‘Everyone who now reads and writes in the West, of whatever racial background, sex or ideological camp, is still a son or daughter of Homer.’Footnote 1 While the extent to which this claim is accurate has been disputed, it is not wrong in our own day to grant the highest honours for ongoing influence to the author of the Iliad. All the more so in Late Antiquity, a period frequently viewed as hermetically isolated from the classical world, but which resolutely viewed itself as part of that unbroken cultural and literary continuum. One of those who made repeated use of Homer's epic was the Emperor Julian (a.d. 331–63), one of the most prolific writers among Rome's emperors.Footnote 2 In the fourth century a.d., Homer's influence was still predominant, not only being Julian's favourite and most frequently cited author but also forming for Libanius of Antioch ‘one of the pillars of rhetorical teaching’.Footnote 3 Despite Glen Bowersock's statement that Julian's many writings offer unique insight into his character and disposition, Julian is still a historical character who is not easy to ‘know’.Footnote 4 Julian's life was shaped by the murder of his father, brothers and uncles by a cabal involving, if not orchestrated by, his cousin Constantius II. This was followed by the removal of his trusted confidant Salutius, again by Constantius. These experiences exhibit an unusual phenomenon, in that, when Julian referred to them, they were prefaced by a spate of Homeric allusions. Julian's wrath at people taken from him was both genuine and politically useful, but the expression of it was dangerous enough that he expressed it obliquely in the language of Homer.Footnote 5 These citations and allusions, drawn primarily from the Iliad, were far more than Julian's flaunting of his education, but were rather a tool for subtly conveying his desired message, a message with strong political tones. I will treat these passages in the order in which Julian wrote them, although that places the events reminisced about in the reverse order.
I. ΤHE SEPARATION OF COMPANIONS (OR. 8.241C–242A)Footnote 6
Growing up without his father, who perished in the purge of a.d. 337, Julian was particularly vulnerable to the need for an older male mentor figure.Footnote 7 He initially found support from his strong attachment to his Scythian tutor Mardonius, who taught him the Greek myths as he had Julian's mother before him.Footnote 8 Years later, Julian would write of Mardonius as the teacher who had brought him up (Or. 5 To the Athenians 274d). In 342, Constantius II removed Julian to the Cappadocian estate known as Macellum and severed the relationship.Footnote 9 That want was satisfied when Julian, newly made Caesar, arrived in Gaul in December 355 and met the quaestor Saturninus Secundus Salutius.Footnote 10 That senior official possessed practical experience and local knowledge derived from being a Gaul himself, which was invaluable to Julian (Or. 8 On the departure of Salutius 243c). Salutius was a fellow pagan, philosophically inclined, rhetorically gifted, and he fulfilled the role of mentor during a difficult time in Julian's life where he was called to lead troops into battle while watching for political enemies (Or. 8 On the departure of Salutius 252a–b). This, too, would come to an end, when the court demanded that Salutius transfer elsewhere in 358. Julian's attachment to his comrade, who had stood with him as an equal co-combatant, can also be seen in the same work regarding the challenges he was facing while Oribasius, his personal physician and confidant, was in Vienne. When contemplating Salutius’ departure and in contrast to any possible replacement, he wrote: ‘May the gods grant me the excellent Salutius’ (τὸν δὲ χρηστὸν Σαλούστιον θεοὶ μέν μοι χαρίσαιντο, Ep. 4 Wright To Oribasius 385d). While he admitted that he would survive and carry on if separated from his adviser, the sentiment is noteworthy.
