Best Emperor

>tried to reform the Roman public administration to be more efficient
>promoted the self-sufficiency and autonomy of urban centers, devolving more powers to the local urban governments in order to decrease their reliance on the Imperial government
>dismissed most of his court for being useless, instigated trials and investigations to rid the Imperial bureaucracy of corrupt and incompetent functionaries
>is only remembered for being 'the Apostate' due to Christcucks shitting on his legacy because they disliked that he didn't subscribe to their delusions
>his 'Against the Galilaeans' was destroyed, and even the Church Father Cyril of Alexandria admitted himself that he did not record the real arguments found within because they were too 'weighty' to be ignored

I feel so bad for Emperor Julian. He truly was the last competent Emperor: why isn't the title 'Last of the Romans' ever used to describe him?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Galilaeans#Synopsis_of_Against_the_Galileans
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Because he wasn't that great and better Emperors came before and after him

>Because he wasn't that great

He was. He clearly had the foresight and clarity of mind that many Emperor - despite their great military feats - never had when it came to domestic matters. Julian didn't simply try to expand the Empire through his wars with the Sassanids: he also attempted to revive the Roman republican spirit by cutting off the dependence of the cities on the Imperial government, trying to make the cities - and the citizens - once more self-reliant and strong. At the time, most cities were fed by subsidized state-dispensed foodstuffs, rather than growing their own food.

He also attempted to cut off unnecessary expenditures from the Imperial budget: dismissing the countless (and useless) courtesans, eunuchs, and honorary title-holders of the court and by weeding out the bureaucracy to make it more efficient.

He was a great man. Not very many Emperors - before or after him - ever showed such a keen interest in the actual governance of their nation that wasn't simply military involvement or throwing money at the problem.

>even the Church Father Cyril of Alexandria admitted himself that he did not record the real arguments found within because they were too 'weighty' to be ignored

Now that is pretty amusing.

Makes you wonder how many early refutations were destroyed once the Christians became the majority.

What would you say about Marcus Aurelius?

Do you really think they're all that different from modern refutations? I imagine quite a few of the criticisms are exactly the same as modern fedoras (or other Abrahamic religions throwing stones) do right here and right now; targeting the unreliability of the Gospels, the historical errors, the theological mumbling Paul does, the apocalyptic predictions when the world has failed to explode, etc. probably occurred to people pretty quick.

One of the 'good' Emperors: I haven't read on him as much as I have on Julian, but he appears to have been a philosopher. However, I still think he would take a backseat when compared to Julian: despite his skilled administration and victories, he didn't particularly try to change the system - then again, the system hadn't deteriorated yet, either.

>Do you really think they're all that different from modern refutations

Yes. They would have been looking at the Christian religion from an entirely different cultural lens, much different from the modern Western-inspired perspective that we have.

I doubt they're drastically different, but they portray a time before Christianity was as monolithic as it is today, which would make for an interesting read. There also survives scant few objections to Christianity from a neo-platonist perspective as far as I'm aware.

I'm surprised how modern it sounds, many of these arguments are still used today, even in academic contexts

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Galilaeans#Synopsis_of_Against_the_Galileans

>I'm surprised how modern it sounds, many of these arguments are still used today, even in academic contexts

You're an idiot.

There is no extant copy of 'Against the Galilaeans' - all copies were destroyed by Christians in later centuries. The only thing we have are purported - emphasis on PURPORTED - fragments that are quoted by Christians. Because of the fact that the Christians had a very obvious bias to distort and put these out of context for the purpose of making Julian look like a fool (as they did to other "heretical" groups), it is impossible that Julian's arguments are used today, in any context.

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)

>"...the only parts of this work which survive are those excerpted by Cyril of Alexandria, who gives extracts from the three first books in his refutation of Julian, Contra Julianum..."
>"[However,] these extracts do not give an adequate idea of the work..."
>"Cyril of Alexandria confesse[d] that he had not ventured to copy several of the weightiest arguments."

