was worth keeping : it is ill to play with armies
as Constantius and Vetranio had done; while the clemency of an outraged
sovereign offered a fair theme to the panegyrists of the Emperor.
Marching against one usurper in the West, Constantius was anxious
to secure the East to the dynasty of Constantine: the recent success of
Lucillianus may have appeared dangerously complete. The Emperor's
nephew Gallus had, it would seem, for some time followed the Court,
and while at Sirmium Constantius determined to create him Caesar.
At the same time (15 March 351) his name was changed into Flavius
Claudius Constantius, he was married to Constantia and became frater
Augusti; forthwith the prince and his wife started for Antioch.
Meanwhile Magnentius had not been idle; he had raised huge sums
of money in Gaul, while Franks, Saxons and Germans trooped to the
support of their fellow-countryman, whose army now outnumbered
that of Constantius. The latter however took the offensive in the
spring of 351 and uniting Vetranio's troops with his own marched
towards the Alpine passes. An ambush of Magnentius posted in the
defiles of Atrans inflicted severe loss on his advance guard and the
Emperor was compelled to withdraw. Elated by this success, the
usurper now occupied Pannonia and passing Poetovio made for Sirmium.
## p. 61 (#91) ##############################################
351-353 ]
The Battle of Mursa
61
Throughout his reign the policy of Constantius was marked by an
anxious desire to husband the military forces of the Empire, and even
now he was ready to compromise and to avoid the fearful struggle between
the armies of Gaul and Illyricum. He despatched Philippus, offering to
acknowledge Magnentius as co-Augustus in the West, if he would
abandon any claim to Italy. The ambassador was detained, but his
proposals after some delay rejected; the usurper was so certain of victory
that his
envoy the Senator Titianus could even counsel Constantius to
abdicate. An attack of Magnentius on Siscia was repulsed and an effort
to cross the Save was also unsuccessful. Constantius then retired,
preferring to await the enemy in open country where he could turn to
the best advantage his superiority in cavalry. At Cibalae the army
took up an entrenched position, while Magnentius advanced on Sirmium,
hoping to meet with no resistance. Foiled in this he marched to Mursa
in the rear of Constantius' army. The latter was forced to relieve the
town and here on 28 September the decisive battle was fought. Behind
Constantius flowed the Danube and on his right the Drave: for him
flight must mean destruction. On both wings he posted mounted
archers and in the forefront the mailed cavalry (cataphracti) which he had
himself raised after the Persian model ; in the centre the heavy armed
infantry were stationed and in the rear the bowmen and slingers. Before
the struggle Silvanus with his horsemen deserted Magnentius. From
late afternoon till far into the night the battle raged; the cavalry of
Constantius routed the enemy's right wing and this threw the whole line
into confusion. Magnentius fled but Marcellinus continued the fight; the
Gauls refused to acknowledge defeat; some few escaped through the
darkness, but thousands were driven into the river or cut down
upon
the
plain. It is said that Magnentius lost 24,000 men, Constantius 30,000+.
The
usurper took refuge in Aquileia and garrisoned the passes of the
Alps; although his overtures were rejected and though his schemes to
murder the Caesar Gallus and thus to raise difficulties for Constantius in
the East were foiled, yet the exhaustion of his enemies and the approach
of winter made pursuit impossible. Constantius forthwith proclaimed
an amnesty for all the adherents of Magnentius except only those
immediately implicated in his brother's murder; many deserted the
pretender and escaped by sea to the victor. In the following year (352),
Constantius forced the passes of the Julian Alps, while his feet dominated
the Po, Sicily and Africa. At the news Magnentius fled to Gaul and
by November the Emperor was already in Milan, abrogating all the
fugitive's measures. In 353 Constantius crossed the Cottian Alps and
at length, three years and a half after his assumption of the purple,
Magnentius was surrounded in Lyons by his own troops, and finding his
* Zonaras states that Constantius had 80,000 men, Magnentius 36,000. Seeck
bas suggested that at this time Magnentius may have been besieging Sirmium.
CH. III.
## p. 62 (#92) ##############################################
62
Magnentius
(350—353
cause hopeless committed suicide, while his Caesar Decentius also perished
by his own hand.
The importance and significance of this unsuccessful bid for empire
may easily be overlooked. A Roman civil official at the head of some
discontented spirits at the Court hatches a plot against his sovereign,
and in order to win the support of the army alienated by the contempt
of Constans induces a barbarian general to declare himself Emperor.
But though the Roman world was willing enough that Germans should
fight the Empire's battles in their defence, they were not prepared to see
another Maximin upon the throne; they refused to be reconciled to
Magnentius even by the admitted justice of his rule. The lesson of his
failure was well learned: the barbarian Arbogast caused not himself but
the Roman civilian Eugenius to be elected Emperor. Further, while in
this struggle the eastern and western halves of the Empire are seen
falling naturally and almost unconsciously asunder, the most powerful
force working for unity is the dynastic sentiment: Constantius claims
support as the legitimate successor of the house of Constantine and as
the avenger of the death of his son. His claim is not merely as the
chosen of senate or army but far more as the rightful heir to the throne.
