Occasio in bello amplius solet juvare, quam virtus. Amplius juvat virtus, quam multitudo.
In war, valor is more useful than strength of arms, but even greater than valor is timing.
I
What a terrible thing, Brother, is a civil war. One week your dominion is at peace, the enemy on all borders has been subdued, the army is draining marshes for farmland and repairing fortifications, the Emperor is satisfied, and the Church is expanding; then with one fell blow, one ill-advised order from on high, all is a shambles. One's life is uprooted and overturned, the Empire is on the brink of schism, and death is all around. One week, within which one day was the turning point, though I would be hard-pressed to determine precisely which day that was, as all seem to run together in an evil blur; and within that day a critical hour, minute, and second. Before which point, if the fatal order had not been issued, all would have remained the same; after which infinitesimal lapse, all is lost, or gained, depending upon the side you are on, and on that side, depending upon whether you are a general who will be allowed to retire peacefully to an estate in Pannonia, or a mud-booted infantryman, in which case it hardly matters on which side you fight, for the end result will be the same either way, and the twenty years' service in exchange for retirement, a thick-armed barbarian wife, and two acres of bottomland for a garden are as impossible as Perseus' flight to the sun. A week is all it takes, Brother, for God to create the universe, for civil war to erupt, for a plot of beans to sprout in the summer. A day is all that is needed to watch the gladiator battles in the circus, for a baby to be born. An hour to attend a Communion service, or for that same baby to die. A minute to tell a joke, to say a prayer, to ask forgiveness, to utter a betrayal. A second for a wasp to sting, for an archer to loose an arrow, for a murderer — or an Emperor — to snuff out a life. Yet that insignificant period of time is impossible to predict in advance, or its inexorable progress to be stopped, and despite every good intent, that which God hath decreed is made manifest, and the wasp stings, and the war erupts.
Like the deified Julius four hundred years before, Julian had crossed his Rubicon, yet if the first Caesar had known what he was about when he took this fatal step, the same could not be immediately said of his successor. For though the Gauls praised and acclaimed him as the savior of their nation, and indeed of the Empire, this was because most of them had never been farther than twenty miles from Paris and could scarcely imagine an empire much bigger than their own country. There were very few rays of sun on the horizon; all of Julian's outlook was darkened by clouds. He could indeed boast of having raised and trained a crack army in the past five years, but so too had Constantius during his own reign, and his troops numbered four times as many as all that could be mustered in Gaul, and he had the treasure of Rome and Constantinople and all the mighty cities of the East to support him if any more were needed. If the Gallic people and troops could scarcely look beyond their own day-to- day existence, Julian and his advisers could; and our prospects were not promising.
For lack of a better strategy, he resolved to stall, to gain as much time as he could to solidify his local base, while softening Constantius, even dissuading him from his anger. He entered into direct negotiations with the Emperor, explaining to him in a respectful letter precisely how his acclamation of Augustus of equal rank to the Emperor's own had occurred, and stating his desire to come to an understanding. We spent days drafting and honing the wording of this missive, to convey a tone neither timid nor arrogant, continuing to recognize Constantius as senior ruler of the rest of the Empire, but requesting in return recognition of Julian as the Supreme Ruler in the West. In what I thought was an additional fine touch, he decided to have the letter personally delivered to the Emperor by old Eutherius, a man whom Constantius had long known, and one of the few men in Gaul whom he respected and trusted. He issued similar explanatory letters to the Senates of Rome and Athens, and in a characteristic anachronism, a nod to his desire to safeguard the ancient morals and customs, he sent copies to the Spartans and Corinthians as well, though it had been six centuries, at least, since their cities had carried any political weight in the world.
The gesture was wasted. Eutherius and his party were impeded and harassed every step of the way by hostile customs agents and other imperial authorities. After they finally crossed the Bosphorus and presented the letter to the Emperor, who was then visiting in Caesaria of Cappadocia, Constantius broke into a murderous rage, screaming at them and spitting from his flabby, unwieldy lips, sending his court diving for cover and causing even the stalwart old eunuch to fear for his life. Without even questioning Eutherius, denying him the right to explain the letter, the Emperor ordered him to leave, and Eutherius scuttled back to Gaul and advised Julian to prepare for war immediately.
The old adviser's haste, however, was not warranted, at least not yet. Shortly after the interview in Cappadocia, the Emperor came to his senses and determined that of the two threats arising on either side of him, the newly acclaimed Augustus in the West and the Persians in the East, the Persians were the more dangerous. Accordingly, he too adopted stalling tactics and engaged in his own exchange of letters, demanding that Julian immediately renounce his title of Augustus and retain only his early, subordinate authority in Gaul, and all would be forgiven, though no mention was made of the terms of service of the Gallic troops. This letter was delivered by a group of court officials, all of whom had been appointed by Constantius to various senior military and civil posts in Gaul, in an effort to deny Julian the right to fill these positions with men of his own choosing.
I shall make a long story short, Brother, for almost the whole of that year of Our Lord of 360, and half the next, was spent in these diplomatic skirmishes and thinly veiled insults. Constantius became bogged down with his diplomatic and military campaigns against the Great King Sapor, drawing new levies of troops to fill the gaps in his legions, increasing the numbers of cavalry, imposing heavy tax burdens on all classes without distinction, and drawing huge quantities of provisions, men, and treasure from Italy and all the other provinces under his control.
Julian, meanwhile, spent all his time strengthening his army, recruiting auxiliaries from both sides of the Rhine, tightening the collection of taxes to ensure that every copper due was paid, and assigning his troops to rigorous training and mock battles. The Gauls took this in good stride, indeed cheered him and encouraged him in these ventures, to the point of even volunteering for him large sums of silver and gold beyond what was due in tribute or taxation, which he initially refused, but eventually accepted when they practically forced him to take it.
Dozens of times, however, I urged him to caution. 'Julian,' I would say on a typical occasion, while reviewing correspondence from the garrisons with him, or studying our respective texts at night, 'with the military you would do well to be discreet. Every company you add to your legions is fodder for the Emperor's spies to report. He already suspects your intent. You are eliminating your options, making it all the more difficult to turn back.'
Normally he would nod in silence or simply ignore me. On the final occasion that I made such a warning, however, he slammed down the codex of laws he was reading and stood.
'Damn it, Caesarius, you underestimate me, just as General Marcellus and Sallustius and the others do!' His voice was controlled but tinged with anger. 'You and I — we have fought together, grieved together — you buried my own son! Do you know me so little? Have all my efforts to preserve Gaul, to glorify Rome, passed over your head? You still assume I nurture the option of turning back. You are wrong. There is only one direction, forward to the end, and only God knows whether I will be Emperor or a dead man. But I will not rule jointly with Constantius. I cannot apply philosophy to a man who has none. There can be no more cohabitation with the man who killed my son.'
'But, Julian,' I protested, 'the letters you have written him… the embassies you have sent. Surely something-'
'Surely nothing,' he interrupted hoarsely, in a voice barely contained. 'Don't mistake my delays for hesitation. I am building my strength, Caesarius. Time favors me, and I will not be rushed on this enterprise.'
At this I was silent, merely staring at him as I pondered the implications. He breathed slowly and deeply for a
