Some info on emperor Julian (the apostate)

[Kyriakos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)

I had some minor reason to examine the case of a christian martyr (or rather hieromartyr, which mostly means a major martyr) known as Hieromartyr Basil, bishop of Caesaria (not to be confused with St. Basil who was his contemporary, and also contemporary to emperor Julian).

The story revolves on two main axis. One of them is the part from 360 to 364, which is from when Julian was declared Emperor by the roman army in Paris where his own army was due to Emperor Constantius II sending him there to quel a series of revolts. 364, is the date of Julian's death, as a result of his campaign against Sassanid Persia which failed in Ctesiphon, then the Persian capital.


-First axis-

Ctesiphon was the second capital of the Sassanid Empire. Its first capital was Hecatompylos, a city founded either by Alexander the Great himself, or by Seleucos, first emperor of the Seleucid empire formed after the death of Alexander.

Ctesiphon was very close to the city of Seleucia, and is (from what i read) around 35 miles south of Bagdad.

Julian tried to conquer it with his army, but failed although he did defeat the persian army outside their city and capital. A second part of the roman army never arrived, and a second part of the persian army was soon to arrive, causing Julian to effectively abandon the siege of Ctesiphon. During his attempt to return to the other side of the border between the Empire and the Sassanid territories, Julian was wounded, and three days later he died.

-Second axis-

In the story of the death of Hieromartyr Basil, bishop of Caesaria, Julian arrive himself in Cappadocia to ask Basil to rennounce christianity. Keep in mind that Julian was trying to cancel christianity and return the religion to the pre-christian time. Basil refused, but he did not just refuse. According to the account presented in the orthodox texts of this hieromartyr, Basil said to Julian that Christ had given Julian his Empire, but Julian rennounced Christ in return, so Christ will take both the Empire and Julian's life away soon.

This infuriated Julian who ordered that Basil was to be tortured in an extremely cruel way: Each day seven slices of Basil's skin were to be taken off. It would only end when Basil would rennounce Christianity. After 7 days (ie 49 slices of skin being taken off his body) Basil was summoned to Julian. Basil took a final, 50th slice of skin, himself off his body, threw it to Julian, and likened it to food in regards to Julian while food for him was the Christ. Also, that Julian's end would be even worse, and related to the suffering he chose to inflict.
Basil died shortly after, and at the time it was the year 363.

-Some points of interest-

After Julian died, in 364, Jovian became the Emperor. Although Jovian only ruled for a very small time, he did decisevely return the Empire to christianity, which never again was under threat of being the religion of Rome. In a way it could be said that Julian was the last willing obstacle to this development, and some even argue that without his will to cancel christianity, maybe christianity would not have been strongly founded at all despite Constantine's move in the beginning of the dynasty which ended with Julian.

In this depiction, from years later, Julian is curiously presented as having died in the way of being skinned utterly and hanged from the walls of Ctesiphon (something which, in reality, did not happen). This depiction becomes even more impressive when seen in relation with the rest of the story, in a poetic way

*Other note*

Late in the 3rd century, after the Parthians had been supplanted by the Sassanids, the city again became a source of conflict with Rome. In 283, emperor Carus sacked the city uncontested during a period of civil upheaval. In 295, emperor Galerius was defeated outside the city. However, he returned a year later with a vengeance and won a victory which ended in the fifth and final capture of the city by the Romans in 299. He returned it to the Persian king Narses in exchange for Armenia and western Mesopotamia.

Galerius was one of the two Augusti, when the other was Constantius I. The extended remains of the palace of Galerius are the most visible Roman part of Thessalonike, in the center of the city itself, running from the main axis to the Arch of Galerius and the pre-christian temple of the Rotonda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctesiphon

 

[Domen]

I have read a book "Amida 359" (about the fall of Amida in 359 AD, but the last chapter is about the subsequent Julian's campaign) and the author suggests, that there are some controversies as to who killed Julian. It is known that he was hit by a spear (perhaps a throwing spear) between his ribs, but it is not certain whether it was one of Persian cavalrymen who inflicted the deadly blow, or maybe one of his own men, some traitor who wanted his death.

He died partially due to his bravado - when Persian forces attacked the rear guard of his army, he personally led reinforcements to repulse that attack and he attacked in such a hurry, that he forgot to put on his armour (if he was armoured, perhaps that spear blow would not be mortal).