This struggle throws into prominence the growth of the hereditary
principle and the warmth of the response which it could evoke from the
sympathies of the subjects of the Empire. No student of the history
of the fourth century can indeed afford to neglect the battle of Mursa ;
contemporaries were staggered at the appalling loss of life, for while
it is said that the Roman dead numbered 40,000 at Hadrianople
(A. D. 378), at Mursa 54,000 are reported to have been slain. It is
hardly too much to say that the defence of the Empire in the East was
crippled by this blow, and it must have been largely through the
slaughter at Mursa that Constantius was forced to make his fatal demand
that the troops of Gaul should march against Persia. Neither must the
military significance of the battle be forgotten : it lies in the fact that
this was the first victory of the newly formed heavy cavalry, and the
result of the impact of their charge, which carried all before it, showed
that it was no longer the legionary who was to play the most important
part in the campaigns of the future.
Meanwhile in Antioch Gallus was ruling as an oriental despot; there
was in his nature a strain of savagery, and his appointment as Caesar
seems to have awakened within him a brutal lust for a naked display of
unrestrained authority. His passions were only fed by the violence of
Constantia. The unsuccessful plot of Magnentius to assassinate the
Caesar aroused the latter's suspicions and a reign of terror began;
judicial procedure was disregarded and informers honoured, men were
condemned to death without trial and the members of the city council
imprisoned; when the populace complained of scarcity it was suggested
that the responsibility lay with Theophilus governor of Syria: the mob
:
## p. 63 (#93) ##############################################
332–354]
Fall of Gallus. Julian's Youth
63
took the hint and the governor perished. The feeling of insecurity was
rendered more intense by a rising among the Jews, who declared a certain
Patricius their King, and by the raids of Saracens and Isaurians upon
the country-side. The loyalty of the East was jeopardized. The reports
of Thalassius, the praetorian praefect, and of Barbatio, the Caesar's
Count of the guard, at length moved Constantius to action. On the
death of Thalassius (winter 353-4) Domitian was sent to Antioch as
his successor, directions being given him that Gallus was to be persuaded
to visit the Emperor in the West. The praefect's studied discourtesy
and overbearing behaviour enraged the Caesar; Domitian was thrown
into prison and the populace responding to the appeal of Gallus tore in
pieces both the praefect and Montius the quaestor of the palace. The
trials for treason which followed were but a parody of justice ; fear and
hate held sway in Antioch. Constantius himself now wrote to Gallus
praying his presence in Milan. In deep foreboding the Caesar started ;
on his journey the death of his wife, the Emperor's masterful sister,
further dismayed him, and after passing through Constantinople his
guard of honour became his gaolers ; stripped of his purple by Barbatio
in Poetovio, he was brought near Pola before a commission headed by
Eusebius, the Emperor's chamberlain, and bidden to account for his
administration in the East. The Court came to the required conclusion,
and Gallus was beheaded.
Thus of the house of Constantine there only remained the Emperor's
cousin Julian. Born in all probability
Born in all probability in April 332, the child spent his
early years in Constantinople; his mother Basilina, daughter of the
praetorian praefect Anicius Julianus, died only a few months after the
birth of her son, while his father Julius Constantius, younger brother of
Constantine the Great, perished in the massacre of 337. From this
Julian was spared by his extreme youth and was thereupon removed to
Nicomedia and entrusted to the charge of a distant relative, by name
Eusebius, who was at the time bishop of the city. When seven years
of
age, his education was undertaken by Mardonius, a “Scythian” eunuch-
perhaps a Goth—who had been engaged by Julian's grandfather to
instruct Basilina in the works of Homer and Hesiod. Mardonius had
a passionate love for the classical authors, and on his way to school the
boy's imagination was fired by the old man's enthusiasm. Already
Julian's love for nature was aroused ; in the summer he would spend his
time on a small estate which had belonged to his grandmother; it lay
eight stades from the coast and contained springs and trees with a garden.
Here, free from crowds, he would read a book in peace, looking up now
and again upon the ships and the sea, while from a knoll, he tells us,
there was a wide view over the town below and thence beyond to the
capital, the Propontis and the distant islands. Suddenly (in 341 ? )
both he and his brother Gallus were banished to Macellum, a large and
lonely imperial castle in Cappadocia, lying at the foot of Mount Argaeus.
CB. 1.
