Julian II as Caesar AD 360-363 AE4 BI NUMMUS/Emperor with globe & spear NGC (82)

ROMAN EMPIRE

Julian II as Caesar AD 360-363

AE4 BI NUMMUS

GRADED NGC

 Obverse: Bare-headed, draped &
cuirassed bust right

Reverse:  Emperor standing left, helmeted & in military dress,holding globe
& spear.

Flavius Claudius Julianus, known also as
Julian, Julian the Apostate or Julian the Philosopher (331/332 – 26 June 363,
Greek :Ιουλιανός), was Roman Emperor (Caesar, November 355 to February 360;
Augustus, February 360 to June 363), last of the Constantinian dynasty . Julian
was a man of "unusually complex character": he was "the military commander, the
theosophist, the social reformer, and the man of letters".



File:Julien l'Apostat, Musée de Cluny.JPG

Julian was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire and it was his
desire to bring the empire back to its ancient Roman values in order to save it
from "dissolution". He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy and attempted to
revive traditional Roman religious practices at the cost of Christianity . His
rejection of Christianity in favour of Neo -Platonic paganism caused him to be
called Julian the Apostate by the church, as Edward Gibbon wrote:



In 363, after a reign of only 19 months as absolute ruler of the Roman Empire,
Julian died in Persia during a campaign against the Sassanid Empire .



Flavius Claudius Julianus, born in May or June 332 or 331 in Constantinople ,
was the son of Julius Constantius (consul in 335), half brother of Emperor
Constantine I , and his second wife, Basilina, both Christians. His paternal
grandparents were Western Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his second wife,
Flavia Maximiana Theodora . His maternal grandfather was Julius Julianus,
praetorian prefect of the East under emperor Licinius from 315 to 324 and consul
after 325. The name of Julian's maternal grandmother is unknown.



In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish
himself as sole emperor, Julian's zealous Arian Christian cousin Constantius II
led a massacre of Julian's family. Constantius II ordered the murders of many
descendants from the second marriage of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora,
leaving only Constantius and his brothers Constantine II and Constans I , and
their cousins, Julian and Gallus (Julian's half-brother), as the surviving males
related to Emperor Constantine. Constantius II, Constans I, and Constantine II
were proclaimed joint emperors, each ruling a portion of Roman territory. Julian
and Gallus were excluded from public life and given a strictly Arian Christian
education.



Initially growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age
of seven he was under the guardianship of Eusebius of Nicomedia , the semi-Arian
Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, and taught by Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch , whom
Julian wrote warmly of later. After Eusebius died in 342, both Julian and Gallus
were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia . Here Julian met
the Christian bishop George of Cappadocia , who lent him books from the
classical tradition. At the age of 18, the exile was lifted and he dwelt briefly
in Constantinople and Nicomedia.



He became a lector , a minor office in the Christian church, and his later
writings show a detailed knowledge of the Bible, likely acquired in his early
life. (Looking back on his life in 362, Julian wrote, in his thirty-first year,
that he had spent twenty years in the way of Christianity and twelve in the true
way (ie the way of Helios).)



Julian studied Neoplatonism in Asia Minor in 351, at first under Aedesius , the
philosopher, and then Neoplatonic theurgy from Aedesius' student, Maximus of
Ephesus . He was summoned to Constantius' court in Milan in 354 and kept there
for a year; in the summer and fall of 355, he was permitted to study in Athens .
While there, Julian became acquainted with two men who later became both bishops
and saints: Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great ; in the same period,
Julian was also initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries , which he would later
try to restore.



Constantine II died in 340 when he attacked his brother Constans. Constans in
turn fell in 350 in the war against the usurper Magnentius . This left
Constantius II as the sole remaining emperor. In need of support, in 351 he made
Julian's half-brother, Gallus , Caesar of the East, while Constantius II himself
turned his attention westward to Magnentius, whom he defeated decisively that
year. In 354 Gallus, who had imposed a rule of terror over the territories under
his command, was executed. Julian was summoned to court, and held for a year,
under suspicion of treasonable intrigue, first with his brother and then with
Claudius Silvanus ; he was cleared, in part because the Empress Eusebia
intervened on his behalf, and he was sent to Athens. (Julian expresses his
gratitude to the empress Eusebia in his third oration.)

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