As the news of Constantine’s death was spreading, Constantius, being nearby, went to
Constantinople to organise the burial at the church of the holy apostles. Summer 337
lasted without any caesar ceasing power for now. Even if the succession had been somewhat settled
with regional associations for each caesar it was unclear who was to take the lead of the empire.
Suddenly, a great massacre happened, Hannibalianus, Dalmatius as well as other family
members were killed. The most likely candidate who would have given the necessary orders for such a
massacre was Constantius himself. The three sons of Constantine, met on September 9th in
Viminacium to debate over what will happen next. The three brothers, after some
negotiations and in front of the army, agreed to share the empire between themselves
and took over their cousins territories. Constantine II as the elder sibling gained
authority over his 17 years old brother Constans. Constantius meanwhile, in his eastern
provinces, was allowed to act independently and started a long defensive war against
the roman’s eternal rivals, the persians As Constans reached a majority, he wished to
gain effective independence from his brother. Constantine was not willing
to give up some of his power without compensation, so he asked Constans
to cede the African provinces in exchange. However this deal was not really
suiting his younger brother. In 340, while Constans was busy on the Danube,
Constantine marched an entire army in Italy under the pretext of bringing assistance to
Constantius against persia. His real motivation however, was without a doubt, to take what
he wanted from his sibling. Constans’s men ambushed and killed him near Aquilea, seizing
the other half of the west in the process. In the following years, he campaigned one the
borders from the Hadrian wall to the Danube. The following decade displayed indeed
frequent military activity from both brothers as well as a religious conflict between them.
Constans was a defender of the Council of Nicaea while Constantius was primarily Arian and it
is even possible that by the end of his life their father, Constantine the Great,
became somewhat sympathetic to Arianism. Those tensions materialized with councils like
that of Sardica. Such religious meetings were not very conclusive however, Constans managed
to pressure Constantius enough to obtain concessions from him nicean bishops exiled by
Constantius, were allowed to return in the east. After this, the fragile relation remained cordial. In Gaul, discontent was growing, Constans became unpopular, and the army
Magnentius, as emperor in January, 350. The western Augustus attempted to escape but
was caught and executed. After that, one of the remaining constantinian named Nepotianus decided
to seize power in Italy for around a month, before Magnentius arrived and killed him.
Hearing this and still mired in the Sassanid war, Constantius had to
buy time. He recognised Vetranio, another would be emperor as Caesar in Illyria to
limit Magnentius’s expansion and prevent them to unite against him. After some time, the eastern
emperor managed to conclude a truce with Shapur, so he headed west, making Vetranio
voluntarily abdicate on the way. Constantius appointed one of his last
cousins Constantius Gallus as caesar and imperial representative in the east as
he was engaging in a prolonged civil war. The two adversaries began to clash in Pannonia
indecisively, until the Battle of Mursa, Constantius won a Pyrrhic victory. He made a deal
with some germanic tribes to attack the Rhine, pursued Magnentius in Gaul and won
the final victory two years later. While Constantius spent his time fighting
the usurper, Gallus’s loyalty was wavering. Despite some successes, he was
acting clumsily, faced rebellions, poorly managed a food shortage in Antioch and
carried out arbitrary executions. Constantius saw his caesar as a growing problem and managed to
recall Gallus in the west to receive a promotion as Augustus. However this was a ruse, Gallus was
arrested and executed on Constantius’s orders. The Emperor noticed how frequently betrayals were
happening. He tried to rule the entire empire on his own. In 354, Constantius led campaigns on
the Rhine against the Alamanii, he took the opportunity to raise Silvanus magister peditum
of Gaul. Jealousy, however, infused the Roman high command, and Silvanus fell victim to a plot
aiming to disgrace him despite his innocence. Silvanius however, decided to end the confusion and usurped power in Gaul,
he was ultimately killed. Barbarian pressures all along the Limes as well
as the potential resurgence of the Sassanid threat convinced Constantius that despite his willingness
to rule the Roman world alone, he was not talented enough for it. Having failed to produce an heir
and being very suspicious of his generals, he decided to raise his last possible choice, Julian.
At this time, Julian was in his twenties, during his youth he had seen his family being slaughtered
by Constantius after Constantine's death. Later he spent parts of his childhood in exile in Anatolia.
Since then, he became passionate about ancient literary works and eventually converted
back to the traditional Hellenic religion. This triggered the hostility of many Christians
who ended up calling him the apostate . On November 6, 355, summoned by his
cousin, he was proclaimed Caesar in Milan and married Helena, Constantius' sister. The first task, which was entrusted to him:
to protect Gaul from the Germanic invaders. Constantius was well aware
that Julian's personality was far from that of a soldier . but he hoped
that, at least, his cousin would remain loyal. Surprisingly, Julian took his new responsibilities
very seriously. Spending the time he had in Vienna to learn and develop the necessary
skills for the coming campaign. In 356, it began, the first months
were quite successful, Julian and his men made some gains. However the Caesar
soon experienced disloyalty from his generals, they doubted his abilities and
constantly spied on him for Constantius. At one point Julian was besieged and
had to resolve the situation on his own. Clashes with the barbarians continued into 357,
and as Julian once again found himself alone, he was confronted with a large Alamanic army.
