by Gore Vidal
Julian records nothing of the rest of the year. He decently buried the Gallic dead. He returned to Savernes. He ordered captives and booty to be taken to Metz. Then he crossed the Rhine into German territory. He seized all livestock and grain; he burned the houses, which are built exactly like ours even though the Germans are supposed to prefer living in forest huts—so much for legend. Then we penetrated those awesome vast woods which fill the centre of Europe. There is nothing like them in the world. The trees are so dense that only a dim green light ever penetrates to the ground. Trees old as time make passage difficult. Here the savage tribes are safe from attack, for what stranger could find his way through that green labyrinth? and who would want to conquer those haunted woods? Except the Emperor Trajan. We stumbled upon one of his abandoned forts, and Julian had it rebuilt and garrisoned. Then we crossed the Rhine once more and went into winter quarters at Paris, a city which the Romans always refer to, with their usual elegance, as Mudtown.
XII
Julian Augustus
Of the cities of Gaul, I like Paris the best and I spent three contented winters there. The town is on a small island in the River Seine. Wooden bridges connect it to both banks where the townspeople cultivate the land. It is lovely green country where almost anything will grow, even fig trees. My first winter I set out a dozen (jacketed in straw) and all but one survived. Of course the Paris winters are not as cold as those at Sens or Vienne because the nearness of the ocean warms the air. As a result, the Seine seldom freezes over; and its water—as anyone knows who has ever visited there—is remarkably sweet and good to drink. The town is built of wood and brick, with a fair-sized prefect's palace which I used as headquarters. From my second-floor study, I could see the water as it divided at the island's sharp tip, like the sea breaking on a ship's prow. In fact, if one stares hard enough at that point in the river one has a curious sense of movement, of indeed being on a ship in full sail, the green shore rushing past.
As for the Parisians, they are a hard-working people who delight in the theatre and (alas) in Galilean ceremonies. In the winter they are townsfolk, and in the summer peasants. By the most remarkable good luck, they combine the best rather than the worst aspects of the two estates. We got on very well together, the Parisians and I.
Relations with Florentius grew worse. At every turn he tried to undermine my authority. Finally I fell out with him over money. Because of the German invasion, the landowners had suffered great losses. Year after year, whole harvests had been destroyed, buildings burned, livestock stolen. To lessen the burden of men already bankrupt, I proposed that both the poll tax and the land tax be reduced from twenty-five to seven gold pieces a year. Florentius vetoed this, countering with an outrageous proposal that a special levy be raised against all property, to defray the cost of my campaign! Not only was this proposed tax unjust, it would have caused a revolt.
Now although Florentius controlled the administration and civil service, as resident Caesar, no measure was legal without my seal.
So when Florentius sent me the proposed capital levy, I sent it back to him unsigned. I also enclosed a long memorandum reviewing the financial situation of Gaul, proving by exact figures that more than sufficient revenue was now being raised through the conventional forms of taxation. I also reminded him that many provinces had been wrecked before by such measures as he proposedparticularly Illyricum.
Messengers spent the winter dashing back and forth along the icy roads from Paris to Vienne. The capital levy was dropped, but Florentius was still determined to raise taxes. When he sent me a proposal to increase the land tax, I would not sign it. In fact, I tore it up and told the messenger to return the pieces to the praetorian prefect, with my compliments.
Florentius then appealed to Constantius, who wrote me a surprisingly mild letter. Part of it read: "You must realize, my dear brother, that it hurts us if you undermine confidence in our appointed officers of state at Gaul. Florentius has his faults, although youthful impetuosity is not one of them." (I was now quite hardened to this sort of insult.) "He is a capable administrator with great experience, particularly in the field of taxation. We have every confidence in him, nor can we in all honesty disapprove any effort towards increasing the state's revenue at a time when the empire is threatened both on the Danube and in Mesopotamia. We recommend to our brother that he be less zealous in his attempts to gain fayour with the Gauls, and more helpful in our prefect's honest attempts to finance your defence of the province."
A year earlier I would have bowed to Constantius without question. I would also have been furious at the reference to my victory at Strasbourg as a mere "defence of the province", but I was learning wisdom. I also knew that if I were to succeed in Gaul, I needed the wholehearted support of the people. Already they looked to me as their defender, not only against the savages but against the avarice of Florentius.
I wrote Constantius that though I accepted his judgment in all things, we could not hope to hold the province by increasing the taxes of ruined men. I said that unless the Emperor directly ordered me to sign the tax increase, I would not allow it to take effect.
There was consternation at Paris. We waited several weeks for some answer. The betting, I am told, was rather heavily in fayour of my being recalled. But I was not. By not answering, Constantius condoned my action. I then reduced taxes. So grateful and astonished were the provincials that we obtained our full tax revenue before the usual time of payment. Today, Gaul is on a sound financial basis. I mean to make similar tax reforms elsewhere.