## p. 64 (#94) ##############################################
64
Julian and Paganism
[349–355
1
Here for six years the two boys lived in seclusion, for none of their friends
were allowed to visit them. Julian chafed bitterly at this isolation: in
one of his rare references to this period he writes “ we might have been
in a Persian prison with only slaves for our companions. ” For a time
the suspicions of Constantius seem to have gained the upper hand.
hand. At
length Julian was allowed to visit his birthplace Constantinople. Here,
while studying under Christian teachers as a citizen among citizens, his
natural capacity, wit and sociability rendered him dangerously popular :
it was rumoured that men were beginning to look upon
the
young
prince as Constantius' successor. He was bidden to return to Nicomedia
(349? ), where he studied philosophy and came under the influence of
Libanius, although he was not allowed to attend the latter's lectures. The
rhetorician dates Julian's conversion to Neoplatonism from this period :-
“the mud-bespattered statues of the gods were set up in the great
temple of Julian's soul. ” At last, in 351, when Gallus was created
Caesar, the student was free to go where he would, and the Pagan
philosophers of Asia Minor seized their opportunity. One and all
plotted to secure the complete conversion of the young prince: Aedesius
and Eusebius at Pergamum, Maximus and Chrysanthius at Ephesus
could hardly content Julian's hunger for the forbidden knowledge. It
was at this time (351-2) when he was twenty years of age (as he him-
self tells us) that he finally rejected Christianity and was initiated into
the mysteries of Mithras. The fall of Gallus, however, implicated the
Caesar's brother and Julian was closely watched and conducted to Italy.
For seven months he was kept under guard, and during the six months
which he spent in Milan he had only one interview with Constantius
which was secured through the efforts of the Empress Eusebia. When
at length he was allowed to leave the Court and was on his way
Asia Minor, the trial of the tribune Marinus and of Africanus, governor
of Pannonia Secunda, on a charge of high treason inspired Constantius
with fresh fears and suspicions. Messages reached Julian ordering his
return. But before his arrival at Milan Eusebia had won from the
Emperor his permission for Julian to retire to Athens, love of study
being a characteristic which might with safety be encouraged in members
of the royal house. Men may have seen in this visit to Greece (355)
but a banishment; to Julian, nursing the perilous secret of his new-found
faith, the change must have been pure joy. In Hellas, his true fatherland,
he was probably initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, while he plunged
with impetuous intensity into the life of the University. It was not to
be for long, for he was soon recalled to sterner activities.
Since the death of Gallus, the Emperor had stood alone ; although
no longer compromised by the excesses of his Caesar, he was still beset
by the old problems which appeared to defy solution. At this time the
.
power of the central government in Gaul had been still further weakened.
Here Silvanus, whose timely desertion of Magnentius had contributed to
to
a
1
## p. 65 (#95) ##############################################
354–355]
Julian made Caesar
65
a
the Emperor's success at the battle of Mursa, had been appointed magister
peditum. He had won some victories over the Alemanni but, driven
into treason by Court intrigues, had assumed the purple in Cologne and
fallen after a short reign of some 28 days a victim to treachery
(August-September 355 ? ). In his own person Constantius could
not take the command at once in Rhaetia and in Gaul, and yet along
the whole northern frontier he was faced with danger and difficulty.
He was haunted by the continual fear that some capable general might
of his own motion proclaim himself Augustus, or like Silvanus be
hounded into rebellion. A military triumph often advantaged the
captain more than his master and might have but little influence to-
wards kindling anew the allegiance of the provincials. A prince of the
royal house could alone with any hope of success attempt to raise the
imperial prestige in Gaul. It was thus statecraft and no sinister machi-
nation against his cousin's life which led Constantius to listen to his
wife's entreaties. He determined to banish suspicion and disregard the
interested insinuations of the Court eunuchs: he would make of the
philosopher scholar a Caesar, in whose person the loyalty of the West
should find a rallying-point and on whom its devotion might be spent.
In the Emperor's absence Julian once more arrived in Milan (summer
355), but to him imperial favour seemed a thing more terrible than
royal neglect; Eusebia's summons to be of good courage was of no avail,
only the thought that this was the will of Heaven steeled his purpose.
Who was he to fight against the Gods? --After some weeks on 6 November
355 Julian was clothed with the purple by Constantius and enthusias-
tically acclaimed as Caesar by the army. Before leaving the Court the
Caesar married Helena, the youngest sister of Constantius; the union
was dictated by policy and she would seem never to have taken any
large place in the life or thought of Julian. The position of affairs in
Gaul was critical. Magnentius had withdrawn the armies of the West
to meet Constantius, and horde after horde of barbarians had swept
across the Rhine. In the north the Salii had taken possession of what
is now the province of Brabant; in the south the Alemanni under
Chnodomar had defeated the Caesar Decentius and had ravaged the
heart of Gaul. The rumour ran that Constantius had even freed the
Alemanni from their oaths and had given them a bribe to induce them
to invade Roman territory, allowing them to take for their own any land
which their swords could win. The story is probably a fabrication of
Julian and his friends, but the fact of the barbarian invasion cannot be
doubted. In the spring of 354 Constantius crossed the Juru and marched
to the neighbourhood of Basel, but the Alemanni under Gundomad
and Vadomar withdrew and a peace was concluded. In 355 Arbitio
was defeated near the Lake of Constance and the fall of Silvanus had
for its immediate consequence the capture of Cologne by the Franks.