It should be noted that Julian was wounded at the beginning of the battle, and victory for the Romans was possible partially because his soldiers were infuriated by the fact that their beloved Emperor was wounded and each of them fought for two men. According to legend, last words of Julian three days later when he was dying of his wound, were: "Galilean, you have won!" - referring probably to his failed attempts of rooting out Christianity.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have read a book "Amida 359" (about the fall of Amida in 359 AD, but the last chapter is about the subsequent Julian's campaign) and the author suggests, that there are some controversies as to who killed Julian. It is known that he was hit by a spear (perhaps a throwing spear) between his ribs, but it is not certain whether it was one of Persian cavalrymen who inflicted the deadly blow, or maybe one of his own men, some traitor who wanted his death.

He died partially due to his bravado - when Persian forces attacked the rear guard of his army, he personally led reinforcements to repulse that attack and he attacked in such a hurry, that he forgot to put on his armour (if he was armoured, perhaps that spear blow would not be mortal).

It should be noted that Julian was wounded at the beginning of the battle, and victory for the Romans was possible partially because his soldiers were infuriated by the fact that their beloved Emperor was wounded and each of them fought for two men. According to legend, last words of Julian three days later when he was dying of his wound, were: "Galilean, you have won!" - referring probably to his failed attempts of rooting out Christianity.

Excellent post, thank you

Yes Amida seems to have been the trigger for the campaign of Julian deep inside Messopotamia. I read that the city fell in a way parallel to Troy, mentioned by the Roman historian who was there for most of the siege: the son of the ally of Shapur II, the Sassanid king, was killed by an arrow while inspecting the walls of Amida. A bit like the rage of Achilles at the death of Patroclos, his ally demanded that Shapur helps him to take the city. The city fell after 72 days of siege.

Ctesiphon was even more fortified than Amida. Julian could not hope to break its walls, no matter that his roman army defeated the persian one outside of it, and forced it to retreat inside the city itself. The rest of the persian forces would arrive soon, the rest of the allied roman forces did not arrive, so he had to leave the siege as his generals had advised all along.

Regarding who actually threw that spear, i read that some even claimed it was an assassination ordered by none other than St Basil himself...

The story of the Hieromartyr Basil, killed one year before Julian died, seems to show just the level of cruelty Julian was capable of showing in his persistence to bring back the pre-christian religion to the Empire. Maybe, in the end, Julian did the opposite, since Shapur II agreed to a peace on quite bad terms for the Roman Empire (which lost a a number of its Messopotamian provinces) with emperor Jovian, and Christianity was now entirely secured as the religion of the Empire.

BTW, there is a similar case, later on:

Amorion, a principal city in Cappadocia at the time of Michael II, the first Emperor of the dynasty named after his birthplace (that very city) was the largest asian city of the Byzantine Empire at the start of the 9nth century. It was utterly destroyed by the campaign of the Caliph Al Mu'tasim in 838. The result, in the end, was mostly regional in importance, as in that Amorion itself got reduced to its previous status of a rather unimportant Byzantine city next to the surrounding ones like Philadelphia, Magnesia and Dorylaion. However it could be noted that it was the most crucial defeat of a Byzantine Army deep inside the center of the Empire.
After the battle of Matzikert the situation was far worse, and Amorion got virtually utterly destroyed by raids in Cappadocia, and from then on abandoned.
Amorion was situated near the river known as Sakkarios. That river, almost linking two lakes in Phrygia, was the critical location where, roughly a millenium and an aeon later, the marching Greek army was ordered to begin its retreat. It was the beginning of the end of the Greek campaign in Asia Minor which started in 1920, and ended soon after that day linked to the river near old Amorion.

 

[Gucumatz]

Interesting. Also didn't know Philadelphia was a Byzantine city, I wonder why the American city of Philadelphia was named so.

 

[Dachs]

-First axis-

Ctesiphon was the second capital of the Sassanid Empire. Its first capital was Hecatompylos, a city founded either by Alexander the Great himself, or by Seleucos, first emperor of the Seleucid empire formed after the death of Alexander.

Ctesiphon was very close to the city of Seleucia, and is (from what i read) around 35 miles south of Bagdad.

Julian tried to conquer it with his army, but failed although he did defeat the persian army outside their city and capital. A second part of the roman army never arrived, and a second part of the persian army was soon to arrive, causing Julian to effectively abandon the siege of Ctesiphon. During his attempt to return to the other side of the border between the Empire and the Sassanid territories, Julian was wounded, and three days later he died.

Iulianus' campaign was not a good idea.

Firstly, it was overly complicated. He relied on a series of converging and mutually supporting attacks by widely separated armies, something that's hard enough to do by radio and virtually impossible to do without maps or a coherent sense of timing (both of which applied). Iulianus' supporters then and since alleged that the failure of these separate forces to converge was due to treason on the part of Christian generals. In reality, the sheer complexity of the operation doomed it from the start.

