Julian (10 page)

"Where is Libanius now?"

"At Nicomedia, where as usual he is making himself difficult. He has a passion to be noticed." The more Nicocles denounced Libanius, the more interested I became in him. I decided I must meet him. But how? Libanius could not come to Constantinople and I could not go to Nicomedia. Fortunately, I had an ally. I liked the Armenian eunuch Eutherius as much as I disliked Nicocles. Eutherius taught me court ceremonial three times a week. He was a grave man of natural dignity who did not look or sound like a eunuch. His beard was normal. His voice was low. He had been cut at the age of twenty, so he had known what it was to be a man. He once told me in grisly detail how he had almost died during the operation, "from loss of blood, because the older you are, the more dangerous the operation is. But I have been happy. I have had an interesting life. And there is something to be said for not wasting one's time in the pursuit of sexual pleasure." But though this was true of Eutherius, it was not true of all eunuchs, especially those at the palace. Despite their incapacity, eunuchs are capable of sexual activity, as I one day witnessed, in a scene I shall describe in its proper place.

When I told Eutherius that I wanted to go to Nicomedia, he agreed to conduct the intricate negotiations with the Chamberlain's office. Letters were exchanged daily between my household and the palace. Eutherius was often in the absurd position of writing, first, my letter of request, and then Eusebius's elaborate letter of reiection. "It is good practice for me," said Eutherius wearily, as the months dragged on.

Shortly after New Year 349 Eusebius agreed to let me go to Nicomedia on condition that I do not attend the lectures of Libanius. As Nicocles put it, "Just as we protect our young from those who suffer from the fever, so we must protect them from dangerous ideas, not to mention poor rhetoric. As stylist, Libanius has a tendency to facetiousness which you would find most boring. As philosopher, he is dangerously committed to the foolish past."

To make sure that I would not cheat, Ecebolius was ordered to accompany me to Nicomedia.

Ecebolius and I arrived at Nicomedia in February 349. I enjoyed myself hugely that winter. I attended lectures. I listened to skilled Sophists debate. I met students of my own age. This was not always an easy matter, for they were terrified of me, while I hardly knew how to behave with them.

Libanius was much spoken of in the city. But I saw him only once. He was surrounded by students in one of the porticoes near the gymnasium of Trajan. He was a dark, rather handsome man.

Ecebolius pointed him out, saying grimly, "Who else would imitate Socrates in everything but wisdom?"

"Is he so bad?"

"He is a troublemaker. Worse than that, he is a bad rhetorician. He never learned to speak properly. He simply chatters."

"But his writings are superb."

"How do you know?" Ecebolius looked at me sharply.

"I… from the others here. They talk about him." To this day Ecebolius does not know that I used to pay to have Libanius's lectures taken down in shorthand. Though Libanius had been warned not to approach me, he secretly sent me copies of his lectures, for which I paid him well.

"He can only corrupt," said Ecebolius. "Not only is he a poor model for style, he despises our religion. He is impious."

Priscus
: That sounds just like Ecebolius, doesn't it? Of course when Julian became emperor, Ecebolius embraced Hellenism. Then when Valentinian and Valens became co-emperors, Ecebolius threw himself down in front of the Church of the Holy Apostles, crying, "Tread on me! I am as salt which has lost its sayour!" I always wondered if anybody did tread on him. I should have liked to. He changed his religion five times in thirty years and died at a fine old age, honoured by all. If there is a moral to his career, it eludes me.

I do recall that story about you and the senator's daughter. Is it true? I always suspected you were rather a lady's man, in your day of course.

Libanius
: No, I shall not give Priscus the,pleasure of an answer. I shall also suppress Julian's references to that old scandal. It serves no purpose to rake over the past in such a pointless way. I have always known that a story more or less along those lines was circulated about me, but this is the first time I have been confronted with it in all its malice. Envious Sophists will go to any lengths to tear down one's reputation. There was no "senator's daughter", at least not as described. The whole thing is absurd. For one thing, if I had been dismissed by the Emperor on such a charge, why was I then asked by the court to return to Constantinople in 353? Which I did, and remained there several years before coming home to Antioch.