Forty-five towns, not to speak of lesser posts, had been laid waste and
c. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. III,
## p. 66 (#96) ##############################################
66
Julian's First Campaign in Gaul
[354–356
the valley of the Rhine was lost to the Romans. Three hundred stades
from the left bank of the river the barbarians were permanently settled,
and their ravages extended for three times that distance. The whole of
Elsass was in the hands of the Alemanni, the heads of the municipalities
had been carried into slavery, Strassburg, Brumath, Worms, and Mainz
had fallen, while soldiers of Magnentius, who had feared to surrender
themselves after their leader's death, roamed as brigands through the
country-side and increased the general disorder. On 1 December 355,
Julian left Milan with a guard of 360 soldiers; in Turin he learnt of the
fall of Cologne and thence advanced to Vienne where he spent the winter
training with rueful energy for his new vocation of a soldier. For the
following year a combined scheme of operations had been projected :
while the Emperor advancing from Rhaetia attacked the barbarians in
their own territory, Julian was to act as lieutenant to Marcellus with
directions to guard the approaches into Gaul and to drive back any
fugitives who sought to escape before Constantius. The neutrality
of the Alemannic princes in the north had been secured in 354, while
internal dissension among the German tribes favoured the Emperor's
plans. The army in Gaul was ordered to assemble at Rheims and Julian
accordingly marched from Vienne, reaching Autun on 24 June. That
the barbarians should have constantly harried the Caesar's soldiers as
they advanced through Auxerre and Troyes only serves to show how
completely Gaul had been flooded by the German tribesmen. From
Rheims, where the scattered troops were concentrated, the army started
for Elsass pursuing the most direct route by Metz and Dieuze to Zabern.
Two legions of the rear-guard were surprised on the march and were
only with difficulty saved from annihilation. At this time Constantius
was doubtless advancing upon the right bank of the Rhine, for Julian
at Brumath drove back a body of the Alemanni who were seeking refuge
in Gaul. The Caesar then marched by Coblenz through the desolated
Rhine valley to Cologne. This city he recovered and concluded a peace
with the Franks. The approach of winter brought the operations to a
close and Julian retired to Sens. Food was scarce and it was difficult to
provision the army; the Caesar's best troops—the Scutarii and Gentiles-
were therefore stationed in scattered fortresses. The Alemanni had been
driven by hunger to continue their raids through Gaul and hearing of
the weakness of the garrison they suddenly swept down upon Sens. In
his heroic defence of the town Julian won his spurs as a military
commander. For thirty days he withstood the attack, until the
Alemanni retired discomfited. Marcellus had probably already ex-
perienced the ambition and vanity of the Caesar, his independence and
intolerance of criticism : an imperial prince was none too agreeable a
lieutenant. The general may even have considered that the Emperor
would not be deeply grieved if the fortune of war removed a possible
menace to the throne.
Whatever his reasons may have been, he
## p. 67 (#97) ##############################################
357]
Constantius at Rome
67
treacherously failed to come to the relief of the besieged. When the
news reached the Court he was recalled and deprived of his command.
Eutherius, sent by Julian from Gaul, discredited the calumnies of
Marcellus, and Constantius silenced the malignant whispers of the Court;
accepting his Caesar's protestations of loyalty, he created him supreme
commander over the troops in Gaul. The actual gains won by the
military operations of the year 356 may not have been great but that
their moral effect was considerable is demonstrated by the campaign of
357 and by the spirit of the troops at the battle of Strassburg; above
all, Julian was no longer an imperial figure-head, he now begins an inde-
pendent career as general and administrator.
In the spring of 357 Constantius, wishing to celebrate with high
pomp and ceremony the twentieth year of his rule since the death of
Constantine, visited Rome for the first time (28 April—29 May). The
city filled him with awe and wonder and he caused an obelisk to be
raised in the Circus Maximus as a memorial of his stay in the capital.
But to the historian the main interest of this visit lies in the fact that
as a Christian Emperor Constantius removed from the Senate-house the
altar of Victory? To the whole-hearted Pagans this altar came to
stand for a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire as they conceived it:
it was an outward and visible sign of that bond which none might loose
between Rome's hard-won greatness as a conquering nation and her
loyalty to her historic faith. They clung to it with passionate devotion
as to a time-honoured creed in stone-a creed at once political and
religious—and thus again and again they struggled and pleaded for its
retention or its restoration. The deeper meaning of what might seem a
matter of trifling import must never be forgotten if we are to understand
the earnest petition of Symmachus or the scorn of Ambrose. The Pagan
was defending the last trench : the destruction of the altar of Victory
meant for him that he could hold the fortress no longer.
