ON JULIAN’S MISOPOGON The "Misopogon" (Beard-Hater) was a satirical work written by Julian himself later in his reign.

Having been educated in a truly military fashion original: "vere militari educatus". This suggests Julian adapted quickly to soldiering despite his academic background. and cast into such great waves of danger, what did he do? If he had wished only to protect the province committed to him and merely repel injury without provoking the enemy, he would still be rightly judged to have performed a great feat. But he did provoke them; and he who had been accustomed to being a terror to others was himself forced to fear Julian.

I say nothing of the speed with which he expelled the barbarians from Gaul, nor the courage with which he defended the noble and ancient cities of Autun, Auxerre, Troyes, and Reims. Finally, I will not commemorate the other things he achieved in Gaul and Germany; I say only what all the writers of that age proclaim with one voice: that seven of the most powerful kings of all Germany were defeated by him in one massive and most difficult battle at Strasbourg original: "Argentoratum". The Battle of Strasbourg in 357 AD was Julian’s most famous victory, where his 13,000 men defeated a much larger Alamanni force., and their leader, Chonodomarius, was captured and sent to Rome to Constantius. In every respect, the shattered and afflicted affairs of Gaul were restored to their original state by him.

But this praise was contaminated by the most wretched stain of ambition when he wished to be hailed as Augustus The title of the senior Emperor. Up to this point, Julian had been "Caesar," or junior emperor. His troops proclaimed him Augustus in Paris in 360 AD, which was seen as an act of rebellion against his cousin Constantius II.. From this, a most atrocious civil war would have followed had not an almost sudden death carried off Constantius beforehand. Upon receiving this news, Julian set out first for Constantinople to establish his empire, and then for Antioch for the Persian War.

And here it should be noted what Socrates Socrates Scholasticus, a 5th-century Christian historian whose Ecclesiastical History is a major source for this period. relates in his history: that Julian, persuaded by a certain Pythagorean metempsychosis original Greek: μετεμψυχώσει; the belief in the transmigration of souls from one body to another., believed himself to be Alexander the Great. Therefore, he perhaps hoped for a similar glory from the defeat of the Persians; however, the matter turned out entirely differently, as will be understood later. Thus we see that the praise for this virtue shone forth greatly in this emperor. Let no one think that the study of literature and wisdom hinders military glory, or that physical strength is more...