The History of Rome - 144- The Road to Constantinople

Episode Date: July 25, 2011

Once he was established as a force to be reckoned with in the west, Julian revolted against Constantius II in 360 after the Emperor ordered half the Gallic army redeployed to the eastern frontier.

Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome. Episode 144, The Road to Constantinople. Julian's first taste of what the future had in store for him and came immediately after the Battle of Straussburg in 357 AD. Having just routed a German army that outnumbered them three to one, and suffering only minimal losses while doing it, the Roman soldiers under Julian's command were understandably exuberant. so exuberant that when Julian emerged to address them following the battle, the troops spontaneously hailed him as Augustus.

This seditious offer hung in the air for a heartbeat before the 25-year-old Julian swatted it down harshly. My cousin Constantius is Augustus, he told him, and I will not, under any circumstances, allow you to elevate me in opposition to him. This closed the matter for the moment, but after another two and a half years of rising tension, between Julian and Constantius, the young Caesar would eventually change his mind and allow his army to give him what they wanted to give him. That said, Julian's actions following the victory at Straussport went a long way towards convincing the troops that maybe attempting to elevate their Caesar had actually been a bad idea. Sitting right on the line between fall and winter 357, the Roman soldiers assumed that, Feather in cap, Julian would order them to a well-deserved winter's

rest. But the young general decided instead that now was the best time to drive the Germans into the ground. So he ordered his army across the Rhine. The troops were incredulous. Are you kidding? We just beat a horde of barbarians in a battle that by all accounts we should have lost, and now you want us to invade Germany in the middle of winter. You must be kidding. He's kidding, right? But Julian was not kidding. And so over the Rhine, the legions went. Julian spent the next few months attacking Alamani settlements and generally running amok. The Germans were just as surprised to see the Roman soldiers coming as the Roman soldiers were to be coming, and they scattered hastily in the face of these unexpected assaults.

Though the winter campaign made Julian supremely unpopular, strategically it was a complete success. Three of the six German chiefs who had fought against him at Straussborg were hunted down and forced to submit to Roman authority. In the middle of January, satisfied that he had made substantial gains in the never-ending war for control of the Rhine River, Julian finally ordered his army back to Gaul. Dispersing his men around the province, Julian himself settled into the city of Lutetia, which, by that point, may already have been known by the name that we know it today. Paris. While wintering in Paris, Julian turned his attention to civil affairs, even though, strictly speaking, they were outside. of his jurisdiction.

Despite the fact that he held imperial office, as Caesar, Julian was technically only authorized to address the military defense of his provinces. This followed from the precedent established by Daocletian separating military from civilian power, and it meant that while Julian was in Gaul, there was another center of political gravity, the Praetorian prefect Florentius. Florentius was not a bad administrator, but, like the other senior officials in Gaul, he resented the arrival of the thoroughly self-confident Julian, especially when Julian began sticking his nose in where it did not belong.

After two years of uneasy power sharing, the two men finally came to blows over the issue of provincial taxation. Both agreed that it was in everyone's best interest to initiate a rebuilding effort across Gaul for the benefit of the civilian population. Both also agreed that, unfortunately, the current tax receipts were not going to cover the effort. So, more revenue was needed. Florentius wanted to simply throw out a supplemental tax to raise the necessary funds. But Julian dug a little deeper into the issue and came away convinced that what they really needed to do was cut taxes.

This counterintuitive idea sprang from two basic facts. First, the people who would be hardest hit by the supplemental, tax had already paid everything that they could afford that year. There was no wool left to be sheared. Second, the real problem was not that the tax rate wasn't high enough. It was that the taxes weren't being collected properly. For years, the wealthy landowners of Gaul had been hiding inside of a loophole. Every so often, as a sign of goodwill or to celebrate something or another, the government would issue a proclamation, canceling out unpaid debtors. to the state. So the rich men of Gaul simply stopped paying their taxes altogether. If government

officials got pushy, a helpful bribe would help turn their heads until inevitably a proclamation canceling all old debts would be announced and everyone was dropped back down to zero. The poor and middle classes couldn't afford to pay off the officials so they were left to cover the expenses of the whole provincial administration. Florentius' supplemental tax would simply hit these classes up for more cash, and it was obvious to anyone who cared to pay attention that they really didn't have any more cash to give. So Julian proposed simply cutting taxes across the board and then actually, you know, collecting what everyone owed. This would lead to greater prosperity and more tax revenue for the government. QED. Florentius was annoyed that Julian was even