I am told that Constantius was shattered by the news of my victory at Strasbourg. He was even more distressed when I sent him King Chnodomar in chains, as visine proof of my victory. But men have a way of evading hard fact, especially emperors who are surrounded by toadies who invariably tell them what they want to hear. The court nicknamed me "Victorinus" to emphasize the tininess—in their eyes—of my victory. Later in the winter, I was astonished to read how Constantius had personally taken Strasbourg and pacified Gaul. Proclamations of his great victory were read in every corner of the empire, with no mention of me. I have since been told by those who were at Milan that Constantius eventually came to believe that he had indeed been in Strasbourg that hot August day and with his own hands made captive the German king. On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.
The only sad matter that winter was my wife's health. She had had another miscarriage while visiting Rome, and she complained continually of pain in the stomach. Oribasius did his best for her, but although he could lessen the pain, he could not cure her.
My own health—since I seem never to refer to the subject—is invariably good. Partly because I eat and drink sparingly, and partly because our family is of strong stock. But I did come near to death that winter. It happened in February. As I have said, my quarters in the governor's palace overlooked the river, and my rooms were not equipped with the usual heating through the floor. As a result, I was always slightly cold. But I endured this, realizing that I was hardening myself for days in the field. My wife used to beg me to use braziers but I refused, pointing out that if the rooms were overheated, the damp walls would steam, making the air poisonous.
But one evening I could bear the cold no longer. I was reading late—poetry, as I recall. I summoned my secretary and ordered a brazier of hot coals. It was brought. I continued to read. Soothed by the lapping of the river beneath my window, I got drowsier and drowsier. Then I fainted. The fumes from the coal combined with the steam from the walls nearly suffocated me.
Fortunately, one of the guards, seeing steam escape from underneath the door, broke in and dragged me into the corridor where I finally came to. I vomited for hours. Oribasius said a few more minutes in that room and I would have been dead. So my Spartan habits saved my life; though some, of course, would say it was my stinginess! Curiously enough, thinking back on that night, I cannot help but reflect what a pleasant death it might have been. One moment reading Pindar, the nex
t a pleasant drowsiness, and then the end. Every day I pray to Helios that my death when it comes be as swift and as painless as that night's beginning.
• • •
My days were full. I gave justice or, as some say, merely executed the law, since there is no true justice that is man-made. I conferred daily on administrative problems with the various officers of the province, and each month I personally paid the salaries of the high officials. This is an ancient custom and I have always meant to investigate its origins. They date, I suspect, from the early Republic. Among those I personally paid were the secret agents. Though I disapproved of them—and knew that their main occupation at Paris was watching me and reporting on my movements to Milan—I usually concealed my dislike. Except on one occasion.
I sat at a table covered with hides. Gold in various piles was set before me. When it came time to pay the chief agent, Gaudentius, he reached forward and took the gold for himself, not waiting for me to give it to him. Even his fellow agents were startled by this rude gesture, to which I responded: "You see, gentlemen, it is seizing, not accepting, that agents understand." This was much quoted.
Evenings were spent, first, in business, then in sleep and, finally, the best part, late at night, talking philosophy and literature with friends, who used to wonder how I could so quickly fall asleep and then awake at exactly the hour I wanted. I don't know myself how this is done but I have always been able to do it. If I tell myself I wish to awaken in the first hour of the night, I shall—to the minute. I attribute this lucky gift to Hermes. But Oribasius thinks it has to do with something in my brain and he wants to take a look at it when I am dead!
Sallust was a considerable historian and drilled me extensively in both domestic and foreign history. We particularly studied the era of Diocletian, for it was he who renewed the empire in the last century and his reforms are still with us.
One of our continuing arguments concerns Diocletian's edict which ordered all men to remain for life at whatever happened to be their craft or labour; also, their descendants must continue in the same way: a farmer's son must be a farmer, a cobbler's son must be a cobbler, and the punishment for changing one's estate is severe. Sallust maintained, as did Diocletian, that this law was necessary for social stability. In the old days, people drifted from city to city, living on doles or through crime. As a result, production of all things was inadequate. Diocletian not only stabilized production but he even tried to set prices for food and other essentials. This last failed, which was a pity. A few months ago I myself tried to set the price of grain at Antioch, and though I have for the moment failed, I think in time this sort of manipulation will succeed.
Priscus took the view that Diocletian's law was too rigid. He thought the people should be allowed to change their lot if they showed sufftcient capacity. But who is to iudge their capacity? He was never able to answer this. Oribasius proposed that the court send out commissions to the main cities to examine the young men to determine which ones showed ability. I pointed out that the corruption involved would be formidable; not to mention the impossibility of judging thousands correctly. Personally,! believe that the lower orders do, on occasion, produce men of ability and I believe that that ability, if it is sufficiently great, will be somehow recognized and used. For one thing, there is always the army. A farmer's son who is ambitious can join the army, which is—in the old Greek sense—the most democratic of institutions: anyone can rise through the ranks, no matter how humble his origins. Pdscus responded to this by saying that not every one of abiliW is inclined to warfare. I was forced to agree that there is indeed some hardship for a man whose talents might be for literature or for the law, but as Sallust was quick to point out, the law schools at Beirut and Constantinople are crowded, and the civil service has more "capable" candidates than it can find jobs for. We have quite enough lawyers.
