Julian (56 page)

"And ever shall this law hold good, nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse."

It is also significant that this death cult should take hold just as the barbarians are gathering on our borders. It is fitting that if our world is to fall—and I am certain that it will—the heirs of those who had originally created this beautiful civilization and made great art should at the end be art-less and worship a dead man and disdain this life for an unknown eternity behind the dark door. But I have given way to my worst fault! Prolixity! I have delivered myself of a small oration when I should have kept to the task at hand, Julian in Antioch.

Not only did the people regard Julian's continual round of sacrifice as wasteful and ridiculous; they were alarmed by the Gallic troops who used to attend every sacrifice, pretending to do honour to the gods but really waiting for the banquet of smoking meat which followed. The moment Julian left the temple, the soldiers would devour the sacrificed animals and guzzle wine until they became unconscious. Whenever a drunken legionnaire was carried like a corpse through the streets, the people would say, "The Emperor has been praying again." This did Hellenism little good in the eyes of the Antiochenes, who are so adept at vice that they never get drunk, and have the greatest contempt for those who do. The trials of those supposedly responsible for the burning of the temple of Apollo also turned the city against Julian. As quaestor, I looked into the matter perhaps more closely than anyone. Now Julian honestly thought that the Christians had set the fire, but for once they were (probably) innocent. I talked many years later to the so-called priest of Apollo and he told me what he had not told the Board of Inquiry.

On 22 October, shortly after Julian left the temple precinct, the philosopher Asclepiades arrived, hoping to see the Emperor. Finding him gone, Asclepiades went inside and placed as an offering a small silver statue of the goddess Caelestis at the feet of Apollo, just inside the wood railing. He also lit a number of tapers and arranged them about the statue. Then he left. That was at sundown. Just before midnight, sparks from the expiring candles set fire to the railing. The season was dry; the night windy; the cedar wood ancient. The temple burned. Now if this fool had only told Julian the truth before the arrests, nothing would have happened, but he was almost as afraid of the Hellenic Emperor as he was of the Christians.

The whole episode was sad. Fortunately, no lives were lost. The Christians suffered nothing more serious than the shutting down of the cathedral. Later a number of bishops came to Julian to complain that he was causing them great hardship, to which he replied with some humour, "But it is your duty to bear these 'persecutions' patiently. You must turn the other cheek, for that is the command of your God."

Julian Augustus

Late in the autumn a large crowd appealed to me in a public place by chanting that though everything was plentiful, prices were far too high. This was a clear indictment of the wealthy class of Antioch, who will do anything to make money, even at the risk of starving their own people. Just seven years ago they had taken advantage of the same sort of situation, and the people had rebelled. Lives were lost, property destroyed. One would have thought that the burghers might have learned something from such recent history; but they had not.

The day after the demonstration, I sent for the leading men of the city. Before the meeting, I was briefed at length by Count Felix. We sat in the empty council chamber, a pile of papers on a table between us. A bronze statue of Diocletian looked disdainfully down at us. This was very much the sort of problem he used to enioy wrestling with. I don't.

"These figures, Augustus, show a century of corn prices as they fluctuate not only from year to year but month to month." The count beamed with pleasure. He got from lists of numbers that same rapture others obtain from Plato or Homer. "I have evenas you will notice—made allowances for currency fluctuations. They are listed here." He tapped one of the parchments, and looked at me sharply to make sure that I was paying attention. I always felt with Count Felix that I was again a child and he Mardonius. But Felix was an excellent guide to the mysterious underworld of money. He believed, as did Diocletian, in the fixing of prices. He had all sorts of proof from past experiments that such a system would increase the general prosperity. When I was with him, he always convinced me that he was right. But then in matters of money anyone can, momentarily at least, convince me of anything. After a brilliant, yet to me largely unintelligible, discourse, Felix advised me to set the price of corn at one silver piece for ten measures, a fair price in Antioch. We would then rigorously hold the price at this level, preventing the merchants from taking advantage of the seasoh's scarcity.

