Julian is a 1964 novel by Gore Vidal, a work of historical fiction written primarily in the first person dealing with the life of the Roman emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus (known to Christians as Julian the Apostate), who reigned from 360 to 363 A.D.
Novel
The story of the novel begins in March of AD 380, nearly 20 years after the death of Julian. It starts as the text of a series of letters between Libanius and Priscus of Epirus, two confidants of Julian. In their various letters they discuss their lives and in particular the recent events involving an imperial edict of Theodosius involving the Nicene Creed of Christianity. In his first letter to Priscus, Libanius proposes to write a biography of Julian. Eventually Priscus agrees to send a manuscript written by Julian himself to Libanius along with his own comments written in the margins.
The rest of the novel is then presented as the manuscript of Julian in its original form including instructions to the eventual editor and publisher. The marginal notes of Priscus are incorporated into Julian's narrative where he feels fit to comment on or expand certain parts of the narrative. These comments are then often followed by the comments of Libanius on both the narrative and the comments of Priscus. Frequently they offer a different and sometimes contradictory hindsight interpretation of events and people than Julian expresses in his manuscript.
The narrative of Julian presents his life story but is very self-reflective in parts. He attempts to be critical of his own shortcomings as well as trying to reconstruct his thoughts and emotions at various points in his life and public career. He frequently incorporates his own observations on everything from human nature to religion, philosophy, and government.
Plot summary
Julian was the last direct relative of Constantine the Great to take up the purple, his father being Constantine's half-brother. As emperor, he attempted to destroy the influence of the Christian church. His goals were to bring back firstly the worship of the old Roman pantheon, secondly other religions including Judaism (he attempts to restore the Jewish Temple), and thirdly - with special emphasis upon the growing crisis on Rome's frontiers - Mithraism, a mystery religion that had been popular among Roman soldiers.
The book takes the form of the correspondence between two Hellenistic pagans, Libanius, who is considering writing a biography of Julian, and Priscus, who possesses Julian's personal memoir. Christianity has, by this stage, become the official religion of the Roman Empire (as decreed by the emperor Theodosius), with rioting and inquisition causing extreme violence between traditionalists and Christians, and even between Christian sects. Only thirty years after the novel took place, the city of Rome would be sacked by the Goths.
The memoir relates Julian's life from the time so many members of his family were purged by his cousin, the emperor Constantius II (whom he succeeded on the throne), his "exile" to libraries as a child, and his subsequent negative childhood experiences with Christian hypocrisy and conflict over dogma (see Arianism). As he matures, a rift forms between Julian and his disturbed half-brother Constantius Gallus, who is made Caesar (heir to the purple) by Constantius II; Julian claims, for his safety, to have no interest but philosophy, so he undertakes a journey to Athens to study under the city's greatest teachers. Here, he first sees Libanius, the book's narrator, and has an affair with a female philosopher, Macrina. He also comes to know some of the early Church Fathers in their formative years, including the agreeable Basil of Caesarea and the abrasive and dishonest Gregory of Nazianzus. Julian becomes a lector, a minor office in the Christian church, but he continues to learn about the traditional religions: he studies Neoplatonism in Asia Minor under Aedesius, and is initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens (which he would later try to restore).