In the lengthy work entitled Consolation to himself on the departure of the excellent Salutius, the young Caesar revealed how much Salutius’ departure affected him with a comparison to his loss of the beloved Mardonius. ‘I felt so much, as much as when I first left my tutor at home’ (τοσοῦτον ὠδυνήθην, ὅσον ὅτε πρῶτον τὸν ἐμαυτοῦ καθηγεμόνα κατέλιπον οἴκοι, Or. 8.241c). This left Julian anguished and no doubt noticing that it was Constantius in all three cases that stole away the companionship of his father, his teacher Mardonius and his mentor Salutius. While Julian's text does not mandate that the two were forcibly separated, and readers might think that Julian blamed himself for leaving Mardonius behind, we must recall that neither Julian's removal nor the assignment of Eusebius of Nicomedia as the supervisor of his education was under Julian's control. Even if we reject Julian's account of their parting, I believe that the context here suggests that Julian was deliberately playing on the theme of resentment. In reminiscing about the relationship which he and Salutius had forged amidst adversity, Julian wrote: ‘Just as many times we stood with one another, having one spirit’ (ὡς μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἔστημεν πολλάκις ἶσον θυμὸν ἔχοντες, Or. 8.241d). In service to this, he quoted the passage from Homer's Iliad, in which Ajax told Menelaus that the two Aiantes would fend off the Trojans. ‘We, who have the same name, the same spirit (ἶσον θυμὸν ἔχοντες, ὁμώνυμοι), and who in times past have stood fast beside each other in the face of the bitter war god’ (Il. 17.720–1). Reflecting upon this close relationship evidently caused Julian to realize how much he missed his comrade. He wrote: ‘But regarding this too came to my mind: Odysseus was left alone’ (πρὸς δὲ αὖ τούτοις εἰσῄει με μνήμη τοῦ Οἰώθη δ᾽ Ὀδυσεύς,Or. 8.241d). These words which Julian claimed sprang to his mind came from Odysseus’ speech to himself, that he must fight the Trojans alone, although shortly thereafter Ajax and Menelaus came to his rescue: ‘Now Odysseus the spear-famed was left alone’ (οἰώθη δ᾽ Ὀδυσεύς, Il. 11.401). The poet ‘piles on the agony of the Achaean reverse by emphasizing the peril of Odysseus’.Footnote 11 The young Caesar continued, explaining why the Homeric passage and the comparison to Odysseus had occurred to him. ‘For now I am like him, since God has called you forth like Hector from the rain of missiles that those sycophants let loose upon you, but rather at me, since through you they wished to wound me, accepting that it was only easy to defeat me in this way, if they would have taken a faithful friend and willing comrade, the unhesitating companion of mutual dangers’ (εἰμὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ νῦν ἐκείνῳ παραπλήσιος, ἐπεὶ σὲ μὲν κατὰ τὸν Ἕκτορα θεὸς ἐξήγαγεν ἔξω βελῶν, | ὧν οἱ συκοφάνται πολλάκις ἀφῆκαν ἐπὶ σέ, μᾶλλον δὲ εἰς ἐμέ, διὰ σοῦ τρῶσαι βουλόμενοι, ταύτῃ με μόνον ἁλώσιμον ὑπολαμβάνοντες, εἰ τοῦ πιστοῦ φίλου καὶ προθύμου συνασπιστοῦ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς κινδύνους ἀπροφασίστου κοινωνοῦ τῆς συνουσίας στερήσειαν, Or. 8.241d–242a). Following that overt link to Hector and the Iliad, Julian continued, describing Constantius’ removal of Salutius in words that Homer had used to describe Zeus's divine whisking away of Hector from the tumultuous battle: ‘But Zeus drew Hector out from under the dust and the missiles’ (Ἕκτορα δ᾽ ἐκ βελέων ὕπαγε Ζεύς, Il. 11.163). Finally, when Julian reflected on Salutius’ likely concern for him and on the reality of the risks he was taking, his citation recalled Ajax expressing his fear not for the mission but for himself. Julian wrote: ‘Truly now, I deem you to suffer no less through this than I because you have a lesser share of the labours and dangers, but to fear even more for me and for my own head and what may befall it’ (οὐ μὴν ἔλαττον οἶμαί σε διὰ τοῦτο ἀλγεῖν ἢ ἐγὼ νῦν, ὅτι σοι τῶν | πόνων καὶ τῶν κινδύνων ἔλαττον μέτεστιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλέον ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ δεδιέναι καὶ τῆς ἐμῆς κεφαλῆς, μή τι πάθῃ, Or. 8.242a–b). This reflects Homer's passage: ‘My fear is not so much for the dead body of Patroclus … so much as I fear for my own head, my life (ὅσσον ἐμῇ κεφαλῇ περιδείδια, μή τι πάθῃσι), and what may befall it’ (Il. 17.242). Lössl notes two of the ‘series of further Iliad citations’ in this passage, but does not connect this to Julian's state of mind, or what he might have been attempting to convey with this.Footnote 12
Julian not only wrote of his own isolation but also mourned the breaking of his strong bond with Salutius. Julian, who sought mentors throughout his life—whether literary like Mardonius, political like Salutius, or philosophical like Maximus—would of course in the absence of his own father feel their loss quite keenly. The concentration of Homeric idiom at an emotionally difficult point is notable, but the citations communicate on another level as well. When the citations are brought together, they quite clearly portray resentment at the interference of Constantius. Julian was also likely telegraphing his views of Constantius and Constantine at a time when it was not politic to do so more openly. Surely, it is more than coincidence that, a short while after writing this, Julian began working in earnest to orchestrate a rebellion against Constantius II, a campaign that would culminate in the carefully manipulated acclamation at Paris.Footnote 13 Indeed, Potter suggests that Julian’s shifting of his headquarters to Belgica Secunda in 358 was in order to build a network among local nobility and was his first step towards rebellion.Footnote 14