Priscus thinks that there should be widespread literacy. Sallust thinks not, on the grounds that a knowledge of literature would only make the humble dissatisfied with their condition. I am of two minds. A superficial education would be worse than none: envy and idleness would be encouraged. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence; and we are all of us brothers, as Epictetus reminds us. I have not yet made up my mind as to this problem. It is doubly difficult because of language. To educate anyone properly he must be taught Greek. Yet in a supposedly Hellenic city like Antioch, less than half the population knows Greek; the rest speak one or another of the Semitic languages. The same is true of Alexandria and the cities of Asia. A further complication is the matter of Latin. The language of both law and army is Latin, while that of literature and administration is Greek. As a result, an educated man must be bilingual. If he were the son, say, of a Syrian tailor in Antioch he would have to be trilingual. Just learning languages would take up most of his time. I know. As much as I have studied Latin, I'can still hardly read it. And though I speak the military jargon easily, it bears little relation to Cicero whom I read in Greek translation! So we argued among ourselves in the best of spirits through the winter and a most beautiful spring which covered the banks of the Seine with flowers, and reminded us, in life, what Eleusis shows us in mystery.
At the beginning of June the idyll ended. Constantius transferred Sallust to army headquarters at Milan. He cut off my right arm. My response: grief, rage, and, finally, in imitation of the philosophers, I composed a long essay on the gods, and dedicated it to Sallust.
Insert account of that summer's campaign.
Priscus: That year's campaign was a troublesome one. Constantit:s had neglected to supply Julian with money to pay his troops. Also, supplies were short and what grain Julian could amass, he was forced to render into hard tack, not the sort of ration calculated to please troops already exhausted from much fighting, Julian was so short of funds that on at least one occasion when a soldier asked him for what the men call "shave money" or "the barber's due", he was not able to give the man even one small coin.
Julian moved north to Flanders. In a most guileful way, he conquered a Frankish tribe which occupied the city of Tongres. Then he defeated a German tribe called the Chornevi who dwell at the mouth of the Rhine. After that he marched to the Meuse River and restored three of our ruined fortresses. At this point, the food gave out. The local harvest was late, and the troops were on the verge of mutiny. They jeered Julian in public and called him
"Asiatic" and "Greekling". But he comported himself with dignity, stripped the countryside of what food there was, and quelled the mutiny.
Next Julian built a pontoon bridge across the Rhine and we crossed over into the country of the German king, Suomarius… but all that is in the military history. After this short campaign, we recrossed the Rhine and returned to Paris for the winter.
Julian Augustus
Our second winter in Paris was even more agreeable than the first, though I missed Sallust more than I could say—but then I did say it, in panegyric prose! I still had no money. I was watched and reported on by the secret agent Gaudentius. My wife continued to be ill. Yet despite all this, I was content. I had grown used to governing, and I no longer thought wistfully of a private life, teaching at Athens. I was well pleased to be Caesar in Gaul.
The principal event of the winter was the first major trial I was to preside over. Numerius, governor of Gallia Narbonensis (one of the Mediterranean provinces), was accused of embezzling state funds. Enemies had prepared a damning case against him. He was brought to Paris for trial. It was a fascinating experience for me and almost as interesting for the Parisians as their beloved theatre, for I allowed the public to attend the trial.
Day after day the hall of justice was crowded. It was soon apparent that there was no proper evidence against Numerius. He was a striking-looking man, tall and stately. He chose to defend himself against Delphidius, the public prosecutor. Now Delphidius is one of the most vigorous speakers and cunning legal minds in the empire but even he could not make evidence out
of air, though he certainly tried, using his own breath.
Numerius had made political enemies, as we all do, and they had trumped up charges against him in the hope that I might remove him. Point by point Numerius refuted every charge against him so skilfully that Delphidius finally turned to me and shouted angrily, "Can anyone, great Caesar, ever be found guilty if all he must do is deny the charge?" To which I answered in one of those rare unpremeditated bursts in which—at least so I like to thinkthe gods speak through me: "Can anyone ever be found innocent, if all you must do is accuse him?" There was a sudden silence in the hall. Then a great burst of applause, and that was the end of the trial.
I tell this story out of vanity, of course. I am very pleased with what I—or Hermes—said. But to be honest, I am not the best judge in the world. Often when I think I am making some subtle point, I am actually only spreading confusion. Yet I mention this story because it demonstrates, I believe, the true basis of law. Those of the earth's governors who have been tyrants have always presumed that if a man is thought guilty then he must be guilty because why otherwise would he find himself in such a situation. Now any tyrant knows that a man may be perfectly blameless but have powerful enemies (very often the tyrant himself is chief among them), which is why I prefer to place the burden of proof on the accuser rather than on the accused.