involved with the issue and really annoyed that Julian was trying to contradict him, and so he immediately wrote to Constanches complaining about the Caesar's conduct. But though Florentius was the emperor's picked man, Constanius decided in this case to side with Julian. Taxes were reduced in Gaul by something like two-thirds, and officials stopped allowing the wealthy to defer their payments. The result was a double boon. The lower classes thrived because they had less taxes to pay, and tax revenues increased because the rich were paying their fair share. Not a bad day's policy-making. The success of Julian's proposal was not enough to endear him to Florentius, though, especially because as the summer of 358 arrived, Julian ran another of the prefects policies off the rails.

Since the revolt of Magnentius, the Franks had incrementally increased their power along the northern coast of Gaul, until, by this point, they basically controlled the English Channel. This was, of course, a serious strategic issue for the Romans, as it meant that supply lines from Britannes, were not at all secure, which is why Julian had to rely on shipments from the south to feed his army in the north. Florentius's proposal was to just pay the Franks not to attack Roman ships. This straightforward business proposition won Constantius' blessing, but not without a caveat. The emperor wrote to Julian and told the young Caesar to go along with the plan unless he found it, quote, absolutely disgraceful. And to Julian, that's exactly what

it was. Without waiting or consulting with anyone, he lined up his troops and marched them north, intent on smashing the Franks and freeing up the grain supply from Britain. It was a risky strategy, especially since feeding his army depended entirely on freeing up those supply lines. But Fortune favored his boldness, and after a few weeks on campaign, the Franks were brought to heal. Much to Julian's delight and Florentius's chagrin. At the end of the successful operation, though, Julian standing with his men once again took a nosedive, when they noticed that in his hurry to get the campaign going, all the supplies they had were the supplies they had on their back. When Julian began to order these supplies dispersed to the string of forts he was building to help keep the area secure, his men started to get very angry, very quickly. At first, Julian thought the grumbling was just more grumbling, but a hungry army is a dangerous army.

and the Caesar was forced to offer a naked bribe to get the men back in line as they waited for a relief shipment of grain. His troops mollified, Julian ordered the army across the Rhine for a second time, and over the course of the rest of the year, he tracked down two more of the chiefs who had fought him at Straussport and forced them too to sign a non-aggression treaty. As the winner of 358 approached, Julian was able to survey his province with satisfaction. Despite the fact that he had been either subtly undermined or outright opposed by most of the senior officials in Gaul, the young Caesar had succeeded in stabilizing the Rhine frontier, securing control of the English Channel, and generally seeing to it that the citizens of Gaul could prosper once again.

It was right around this point, of course, that his relations with Constantius began to fray. Nothing spells imperial paranoia like the popular success of an underling, and as Julian's reputation grew, so too did the scheming of Constantius's court. Just to set the stage for what's coming next, though, we should note that the rising imperial tensions did not occur in a vacuum. While Julian was off subduing Gaul, Constanius stayed mostly in Milan, popping over to the Danube frontier as need be,

and once, get this, even paying a visit to Rome, the first such visit of his life. In 357, though, a troubling embassy arrived from the east. Agents of the Sassanid king, Shepur, had come to demand that Constantius return all territory seated to the Romans by the Treaty of Nispus some 60 years earlier. The emperor had no intention of coming anywhere close to agreeing to the ambassador's demands, and he sent them packing with a firm no. That being said, the fact that Shepur had even asked,

meant that the Persian king had likely secured his northern border and was now turning his attention back to his western border. So Constantius sent an embassy of his own back to Shepur, trying to arrange a peace that did not require Rome to just utterly capitulate. This time, it was Shepur's turn to send the embassy packing with a firm no. War was looming once again. As the spring of 359 arrived then, there were two ways that Constanches could look at the success of his younger cousin in Gaul. He could either be happy that the West seemed locked down right at the moment when the East was about to blow up, or he could be unnerved by the fact that just as he was about to be

dragged off to fight a war in the East, his younger cousin was becoming immensely popular in the West. With Constantius off fighting, how long would it be until Julian made a grab for power? Unfortunately for everyone, the one person who would act as a check on Constantius' paranoia was his wife Eusebia, and she was now dead. The Augusta had always liked Julian and defended the young Caesar whenever the emperor's advisors ran the boy down. Now that she was dead, everywhere Constanches turned, men were telling him that Julian was a threat,

and so the emperor naturally came to believe that Julian was indeed now a threat. While he was growing more and more paranoid about his Caesar, Constantius was knocked sideways by word that in the east, Shepur had begun a siege of the key fortress city of Amita. The emperor dashed east, but along the way learned that after 73 days, Amita had fallen, and with it had gone six legions. Upon reaching the east, Constanches discovered the extent of the damage done by Shepur and realized quickly that he did not have enough local manpower to properly defend the border.

