Julian the Apostate
In 361 CE, 50 years after Christianity was granted legal status in the Roman Empire, Flavius Claudius Julianus, better known as Julian, rose to power. During his brief reign, he waged a desperate campaign to combat the increasingly dominant influence of Christianity in Roman society in the hopes of returning the empire to its pagan roots. When he met an untimely demise on a Mesopotamian battlefield two years later, centuries of Roman pagan tradition, it is said, died with him.
This is the story of Julian the Apostate.
Cover Image: Statue of Emperor Julian, displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Episodes (listed in reverse order)
Julian the Apostate Presiding over a Conference of Sectarians, painting by Edward Armitage, 1875
Bibliography
Bowersock, G.W. Julian the Apostate. Harvard University Press, 1997.
Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1-3, Everyman, 1993.
Julianus, Flavius Claudius. The Works of Emperor Julian. Literary Liscencing LLC, 2011.
Marcellinus, Ammianus. The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus. Benediction Classics, 2011.
Murdoch, Adrian. The Last Pagan. Inner Traditions, 2008.
Emperor Julian marches east to make war against Rome's traditional rivals- the Persians. When he meets an untimely fate on a Mesopotamian battlefield, with him dies the final hope of Rome's remaining pagans.