PREFACE

...[I stay away] from theaters through the height of foolishness, nor do I admit the stage into the palace court, except at the beginning of the year—and even then, I do so out of a daze of the mind, like a poor farmer paying some forced tribute to an unjust master. But even on those occasions when I have entered, I am more like a man who detests those games than one who is actually watching them.

The same author says a little later: "Pay attention, for what I shall say is even more novel and admirable. I have always hated the Circus games Circenses: The Roman chariot races held in the Circus Maximus, the most popular and rowdy entertainment of the era., just as those who are burdened by debt hate the forum The forum was the center of legal and financial business; Julian suggests he avoids the races with the same anxiety a debtor feels when passing the place where his creditors wait.. Therefore, I rarely attend them—only on the feast days of the gods—and I do not spend the whole day there, as my paternal cousin, my maternal uncle, and my own brother used to do. Instead, after watching about the sixth race, and even that not with great pleasure—rather, by Hercules, with annoyance and disgust—I gladly depart."

And he says that this was indeed the fruit of his learning alone. "My tutor taught me," Julian writes, "when I was going to my teachers, to look at the ground rather than the theater, and to value the chin of my head more highly A reference to his philosopher’s beard, which he prized as a symbol of maturity and wisdom over the smooth-shaven face of a frivolous youth.. Frequently that tutor said to me when I was a boy: 'Do not allow yourself to be led into the theaters by the crowd of your peers, nor be held by any desire for such a spectacle. Do you seek the Circus games? You will find them most elegantly described in Homer; take up the book and read. Do you hear of actors and dancers? Let them be; the young men among the Phaeacians In Homer's Odyssey, the Phaeacians were a seafaring people known for their graceful dancing. dance more vigorously. You have there the lyre-player Phemius and the singer Demodocus. There are also in that same poet many descriptions original: "stirpes" (literally "stems" or "roots"), here referring to the poetic passages or lineages of stories which are heard with greater pleasure than our shows are watched.'"

Julian is quoting the Odyssey (Book 6, lines 162–163), where Odysseus compares the beauty of a young woman to a palm tree he once saw. Julian uses this to show that literature provides more beautiful "sights" than the theater.

What of Calypso’s island shaded by trees? What of Circe’s caves? What of the garden of Alcinous? Believe me, you will see nothing more pleasant than these in your mind.

Therefore, there was a great self-restraint temperantia: The virtue of moderation and self-control, highly prized by Stoic and Neoplatonist philosophers like Julian. in this prince, which must be credited to his diligence in learning. Meanwhile...