The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 1 (Loeb)

INTRODUCTION

...friend the physician Oribasius, at Vienne, Letter 4. The first part, with its dream,Julian's dream may be, as Asmus thinks, an echo of Herodotus, 1. 108, but the parallel is not close. is highly sophisticRelating to the school of rhetoricians who prioritized clever, persuasive language over moral or philosophical truth. but expresses vague fears that he and Constantius may be involved in ruin together; the second part describes his opposition to the pretorian prefect Florentius, his persistent enemy, whom he forbade from recommending to Constantius increased taxes on the Gallic provincials. In this letter, Julian expresses his wish not to be deprived of the society of Sallust, his pagan friend and adviser, but Sallust was recalled by the suspicious Constantius in 358.

While he was in Gaul, Julian continued his studies, corresponded with sophists and philosophers such as Maximus, Libanius, and Priscus, and wrote Oration 2 (a panegyric of Constantius), Oration 3 (a panegyric of Eusebia), Oration 8 (to console himself for the loss of Sallust), an account of the battle of Strasbourg which has perished, and perhaps the treatise on logic known only from the reference to it in Suidas.s.v. Ἰουλιανός (Julian). To some of these works, he refers at the end of Letter 2, To Priscus. That he wrote commentaries on his Gallic campaigns has been maintained by some scholars but cannot be proved.

Constantius, who had already suppressed four usurpers—either full-blown or suspected of ambition: Magnentius, Vetranio, Silvanus, and Gallus Caesar—was alarmed at the military successes of his cousin, who had left Milan an awkward student, ridiculed by the court, and had transformed himself into a skillful general and administrator, adored by the Gallic...