Roman Jewel 5: Julian II who planted willows without heart

People unfamiliar with Roman history are likely to hear the name Julian II without the slightest feeling. Yet this was a very important person in the history of Rome. He was a remarkable achiever and a regrettable loser. He broke free from endless suffering and achieved extraordinary things, and he eventually became an apostate because he could not stop the sweeping trend of Christianity in the Western world. He strives to revive the glory of Greece and Rome, but is further and further away with the gods by the overwhelming torrent of the times.

Before we get to Julian, let's introduce a familiar stranger. Constantine the Great is familiar to everyone, but his name is known for Constantinople and not for his deeds. In fact, Constantine was an astonishing ruler. He had the last laugh in the contest with the Roman emperors, who after the unification of Rome built the great Constantinople in Byzantium, and he was also the first emperor to make Christianity the state religion of Rome.

Constantine was an illegitimate son, and his father had another wife, that is, Constantine had a half-brother, who was still from a serious royal family, more legitimate than Constantine. However, who called Constantine the best at fighting, after he unified the rivers and lakes, he put aside the half-brother's clan as a royal family.

Constantine had three sons, even if the name is counted, there are too many unfamiliar names in an article that affect reading, let's call them Junyi, Junji and Junsan. Junji was a ruthless man who killed almost all of his relatives at Constantine's funeral, and two of Constantine's half-brothers— Junsan's cousins — escaped the funeral because they didn't attend the funeral. The two sons were named Gallus the eldest and Julian the younger. We see Julian's name here, but at this time he is not even as good as a dragon runner, and there is basically no drama for him. Junji let the two brothers stay away from the center of power, exercise close supervision, and send Christians to educate the brothers.

The Roman Empire was divided. For some reason, Junyi and Junsan fought, and Junyi was defeated and killed. Junsan was also angry, and it was not long before he was usurped and killed. The second monarch who was guarding Constantinople could not sit still, and he had to go to the west to collect the usurpers.

But then there was a question, who was in charge of Constantinople when he left?

Originally, Jun'er thought well, the three brothers were in the same heart, and their benefits and Roman gold were broken, not a mother and compatriot, and all of them would be destroyed. As a result, Constantine's bloodline was basically killed by him, leaving the stupid Gallus and The Julian of Mune.

Gallus is a reckless man, he is grumpy and believes in brute force, the five big three have a thick chest without ink, although there are special teachers to teach, but he is like a student who can't read in any way, and he is worried about cockfighting and lackeys all day long.

Julian was still young at this time, except for him and Gallus, he could no longer find the bloodline of Constantine, and the people with foreign surnames could not believe it, so they had to let Gallus ascend to the throne.

So Feng gallus was Caesar (crown prince), sitting in Constantinople in the east of the empire, and Jun'er led his troops to collect the usurpers in the western part of the empire.

Junji fought for several years and finally destroyed the usurper, so he returned to Constantinople.

Constantinople passed four years under Gallus' rule. According to Jun'er's vision, it is not difficult for a member of the royal family to sit in Constantinople without seeking merit but seeking no fault, as long as the nobles in the city are appeased, the commoners are kind, do not annoy Persia, obediently be Caesar for a few years, and when he returns, everything will be fine. However, the reckless Galus was stunned that there was a way to provoke both the commoners and nobles, and the whole city opposed him, and the Roman nemesis Persia felt that Constantinople was so chaotic as if it did not make something to apologize for the good situation, so he sent Armenia to attack Constantinople.

Junji settled the situation in the west and stayed in Milan. He heard about the brutal situation in the east, had the intention of taking away Gallus's position, and worried about triggering a civil war, Gallus after all, caesar in the east, after four years of operation, there was no lack of strength, so he wrote a letter to Gallus, telling him to come to Milan to discuss important matters. Unable to believe his deception, Gallus made a long trek from Constantinople to Milan, where he was imprisoned and sentenced to be beheaded. Junji ordered Julian, who was studying in Asia Minor, to be moved to Milan and later exiled to Athens for residential surveillance.

At this time, Constantine's bloodline was left with Junji and Julian, and then killed Julian, and the Constantine Dynasty died after Jun'er, which made Junji, who liked to destroy relatives the most, also unacceptable, so Julian left a small life.

After the second return to Constantinople, the West was a mess again. Gaul and the Germanic regions lost peace due to the infighting of Junyi Junsan and the disturbances of the usurpers, and although Junji was temporarily stable, as soon as he left, the vast territory was chaotic and disorderly. At this time, a person needs to go to the West to stabilize the situation.

