Julian

Nearly twenty years after Emperor Julian’s death, the pagan rhetorician Libanius asks the philosopher Priscus of Epirus for the memoir Julian left behind. Their correspondence frames Julian’s own account of survival within Constantine’s dynasty: the massacre of his relatives, his education under Christian supervision, the execution of his half-brother Constantius Gallus and his dangerous service under Constantius II. Philosophy, classical learning and the influence of figures such as Eusebia and Maximus of Ephesus shape his rejection of Christianity and his commitment to the traditional gods.

Once proclaimed emperor, Julian attempts to reduce Christian privilege and restore pagan civic and religious institutions without simply recreating the persecutions of earlier reigns. His reforms are interrupted by an ambitious invasion of the Sasanian Empire ruled by Shapur II, a campaign that reaches Ctesiphon before supply failures and retreat bring disaster. Through Julian’s memoir and the often sceptical marginal comments of Libanius and Priscus, the novel examines religious power, historical censorship and the last serious imperial effort to reverse the Christianisation of the Roman world.