>Started a pointless war with Persia for no reason with no objective and got humiliated, losing territory and ratcheting up tensions that kept them from properly dealing with their gothic problem that ultimately finished Rome off.
>Somehow dismisses Christianity but thinks that there's merit to irrelevant pagan cults
>Pointless attempts to revive paganism period
>Local governments were about as capable of doing real governing as the senate at this point, no reason to hand much significant power back over to them other than nostalgia for Trajan
>Ultimately had no serious impact on history because he died so early in his reign

His downsizing of the imperial bureaucracy was good, but if he wasn't known for being the last pagan emperor he'd be even less well known desu.

Last of the Romans is a dumb title (by what measure a Roman?) and at least IMO is better suited for Justinian.

His Sassanid campaign was entirely destined to gain prestige he lacked, not land.

>Somehow dismisses Christianity but thinks that there's merit to irrelevant pagan cults

I always found very ironic that his plans to "revive" and reform paganism passed through including key christian elements to it.

He was essentially trying to co-opt the parts that made Christianity appealing and attach a ramshackle theology to it just because to him apparently anything else was better. Just seems like autism or stupid nostalgia to me.

I don't even know why I'm replying; this looks to me like bait tailored for the tripfag Constantine, disguised as legitimate discussion.

Severus Alexander would be a decent mention if we want to turn this into an underrated emperors thread. One of the few young emperors who didn't turn out to be a lunatic, held things together for over a decade while actually listening to intelligent people to make sure things were run well. Just got fucked over.

>Somehow dismisses Christianity but thinks that there's merit to irrelevant pagan cults

Christianity still wasn't the majority religion at this point, and paganism was still strong...

>Local governments were about as capable of doing real governing as the senate at this point, no reason to hand much significant power back over to them other than nostalgia for Trajan

You answered your own question. It was very burdensome for the Empire to have all the major urban centers being on the Imperial dole, and not at all efficient for times of hardship. Short-term pain, long-term gain, essentially.

Honorius was the greatest emperoror. Truly redpilled.

>Christianity still wasn't the majority religion at this point, and paganism was still strong...

Christianity was not the majority, true, but the old pagan cults were no longer popular. There is a reason all of those pagan temples to Apollo and so on were decaying and the priests of them weren't making big sacrifices. There wasn't any enthusiasm in them. Various eastern cults were doing much better.

>You answered your own question. It was very burdensome for the Empire to have all the major urban centers being on the Imperial dole, and not at all efficient for times of hardship. Short-term pain, long-term gain, essentially.

Doubt it works. Education was shit and the rich who could get an education were withdrawing from public life already. There weren't qualified people to do much administration. Anyone who could was attached to the imperial court.

>Doubt it works. Education was shit and the rich who could get an education were withdrawing from public life already. There weren't qualified people to do much administration. Anyone who could was attached to the imperial court.

I never said it would be easy. Julian was attempting to reverse the status quo. The attempt was not merely for nostalgic value, but also practical: the Imperial treasury was constantly being drained due to having to supply the cities with food shipments from the central government, when most of said cities could have grown their own food without any real trouble.

They were also too reliant on the central government, sending delegates to whichever capital the Imperial court was based on (which might be hundreds or thousands of miles away) for every little decision, rather than making their own decisions.

It was a terribly inefficient and slow system, and Julian attempted to correct it by trying to make urban centers more (but not completely) self-reliant and flexible in their decision-making. No subsequent Emperor ever tried to do this, and the trend actually shifted towards even greater centralization during the Byzantine Empire.

>Christianity was not the majority, true, but the old pagan cults were no longer popular. There is a reason all of those pagan temples to Apollo and so on were decaying and the priests of them weren't making big sacrifices. There wasn't any enthusiasm in them.

No. It's because, as Julian found out the hard way, the Christians with the approval of Constantine appropriated the funds for pagan temples, festivals and sacrifices for the Church.

Once the shoe was on the other foot the Church had no problem persecuting Pagans despite their "peaceful" religious beliefs.

Christians are the original dindus.

>apostate
That's Julian the Philosopher for you!

>Apostate

Honestly, I consider that term to be a compliment and an honor: that he realized how idiotic the religion was and turned his back on it.

I remember reading that Julian's wearing of the philosopher beard was controversial for the time but my own research seems to imply the opposite. There seems to be some nostalgia for the good old days of simple, conservatism hellenism compared to the exotic court of Constantine to the east.

I guess the Christians did a bang up job of associating paganism with evil and decadent in the years following.