Secondly, it was based on a horrible premise. Iulianus apparently considered himself a second Alexander the Great and thought he could conquer Iran just because. For perspective, one of the better military emperors in late Roman history had just spent several years fighting against Iran with basically nothing to show for it. But since Iulianus beat the living [crap] out of some horribly outnumbered and outgunned Alamanni at Argentoratum, and since that military emperor had inconveniently died on his way to slap down Iulianus' punk rebellion, our apostate apparently thought he was invincible. And he was proven embarrassingly wrong in Mesopotamia. His operational plan fell apart, he couldn't hold any ground at all, and eventually ended up badly mismanaging a retreat and getting his dumb ass killed.

Anyway. His failure in front of Tisifon was just bad, bad generalship. And it ended up setting the Empire's military position in Mesopotamia back a hundred years. Good going.

-Some points of interest-

After Julian died, in 364, Jovian became the Emperor. Although Jovian only ruled for a very small time, he did decisevely return the Empire to christianity, which never again was under threat of being the religion of Rome. In a way it could be said that Julian was the last willing obstacle to this development, and some even argue that without his will to cancel christianity, maybe christianity would not have been strongly founded at all despite Constantine's move in the beginning of the dynasty which ended with Julian.

I don't know about that. It's impossible to say whether Iulianus' efforts would've gained any traction. The problem is that he never really created a credible, coherent alternative. Christianity as the underlying ideology of the Roman monarchy worked; ideologically, really, the position of the emperor changed very little between the death of Constantinus I and the death of Konstantinos XI. But Iulianus' justification was significantly murkier.

 

[Kyriakos]

Thanks again for the great info

Btw, Dachs, can you help a bit in the case of Amorion (Amorium in latin, i think) too?
I mostly wonder what the specific outcome of Al Mu'tasim's counter-attack inside the Byzantine Empire was, for the Empire itself. I was not able to specifically find that (ie, were there any significant changes in the borders after the end of that series of conflicts between Mu'tasim and Theophilos?).

@Gucumatz: Philadephia seems to mean mostly "brotherly love" but it also means "love between all humans" (as if they were brothers, so to speak). So it could have been used as some sort of name with a connotation to reconcile, in the US, or used with far more random reason.

And, back to Dachs: Constantius II, as i read, was the one who effectively made Julian emperor in the end, since Constantius II's last wish in his deathbed was that Julian is the new emperor, and thus civil war is avoided. Julian does seem to have risen to power in very strange ways indeed, from the start...

 

[Plotinus]

I don't know about that. It's impossible to say whether Iulianus' efforts would've gained any traction. The problem is that he never really created a credible, coherent alternative. Christianity as the underlying ideology of the Roman monarchy worked; ideologically, really, the position of the emperor changed very little between the death of Constantinus I and the death of Konstantinos XI. But Iulianus' justification was significantly murkier.

Julian was a dreamer. He faced an impossibly mountainous task in trying to overturn Christianity, and he at least partly recognised that himself. As you say, Christianity worked at this stage. It had become so deeply entrenched into Roman society that the only hope Julian could have had of getting rid of it would have been to replace it, by copying its institutions. That's exactly what he sought to do. Perhaps he could have succeeded if he'd ruled for as long as (say) Caesar Augustus, but what would have been the chances of that?

So it's not really correct to say that Jovian "returned" the empire to Christianity. The empire hadn't stopped being Christian just because of Julian (to the extent that it was Christian at all at this stage). Jovian was a Christian, but he didn't actually do anything about religion - he had more important things to deal with, and so did most emperors for nearly twenty years after Julian's death. They mostly just let the church get on with it.

Part of the problem was that Julian had a romantic notion of what paganism even was to start with. Remember, he was raised as a Christian. He had no first-hand familiarity with genuinely pre-Christian religion. His version of paganism was a sort of restored Neoplatonism. He wasn't really the last pagan emperor - he was the first of the neo-pagans.

I think potentially a more interesting would-be restorer of paganism is Maximinus Daia, Constantine's contemporary and enemy, who created a revivified pagan "church" modelled on the Christian church. That didn't last long, for obvious reasons.

At any rate, the claim that Julian's attempt to suppress Christianity aided its rise seems quite unfounded to me. His religious policies did aid some factions of the church; most notably he helped the Nicene faction, since he allowed all the Nicene bishops whom Constantius II had exiled to go home, hoping that this would cause chaos since he didn't exile their Arian replacements. (It did cause chaos.) But Christianity was doing perfectly well without any need for Julian's attacks on it to chivvy it alone.