I am far more irritated by Ecebolius's reference to my "facetiousness". That from him! I have always inclined to a grave—some feel too grave—style, only occasionally lightened by humour. Also, if I am as poor a stylist as he suggests, why am I the most imitated of living writers? Even in those days, a prince paid for my lecture notes! Incidentally, Julian says that he paid me for the lectures. That is not true. Julian paid one of my students who had a complete set of notes. He also engaged a shorthand writer to take down my conversation. I myself never took a penny from him. How tangled truth becomes.

Julian Augustus

Looking back, I seem to have followed a straight line towards my destiny. I moved from person to person as though each had been deliberately chosen for my instruction. But at the time I had only a pleasurable sense of freedom, nothing more. Nevertheless, the design of my life was taking shape and each wise man I met formed yet another link in that chain which leads towards the ultimate revelation which Plotinus has so beautifully described as "the flight of the alone to the Alone".

At Nicomedia I forged an important new link. Like most university towns, Nicomedia had a particular bath where the students assembled. The students' bath is usually the cheapest in town, though not always, for students have strange tastes and when they suddenly decide that such-and-such a tavern or bath or arcade is the one place where they most want to gather, they will then think nothing of cost or comfort.

I longed to go alone to the baths and mingle with students my own age, but Ecebolius always accompanied me. "The Chamberlain's orders," he would say, whenever we entered the baths, my two guards trailing us as though we were potential thieves in a market-place. Even in the hot room, I would be flanked by sweating guards while Ecebolius hovered near by to see that no one presented himself to me without first speaking to him. As a result, the students I wanted to meet were scared off.

But one morning Ecebolius awakened with the fever. "I must keep to my bed 'with only cruel pain for handmaid'," he said, teeth chattering. I told him how sorry I was and then, utterly happy, I left for the baths. My guards promised that once inside they would not stick too closely to me. They realized how much I wanted to be anonymous, and in those days it was possible, for I was not well known in Nicomedia. I never went into the agora, and when I attended lectures I always came in last and sat at the back.

Students go to the baths in the morning, when the admission price is cheapest. Shortly before noon I queued up and followed the mob into the changing room where I undressed at the opposite end from my two guards, who pretended to be soldiers on leave. As far as I know, I was not recognized.

Since the day was warm, I went outside to the palaestra; here the athletically inclined were doing exercises and playing games. Avoiding the inevitable group of old men who linger watchfully in the shade, I crossed to a lively-looking group, seated on a bench in the sun. They ignored me when I sat beside them.

"And you took the money?"

"I did. We all did. About a hundred of us."

"Then what happened?"

"We never went to his lectures."

"Was he angry?"

"Of course."

"But not as angry as he was when…"

"… when all of us went
back
to Libanius!"

They laughed at what was in those days a famous story. Within a year of Libanius's arrival at Nicomedia, he was easily the most popular teacher in the city. This naturally enraged his rival Sophists, one of whom tried to buy Libanius's students away from him. The students took the man's money and continued to attend Libanius's lectures. It was a fine joke, until the furious Sophists applied to friends at court who had Libanius arrested on some spurious charge. Fortunately, he was soon freed.

Libanius
: This was the beginning of my interest in penal reform. Over the years I have written a good deal on the subject, and there is some evidence that I am beginning to arouse the conscience of the East. At least our rulers are now aware of the barbarous conditions in which prisoners are held. I had never realized how truly hopeless our prison system is until I myself was incarcerated. But improvements are hard to make. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I do not think human beings are innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind. And now I am digressing.

Is this age? Just yesterday I had a most curious conversation on that subject with an old friend and colleague. I asked him why it was that nowadays whenever I address the assembly at Antioch, the senators cough and talk among themselves. I realize I am not a master of oratory, but after all what I have to say and the way in which I say it is—and I do not mean this immodestly -of obvious interest to the world. I am the most famous living writer of Greek. As quaestor, I am official spokesman for my city.

"So why do people stop listening when I start to speak? And why, when the session is over and I try to talk to various senators and officials in the arcade, do they wander off when I am in midsentence, saying that they have appointments to keep, even though it is quite plain that they do not?"

