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XXIII.

CHAP. timed evolution of the light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards, scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without ar mour; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending ruin. As they exclaimed, a. cloud of darts and arrows was discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with invincible valour, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians derived some honour from the advantage which they obtained against

* Clamabant hinc inde candidati (sce the note of Valesius) quos disjecerat terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv. 3.

XXIV.

against the left wing, where Anatolius, master of CHAP. the offices, was slain, and the præfect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field; their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, fifty nobles or satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers: and the success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been improved into a decisive and useful victory.

of Julian, A. D. 363,

The first words that Julian uttered, after his The death recovery from the fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were expressive of June 26. his martial spirit. He called for his horse and arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper of a hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor t. "Friends and fellow-soldiers, the 04

"seasonable

Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was his practice, to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers who had not fallen by their master's side. Libanius, de nece Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.

The character and situation of Julian might countenance the suspicion, that he had previously composed the elaborate oration

CHAP.
XXIV.

"seasonable period of my departure is now ar“rived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness "of a ready debtor, the demands of nature, "I have learned from philosophy, how much the "soul is more excellent than the body; and that "the separation of the nobler substance should "be the subject of joy, rather than of affliction. "I have learned from religion, that an early "death has often been the reward of piety *; "and I accept, as a favour of the gods, the "mortal stroke that secures me from the dan

..

ger of disgracing a character, which has hi"therto been supported by virtue and fortitude. "I die without remorse, as I have lived with"out guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the in"nocence of my private life; and I can affirm

with confidence, that the supreme authority, "that emanation of the Divine Power, has been "preserved in my hands pure and immaculate. "Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims "of despotism, I have considered the happiness "of the people as the end of government.' "Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, "of justice, and of moderation, I have trusted

the event to the care of Providence. Peace "was the object of my counsels, as long as peace

66 was

oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The version of the Abbé de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations, which is darkly insinuated in the original.

*Herodotus (1. i. c. 31.) has displayed that doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter (in the 16th book of the Iliad), who laments with tears of blood the death of Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or glorybe yond the grave.

XXIV.

σε was consistent with the public welfare; but CHAP. "when the imperious voice of my country sum"moned me to arms, I exposed my person to "the dangers of war, with the clear fote-know

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me,

ledge (which I had acquired from the art of "divination) that I was destined to fall by the "sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude "to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me "to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the "secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow "tortures of lingering disease. He has given in the midst of an honourable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this "world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally "base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of "fate.Thus much I have attempted to say; "but my strength fails me, and I feel the ap"proach of death.-I shall cautiously refrain "from any word that may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. "My choice might be imprudent, or injudicious; and if it should not be ratified by the "consent of the army, it might be fatal to the

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person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my hopes, "that the Romans may be blessed with the go"vernment of a virtuous sovereign." After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he distributed, by a military testament *,, the remains of his private fortune;

* The soldiers who made their verbal, or nuncupatory, testaments, upon actual service (in procinctů), were exempted

from

CHAP. fortune; and making some inquiry why Ana-
XXIV. tolius was not present, he understood, from the

answer of Sallust, that Anatolius was killed; and
bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of
his friend. At the same time he reproved the
immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured
them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate
of a prince, whò in a few moments would be
united with heaven, and with the stars*. The
spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a
metaphysical argument with the philosophers
Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul.
The efforts which he made, of mind as well as
body, most probably hastened his death. His
wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his
respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of
the veins he called for a draught of cold water,
and, as soon he had drank it, expired without
pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was
the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-
second year of his
of his age,
after a reign of one year
and about eight months, from the death of Con
stantius. In his last moments he displayed, per-
haps with some ostentation, the love of virtue

and

from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius (Antiquit. Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 501.), and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxvii.),

This union of the human soul with the divine ætherial substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato; but it seems to ex 'ude any personal or consci pus immortality. See Warburton's learned and rational obser vations. Divine Legation, vol. ii. p. 199-216.

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