University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION.

The House of Constantine gave eleven Sovereigns (including the associate Cæsars) to the Roman Empire, and terminated with Julian the Apostate. Its greatness was sullied by domestic crimes, which gradually produced its extinction.

Julian, and his elder brother Gallus, were the offspring of Julius Constantius, the patrician, brother to Constantine the Great; and were withdrawn from successive proscriptions, so fatal to the Imperial race, by the efforts of Mark, bishop of Arethusa—a service but ill requited in after-days.

The brothers were eventually adopted by their uncle, the Emperor Constantius, at the

instance of his wife, Eusebia—a woman gifted with many noble qualities. It was vainly, and perhaps absurdly, hoped, that the youths would, in the enjoyment of Imperial favour, forget the wrongs of their family, and the death of their father, who had perished by the hands of an assassin.

Gallus was created Cæsar, and was united in marriage to a sister of the Emperor. He speedily fell a victim to his own folly and the unruly passions of his wife; not long surviving the suspicions of a sovereign never appeased without blood.

Julian succeeded to the vacant dignity, apparently ill-suited to habits formed in the schools, and on which courtiers and philosophers pronounced widely differing opinions. At Athens his education was completed, and his proficiency in all mental accomplishments gave proof of genius and unwearied perseverance.

Among the philosophers with whom he there became intimate, Maximus obtained the chief hold of his affections, and established a decided influence over his imagination. Under his tuition, doubts of the truth of that religion in which he had been early trained, were artfully suggested. It was the faith of his household oppressors, and gradually gave place to the seductive delusions of pagan worship, in a mind gifted above all with an irregular enthusiasm. At length he was allowed to participate in the Eleusinian mysteries; when, it is asserted, he consented to his uncle's death: —an act suitable to his vengeance and to his ambition, and the appropriate consummation of his apostacy. At this period my drama commences, for I have not dared to detail in language the progress of impiety, or to array the arguments that seduced a Christian from his God.

Julian had been invested by Constantius with the sovereignty in Gaul: a splendid but difficult

command, in the course of which an unexpected military genius developed itself. At the moment of his colleague's reverses in the East, he was victorious in the West. Thus the advancement of his reputation became a source of contrast and the foundation of jealousy: add, too, that as the idol of the army he was dangerous. His humiliation was decreed; and the very moment of triumph was rashly selected to separate a general from troops that adored him, and to tear those troops from the scene of their successes, to recruit a distant and a disgraced army.

These were mandates dangerous to resist, but fatal perhaps to obey. The army of Gaul regarded them as a violation of its compact of service, and was probably not ill prepared for a crisis. A tumultuous assembly of the soldiers pronounced the reign of Constantius at an end, and hastily invested Julian with the Imperial titles. At a critical moment Constantius died,

and his nephew ascended the throne, now his by the undisputed right of succession.

Julian with all his faults was unquestionably a great man, and, though an Apostate, possessed many noble qualities. No man had warmer partisans or severer enemies; consequently no one has been more variously represented. His vengeance was not unnatural in times of extreme peril, of unbridled passion, and bloody precedent; and his apostacy, real or affected, placed him at the head of a party panting for change. As to his real creed, it is difficult to imagine a man surrendering his senses to the delusions of the pagan mythology, yet the fact is not impossible. I am disposed to regard him as, at heart, a deist; making use of popular superstitions for the attainment of political objects.

In the following drama I have not sought to observe the unities. It would be alike presumptuous

in me to plead the example of our great national school, or to argue a point on which the best critics are at variance. It, however, does appear to me sufficient to connect, in a consecutive chain of action, visible effects derived from intelligible causes. That I have failed in accomplishing my own ideas is a fact I cannot hide from myself; but the present is a first effort, and may, I would hope, lead to better things.