From Rome the Emperor was summoned to the Danube to take
action against the Sarmatians, Suevi and Quadi; he was unable to co-
operate with Julian in person, but despatched Barbatio, magister peditum,
to Gaul in command of 25,000 troops. Julian was to march from the
north, Barbatio was to make Augst near Basel his base of operations,
and between the two forces the barbarians were to be enclosed. The
choice of a general, however, foredoomed the plan of campaign to failure.
Barbatio, one of the principal agents in the death of Gallus, was the last
man to work in harmony with Julian. The Caesar leaving Sens concen-
trated his forces only 13,000 strong at Rheims, and as in the previous
year marched south to Elsass. Finding the pass of Zabern blocked, he
drove the barbarians before him and forced them to take refuge in the
islands of the Rhine. Barbatio had previously allowed a marauding band
of Laeti laden with booty to pass his camp and to cross the Rhine
Symm, Rel, ini. 6.
1
CH. INI.
5--2
## p. 68 (#98) ##############################################
68
The Battle of Strassburg
(357
unscathed, and later by false reports he secured the dismissal of the
tribunes Bainobaudes and the future emperor Valentinian, whom Julian
had ordered to dispute the robbers' return. He now refused to supply
the Caesar with boats ; light-armed troops, however, waded across the
Rhine to the islands and seizing the barbarians' canoes massacred the
fugitives. After this success Julian fortified the pass of Zabern and thus
closed the gate into Gaul; he settled garrisons in Elsass along the
frontier line and did all in his power to supply them with provisions, for
Barbatio withheld all the supplies which arrived from southern Gaul.
Having now secured his position, Julian received the amazing intelligence
that Barbatio had been surprised by the Germans, had lost his whole
baggage train and had retreated in confusion to Augst, where he had
gone into winter quarters. It must be confessed that this defeat of
25,000 men by a sudden barbarian foray seems almost inexplicable, unless
it be that Barbatio was determined at all costs to refuse in any way to
co-operate with the Caesar and was surprised while on the march to
Augst. Julian's position was one of great danger: the Emperor was
far distant on the Danube, the Alemanni previously at variance among
themselves, were now re-united, Gundomad, the faithful ally of Rome, had
been treacherously murdered and the followers of Vadomar had joined
their fellow-countrymen. Barbatio's defeat had raised the enemy's hopes,
while Julian was unsupported and had only some 13,000 men under his
command. It was at this critical moment that a host of Alemannic
tribesmen crossed the Rhine under the leadership of Chnodomar and
encamped, it would seem, on the left bank of the river, close to the city of
Strassburg which the Romans had apparently not yet recovered. On the
third day after the passage of the stream had begun, Julian learned of
the movement of the barbarians, and set out from Zabern on the military
road to Brumath, and thence on the highway which ran from Strassburg
to Mainz towards Weitbruch ; here after a march of six or seven hours
the army would reach the frontier fortification and from this point they
had to descend by rough and unknown paths into the plain. On sight
of the enemy despite the counsels of the Caesar, despite their long march
and the burning heat of an August day, the troops insisted on an im-
mediate attack. The Roman army was drawn up for battle, Severus on
rising ground on the left wing, Julian in command of the cavalry on the
right wing in the plain. Severus from his point of vantage discovered
an ambush and drove off the barbarians with loss, but the Alemanni in
their turn routed the Roman horse ; although Julian was successful in
staying their flight, they were too demoralised to renew the conflict.
The whole brunt of the attack was therefore borne by the Roman centre
and left wing, and it was a struggle of footmen against footmen.
length the stubborn endurance of the Roman infantry carried the day,
and the Alemanni were driven headlong backwards toward the Rhine.