So in January of 360, he sent a fateful letter to Jepur. Julian, a letter that would initiate the final break between the two men. Since Gaul was now relatively peaceful and things were falling apart in Syria, Constantius ordered almost half of Julian's Gallic army to march at once to Syria to help shore up the Eastern Front. Given the circumstances, the order is understandable, but to Julian and his officers, the true reason for the troop redeployment was as plain as day. Julian had gotten too powerful and Constanius was attempting to neuter him. Neither Julian nor his men knew the full extent of the disaster unfolding in the Far East, and after a year in which relations between Emperor and Caesar had become more and more strained,

it was easy for them to jump to the conclusion that something sinister was afoot. Now, I'm not willing to give Constanches a complete pass in all this. Of all the provinces in the empire, he just so happened to demand reinforcements. from the one province where the troops were uniformly loyal to Julian, that really does smell like something. But I think that at the end of the day, Julian wound up revolting over a fairly rational military decision. It was probably a non-issue blown way out of proportion.

That said, it certainly was not a non-issue to the men of the Gallic legions, especially since Julian had specifically promised them that they would never have to serve beyond the Alps. The army of the late empire was a far more settled force than in previous ages, and all of these men had wives and children and land and interests in Gaul, and they were happy to fight to protect all of that, but they had no interest in being uprooted to go fight in some far-off desert. When news of the order leaked, the soldiers stationed in Paris for the winter immediately demanded to know what Julian was going to do about it, because we are not going to go out and fight Persians. The situation began to quickly spiral out of control as other garrisons heard the news and began to agitate. Julian finally decided that he needed to meet this head-on, so he circulated an order for all the troops to leave their quarters and come to Paris so he could address the issue directly. As each garrison arrived, Julian went out to greet them and attempted to win them over with promises of glory and appeals to their patriotic spirit, but yeah, not so much. He then attempted a compromise, announcing that the soldiers would be allowed to bring their families along if they so desired.

This kind of addressed their concerns, but not really. Really, they just really didn't want to go. So then, pamphlets began circulating, and rabble-rousers became more brazen, things were getting ugly, and a full-blown mutiny looked like it was right around the corner. The other senior officials in Gaul recognized the powder keg Julian was sitting on, and most, for either personal or professional reasons, decided that the very best thing they could do was stay the hell out of Paris for a while. So, for example, when Julian wrote to Florentius and requested the prefect come to Paris to help him broker a solution, Florentius alternatively ignored the letters or invented paper-thin excuses to remain where he was. There was no love loss between the two men, and it looked like Julian was about to be consumed by a furious army.

Why in the world would Florentius want to get in the way of such a delicious ending to this annoying story? But Julian was not going to go down that easy. As I just mentioned, the assumption within his inner circle was that the redeployment order was all about constantious taking Julian out at the knees, because the emperor was paranoid and jealous of his younger cousin. So Julian was reminded that there was one solution to this problem that he really ought to consider. And in fact, the way things were going, it was really the only solution on the table if he wanted to keep his head. It was time to play the Trump card. So one night in February, Julian and his inner circle got together for dinner and discussed how best to play this Trump card.

Of course, in Julian's later telling, everything that's about to happen was totally spontaneous and he was taken completely by surprise. But really, as you know by now, that's not really the way these things work. A few hours after the dinner broke up then, Julian was taken completely by surprise as the soldiers spontaneously surrounded his quarters and hailed him as Augustus. But Julian did not immediately appear. and instead let the word go round of what was happening at the imperial residence. The next morning, though, with the troops assembled and expectant,

