Julian II as Caesar AD 360-363 AE4 BI NUMMUS/Emperor with globe & spear NGC (63)

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".

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.)