PREFACE

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...was treated and cultivated in various types of studies and arts.

After his seventh year of age, he was handed over to the eunuch Mardonius. Regarding this matter, Julian himself addresses the people of Antioch in his work The Beard-Hater original: "Misopogon." A satirical essay written by Julian in 363 AD to mock the people of Antioch and defend his own lifestyle. in this manner: "Do you wish," he says, "for me to produce the name and race of my tutor? He was a barbarian and a Scythian by birth, and bore the same name as that man who led Xerxes into the war against Greece and noble Argos. This man—whose name was once a title of honor but is now used as an insult Mardonius was the name of the Persian general defeated at Plataea; Julian implies the name is now associated with the empire's ancient enemies.—was a eunuch, educated under my grandfather so that he might explain the poems of Homer and Hesiod to my mother. But when she died a few months later, having left me as her first and only son, I—like a deserted and orphaned maiden snatched from many calamities, still a tender girl—was handed over to him after my seventh year." Julian uses these feminine metaphors to emphasize his helplessness and the vulnerability of his youth.

From this teacher, he was then led to the public schools in Constantinople, where he spent his boyhood practicing grammatical and rhetorical studies. He had Nicocles the Lacedaemonian Lacedaemonian refers to someone from Sparta. as his master of the grammatical art, and Ecebolius the sophist for rhetoric. Furthermore, this teacher [Ecebolius] later followed the changing fortunes of his pupil and defected from the Christians to the pagans original: "ethnicos." Literally 'the nations,' a common term used by early Christian writers to refer to non-Christians or polytheists.. Finally, once Julian had died, he returned to the Christians; prostrating himself before the doors of the temple In this context, the 'temple' refers to a Christian church building., he cried out repeatedly: "Tread upon me, the salt that has lost its flavor." A reference to Matthew 5:13. Ecebolius was performing a public act of penance for his apostasy.

Yet for Julian, this schooling was a matter of no less piety and religion than of intellect and literature. Therefore, he performed the public office of a reader Anagnostes: A lower-ranking member of the clergy in the early Church responsible for the public reading of the Holy Scriptures during the liturgy. in the church and recited the sacred books in the hearing of the people. He believed that nothing greater or more enriching could happen to him for his own glory than this piety. Thus, being devoted to these teachers and arts, he shortly achieved such great fame and authority among all men that [he was prepared] to administer the empire...