BTW the martyr described in the OP is not Basil of Caesarea; there is no martyr of that name (as far as I know). It's Basil of Ancyra - not to be confused with the theologian Basil of Ancyra (who himself is rather easy to confuse with Basil of Caesarea as they had rather similar ideas about the Trinity despite belonging to different factions). Pretty much anyone who wasn't called Gregory at that time was called Basil. The martyr Basil wasn't a bishop (unlike both of the others), he was just a priest. The Acta describing his death do not state that Julian sought Basil out to try to convert him to paganism (something that would have been out of character for Julian, who thought all Christians were idiots and not worth cultivating) - the story goes, rather, that Basil sought out Julian and denounced him for renouncing Christianity. The historical worth of these Acta is uncertain, though there's only one clear historical mistake in them, namely the claim that Basil opposed Julian for a year and three months, which is impossible given that Basil died only eight months after Julian became emperor.

 

[Kyriakos]

Very interesting, again

What is the "Acta"? I was merely mentioning the canonised orthodox church life of saints (bioi hagion) of Hieromartyr Basil, the focus of which is exactly the story of his martyrdom by Julian. If that was not so, why exactly was he called a martyr? (let alone Hieromartyr, which in general means he suffered far more than anyone who was a martyr, the latter also suffering very extensively to begin with).

The Orthodox church canon is not allowing space for there being no connection to the death of Basil Hieromartyr and Julian. The canon is used in orthodox christianity (at least Greek, Russian, Armenian, Southern Slavic and so on). AFAIK hieromartyr Basil is not part of the catholic (latin) church canon, or of the churches split from that.

Later edit:

Regarding the Ancyra/Caesaria issue Plotinus brought up:

I think that Ancyra was part of the theme of Caesaria at that time(?), which (in that case) would explain why the sites i saw named Hieromartyr Basil as a bishop of Caesaria. Maybe he was not a bishop, but a priest (not sure at all there...) but again the distinction in those times may not really parallel the current distinctions (?). Both points are rather minor, though, the main point is before this part i now edited in the original post

 

[Plotinus]

The Acta is the original source for the martyr Basil, and can be found in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca 242. Most early Christian martyrs are known through "Acta" of this kind - fairly short accounts of their trials and deaths. They tend to repeat certain tropes, which means one should be at least somewhat suspicious of their historicity (e.g. they always emphasise the eagerness of the martyr to die).

I didn't say Basil wasn't martyred, only that he was a priest (not a bishop) and from Ancrya (not Caesarea), and that Julian didn't travel there specifically to tackle him.

(One interesting tidbit: I found this page, which rather gloriously confuses the martyr Basil of Ancyra with the theologian Basil of Ancyra. Since the latter was technically heterodox - he was a "Semi-Arian" - note how the article is forced to suppose that he "recanted the Semi-Arian formula", despite the fact that there's no evidence for this - after all, one can't have a Semi-Arian being a heroic martyr! In fact of course they were completely different people.)

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, i saw that page too, and one of its other errors (one obvious to me) is that it states 362 as the date of Hieromartyr Basil's death. In reality it is 363 by the canonised accounts.

So it seems that orthowiki page is just not that well-written

 

[Kyriakos]

Found a page in English too, about Hieromartyr Basil, priest of Ankyra:

http://www.crkvenikalendar.com/datumen-2287-4-4

Under the Emperor Constantius there was much suffering at the hands of the Arians. At that time, Basil became known as a staunch defender of Orthodoxy and a true shepherd of his flock in Ancyra. When, after Constantius, Julian the Apostate came to the throne and began to persecute the Christians, Basil openly denounced this new wickedness and encouraged his people in the Faith. For this he was thrown into prison. When the Emperor Julian came to Ancyra, Basil was brought before him and he began to urge Basil to abandon the Christian faith, promising him honours and wealth. Then Basil answered him: 'I believe in my Christ, whom you have denied and who gave you this earthly kingdom, but He will shortly take this from you. How can you have no shame before the altar under which you were saved from death as an eight-year-old child when they sought to kill you? Therefore He will soon take this earthly kingdom from you, and your body shall not be buried when you have spewed forth your soul in bitter torments.' Julian was furious and ordered that seven strips of skin be torn from his body every day. And his torturers carried this out for seven days. When Basil was brought out again before the Emperor, he tore a strip of his own flesh off and threw it into Julian's face, shouting: 'Take this and eat it, Julian, if such food is sweet to you, but Christ is life for me!' This occurrence was noised in the town, and the Emperor left Ancyra in secret out of shame and went to Antioch. And they continued to torture Basil with red hot irons until he surrendered his soul to his Lord for whom he had suffered so much. This was in the year 363.