Julian
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshiping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.
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What Hacker News says
- The best book I read this year was "Julian" by Gore Vidal. This is a thoroughly-researched historical fiction book about the Roman emperor Julian, the last pagan emperor of Rome. Thirty years before Julian rose to the throne, his grandfather Constantine the Great transformed Christianity from a persecuted sect practiced by a significant minority into the official religion of the state. In those thirty years, the ancient cults had mostly withered and died, their temples turned into churches or abandoned in disrepair.
Julian set out to revive the old religions and convert Rome away from Christianity. He was a bookish boy, a bit of a philosophy nerd. When he unexpectedly rose to a position of prominence, it turned out that he had a knack for military command which helped him gain popularity with the people and seize the emperorship.
I enjoyed this book because it gets you inside the head of people in a different time and place, with different thoughts and concerns than modern westerners. It also shows you how quickly the world can change. Julian lived in a time when thousands of years of tradition were changing quickly, in a blink of an eye by historical terms. These are great lessons to have in mind.
- The 2009 film Agora, starring Rachel Weisz, has a portrayal of the period. Of course it's not a historical document and subject to interpretation, but it is one perspective at least. Also there's a novel about Julian by Gore Vidal — I haven't read it but Julian was the last pagan emperor who unsuccessfully tried to receive Hellenic religion and stem the tide of Christianity.
- Is there an authority on mattress size naming standards to whom I may offer a suggestion? Having just read Julian by Gore Vidal, I learned that a few centuries after Caesar and Augustus, the title of Caesar ranked below that of Augustus (well played, Gaius Octavius). I suggest King->Caesar->Augustus.
However if we want to get into semantics, the word King descends from the word Caesar. Perhaps replace King with Minister, and Queen with Representative?
- 6-minutes or so of Jean-Paul Sarte was really fun! I enjoyed it immensely, thank you. Though philosophy has rarely delivered in the past 2,000-years-or-so... [1], the purpose of philosophy is to Guarantee the user a serene death [2] I would like to add that perhaps all these different philosophical viewpoints may aid an individual with a "mission statement" for a serene life?
[1] Francis Harry Compton Crick
(I read the quote in an interview)
[2] Gore Vidal: Novel: 'Julian' Quote: http://www.gorevidalpages.com/1964/10/julian-by-gore-vidal.h...