Their losses were enormous—6000 left dead on the field of battle and
At
## p. 69 (#99) ##############################################
357–358]
Julian on the Rhine
69
countless others drowned : Chnodomar was at last captured, and Julian
sent the redoubtable chieftain as a prisoner to Constantius. The victory
meant the recovery of the upper Rhine and the freeing of Gaul from
barbarian incursions. There would even seem to have been an attempt
after the battle to hail Julian as Augustus, but this he immediately
repressed. The booty and captives were sent to Metz and the Caesar
himself marched to Mainz, being compelled to subdue a mutiny on the
way; the army had apparently been disappointed in its share of the
spoil
. Julian at once proceeded to cross the Rhine opposite Mainz and
to conduct a campaign on the Main. His aim would seem to have been
to strike still deeper terror into the vanquished, and to secure his
advantage in order that he might feel free to turn to the work which
awaited him in the north. Three chieftains sued for
peace after their
land had been laid waste with fire and sword, and to seal this success
Julian rebuilt a fortress which Trajan had constructed on the right bank
of the Rhine. The great difficulty which faced the Caesar was the question
of supplies, and one of the terms of the ten months' armistice granted to
the Alemanni was that they should furnish the garrison of the Muni-
mentum Trajani with provisions. It was this pressing necessity which
demanded both an assertion of the power of Rome among the peoples
dwelling about the mouths of the Meuse and Rhine, and also the re-
establishment of the regular transport of corn from Britain. During the
campaign on the Main, Severus had been sent north to reconnoitre; the
Franks now occupied a position of virtual independence in the district
south of the Meuse, and in the absence of Roman garrisons and with the
Caesar fully occupied by the operations against the Alemanni a troop of
600 Frankish warriors were devastating the country-side. They retired
before Severus and occupied two deserted fortresses. Here for 54 days
in December 357 and January 358 they were besieged by Julian who
had marched north to support the magister equitum. Hunger compelled
them at last to yield, for the relief sent by their fellow-tribesmen arrived
too late. Julian spent the winter in Paris, and in early summer ad-
vanced with great speed and secrecy, surprised the Franks in Toxandria
and forced them to acknowledge Roman supremacy. Further north the
Chamavi had been driven by the pressure of the Saxons in their rear to
cross the Rhine and to take possession of the country between that river
and the Meuse. The co-operation of Severus enabled Julian to force
them to submission, and it would appear that in consequence they re-
tired to their former homes on the Yssel. The lower Rhine was now
once more in Roman hands; the generalship of Julian had achieved what
the praefect Florentius had deemed that Roman gold could alone secure,
and the building of a fleet of 400 sea-going vessels was at once begun.
The lower Rhine
secured, Julian forthwith (July-August) returned to his
unfinished task in the south. It was imperative that the ravaged pro-
vinces of Gaul should be repeopled: their desolation and the honour of
сн. п.
## p. 70 (#100) #############################################
70
Administrative Reforms
(355–360
the Empire alike demanded that the prisoners in the hands of the
barbarians should be restored. The remorseless ravaging of his land
compelled Hortarius to yield, to surrender his Roman captives and to
furnish timber for the rebuilding of the Roman towns. The winter past,
Julian once more left Paris and with his new feet brought the corn of
Britain to the garrisons of the Rhine. Seven fortresses, from Castra
Herculis in the land of the Batavi to Bingen in the south, were recon-
structed, and then in a last campaign against the most southerly tribes
of the Alemanni, thosė chieftains who had taken a leading part in the
battle of Strassburg were forced to tender their submission. It was no
easy matter to secure the release of the Roman prisoners, but Julian
could claim to have restored 20,000 of these unfortunates to their homes.
The Caesar's work was done : Gaul was once more in peace and the
Rhine the frontier of the Empire.
When we turn to Julian's action in the civil affairs of the West, our
information is all too scanty. It is clear that he approached his task
with the passionate conviction that at all costs he would relieve the lot
of the oppressed provincials. He took part in person in the administra-
tion of justice and himself revised the judgments of provincial governors;
he refused to grant “indulgences” whereby arrears of taxation were
remitted, for he well knew that these imperial acts of grace benefited
the rich alone, for wealth when first the tribute was assessed could
purchase the privilege of delay and thus in the end enjoy the relief of
the general rebate. He resolutely opposed all extraordinary burdens,
and when Florentius persistently urged him to sign a paper imposing
additional taxation for war purposes he threw the document indignantly
to the ground and all the remonstrances of the praefect were without avail.
In Belgica the Caesar's own representatives collected the tribute and the
inhabitants were saved from the exactions alike of the agents of the praefect
and of the governor. So successful was his administration that where
previously for the land-tax alone twenty-five aurei had been exacted
seven aurei only were now demanded by the State. But reform was slow
and in Julian's character there was a strain of restless impatience: he
was intolerant of delays and of the irrational obstacles that barred the
highway of progress ; it galled him that he could not appoint as officials
and subordinates men after his own heart. Admitted that Constantius
sent him capable civil servants, yet these men who were to be the agents of
reform were themselves members of the corrupt bureaucracy which was
ruining the provinces. Indeed, might these nominees of his cousin be
withstood ? The undefined limits of his office might always render it
an open question whether the assertion of the Caesar's right were not
aggression upon imperial privilege. Julian's conscious power and burn-
ing enthusiasm felt the cruel curb of his subordination. Constantius
wished loyally to support his young relative, had given him the supreme
command in Gaul after the first trial year and was determined that he
## p. 71 (#101) #############################################
355–359]
Constantius on the Danube
71
should be supported by experienced generals, but Julian was far distant
and his enemies at Court had the Emperor's ear; for them his successes
and virtues but rendered him the more dangerous ; the eunuch gang,
says Ammianus, only worked the harder at the smithies where calumnies
were forged. At times they mocked the Caesar's vanity and decried his
conquests, at others they played upon the suspicions of Constantius:
Julian was victor to-day, why not another Victorinus—an upstart
Emperor of Gaul-to-morrow. Imperial messengers to the West were
careful to bring back ominous reports, and Julian, who knew how matters
stood and was not ignorant of his cousin's failings, may well have feared
the overmastering influence of the Emperor's advisers. Thus constantly
checked in his plans of reform alike religious and political, already, it
may be, hailed as Augustus by his soldiery and dreading the machinations
of courtiers, he began, at first perhaps in spite of himself, to long for
greater independence; in 359 he was dreaming of the time when he
should be no longer Caesar. The war in the East gave him his opportunity.
