Lots of people have tried to write TLs about it, but it's a difficult task to do realistically because of a number of issues with Julian. People who try and do TLS based on Julian surviving have him creating a Neoplatonist utopia when for all the reasons that Basileus Giorgios goes over it would be a disaster. In addition is the fact that he was fighting the Sassanian Empire like they were the Parthians and he was doomed to fail because of it, even if he didn't die.
Question:has anyone written/read a Julian the Apostate TL?
- Thread starter Emperor Constantine
- Start date
This has been heavily contested in these debates, most effectively by Magnum.
Post rejecting Shapur's offer, he can't win the victory he desired. If he doesn't make peace as his army tries to withdraw then it's going to be smashed by the Persians.
Me too. Persia is much more realistic and even then, I don't see all Christians being murdered or fleeing. Also, Persia might tolerate the refugees but will certainly not adopt their religion.
Oh, I gladly accept the challenge but I can't start right now because I have to read some literature about him so that it's realistic.
It's bad. I mean really horrible.
Yeah, at first blush it appears less wiki, more Writer's Craft work book.
He can't achieve a crushing defeat of Persia, this is true. But he also isn't likely to end up in Jovian's situation. Julian still had a favorable military position and would still be able to get a favorable outcome.
We also don't know how effective his religious policies would have been because they were long term policies that needed Julian to stay in power for a bit, or for his successor to continue them, to be able to succeed. You can hardly judge their potential success or failure off of 2 years of rule.
Oh you can do it very well. In his rule of two years, he did more good than other emperors in twenty. Now imagine Julian ruling for some decades and here's your man to save the empire.
I think Roman paganism was doomed to change. In fact, it had changed at this point, with Greek gods like Isis and Serapis entering the pantheon, and new gods like Sol Invictus doing the same. If, theoretically, Roman paganism survived, it would have absorbed the gods of every religion in its path or equating cognate gods to their Roman equivalents, creating a massive pantheon with most people only knowing the names of major and local deities. Kind of like Hinduism, actually.
Skallagrim
Banned
What Julian actually had in mind was more along the lines of stopping the fluid, syncretic character of the Religio Romana. He was acutely aware of the harsh reality that when you get a competition between on the one hand a faith without a set orthodoxy or a universal clerical structure (and that is by definition tolerant of other deities), and on the other hand a religion with a defined orthodoxy and an organised clerical structure (which is also monotheistic and denies the very existence of all other gods)... the latter is going to win. Simply because the former tolerates the latter in its midst, while the latter will never tolerate the former. So if the latter gains enough power, the former gets killed off.
Julian's solution was, in all likelihood, the only realistic solution: it was to create an orthodoxy and a universal clerical structure for the Religio Romana. Essenbtially, he wanted to define a definitive 'version' of the religion, and institute a priesthood to maintain that new orthodoxy. A canonical version of the ancient myths would be penned, in a document surely meant to explicitly rival the Christian scripture. So you are right: Roman paganism was doomed to change, but probably not by becoming like Hinduism. Rather by becoming far more like the Christian faith that Julian so despised. He was well aware of this irony, it seems, but his goal was to use the enemy's (obviously succesful) methods and instruments against them.
A very good book that sets out Julian's character and his religous ideas and goals is Rowland B. E. Smith's Julian's Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate. (That book might be of particular interest to @Mental_Wizard, because it would surely be a great source of info in writing any TL about Julian.)
Very briefly summarised (and omitting a lot): besides the above, Julian planned to revise the teaditional religion to include a whole lot of Neoplatonism. The Gods would, at least to some extent, be recast as 'representations' of the all-encompassing divine Absolute (or whatever name one might give to that). Elements from mystery religions would be deliberately syncretised and absorbed into the new religious 'canon'. Julian was not planning to exterminate Christianity, or to fully end religious tolerance. (At least: he wouldn't ban Christianity until he had crucially weakened it and meanwhile consolidated his own religion. Smith argues that Julian obviously hated cChristianity a lot, and would probably have banned it for good at a later stage. Do note that this is Smith's reading of Julian's character, and based on conjecture.)
