Today in history: death of Julian called 'the Apostate'

[dimbear]

http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2012/06/26/this-day-in-history-death-of-julian-the-apostate.htm

By all accounts one of the nobler of the emperors in those days, his collection of letters leaves us one of the few reliable records of the tumult that characterized the 4th century. A man much sinned against by history and historians.

[struggle4progress]

1. Wow! 2011 was the 1650th anniversary of his imperial ascension!

As Julian himself might have asked, if he had been a better French speaker: Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

[Leontius]

2. Being one of the nobler of that family is faint praise.

If he had lived longer who knows he may have matured enough to have been a good emperor, but even Ammianus couldn't make his rule sound successful, at best a man with promise but no focus is how he seems.

[Ron Obvious]

3. Gore Vidal

I highly recommend Gore Vidal's historical novel Julian about him

[Rowdyboy]

5. Finished it for the second time last year....I agree, its an excellent read

History could have been quite different had he lived 30 more years.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. After Julian the darkness set in.

The museum at alexandria was sacked and the ancient world came to its slow grinding end. It would be 1000 years before the humanist revival of the renaissance rekindled what was lost.