The chief sources for the life of
Julian are his Orations, his Letter to the
Athenians, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the Orations and Epistles of Libanius.
Tiranus, King of Armenia, was now, 337
a.d., deposed and
imprisoned by Sapor. His son, Arsaces, succeeded him in 341. Julian
is describing the interregnum. Gibbon, chap. 18, wrongly ascribes
these events to the reign of Tiridates, who died 314 a.d.
From the description of the oratory of
Pericles, Eupolis fr. 94: πειθώ τις ἐπεκάθιζεν ἐπὶ
τοῖς χείλεσιν· | οὕτως ἐκήλει καὶ μόνος τῶν ῥητόρων | τὸ κέντρον
ἐγκατέλειπε τοῖς ἀκροωμάνοις. Cf. 426 b.
Julian refers to the triumph of
Constantius over Vetranio, described in Or. 1.
31 foll. and echoes Euripides, Phoenissae
516, πᾶν γὰρ ἐξαιρεῖ λόγος | ὃ καὶ σίδηρος πολεμίων δράσειεν ἄν.
Themistius, Or. 2, 37 B quotes these verses
to illustrate the same incident.
Latin; of which Julian had only a
slight knowledge. The fourth century Sophists were content with
Greek. Themistius never learned Latin, and Libanius needed an
interpreter for a Latin letter, Epistle
956.
Or Sarabos, a Plataean wineseller at
Athens; Plato, Gorgias 518 b; perhaps to be
identified with the Vinarius Exaerambus in Plautus,
Asinaria 436; cf. Themistius 297
d.
καὶ τῶν Petavius, οὐ τῶν MSS.,
Hertlein suggests οὕτως ἀγαθῶν ὑπαρχόντων, Reiske suggests
ἐπιτηδευμάτων. ἀπορῶ μὲν οὖν ὅτου ἅψωμαι πρώτου τῶν ἀγαθῶν.
“I am at a loss which of her noble
qualities to discuss first.”
The traditional founding of the
ancient court of the Areopagus, which tried cases of homicide, is
described in Aeschylus, Eumenides. Orestes, on trial at
Athens for matricide, is acquitted, the votes being even, by the
decision of Athene, who thereupon founds the tribunal, 485
foll.
To illustrate the skill and, at the
same time, the difficult position of Constantius as sole Emperor,
Julian describes an impossible feat. The restive teams are the
provinces of the Empire, which had hitherto been controlled by two
or more Emperors.
Plutarch, Pompeius 24. For a full
description of the origin and spread of Mithraism see Cumont,
Textes et
Monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra,
1896, 1899, Les Mystères de Mithra, 1902,
and Les
religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 1909
(English translation by G. Showerman, 1911).
As opposed to the unreasoning soul,
ἄλογος ψυχή, that is in animals other than man. Plato, Aristotle,
Plotinus, and Porphyry allowed some form of soul to plants, but
this was denied by Iamblichus, Julian, and Sallust.
i.e. the intelligible world,
νοητός, comprehended only by pure reason; the intellectual, νοερός,
endowed with intelligence; and thirdly the world of
sense-perception αἰσθητός. The first of these worlds the
Neo-Platonists took over from Plato, Republic 508 foll.; the second
was invented by Iamblichus.
Though Aristotle did not use this
phrase, it was his theory of a fifth element superior to the other
four, called by him “aether” or
“first element,”De
Coelo 1. 3 270 b, that suggested to
Iamblichus the notion of a fifth substance or element; cf.
Theologumena Arithmeticae 35, 22
Ast, where he calls the fifth element “aether.”
Julian conceives of the sun in three
ways; first as transcendental, in which form he is
indistinguishable from the Good in the intelligible world, secondly
as Helios-Mithras, ruler of the intellectual gods, thirdly as the
visible sun.
De Anima 419 a; Aristotle there says
that light is the actualisation or positive determination of the
transparent medium. Julian echoes the whole passage.