Certainly, heterodox (and localised) versions of the Roman-Hellenic religion would be tolerated. But the new orthodox version of the Religio Romana would enjoy the favour of the state. Christianity would be tolerated, but hindered/discouraged. For instance, Christians would no longer be allowed to open schools (ensuring that education would fall to the religious schools of the Religio Romana, which the state would fund). Similarly, Christian churches had been tasked with the distribution of alms to the poor. Julian planned to make that the task (and the exclusive right) of his orthodox pagan priesthood and their temples, which would draw the poor to his religion. Finally, there would be a specific tax levied on all Christian churches, to repay the damage that Christians had in the past inflicted on pagans, pagan temples etc.
All this would serve to encourage people to join Julian's religion, while make Christianity rather unattractive. The book I mentioned does a far better job laying out Julian's plans, as well as his ideas and beliefs. But what I've outlined above should really be enough to demonstrate that Julian wasn't stupid enough to ban Christianity outright, but that his plans were actually quite realistic and pragmatic. Barring unforseen circumstances, I'm actually pretty sure that a longer-lived Julian would probably have succeeded in defeating Christianity and making his own religion dominant.
But obviously, that religion would no longer have been the religion of his ancestors. In saving what was left to save, he would have altered it on a fundamental level.
Last edited:
That honestly sounds very Hindu, though more resemblant of the later Bhakti sects.
And that sounds an awful lot like the Sassanid reforms, especially with it becoming a lot like Christianity to survive against it.
How would that stop Christians from distributing alms in secret?
Skallagrim
Banned
I hadn't even looked at it that way. You're absolutely right. I was thinking of "not like Hinduism" in the sense of "this religion wouldn't remain inclined to formally absorb foreign and local deities and cult figures", but in the sense of all deities being representations of a greater cosmic power, it would be similar to Hinduism. Julian, of course, derived it from Greek philosophical notions. Specifically, from the way Neoplatonism had given a religious reading to Plato's theory of forms, leading to an idea of there being some "highest level of reality", where the Good and the True and the Just and the Beautiful would all be indentical and united in one divine Absolute. (Which also tied into philosiophical notions of a Monad / First Cause / Unmoved Mover etc.)
But at face value, and in the basic shape of the concept, that is pretty similar to the Hindu notion of Brahman, and the way Julian viewed the gods in relation to the Neoplatonic Absolute is indeed a lot like the way Hinduism views the gods in relation to Brahman. I'd completely overlooked that.
I'm less familiar with the specifics of the Sassanid reforms, so I can't really comment on this.
I got the impression that by Julian's time, Christian churches got state funding in quite a few instances, for the purpose of performing charitable work. Robin Lane Fox also goes into this. The whole problem was that in the old days, pagan temples had been funded by pious patricians, but this traditional conduct was in steep decline. Christianity kind of filled a developing vacuum, and its higher degree of organisation made it much better at 'temple charity' (or rather: church charity). So they kind of... got that job.
Julian's reforms would entail that not only would Chistian churches be deprived of state funding while pagan temples would get that funding, but the pagan temples would also befit from gaining a similar organisation structure to Christianity. Christian churches, meanwhile, would thenceforth have to rely exclusively on donations by the faithful... while also getting taxed extra. I imagine there wouldn't be a lot left to spend on charity, while Julian's religion would be pretty flush with cash.
If anyone's interested, there was a great Julian discussion four years back that covered a wide range of situations. Here's the link:https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/julian-the-apostate.277371/.
I've actually been planning to write my first timeline about Julian for a little while now. I been reading up on the the 4th century in general, and I've been looking for some good sources about Julian himself and his exact/possible plans for the empire. School and life have gotten in the way of real progress so far. I am going to start really working on it in april after this term is over. If anyone has some good sources about Julian or Rome, Religion/Philosophy, and Persia in the 3rd century, I would appreciate recommendations.
Thanks @Skallagrim for posting that book. It should prove invaluable.
Thanks @Skallagrim for posting that book. It should prove invaluable.
Last edited:
I found this to be good: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1594...236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=the+last+pagan
Also:
The Last Pagans of Rome
There's also a new book, The Last Pagan Emperor: Julian the Apostate and the War against Christianity by H. C. Teitler, coming out on 13 March. Not sure if it will be any good but looks interesting.