In principle I agreed with Felix. "But," I asked, "shouldn't we allow the senate to set the price themselves? to restrain their own people?"

Count Felix gave me the sort of pitying look Mardonius used to when I had made some particularly fatuous observation. "You cannot ask a wolf not to eat an unprotected sheep. It is his nature. Well, it is their nature to make as much profit as they can." I thought not. As it turned out, Felix was right.

At the appointed hour some three hundred of the leading burghers of Antioch were admitted to the council chamber. I kept Felix close beside me, as well as Salutius. As Count of the East my uncle Julian should have presided, but he was ill. The Antiochenes were a handsome, ceremonious, rather effeminate crew who smelled-though the day was hot-like three hundred gardens of Daphne; in that close room, their scent made my head ache.

I came straight to the point. I quoted that morning's price for corn. "You ask the people to pay three times what the corn is worth. Now food is scarce but not so scarce as that, unless what I've been told is true, that certain speculators are keeping their corn off the market until the people are hungry and desperate and will pay anything." Much clearing of throats at this, uneasy glances exchanged. "Naturally, I don't believe these stories. Why would the leaders of any city wish to exploit their own people? Foreigners, yes. Even the imperial court." Dead silence at this.

"But not your own kind. For you are men, not beasts who devour their weaker fellows."

After thus soothing them, I carefully outlined Count Felix's plan. While I spoke, his lips moved, repeating silently along with me the exact arguments I had learned from him a few minutes before. The burghers were distraught. Not until I had thoroughly alarmed them, did I say, "But I know that I can trust you to do what is right." There was a long exhalation of breath at this. They were all relieved.

I was then answered by the city prefect. "You may depend on us, Lord, in all things. We shall—and I know I speak for every man here—hold the price of grain at its usual level, though it must be taken into account that there is a shortage…"

"How many bushels?" I broke in. The prefect conferred a moment with several hard-faced men.

"Four hundred thousand bushels, Lord."

I turned to Salutius. "Send to Chalcis and Hierapolis. They have the grain. Buy it from them at the usual cost." I looked up at Diocletian; the heavy face was majestic yet contemptuous; how he had despised the human race!

When the burghers of Antioch departed, Felix rounded on me. "You have done exactly the wrong thing! I know them better than you. They will hold the grain back. They will create a famine. Then they will sell, and every time you reason with them they'll tell you: but this is the way it is always done. Prices always find their proper level. Do nothing. Rely on the usual laws of the market-place. Well, mark my words…" Felix's long forefinger had been sawing the air in front of me when suddenly he froze, an astonished look on his face."What's wrong?" I asked.

He looked at me vaguely. Then he touched his stomach. "The fish sauce, Augustus," he said, turning quite pale. "I should never touch it, especially in hot weather." He ran quickly to the door, in much distress. I'm afraid that Salutius and I laughed.

"My apologies, Augustus," he said. "But one greater than you calls!" On that light note Felix left us. An hour later he was found seated on the toilet, dead. I shall never have such a good tax adviser again.

•          •          •

Two weeks later I had a most unsettling vision. I had gone to pray at the temple of Zeus on Mount Kasios, which is in Seleucia, not far from Antioch. I arrived at the temple just before dawn. All preparations had been made for a sacrifice, and there was none of the confusion I had met with at Daphne. I was purified. I put on the sacred mantle. I said what must be said. The white bull was brought to the altar. As I lifted the knife, I fainted.

My uncle attributed this to the twenty-four-hour fast which preceded the sacrifice. No matter what the cause, I was suddenly aware that I was in danger of my life. I was being warned. No, I did not see the face of Zeus or hear his voice, but as a black green sea engulfed me, I received a warning: death by violence was at hand. Oribasius brought me to, forcing my head between my knees until consciousness returned.

That night, two drunken soldiers were heard to say that no one need worry about a Persian campaign because my days were numbered. They were arrested. Eight more were implicated. They were all Galileans who had been incited to this action by various trouble-makers, none of whom was ever named. I was to have been killed at the next day's military review, and Salutius made emperor.

