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Such were the transactions which took place in the Eastern Church.
In the meantime, however, Julian, the Caesar, attacked and
conquered the barbarians who dwelt on the banks of the Rhine; many he
killed, and others he took prisoners. As the victory added greatly to
his fame, and as his moderation and gentleness had endeared him to the
troops, they proclaimed him Augustus. Far from making an excuse to
Constantius for this act, he exchanged the officers who had been
elected by Constantius, and industriously circulated letters wherein
Constantius had solicited the barbarians to enter the Roman
territories, and aid him against Magnentius. He then suddenly
changed his religion, and although he had previously confessed
Christianity, he declared himself high-priest, frequented the pagan
temples, offered sacrifices, and invited his subjects to adopt that
form of worship.
As an invasion of Roman territory by the Persians was expected, and
as Constantius had on this account repaired to Syria, Julian
conceived that he might without battle render himself master of
Illyricum; he therefore set out on his journey to this province,
under pretense that he intended to present an apology to Constantius
for having, without his sanction, received the symbols of imperial
power. It is said, that when he arrived on the borders of Illyria,
the vines appeared full of green grapes, although the time of the
vintage was past, and the Pleiades had set; and that there fell upon
his followers a dashing of the dew from the atmosphere, of which each
drop was stamped with the sign of the cross. He and many of those with
him regarded the grapes appearing out of season as a favorable omen;
while the dew had made that figure by chance on the garments upon which
it happened to fall.
Others thought that of the two symbols, the one of the green grapes
signified that the emperor would die prematurely, and his reign would
be very short; while the second sign, that of the crosses formed by
the drops of dew, indicated that the Christian religion is from
heaven, and that all persons ought to receive the sign of the cross.
I am, for my own part, convinced that those who regarded these two
phenomena as unfavorable omens for Julian, were not mistaken; and the
progress of time proved the accuracy of their opinion.
When Constantius heard that Julian was marching against him at the
head of an army, he abandoned his intended expedition against the
Persians, and departed for Constantinople; but he died on the
journey, when he had arrived as far as Mopsucrenae, which lies near
the Taurus, between Cilicia and Cappadocia.
He died in the forty fifth year of his age, after reigning thirteen
years conjointly with his father Constantine, and twenty five years
after the death of that emperor.
A little while after the decease of Constantius, Julian, who had
already made himself master of Thrace, entered Constantinople and was
proclaimed emperor. Pagans assert that diviners and demons had
predicted the death of Constantius, and the change in affairs, before
his departure for Galatia, and had advised him to undertake the
expedition. This might have been regarded as a true prediction, had
not the life of Julian been terminated so shortly afterwards, and when
he had only tasted the imperial power as in a dream. But it appears to
me absurd to believe that, after he had heard the death of Constantius
predicted, and had been warned that it would be his own fate to fall in
battle by the hands of the Persians, he should have leaped into
manifest death, offering him no other fame in the world than that of
lack of counsel, and poor generalship, and who, had he lived, would
probably have suffered the greater part of the Roman territories to
fall under the Persian yoke. This observation, however, is only
inserted lest I should be blamed for omitting it. I leave every one
to form his own opinion.
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