While Julian had been recovering Gaul, Constantius had been engaged
in a series of campaigns on the Danube frontier, and for this purpose
had removed his court from Milan to Sirmium. An unimportant
expedition against the Suevi in Rhaetia in 357 was followed in 358 by
lengthy operations in the plains about the Danube and the Theiss
against the Quadi and various Sarmatian tribes who had burst plundering
across the border. The barbarian territory was ravaged, and through
the Emperor's successful diplomacy one people after another submitted
and surrendered their prisoners. They were in most cases left in
possession of their lands under the supremacy of Rome, but the Limi-
gantes were forced to settle on the left instead of the right bank of
the Theiss, while the Sarmatae Liberi were given a king by Constantius
in the person of their native prince Zizais, and were themselves restored
to the district which the Limigantes had been compelled to leave. The
latter however in the following year (359), discontented with their new
homes, craved that they might be allowed to cross the Danube and settle
within the Empire. This Constantius was persuaded to permit, hoping,
thus to gain recruits for the Roman army and thereby to lighten the
burdens of the provincials. The Limigantes, once admitted upon Roman
territory, sought to avenge themselves for the losses of the previous year
by a treacherous onslaught upon the Emperor. Constantius escaped
and a general massacre of the faithless barbarians ensued. The pacifica-
tion of the northern frontier was now complete.
Meanwhile in the East hostilities with Persia had ceased on any large
scale since 351, and in 356–7 the praefect Musonianus had been carrying
on negotiations for peace (through Cassianus, military commander in
Mesopotamia) with Tampsapor a neighbouring satrap. But the moment
was inopportune. Sapor himself had at length effected an alliance with
the Chionitae and Gelani and now (spring 358) in a letter to the Emperor
CH. III.
## p. 72 (#102) #############################################
72
The Siege of Amida
(359–360
:
demanded the restoration of Mesopotamia and Armenia ; in case of
refusal he threatened military action in the following year. Constantius
proudly rejected the shameful proposal, but sent two successive embassies
to Persia in the hope of concluding an honourable peace. The effort
was fruitless. Court intrigue deprived Ursicinus, Rome's one really
capable general in the East, of the supreme command, and in spite of the
prayers of the provincials he was succeeded by Sabinianus, who in his
obscure old age was distinguished only by his wealth, inefficiency and
credulous piety. During the entire course of the war inactivity was the
one prominent feature of his generalship. On the outbreak of hostilities
in 359 the Persians adopted a new plan of campaign. A rich Syrian,
Antoninus by name, who had served on the staff of the general
commanding in Mesopotamia, was threatened by powerful enemies with
ruin. Having compiled from official sources full information alike as to
Rome's available ammunition and stores and the number of her troops he
fled with his family to the court of Sapor; here, welcomed and trusted,
he counselled immediate action : men had been withdrawn from the
East for the campaigns on the Danube, let the King no longer be con-
tent with frontier forays, let him without warning strike for the rich
province of Syria unravaged since the days of Gallienus! The deserter's
advice was adopted by the Persians. On the advance of their army,
however, the Romans, withdrawing from Charrae and the open country-side,
burned down all vegetation over the whole of northern Mesopotamia.
This devastation and the swollen stream of the Euphrates forced the
Persians to strike northward through Sophene; Sapor crossed the river
higher in its course and marched towards Amida. The city refused
to surrender, and the death of the son of Grumbates, king of the
Chionitae, provoked Sapor to abandon his attack on Syria and to press
the siege. Six legions formed the standing garrison, a force which
probably numbered some 6000 men in all. But at the time of
the Persian advance the country-folk had all assembled for the yearly
market, and when the peasantry fled for refuge within the city walls
Amida was densely overcrowded. None however dreamed of surrender ;
Ammianus, one of the besieged, has left us a vivid account of those heroic
seventy-three days. In the end the city fell (6 Oct. ) and its inhabitants
were either slain or carried into captivity. Winter was now approaching
and Sapor was forced to return to Persia with the loss of 30,000 men.