II. A PRELUDE TO MURDER (OR. 7.227C)
Julian wrote his seventh oration in Spring 362 in response to the impertinent jabs of the Cynic Heracleios, who had cast Julian as Pan and mocked his relationship with the god Helios (Or. 7 To the Cynic Heracleios 234c–d). Julian, who had been sole emperor for only a short while, swiftly composed this scathing reply, which included a lightly fictionalized version of his own childhood. In this myth, he tells the thinly disguised tale of a boy rejected by his relatives after they murder his family. While Julian never names himself as the boy, the autobiographical element is recognized by all commentators.Footnote 15 This passage is not from the opening of Julian’s Oration 7, To the Cynic Heracleios, but it is the beginning of the autobiographical myth he embedded within it (Or. 7.227–334). As he launched into this revealing and surely disturbing recollection, he appears to have been appealing to educated classes in the East to support his usurpation by employing recognizable allusions in the language of Homer to express his justified wrath.
At the start of recounting this myth of the time before his family's murder, Julian set the scene as a ‘Golden Age’ with two bucolic quotations from Homer. Both, however, have something of a sting in the tail. The passage begins by vaguely identifying a certain ‘rich man’ with the ‘greatest territory’ (πλουσίῳ ἀνδρὶ | … πλεῖστα κτήματα, Or. 7.227b–c), who would have been understood by his audience as his hated uncle, Flavius Valerius Constantinus. Julian, as demonstrated by a review of the entire autobiographical myth, not only loathed Constantine and his sons in general but specifically blamed his uncle's apostasy from Helios to the Christian God for the murder of his family and the decline of the empire.Footnote 16 Julian had expounded enthusiastically on Constantine's contempt for the gods in his previous work, the Epistle to the Athenians. Constantine's status as a ‘rich man’ derived both from his plundering of temples once emperor and from his inheritance of the title of Augustus under Diocletian.Footnote 17
Julian described the many possessions of the rich man, the partial list of which included ‘many sheepfolds, cattleherds and free-range goatherds’ (πρόβατα ἦν πολλὰ καὶ ἀγέλαι βοῶν καὶ αἰπόλια πλατέ᾽ αἰγῶν, Or. 7.227c). In the first Homeric citation, Nestor related past plunderings: ‘And we got and drove off together much spoil from this pastureland: fifty herds of oxen, as many sheepflocks, as many droves of pigs, and again as many wide-ranging goatflocks’ (ληίδα δ᾽ ἐκ πεδίου συνελάσσαμεν ἤλιθα πολλήν, | πεντήκοντα βοῶν ἀγέλας, τόσα πώεα οἰῶν, | τόσσα συῶν συβόσια, τόσ᾽ αἰπόλια πλατέ᾽ αἰγῶν, Il. 11.677–9). This matter of spoliation is important to understanding Julian's feelings towards his cousin, and his use of this text. It is worth noting that this citation also parallels the same phrases from Od. 14.100–2, where Eumaeus described Odysseus’ wrongfully usurped holdings. While Julian certainly considered the larger narrative of Constantine's apostasy from Helios and the temple desecrations perpetrated by the emperor and his sons, he never let go of the personal side either. He wrote of his resentment regarding Constantius’ appropriation of his inheritance from his father, which should by rights have come to him (Or. 5 To the Athenians 273b). Julian continued, writing of the rich man's horses, which recalled those of a Homeric king. He wrote of the ‘tens of thousands of horses that grazed his marsh-meadows’ (ἵπποι δὲ αὐτῷ πολλάκις μυρίαι ἕλος κάτα βουκολέοντο, Or. 7.227c). In the second cited passage, Dardanus, the son of Zeus and ancestor of the Trojans whom the Greeks would conquer, left his estate to his son: ‘Dardanus in turn had a son, the king, Erichthonius, who became the richest of mortal men, and in his possession were three thousand horses who pastured along the low grasslands (ἕλος κάτα βουκολέοντο, Il. 20.221).’ Julian's allusion to an honourable dynasty gone wrong strongly suggests the Neo-Flavians. The father of the rich man (Constantine) was Constantius I, later titled ‘Constantius Chlorus’, the founder of the Neo-Flavian dynasty. Julian always wrote positively of his grandfather Constantius I and apparently believed him to have been a pagan. In his Symposium, Julian had cast the gods as clearly approving of Constantius I and, on his righteous behalf, as ameliorating the punishments of Constantine and his sons for their sins (Or. 10 Symposium 315a–b, 336b). By using this passage and its embedded Homeric citations to criticize Constantine, Julian was also able to reclaim a passage he had employed earlier (a.d. 358) in praise of Constantius II's wealth, when he described his three thousand mares that ‘grazed his marsh-meadows’ (ἕλος κάτα βουκολέοντο, Or. 3 On kingship 52b; cf. Il. 20.221).