"Because, my dear old friend, you have become—now you asked me to tell you the truth, remember that—a bore."

I was stunned. Of course as a professional teacher one tends to lecture rather than converse, but that is a habit most public men fall into. "But even so, I should have thought that what I was saying was of some interest…"

"It is. It always is."

"… rather than the
way
I say it, which may perhaps be overexplicit."

"You are too serious."

"No one can be too serious about what is important."

"Apparently the Antiochenes think otherwise."

We parted. I must say I have been thinking all day about what my colleague said. Have I aged so greatly? Have I lost my power to define and persuade? Am I too serious? I am suddenly tempted to write some sort of apologia for myself, to explain my unbecoming gravity. I must do something…. But scribbling these highly personal remarks on the back of Julian's memoirs is not the answer!

Julian Augustus

As I sat on the bench in the sun, revelling in warmth and anonymity, a dark man approached me. He gave me a close look. Then he said, "Macellum?"

At first I was annoyed at being recognized. But when I realized that this young man was the physician Oribasius, I was glad that he spoke to me. In no time at all we were talking as if we had known each other all our lives. Together we took the baths. In the circular hot room, as we scraped oil from one another, Oribasius told me that he had left the court."To practise privately?"

"No. Family affairs. My father died. And now I have to go home to Pergamon to settle the estate."

"How did you recognize me? It's been two years."

"I always remember faces, especially those of princes."

I motioned for him to lower his voice. Just opposite us two students were trying to overhear our conversation.

"Also," whispered Oribasius, "that awful beard of yours is a give-away."

"It's not very full yet," I said, tugging at it sadly.

"And everyone in Nicomedia knows that the most noble Julian is trying to grow a philosopher's beard."

"Well, at my age there's always hope."

After a plunge in the cold pool, we made our way to the hall of the tepidarium, where several hundred students were gathered, talking loudly, singing, occasionally wrestling, to the irritation of the bath attendants, who would then move swiftly among them, cracking heads with metal keys.

Oribasius promptly convinced me that I should come stay with him in Pergamon. "I've a big house and there's no one in it. You can also meet Aedesius…. "

Like everyone, I admired Aedesius. He was Pergamon's most famous philosopher, the teacher of Maximus and Priscus, and a friend of the late Iamblichos.

"You'll like Pergamon. Thousands of Sophists, arguing all day long. We even have a woman Sophist."

"A woman?"

"Well, perhaps she's a woman. There is a rumour she may be a goddess. You must ask her, since she started the rumour. Anyway, she gives lectures on philosophy, practises magic, predicts the future. You'll like her."

"But you don't?"

"But you will."

At that moment we were joined by the two young men from the hot room. One was tall and well built; his manner grave. The other was short and thin with a tight smile and quick black eyes. As they approached, my heart sank. I had been recognized. The short one introduced himself. "Gregory of Nazianzus, most noble Julian. And this is Basil. We are both from Cappadocia. We saw you the day the divine Augustus came to Macellum. We were in the crowd."

"Are you studying here?"

"No. We're on our way to Constantinople, to study with Nicocles. But Basil wanted to stop off here to attend the lectures of the impious Libanius."

Basil remonstrated mildly. "Libanius is not a Christian, but he is the best teacher of rhetoric in Nicomedia."

"Basil is not like
us,
most noble Julian," said Gregory. "He is much too tolerant."

I found myself liking Basil and disliking Gregory, I suppose because of that presumptuous "us". Gregory has always had too much of the courtier in him. But I have since come to like him, and today we are all three friends, despite religious differences. They were agreeable companions, and I still recall with pleasure that day we met when I was a student among students with no guardian to inhibit conversation. When it was finally time to leave the baths, I promised Oribasius that somehow or other I would join him in Pergamon. Meanwhile, Gregory and Basil agreed to dine with me. They were just the sort Ecebolius would approve of: devout Galileans with no interest in politics. But I knew instinctively that Oribasius would alarm Ecebolius. Oribasius had been at court and he moved in high circles. He was also rich and worldly and precisely the sort of friend a sequestered prince should not have. I decided to keep Oribasius my secret for the time being. This proved to be wise.