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“No one can ever love us quite so much as we love ourselves.��
Attributed to Julian by Gore Vidal.


Julian is a well crafted historical fictional soliloquy written by Gore Vidal in 1964. It is some five hundred pages in length but moves along quickly. Covering the thirty-two year life of the last of the great Roman emperors, the story includes palace intrigue, a great deal of history, fascinating war campaigns and then ultimate betrayal. Vidal’s tone is somewhat subdued in the book perhaps because there are enough historically dramatic events such that Vidal didn’t feel the need to oversell. There is also another narrator in the presence of Priscus, an actual historian of the 5th century, who does some minor narrating to correct Julian’s errant facts and begin the story when Julian is young and wrap it up after he dies.

Julian’s reign as Roman Emperor (AD 361 - AD 363) was significant in many ways but was largely so because he came so near the end of the one thousand year reign of the Roman Empire. Julian was known to posterity as Julian the Apostate, a boy raised as a Christian who renounced Christianity early in life. He was considered the last pagan Emperor, even though that sobriquet is not entirely accurate.

Julian was also a noted philosopher and eventual military leader who wrote several books in his young life. ‘Against the Galileans��, perhaps his most famous writing, is a long essay dissecting the origins and inconsistencies of Christianity, even to a large degree defending the logical nature of Judaism although he was not a believer of Judaism himself. In this essay he asserted that Jesus Christ as the son of God is as much a myth as the Greek gods. The writings of Julian and the nearly contemporary writings of Theodoret in the 5th century AD are where Vidal drew much of his inspiration.

This may be a spoiler for some

The novel itself starts out when Julian and his older brother Gallus are young boys. Their mother had died giving birth to Julian. We learn that Gallus is a bully through a number of episodes but amidst the resentment there is still a brotherly bond there. A few years later, while acting as the emperor’s consul, their father, is assassinated by the Roman Emperor Constantius II. Constantius II also happens to be Gallus and Julian’s older cousin. From this moment in the novel the boys are now orphans. They are looked after by their cousin and given the best education, the boys are split up and their private instruction and living arrangements shuffle between palaces in Byzantium and Greece.

While being educated the boys are also routinely spied upon by the eunuchs of which Constantius is fond of relying on. Vidal masterfully creates the aura of palace intrigue through several eunuchs. The Roman Empire is so large and there often many Caesars needed to rule, fight rebellions, pacify the populace and bring in tax revenue for the Emperor. Thus this need for loyal Caesars is why Constantius wants to educate and have the boys prosper despite having killed their father. To ensure that they remain loyal, he needs his spies.

So Julian learns to rely almost solely on himself and keeps a low profile and does not espouse much in his writings or criticize the Emperor within earshot. This would only give his cousin the justification to assassinate him. Julian studies religion and philosophy and by his teenage years has already given up on the idea of Christianity. Gallus is more outspoken in his opinions but is more focused on becoming a military leader.

Constantius eventually elevates Gallus to Caesar in the East when he is twenty-five. He is needed in the East to quash rebellions in Serbia and elsewhere in Byzantium and persecute rebellious Jews. Ruling is dangerously difficult for Gallus and he survives at least one assassination attempt from within the military. Deeming him politically expedient, Gallus is lured by Constantius with false offers of co-emperor, then he is arrested and executed.

Julian does not seem surprised at the news of his brother’s execution, almost expecting it. The following year, AD 355, Julian is also given the Caesar title as the military and ruler of Gaul. There are many fascinating chapters and a lot of detail in the book about his life in Paris as Caesar and the military campaigns against the Germanic tribes including the victorious Battle of Strasbourg in AD 357. This military rule and battles with the Germanic tribes continued for three more years and Julian became very popular with the troops and the people who started to call him Augustus. He then just decided to take on the title.

His cousin Constantius was still ruling in the east and being the rightful Augustus decided enough was enough. He launched a campaign to defeat his usurping cousin Julian. As Julian's army was eventually hemmed in by the larger armies of the Emperor Constantius, Julian received some good fortune when Constantius fell ill and died. There was little outward resistance to Julian then claiming the title as sole Emperor.

At this point in the story, wanting to consolidate power in the east, Julian in AD 361 overconfidently launched a multi-year campaign against the Persians. Julian’s army was successful militarily in the early battles, leading his army of tens of thousands into Mesopotamia, but eventually the extremely hot weather arrives and the Persians began burning crops to starve out Julian’s army and it worked. As a result there are threats of mutiny amongst Julian’s troops. While looking for astrological signs in the stars for months, Julian finally heeds the warnings and turns his army back from deep within Persia.

So in AD 363 he leads his army back along the long and winding Euphrates. He loses men to disease and starvation and skirmishes with Persian militias from nearby strongholds. In one of the battles he is struck in the abdomen and liver with a spear from which he succumbs a few days later. We learn that the spear is of Roman origin so it is clear that he was killed by one of his own men. Late in the book, we learn what happened from one of the narrators who visited Julian’s aide-de-camp in that last campaign.

The aide, a former slave, is now retired and living a life of luxury along the coast of the Mediterranean. He admits to spearing Julian during the battle but never divulges how he came by his wealth leaving the reader to wonder who ordered the assassination. Since enough time had passed since Julian’s death and because Julian was an apostate there is little appetite to prosecute his assassin anyway and that’s where the story ends.

End of Spoiler

So this novel was exceptionally well written. I can’t say that the language and voices used were as convincing as a period piece like say ‘I Claudius�� but ‘Julian�� was generally more educational and interesting than Claudius�� story to be sure. Vidal has written many novels and is indisputably one of the 20th century’s greatest essayists and I observed that his writing style tends to be more informative and analytical than overly dramatic, at least in this novel. There is very little discussion of women in this book, apart from unflattering descriptions of Helena, the wife who Julian was arranged to marry by his cousin.

After I read the essay, ‘Against the Galileans�� by Julian, I can also say that Vidal probably attributed too much emphasis to Julian’s belief in classical mythology in making military decisions. I got the clear sense from Julian’s own words that he was much more of a traditionalist and did not appreciate what he viewed as the new mythologies, such as Christianity in particular, which were so rapidly transforming the culture in the Roman empire. Something to the effect of, we already have a Greek and Roman mythological culture why do we need a new one. This view was in spite of the fact that his uncle, Constantine the Great, may have done more than anyone in history to spread Christianity.

4.5 stars. There is some flatness in the writing of this story and so it might be of less interest to those who don’t especially like historical books.