Any remnants of the atmosphere of the Golden Age evaporated as the passage concluded with a foreboding hint of tragic disaster owing to Constantine's impiety. ‘But while his father had left him much of this, he had won much more for himself, willing to enrich himself either by righteousness or by unrighteousness, for he cared little for the gods’ (τούτων δὲ αὐτῷ πολλὰ μὲν ὁ πατὴρ ἀπολελοίπει, πολλαπλάσια δὲ αὐτὸς ἐκτήσατο, πλουτεῖν θέλων ἐν δίκῃ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκην‧ ἔμελε γὰρ αὐτῷ καὶ τῶν | θεῶν ὀλίγον, Or. 7.227c–d). The rest of the myth made clear that, as a result of Constantine's apostasy from paganism, his heirs would lack virtue and fight one another for the shares of his wealth. Julian would use this myth to highlight the conflict between Christianity personified as Constantine and paganism personified in himself, contrasting the weak first heir of Constantius I with the obedient heir who would put right the failures of the first.
III. THE BLOOD AND TUMULT AND SLAUGHTER OF MEN (OR. 7.229D)
The murder of Julian’s family was clearly the most disturbing and, I would argue, the most formative event in his life. His reflection on the murders years later fuelled his hatred of the Neo-Flavian dynasty and all it stood for. Based on texts and numismatic evidence, Burgess has demonstrated Constantius’ complicity in the events surrounding the purge which followed Constantine's death.Footnote 18 Constantine had intended a new Tetrarchy guided by senior relatives in advisory positions. The various relatives would have gathered in Constantinople for the funeral of the emperor, at which point Constantius, perhaps following some breakdown in communications with Julius Constantius or Dalmatius, struck decisively, eliminating Julian's father Julius Constantius, Julian's unnamed elder brother, the Caesar Dalmatius, his father Flavius Dalmatius, his brother Hannibalianus, Flavius Optatus and the praetorian prefect Ablabius, all of whom were potential rivals for some share in power (Or. 5 To the Athenians 270d).Footnote 19 Julian's text suggests that the execution of the male members of his family happened in front of him in their home in Constantinople. Here Julian tapped into an existing literary relationship between himself and Achilles that had been established for some years. Barnes has noted that Himerius was comparing Julian to Achilles in an oration as early as 351 (Himerius, fr. 1.6, quoting Il. 9.443).Footnote 20 Julian had cast himself as the new Achilles in his Or. 3, composed in 358 while he was Caesar under his cousin Constantius II. Julian hinted at future unrest when he opened his panegyric to Constantius II with King Agamemnon's failure to treat his general Achilles well (Or. 2 On kingship 49c–50a). The three citations Julian employed in this passage all draw upon that Achilles-Agamemnon relationship. The passage portrays the gods looking down over the scene of the tragedy and contemplating the future emperor Julian. Zeus described him: ‘For you see how he is as if stricken by smoke, filth and soot’ (ὁρᾷς γὰρ ὅπως οἷον ὑπὸ καπνοῦ ῥύπου τε ἀναπέπλησται καὶ λιγνύος, Or. 7.229d). The