Mind, νοῦς, is here identified with
Helios; cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1. 19. 9. Sol mundi
mens est, “the sun is the mind of the
universe”; Iamblichus, Protrepticus 21, 115; Ammianus
Marcellinus, 21. 1. 11.
This oracular verse is quoted as
Orphic by Macrobius, Saturnalia 1. 18. 18; but
Julian, no doubt following Iamblichus, substitutes Serapis for
Dionysus at the end of the verse. The worship of Serapis in the
Graeco-Roman world began with the foundation of a Serapeum by
Ptolemy Soter at Alexandria. Serapis was identified with Osiris,
the Egyptian counterpart of Dionysus.
Julian defines the ways in which
Helios possesses μεσότης, or middleness; he is mediator and
connecting link as well as locally midway between the two worlds
and the centre of the intellectual gods; see Introduction, p.
350.
cf. 167 d. In Timaeus
58 a it is the revolution of
the whole which by constriction compresses all matter together, but
Julian had that passage in mind. In Empedocles it is the Titan,
Aether, i.e. the Fifth Substance, that
“binds the globe.”fr. 38
Diels.
Plato in Timaeus
41 a, distinguishes
“the gods who revolve before our
eyes” from “those who reveal
themselves so far as they will.” Julian regularly describes,
as here, a triad; every one of his three worlds has its own
unconditioned being (αὐθυπόστατον); its own creative power
(δημιουργία); its own power to generate life (γόνιμον τῆς ζωῆς);
and in every case, the middle term is Helios as a connecting link
in his capacity of thinking or intellectual god (νοερός).
Helios connects the forms (Plato's
Ideas) which exist in the intelligible world, with those which in
our world ally themselves with matter; cf. Oration
5. 171 b.
These angels combine, as does a model,
the idea and its hypostazisation; cf. 142 a, Letter to the
Athenians 275 b. Julian nowhere defines
angels, but Porphyry as quoted by Augustine, De civitate
Dei 10, 9, distinguished them from daemons and placed
them in the aether.
cf. 144 c. 179 a; Proclus on Plato,
Timaeus 203 e, says that because
Dionysus was torn asunder by the Titans, his function is to divide
wholes into their parts and to separate the forms (εἴδη).
Plato, Laws
713 d defines daemons as a
race superior to men but inferior to gods; they were created to
watch over human affairs; Julian, Letter to
Themistius 258 b echoes Plato's
description; cf. Plotinus 3. 5. 6; pseudo-Iamblichus, De
Mysteriis 1. 20. 61; Julian 2. 90 b.
i.e. the individual souls; by
using this term, derived from the Neo-Platonists and Iamblichus,
Julian implies that there is an indivisible world soul; cf.
Plotinus 4. 8. 8 ἡ μὲν ὅλη (ψυχὴ) ... αἱ δὲ ἑν μέρει
γενόμεναι.
i.e. the fixed stars; cf.
Iamblichus, Theologumena arithmeticae 56. 4
ἡ περιέχουσα τὰ πάντα σφαῖρα ὀγδόη, “the
eighth sphere that encompasses all the rest.”
For the adoption of the Dioscuri into
the Mithraic cult see Cumont. Julian does not give his own view,
though he rejects that of the later Greek astronomers. Macrobius,
Saturnalia 1. 21. 22 identifies
them with the sun.
i.e. the torrid zone. On the
equator in the winter months shadows fall due north at noon, in the
summer months due south; this is more or less true of the whole
torrid zone; cf. ἀμφίσκιος which has the same meaning.
Athene as goddess of Forethought was
worshipped at Delphi, but her earlier epithet was προναία
“whose statue is in front of the
temple”; cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides
21, Herodotus 8. 37; late writers often confuse these forms. Julian
applies the epithet πρόνοια to the mother of the gods 179
a, and to Prometheus 182
d; cf. 131 c.
cf. Caesars
313 a, Misopogon 357 c. Emesa in Syria was
famous for its temple to Baal, the sun-god. The Emperor
Heliogabalus (218-222 a.d.) was born at Emesa
and was, as his name indicates, a priest of Baal, whose worship he
attempted to introduce at Rome.
cf. 144 c: Against the
Christians 200, 235 b.c. Asclepios plays an
important part in Julian's religion, and may have been
intentionally opposed, as the son of Helios-Mithras and the
“saviour of the world,” to Jesus
Christ.
