The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of the "Caesars" [2883] is one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit. [2884] During the freedom and equality of the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate, and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial people and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the table of the Caesars was spread below the Moon, in the upper region of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Caesars successively advanced to their seats: and as they passed, the vices, the defects, the blemishes of their respective characters were maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a Bacchanal. [2885] As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be the reward of superior merit. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Antoninus were selected as the most illustrious candidates; the effeminate Constantine [2886] was not excluded from this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits; but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded to examine the heart and to scrutinize the springs of action, the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more decisive and conspicuous. [2887] Alexander and Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged with a blush that fame or power or pleasure had been the important object of their labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love, a virtuous mortal, who had practiced on the throne the lessons of philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value of this agreeable composition (the Caesars of Julian) is enhanced by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes, in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.

[2883]: See this fable or satire, pp. 306-–-336 of the Leipsig edition of Julian's works. The French version of the learned Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and incorrect; and his notes, proofs, illustrations, etc., are piled on each other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages. The Abbé de La Bléterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. I, pp. 241-–-393) has more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious notes. ↩︎