phrase ‘smoke, filth and soot’ (καπνός, ῥύπος and λιγνύς) was likely drawn from the passage in the Iliad in which Antilochus informed Achilles of the death of his beloved Patroclus: ‘He spoke, and the black cloud of sorrow closed on Achilles. In both hands he caught up the grimy dust, and poured it over his head and face, and fouled his handsome countenance, and the black ashes were scattered over his immortal tunic’ (ὣς φάτο, τὸν δ᾽ ἄχεος νεφέλη ἐκάλυψε μέλαινα. | ἀμφοτέρῃσι δὲ χερσὶν ἑλὼν κόνιν αἰθαλόεσσαν | χεύατο κἀκ κεφαλῆς, χαρίεν δ᾽ ᾔσχυνε πρόσωπον: | νεκταρέῳ δὲ χιτῶνι μέλαιν᾽ ἀμφίζανε τέφρη, Il. 18.22–5). Achilles, sitting amidst the Achaean ships and the smoke and fire of battle, was overwhelmed and utterly grief-stricken at the death of Patroclus. It is expressed in slightly different terms, as Achilles is stricken with a ‘black cloud’ instead of ‘smoke’, with ‘grimy dust’, the filthy nature of which is revealed when Achilles used it to ‘befoul’ his face, and with ‘black ashes’ rather than ‘soot’. Despite the different vocabulary, the imagery and word order provide a consistent allusion to the Iliad. As Edwards points out, ‘the language of mourning is mingled with that of death, for defiling the head with dust is the sign not only of extreme grief but also of death on the battlefield.’Footnote 21
Zeus assessed the threat to the chosen one of the gods, warning Helios that Julian was ‘in danger that the fire you sowed in him will be extinguished, if you will not exert your strength’ (κίνδυνός τε τὸ ὑπὸ σοῦ σπαρὲν ἐν αὐτῷ πῦρ ἀποσβῆναι, ἢν μὴ σύ γε δύσεαι ἀλκήν, Or. 7.229d). The phrase ‘if you will not exert your strength’—or, more literally, ‘if you will not put on strength’—is also drawn from the Iliad. In the passage in question, Odysseus lauded Achilles and, in so doing, shared his concerns that the Trojans would defeat them unless Achilles put on his strength and rejoined the fray: ‘There is doubt if we save our strong-benched vessels or if they will be destroyed, unless you put on your war-strength’ (ἐν δοιῇ δὲ σαωσέμεν ἢ ἀπολέσθαι | νῆας ἐυσσέλμους, εἰ μὴ σύ γε δύσεαι ἀλκήν, Il. 9.230–1). Achilles here must put on strength to prevent ‘the ultimate horror’ of the burning of the fleet.Footnote 22 Following Odysseus’ speech, the reply of Achilles is telling: he hates death, but he hates men of deceit even more. Achilles states: ‘For as I detest the doorways of Death, I detest that man, who hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks forth another’ (ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀίδαο πύλῃσιν, | ὅς χ᾽ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ, Il. 9.312–13). That description could, in Julian's mind, apply to none so well as Constantius. The victims of the purge of 337 had been effectively subjected to the abolitio memoriae,Footnote 23 with the story emerging over time in various versions, namely that the army had done it and was afterwards restrained by Constantius (Greg. Naz. Or. 4 First invective against Julian 89–91) and, alternately, that Constantius had been bullied into acquiescing to the army.Footnote 24 Julian was not dissuaded from viewing this as deceit.