Salutius was most embarrassed by this, but I assured him that I did not believe he was responsible for this hare-brained plot. "You could kill me so easily in far subtler ways," I said quite amiably, for I respect him.

"I have no desire to kill you, Augustus, if only because I would kill myself before I ever allowed anyone to make me emperor."

I laughed. "I felt that way once. But it is curious how rapidly one changes." Then I said to him with perfect seriousness, "Should I die, you might well be my personal choice to succeed me."

"No!" He was fierce in his rejection. "I would not accept the principate from Zeus himself."

I think I believe him. It is not that he is modest or feels himself inadequate, quite the contrary. But he does feel (and this I gather by what he does not say) that there is some sort of—I cannot find any but a most terrible word to describe his attitude—"curse" upon the principate. As a man, he would be spared it. Perhaps he is right.

The ten soldiers were executed. I used the military review where I was to have been murdered as an occasion to announce that I would not make any further inquiry into the matter. I said that unlike my predecessor I was not afraid of sudden death by treachery. Why should I be when I had received a warning from Zeus himself? "I am protected by the gods. When they decide that my work is done then—and not until then-will they raise their shield. Meanwhile, it is a most dangerous thing to strike at me." This speech was much cheered, largely because the army was relieved to discover that I was not one of those relentless tyrants who wish to implicate as many as possible in acts of treason.

But while this matter ended well, my relations with the magnates of Antioch were rapidly deteriorating. Three months after our meeting, they had not only not fixed prices, they had kept off the market the corn I had myself imported from Hierapolls. Prices were sky-high: one gold solidus for ten bushels. The poor were starving. Riots were daily. I took action.

I set the price of corn at one silver piece for fifteen bushels, though the usual price was one for ten. To force the merchants to unload their hoarded grain, I threw on to the market an entire shipment of corn sent me from Egypt for the use of the troops. The merchants then retreated to the countryside, forcing up the price of grain in the villages, thinking that I would not know what they were doing. But they had not counted on thousands of country people floeking to the city to buy grain. Their game was fully exposed.

I was now ruling by imperial decree and military force. Even so, the burghers, confident of my restraint (which they of course took to be weakness), continued to rob the poor and exploit the famine they had themselves created.

I again sent the senate a message, ordering the burghers to obey me. At this point several of the wealthier members (my own appointees) saw fit publicly to question my knowledge of the "intricacies of trade". A report of this rebuke was sent me while the senate was still in session. I had had enough. In a rage, I sent troops to the senate house and arrested the entire body on a charge of treason. An hour later, thoroughly ashamed of myself, I rescinded the order, and the senators were let free. Criticism of me now went underground. Rude songs were sung and anonymous aliatribes copied and passed around. The worst was a savagely witty attack, composed in elegant anapaests. Thousands were amused by it. I read it, with anger. These things always hurt no matter how used one is to abuse. I was called a bearded goat (as usual), a bulbbutcher, an ape, a dwarf (though I am above the middle height), a meddler in religious ceremonies (yet I am Highest Priest).

I was so much affected by this attack that on the same day that I read it I wrote an answer in the form of a satire called "BeardHater". This was written as though it were an attack by me upon myself, composed in the same style as the unknown author's work. Under the guise of satirizing myself, I made very plain my quarrel with the senate and people of Antioch, pointing out their faults, much as they had excoriated mine. I also gave a detailed account of how the speculators had deliberately brought on famine. My friends were appalled when I published this work, but I do not in any way regret having done so. I was able to say a number of sharp and true things. Priscus thought the work ordinary and its publication a disaster. He particularly objected to my admitting that I had lice. But Libanius felt that I had scored a moral victory against my invisible traducers.

Libanius
: I do regard "Beard-Hater" highly. It is beautifully composed and though there are echoes in it of many other writers (including myself!) I found it altogether impressive. Yet Julian somewhat misrepresents me in suggesting that I approved of the work and thought its effect good. How could I? It was an unheard-of gesture. Never before had an emperor attacked his own people with a pamphlet! The sword and the fire, yes, but not literature. Nor had any emperor ever before written a satire upon himself.