Despite the odds being clearly against him, the young cesar marched to meet them and
the two armies met near Argentoratum. The Germanic host was probably reaching 35 000
men while the Romans were no more than 15 000. The engagements started on the right
where Julian had amassed his cavalry. Chndomar however, the alamani king, had
mixed light infantry along with his cavalry and it proved disastrous for the roman
cataphracts. Soon they started routing. The caesar rode to meet them and managed
to rally a large portion of his horsemen. The germanic infantry launched a massive
assault all along the roman first line and, the troops hidden in the forest,
decided to attack the roman left wing. The enemy cavalry meanwhile was not able to
capitalize on its successes. As the battle progressed in the center, the roman line was split
in half but kept fighting. The left wing however, was winning its engagement. Soon, the roman
second line came to the aid of their comrades. The tides of battles turned as the alamanni,
pushed back, began to rout. The Romans pursued and inflicted some 8000 casualties.
Chnodomar was captured and the routed enemies fled
across the Rhine. Building on his successes, Julian spent the next two years cleaning
up the borders and administrating the west. Constantius meanwhile, was leading his
armies on the Danube when he learned of his cousin’s accomplishments. He surely was
satisfied that the campaign was a success, however he had probably wished to see Julian
fail which would probably explain the behaviour of Julian’s generals during the campaign. Gaul was
safe but Julian was perhaps growing too popular. Wishing to test the loyalty of his
Caesar, he ordered him to send troops to help him face the Sassanids which were once again
attacking in 358. By doing that, not only would he be stronger against the persians but also would
diminish the potential threat that was his ceasar. Julian's troops however, refused, unwilling to go
fight in the far east and acclaimed him Augustus. It is also possible that Julian
triggered the betrayal on his own initiative. Whatever the exact reason, Julian
tried to secure his new title diplomatically, claiming that his troops proclaimed him against
his will. Constantius, having faced multiple usurpers before that, was not fooled but for
now, continued to hold the Mesopotamian frontier. Julian set off and, as he arrived in the
Balkans, Constantius finally began to march west, but on the way, he fell seriously ill. Despite
the mutual hostility of the two cousins, Constantius chose to preserve the empire’s
integrity and protect it from further civil wars. He named Julian, his heir, and died.
Julian, the new legitimate emperor, took care of his cousin's funeral. Constantius
was buried alongside his father in Constantinople The bearded pagan emperor formulated his
wish to return to a lighter imperial power that of the principate represented by figures
such as Augustus, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. He was not the distant, godlike imperial figure
his direct predecessors were. He was a citizen emperor.
i He eliminated potential political
rivals after a trial in Chalcedon. As parts of his reforms he reduced taxes and took
care of alleviating bureaucracy and the government by removing many posts deemed unnecessary. As a neoplatonic philosopher he saw christianity
as a growing threat to the culture he admired and feared it would end up
eradicating paganism from the empire. He did not persecute the christians, possibly
observing that such strategies did not really work against them, so he decided for a principle of
tolerance for all faiths whether they were pagan, jewish, nicene christian or arian christian.
His strategy was to take indirect actions against christianity, to slowly push
it aside from the elites in hope that it would reduce its influence in the long term.
The christians, now named “Galileans” by Julian to mock them, lost the privileges
they held since Constantine and were now prohibited to teach ancient graeco
roman literary works. As a learned writer, Julian even wrote an entire book criticizing
christianity called “Against the Galileans”. The emperor invested much of his time to
restore paganism's central place in the empire. He did this by restoring temples attempting
to structure the traditional Roman religion hierarchically thus, imitating
christianity. Even with such a policy, it proved to be quite difficult as paganism,
in opposition to christianity, was in a way, a very decentralised religion, the practice
was very diverse depending on the location. In 362, Julian arrived in Antioch. However, the more time he spent in this city, the more
strained his relations with the people became. Antioch was one of the first large cities
of the empire to be Christianized. Moreover, Julian's pagan figure as well as his attitude
differed widely from other emperors of his time. During the same year, as he was
preparing for a military campaign, he contacted the jewish people. Despite the fact that they were not a pagan entity, Julian
favored them more than the christians. He allowed them to begin the reconstruction of
Jerusalem's temple, much to the christians dismay. Although an earthquake ended up discouraging
the reconstrustruction. Through this action, he probably intended to win the support of the Jews
of Mesopotamia for his military campaign in Persia Once everything was ready, a massive offensive was
launched along the Euphrates. The imperial army, victorious, arrived in front of the Persian
capital but, the expected reinforcements from Armenia were not coming, Julian had no
choice but to burn his fleet and retreat. During a skirmish with the Sassanid forces,
the emperor was struck in the chest by a spear. The wound proved to be intractable. Brought back inside his tent, he laid on his
deathbed for some time and took his last breath. Jovian resumed the retreat but, on
the edge of the imperial borders, he was trapped and, as the new emperor , had to
sign a peace treaty, the terms of which included humiliating losses for the Roman side.
In return for a safe retreat into Syria, Jovian ceded Roman mesopotamia as
well as the dominance over Armenia. Back inside the imperial borders, he rolled
back the religious policies enacted by Julian, christianity regained its prominent place. After only 7 months of rule, he died in his
sleep unexpectedly and by the end of February, one of the military commanders was
acclaimed emperor as Valentinian the first In less than 30 years, the Constantinians vanished
from history and, as the last member of the dynasty, Julian distinguished himself as a pagan
singularity inside a christian dominated elite. He wanted the religious tendencies reversed
in order to revive Hellenistic polytheism. However his reign would only be remembered as
one of the last revival attempts for paganism as. From now on, Christianity’s influence
over the empire would be cemented. The future was unclear for the Romans : civil
wars, external threats, religious division and societal changes were clear signs of the
empire’s decline, and even worse was soon to come.