Julian went on to describe his divine deliverance in phraseology taken from Homer, writing that ‘King Helios heard this and was cheered and took pleasure in the babe, seeing that in him a small spark of himself was saved. And from then he reared that child he had brought forth from the blood and tumult and slaughter of men’ (ταῦτα ἀκούσας ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἥλιος ηὐφράνθη τε ἡσθεὶς τῷ βρέφει, σωζόμενον ἔτι καθορῶν ἐν αὐτῷ σπινθῆρα μικρὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ τὸ ἐντεῦθεν ἔτρεφεν ἐκεῖνο τὸ παιδίον, ἐξαγαγὼν ἔκ θ᾽ αἵματος ἔκ τε κυδοιμοῦ | ἔκ τ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης, Or. 7.229d–230a).Footnote 25 In the original source-text, Zeus spared Hector from the wrath of Agamemnon, drawing him out from the crush of battle when Agamemnon led the surging Danaans forward. However, the original word order was reversed: ‘But Zeus drew Hector out from under the dust and the missiles, out of the place where men were killed, the blood and confusion’ (ἐκ βελέων ὕπαγε Ζεὺς ἔκ τε κονίης | ἔκ τ᾽ ἀνδροκτασίης ἔκ θ᾽ αἵματος ἔκ τε κυδοιμοῦ, Il. 11.163–4). In Julian's hands, the phrase was used to describe his God Helios’ rescue of him from the forces of his Agamemnon, Constantius II. Julian's older half-brother Gallus was also spared, as he was ill and considered unlikely to live (Lib. Or. 18 Funeral oration over Julian 10). He did not feature in Julian's myth for complex reasons: he was already deceased, having been executed by Constantius for his misdeeds, which, given Gallus’ notorious behaviour, might have placed Constantius in a more positive light. Also, Gallus was undeniably Christian, which would have made Julian's efforts to use the myth to support his pagan revival that much more difficult. Julian's relationship to Helios was unique. Not only was he the emperor's personal deity but also Julian described him in several places as his own father.Footnote 26 In Julian's theology, Helios, who saved him, and Zeus, who saved Hector, were different aspects of the same high deity, along with Mithras.Footnote 27 This plays into another way in which the passage was used, as the rescue of Julian was followed by the acceptance of him as son by the high god Helios and the virgin goddess Athena, a jab at Christianity.Footnote 28
With these new allusions to himself as Achilles in a.d. 362, Julian conveyed to his audience the depth of his grief at the loss of his family. He was saved only by his personal God, who intervened to rescue him from his Agamemnon. Simultaneously, he cast himself again in the role of the new Achilles, whose deep sorrow was paralleled by a terrible wrath, a theme that may have been picked up by Julian's associate Libanius of Antioch, who followed Julian's comparison of himself to Achilles and Constantius II to Agamemnon (Or. 18 Funeral oration over Julian 66). The actions of Constantius II's soldiers in a.d. 337 created an implacable enemy, whose vengeance would be complete.
IV. CONCLUSION
These examples were more than just Julian's turning to Homer to express the emotionally inexpressible, but rather were instances of him communicating his ‘wrath’ subtly. While still Caesar under Constantius, Julian expressed his resentment against the loss of his confidant in the language of Homer regarding the inseparable Ajax and Menelaus, a resentment that extended back to Constantius’ separation of Julian from his beloved tutor Mardonius and his own murdered father. Some modern scholars have accepted at face value Julian's self-portrayal as an obedient, loyal subordinate, forced by circumstances into confrontation with Constantius II. In contrast, the evidence here suggests that his literary ‘wrath’ was no late development but was consistently expressed in both 358 and 361. Placing this into context, consider Julian's portrayal of his ‘independent’ victories in Gaul, the relocation of his headquarters prior to the confrontation with Constantius II, and the manipulation of his ‘spontaneous’ acclamation as Augustus. Julian later portrayed the first few years of the Gallic campaigns as a charade in which Constantius had set him up to fail, but, despite this dramatic account, David Hunt has noted that Constantius II treated Julian as a dynastic partner, naming Julian consul in 356 and 357, and eventually giving him his own troops which he commanded in concert with the emperor.Footnote 29 When Julian claimed that his assumption of independent command in 357 was what prompted a string of victories including the crushing victory at Cologne, he deliberately obscured the fact that the recapture of Cologne had actually happened in 356.Footnote 30 Following the strategic victories in Gaul, Julian began subtly strengthening his position, with Potter pointing out that Julian's demand for direct administration in Gaul and relocation of his base to Belgica Secunda should be considered both an effort to build a network of local aristocratic support and ‘the most obvious indication that he was planning an uprising’.Footnote 31 Taking his historical situation into account, particularly the timing of remarks in relation to budding opposition to Constantius II, suggests that even at this early stage he was appealing to the educated eastern elites under his cousin's rule, hoping to gain support for a future potential usurpation by employing allusions to justify his wrath. After becoming sole emperor, Julian would write for public consumption of the tragedy of his family history, making his points with Homeric language that spoke of a shattered Golden Age, as well as the usurpation of property and rights. When writing of the murders directly, Julian crafted a web of Homeric citations that portrayed himself as Achilles to Constantius’ Agamemnon and revealed an undercurrent of wrath and promise of divine vengeance. As before, Julian's recollection of these traumatic events was accompanied by a rush of Homeric citations and allusions as a powerful subtext. This example of imperial Homeric reception, then, is one that worked on two levels simultaneously. Understood properly, Julian's reuse of Homeric idiom sheds new light on the wrath that he directed at his cousin.