The sacrifice of Amida had saved the eastern provinces of the Roman
Empire, but the fall of the city also convinced Constantius that more
troops were needed if Rome was to withstand the enemy. Accordingly
the Emperor sent by the tribune Decentius his momentous order that
the auxiliary troops, the Aeruli Batavi Celtae and Petulantes, should
leave Gaul forthwith, and with them 300 men from each of the remaining
Gallic regiments. The demand reached Julian in Paris where he was
spending the winter (January ? 360); for him the serious feature of the
## p. 73 (#103) #############################################
360]
“ Julianus Augustus”
73
despatch was that the execution of the Emperor's command was entrusted
to Lupicinus and Gintonius', while Julian himself was ignored. The
transference of the troops was probably an imperial necessity, but this
could not justify the form of the Emperor's despatch. The unrelenting
malice of the courtiers had carried the day; Constantius seems to have
lost confidence in his Caesar. At first Julian thought to lay down his
office; then he temporised : he professed that obedience to the Emperor
would imperil the safety of the province, he raised the objection that the
barbarians had enlisted on the understanding that they should never be
called upon to serve beyond the Alps, Lupicinus was in Britain fighting
the Picts and Scots, while Florentius, to whose influence rumour ascribed the
Emperor's action, was absent in Vienne. Julian summoned him to Paris
to give his advice, but the praefect pleaded the urgency of the supervision
of the corn supply and remained where he was. While Julian played
a waiting game, a timely broadsheet was found in the camp of the
Celtae and Petulantes. The anonymous author complained that the
soldiers were being dragged none knew whither, leaving their families to
be captured by the Alemanni. The partisans of Constantius saw the
danger; should Julian still delay, they insisted, he would but justify the
Emperor's suspicions. His hand was forced; he wrote a letter to
Constantius, ordered the soldiers to leave their winter quarters and gave
permission for their families to accompany them ; Sintula, the Caesar's
tribune of the stable, at once set out for the East with a picked body
of Gentiles and Scutarii. Unwisely, as events proved, the court party
demanded that the troops should march through Paris : there, they
thought, any disaffection could be repressed. Julian met the men outside
the city and spoke them fair, their officers he invited to a banquet in the
evening. But when the guests had returned to their quarters, there
suddenly arose in the camp a passionate shout, and crowding tumultu-
ously to the palace the soldiers surrounded its walls, raising the fateful
acclamation,“Julianus Augustus. ” Without, the army clamoured, within
his room its leader wrestled with the gods until the dawn, and with the
break of a new day he was assured of Heaven's blessing. When he
came forth to face his men he might attempt to dissuade them, but he
knew that he would bow to their will. Raised upon a shield and
crowned with a standard bearer's torque, the Caesar returned to his
palace an Emperor. But now that the irrevocable step was taken, his
resolution seemed to have failed him and he remained in retirement-
perhaps for some days. The adherents of Constantius took heart and
a group of conspirators plotted against Julian's life. But the secret was
not kept, and the soldiers once more encircled the palace and would not
be contented until they had seen their Emperor alive and well. From
this moment Julian stifled his scruples and accepted accomplished fact.
After the flight of Decentius and Florentius he despatched Eutherius
i Or Sintula. Amm, xx. 4. 3.
сн. п.
## p. 74 (#104) #############################################
74
Julian and Constantius
[ 360–361
!
and his magister officiorum Pentadius as ambassadors to Constantius,
while in his letter he proposed the terms which he was prepared to make
the basis of a compromise. He would send to the East troops raised
from the dediticii and the Germans settled on the left bank of the
Rhine—to withdraw the Gallic troops would be, he professed, to
endanger the safety of the province—while Constantius should allow
him to appoint his own officials, both military and civil, save only that
the nomination of the praetorian praefect should rest with the elder
Augustus, whose superior authority Julian avowed himself willing to
acknowledge. When the news from Paris reached Caesarea, Constantius
hesitated : should he march forthwith against his rebellious Caesar and
desert the East while the Persians were threatening to renew the attack
of the previous year, or should he subordinate his personal quarrel to the
interests of the State ? Loyalty to his conception of an Emperor's duty
carried the day and he advanced to Edessa. The fact that the Persians
in this year were able to recover Singara, once more fallen into Roman
hands, and to capture and garrison Bezabdê, a fortress on the Tigris in
Zabdicene, while the Emperor remained perforce inactive, serves to show
how very earnest was his need of troops. Even the attempt to recover
Bezabdê in the autumn was unsuccessful. Meanwhile Constantius,
ignoring Julian's proposals, made several nominations to high officers in
the West, and despatched Leonas to bid the rebel lay aside the purple
with which a turbulent soldiery had invested him.