This refers to the famous temple of
Jupiter on the Capitoline; cf. Oration
1. 29 d. The three shrines in
this temple were dedicated to Jupiter, Minerva and Juno, but Julian
ignores Juno because he wishes to introduce Aphrodite in connection
with Aeneas.
The Heliaia, solis agon, was founded by the
Emperor Aurelian at Rome in 274 a.d.; but the “unconquerable sun,”sol invictus, had been
worshipped there for fully a century before Aurelian's foundation;
see Usener, Sol invictus, in Rheinisches
Museum, 1905. Julian once again, Caesars
336 c calls Helios by his
Persian name Mithras.
The festival of Saturn, the
Saturnalia, was celebrated by the Latins at the close of December,
and corresponds to our Christmas holidays. Saturn was identified
with the Greek god Kronos, and Julian uses the Greek word for the
festival in order to avoid, according to sophistic etiquette, a
Latin name.
For the threefold creative force cf.
Proclus on Timaeus 94 cd. Here Julian means that
there are three modes of creation exercised by Helios now in one,
now in another, of the three worlds; cf. 135 b.c.
For the Attis cult see Frazer,
Attis,
Adonis and Osiris; for the introduction of the
worship of Cybele into Italy, Cumont, Les religions
orientales dans le paganisme romain.
The Phrygian god of vegetation who
corresponds to the Syrian Adonis. His name is said to mean
“father,” and he is at once the
lover and son of the Mother of the Gods. His death and resurrection
were celebrated in spring.
Julian here sums up the tendency of
the philosophy of his age. The Peripatetics had been merged in the
Platonists and Neo-Platonists, and Themistius the Aristotelian
commentator often speaks of the reconciliation, in contemporary
philosophy, of Plato and Aristotle; cf. 235 c, 236, 366 c. Julian, following the
example of Iamblichus, would force them into agreement; but the
final appeal was to revealed religion.
De Anima 3. 4. 429 a; Aristotle quotes the
phrase with approval and evidently attributes it to Plato; the
precise expression is not to be found in Plato, though in
Parmenides 132 b
he says that the Ideas are “in our
souls.”
Helios; cf. 161 d. The whole passage
implies the identification of Attis with nature, and of the
world-soul with Helios; cf. 162 a
where Attis is called “Nature,”
φύσις.
Hence she is the counterpart of
Athene, cf. 179 a. Athene is Forethought
among the intellectual gods; Cybele is Forethought among the
intelligible gods and therefore superior to Athene; cf. 180
a.
The Asiatic deities, especially
Cybele, are often represented holding lions, or in cars drawn by
them. cf. Catullus 63. 76, juncta juga
resolvens Cybele leonibus, “Cybele unharnessed her team of lions”; she
sends a lion in pursuit of Attis, cf. 168 b; Porphyry, On the Cave of the
Nymph 3. 2. 287 calls the sign of the lion
“the dwelling of Helios.”
In 167 d
Attis was identified with the light of the moon; cf. Oration
4. 150 a; where the moon is
called the lowest of the spheres, who gives form to the world of
matter that lies below her; cf. Sallust, On the Gods and the
World 4. 14. 23; where Attis is called the creator of
our world.
Porphyry, On the Cave of the
Nymph 22, says that Cancer and Capricorn are the two
gates of the sun; and that souls descend through Cancer and rise
aloft through Capricorn.
Chaldean astrology and the Chaldean
oracles are often cited with respect by the Neo-Platonists; for
allusions to their worship of the Seven-rayed Mithras (Helios) cf.
Damascius 294 and Proclus on Timaeus 1. 11.
cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of
Animals 736 b. 37, for the breath πνεῦμα, that
envelops the disembodied soul and resembles aether. The Stoics
sometimes defined the soul as a “warm
breath,” ἔνθερμον πνεῦμα.