Since the time of Diocletian, the Roman Empire has ushered in the system of eastern and western orthodoxy and vice-emperors. Because the territory was too large for one emperor to control, Diocletian promoted another person to remain in Italy as the Western emperor in charge of the administration and defense of Gaul, Spain, North Africa and Germania, while he himself was in the east, responsible for the management of Turkey, Syria, Jerusalem, Armenia and the defense of Persia. Both emperors had a vice-emperor in charge of part of the business as crown prince. Thus the empire became the rule of the Four Emperors, a way of rule that could barely be maintained by his personal authority while Diocletian was still on the stage. As soon as he stepped down, several emperors fought each other, and finally Constantine became the only emperor. The fact that the country is vast has not changed, an emperor is still difficult to manage such a large territory, so the multi-imperial system can not be abolished, but Constantine saw the failure of his predecessor, felt that people with foreign surnames are unreliable, and the governance of the world must be their own bloodline, he pinched his fingers, there are more than a dozen male citizens in the world who flow the blood of Constantine, and the ruling group composed of these people will certainly be able to rule for a long time. Unexpectedly, his youngest son Junji did not think so, these relatives are not many competitors, so at Constantine's funeral, he killed only Gallus and Julian.

Now only Julian remains.

Junji was reluctant and had to send Julian to be the Western Emperor. Jun'er thought to himself, the West is a land of war and chaos, and there are many arrogant soldiers, Julian a white-faced student can not become a big thing, can not accumulate their own power, if the fate is not good and killed, then the extinction of Constantine's bloodline is not my business, I can at least get a peace of mind.

So Julian went from Turkey to Germany alone. At this time, the Germanic barbarians and the western Roman frontier army fought and stopped, and they could not help each other, and they were in a state of glue.

Seeing that Julian was coming, the soldiers were overjoyed, saying that Your Highness, your wise and divine martial arts, are the ones who won the battle, you take a few soldiers to fight, we can't fight. This throws the baggage to Julian.

Julian had already seen through life and death, and in his short life of more than twenty years, he was always facing the threat of losing his life, who knew when the neurotic cousin Emperor would send someone to carry it out, so Julian's every day was as if it were the last day, so he was not afraid of death. Is the hardship of a few soldiers more terrible than the knife that the emperor has been hanging over his head for decades?

Julian mounted his horse and led his soldiers who were willing to follow him to the enemy. In the face of his sober command and fearless bravery, the barbarians suffered defeats, and Julian laid the status of his western god of war in one fell swoop, and from then on, the Western soldiers not only did not dare to embarrass him again, but also swore allegiance to him, and his position as a brother in the west was unshakable.

So where did Julian learn about commanding troops?

In fact, Yurian's life is very bitter. As mentioned earlier, Julian's family was slaughtered, and his brother Gallus did not survive in the end, and any normal person who faces the dangerous predicament of so many relatives leaving and his own relatives at any time will mostly be mentally damaged, not to mention calm down to study, not to become a madman, even if it is precious.

Julian began to learn Christian knowledge, fortunately he was taught to be the most tolerant Arius priest of paganism, so Julian did not fall into religious fanaticism, but began to dabble in ancient Greek philosophy, plato's teachings had a great influence on Julian.

Later, he became acquainted with a philosopher in Ephesus named Jan Bricos, who was a typical pagan, and he scorned the Christian set, which coincided with Julian's ideas, and Julian gave up the Christianity he had been exposed to since childhood and converted to the ancient Greek gods, indulging in speculation and worshipping Socrates.

Jan Bricos had an experience of military command and political domination, and Julian learned a lot of practical military and political knowledge from this teacher, but until he was sent west as caesar of the west (the title of the crown prince), he always presented himself as a weak Christian.

It was not until Julian arrived at the Germanic front that his strong side was revealed to the world.

It is said that the East and the West have been peaceful for several years, and jun'er in the east is in a situation. The Persians next door were silent for a few years and began to rub with Rome, and jun'er felt that this was a headache, and it was always better for Persia to sneak a look at them than to rush over and squash them, he thought of the god of war cousin in the west, so he went to write to Julian to bring troops to the east to serve the king.

Julian was embarrassed when he received the letter. Will it be a self-casting net to go to Constantinople after the clutches of Jun'er, which is hard to get rid of? Not to go is to resist the will, and it is not fun to upset Augustus (the title of the emperor).

So he summoned the generals to deliberate. Some of the soldiers were northern Italians, some Gauls or Germans, and they had no affection for distant Turkey. These people heard that they were going to the east to help the emperor fight, they shook their heads and refused, now the days are good, the boss leads everyone to win the battle, there is nothing to drink, drink, sing and sing small songs, I don't know how comfortable it is, running so far to help people fight is not enough to eat.