Julian stepped up onto the platform and announced that he could not in good conscience abide by Constantius' order. He would accept their acclamation, become Augustus, and fight for them if they would fight for him. The cheers were immediate and prolonged. Julian was hoisted up on a shield and carried a body. triumphantly. The revolt had begun. But Julian planned to play this thing carefully. He wrote a letter to Constanches explaining what had happened that it was all outside of his control, and he even offered a compromise whereby Julian would reinforce the East with troops from Hispania. He even signed the letter Caesar so as to avoid offending the emperor unnecessarily. But when Constancius received the

message. This small gesture was lost amidst the furious raging. As with the revolt of Magnentius, though, Constanches was locked down against the Sassonids, and he refused to abandon the East just to go deal with his treasonous Caesar. Again, as with the revolt of Magnentius, this is, I think, to Constantius' credit. All he could do, then, was send a sharp reply denouncing the actions of Julian and the Gallic army. But when Julian read that letter publicly, the imperial minister who had delivered it was forced to hightail it out of Paris at top speed, fearing for his life. The rest of 360 then passed, with letters flying back and forth between the two now rival Augusti. Neither was looking for war,

Julian because he was actually in a pretty weak position, and Constantius because of Shapur's continued belligerency. But neither would either back down. Julian asserted his independence and Constantius denied it. So whether they wanted it or not, eventually war was going to come. So while the letters flew, both prepared. Julian secured the support of the British legions and then spent the year campaigning against the Germans to ensure that they would remain passive should he wind up marching east. Constantius, meanwhile, intensified his recruitment efforts while simultaneously looking to cut a deal

with the Persians to temporarily suspend hostilities. It was not until early 361, though, a full year after Julian's elevation, that war truly became inevitable. As Julian fought a suddenly emboldened army of Alamani, he captured communications that made it very clear that the Germans were being prompted to action by Constantius. This revelation, coupled with news that the war machine the emperor was assembling in the east, was not necessarily being assembled to fight the Persians, led Julian to the conclusion that he had better act now or risk annihilation. By June of 361, Julian's mind was made up. He was going to go on the offensive.

He gathered up 23,000 men, the most he felt he could spare, and then divided them into three columns. Two of 10,000 men to be led by subordinates, and the last column of 3,000 to be led by Julian personally. These three columns then sped east along different routes, hoping to fly further under the radar and travel at a faster pace than one giant army would be able to do. Mostly the strategy worked, except for the fact that when Julian arrived at Sirmium, where everyone was supposed to link up, he was the only one there. With the Sirmium garrison alerted to Julian's offensive and his backup still en route, the Rebel Augustus had to think fast. His solution was brilliant. A small detachment of soldiers snuck into the city and made their way to the commander's bedroom. Before anyone knew what had happened, the leader of the city was captured and snuck back into Julian's tent.

Once there, the captured commander was told that Julian meant him no harm, but it was a was probably in his best interest to stand down Sirmium and allow Julian to take the city. The commander, with his back now personally against the wall, reluctantly agreed, and Julian entered Sirmium unopposed. Once the rest of his army showed up, Julian ordered the Sirmium legions redeployed to Gaul, where they were to keep an eye on the now weakly defended Ryan Frontier. It seemed like a good idea in theory, neutralize a force whose loyalty could not be counted on while simultaneously shoring up the rear, but the Sirmium troops were not the least bit happy about being sent to Gaul, and so while passing through northern Italy, they revolted and captured Aquilea. Okay, well, that's not good. With his military offensive going well, but not perfectly, Julian then went on the offensive. politically, writing to the leadership of Rome and the various cities of Greece,

defending his actions and denouncing Constantius. The only problem was that Constancius was actually wildly popular in Rome and the various Greek cities. Julian's overblown rhetoric rang false, and rather than ginning up support for his cause, the letters left him further isolated. As well as this adventure had begun, it was now starting to unravel. His aim had probably been to capture Constantinople before Constanthius left the east, but then the real heavy news dropped. Constanches had made a deal with the Sassanids and was already marching west. Bottled up in the middle of the empire with his supply lines to Gaul cut off and political support non-existent, Julian was looking doomed.

What he needed was a miracle. Then, in November of 361, a miracle. Constantius and his army had made it as far as the Solician gates when the emperor came down sick. Unwilling to stop, he ordered the army to press on, but by the end of the next day, the shocking news began to spread. Constanius II was dead. He was 44 years old and had been in Augustus for 24 years. Following right on the heels of this shocking news was the even more shocking news, that despite the fact that they were about to fight each other to the death,

Julian was still listed in Constantius' will as the sole and rightful heir to the empire. So now, far from having to fight his way to Constantinople, the road to the capital was wide open. Julian, who had been raised a forgotten exile, was now the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Next week, we will see what he does now that he will, so much power. And I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with why we call him Julian the apostate.