"Boss, be emperor." I don't know who said this first, but everyone agreed. In fact, this kind of thing is not abrupt at all, and it is almost normal in Roman history for emperors to be supported by armies.

This time Rome completely turned its face upside down. Both sides were ready to go, Providence was making a difference, and just as Julian was considering how to clear Jun'er of the crime of killing Junji after defeating jun'er, Jun'er died of a very sensible illness.

Julian became the only emperor in all of Rome. He never had the idea of being an emperor, but he had no intention of planting willows, and the crown fell on his head.

Julian began to grow his beard. The Romans liked to shave their faces, and it was the habit of the Greeks to grow beards, and yes, Julian intended to start his great Greek revival plan from the beard.

He deliberately promoted non-Christians to the government, while suppressing Christianity and raising taxes on Christians, driving Christians out of the army and schools, burning churches, and re-promoting polytheism against Christianity. The origins of polytheism were in Greece, and Julian hoped that in this way the monotheistic Rome would return to the path of polytheistic Greece.

In order to suppress Christianity, Julian did not hesitate to cooperate with Judaism, he raised the status of Judaism, and the restrictions on the economic activities of Jews were extremely relaxed, which made the Jews emigrated from Persia to Rome in large numbers during Julian's rule, and at the same time took away Persian wealth, thus causing the persians to be angry.

In terms of internal affairs, Julian reformed the tax system, promoted civilians to parliament, improved the postal system, and improved the management and training level of the army, which achieved good results in a short period of time.

Julian's empire could not avoid war with the Persian Sassanid Empire. Instead of waiting for the enemy to attack, take the initiative. Julian personally led the troops, broke through the Tigris River defense line in one fell swoop, and the soldiers approached the Persian capital of Iraq, Ctesi, and fought the Persian king to make peace, but Julian did not allow it. This is the highest record of the Roman army in the history of the war between Rome and Persia.

Persia was extremely vast, the Roman army was consuming more than expected, the supply could not keep up, and in the case of unable to capture Ctesiphon and the Persian reinforcements had arrived, Rome retreated to attack other persian cities, thus turning a war of annihilation into a tug-of-war.

Finally, at the Battle of Maranga, Julian was shot with a javelin and died in the army that night. There is a saying that the indicator gun came not from the Persian enemies in the front, but from the Christians in the rear. This kind of thing is not considerable, but it is not without cause.

It was only a year and eight months before Julian became emperor, and he was only thirty-two years old at this time. In time, God knows how much Julian will accomplish. When he wanted to be a good emperor, he had the heart to plant flowers and flowers.

Julian died, and the happiest person was a Christian. They took back everything they had been deprived of by Julian and gave Julian the title of "Judge", a more serious accusation than a pagan.

Unfortunately, the Constantine dynasty was extinct, no one spoke for Julian, and he was judged as a "judge" ever since.

Yurian's last words are as follows:

Friends! Brethren! The time of parting is almost here! I walked the path of life with joy. Philosophy taught me that the soul transcends the body and is free from the noble skin, not suffering but pleasure. Religion has taught me that early death is the reward of piety, and that so far I have been supported by virtue and perseverance, that the gods have blessed me, and now I have received a fatal blow that has put me in danger of tarnishing my reputation. Since I did not commit a crime before I died, I have no regrets when I die. I am glad that my private life can be innocent, and I am confident that the supreme god has blessed me and remain pure and clean in my hands.

Abhorring the corruption and recklessness of autocracy, I believe that the purpose of government is to make the people happy; My actions are governed by prudent, just, and prudent norms, entrusting everything to destiny. My proposal is to aim for peace, which for too long has been closely linked to the interests of the whole people, but when the state calls me to take up arms in a critical moment, I will dedicate myself to dangerous war, with clear warning that I will die under the sword. Now I offer my thankful heart to the immortal gods with reverence in words and deeds, and instead of losing my life in the cruelty of tyrants, the conspiracy or the chronic sickness, He let me bid farewell to this world in a glorious career and a splendid career. Ridiculously, I still want to drag the blow of death, and there are many things I want to say, but my energy is not enough, and I feel that death is coming.

I was careful not to say anything, so as not to affect your vote for the emperor, and my choice may not be wise enough. If the consent of the army is not obtained, my recommendation may endanger his life. I express only my hope as a good citizen, wishing the Romans a wise monarch.

Note: The eldest trumpet of Junji is Constantius II, Junyi is called Constantine II, and Juns III is called Constantus. It's all pretty much the same, and I can't remember it at all.