One can hardly disagree that the emperor Julian II (360–63), more popularly known as Julian the Apostate because of his renunciation of the Christianity in which he had been reared, deserves a companion volume. Although there have been numerous recent studies of various aspects of his life and writings and multiple biographies in most major European languages, until this volume there had been no broad introduction to his writings, deeds, their subsequent reception and the modern scholarship on the same. The authors of the thirteen chapters contained herein are twelve international scholars, five based in Germany, two in Switzerland, two in the United Kingdom, one in Belgium, one in Italy and one in the USA. Most will be familiar as experts in the history and literature of the fourth century, and many have a long history of research on the emperor Julian in particular. All the chapters are in English, and their average length is approximately 32 pages, including a short bibliography of approximately three pages at the end of each. The editors proclaim that they wish to avoid the ‘biographical approach’ to Julian (pp. 28–9), so it is ironical that they have arranged the chapters in basic chronological order following his life rather than grouping them into thematic sections. The result is something that resembles an incomplete attempt at a biography, despite the editors’ protestations.

In the first chapter the editors provide a brief introduction to Julian's writings before summarising the modern scholarship on him, by which is meant the scholarship from the sixteenth century onwards, and conclude with a rapid survey of the critical editions and modern translations of the main sources for his reign, including his own works. In the second chapter H.-G. Nesselrath surveys Julian's philosophical writings in basic chronological order of composition, beginning with the Letter to Themistius, which is dated to late 355 or early 356. In the next chapter P.J. Heather provides a detailed account of the wars waged by Julian in Gaul against the Alamanni in particular from his despatch there as Caesar in late 355 until his advance against Constantius in the spring of 361. B. Bleckmann continues the narrative in the next chapter as he investigates why Julian revolted against Constantius II at Paris in early 360, describes the course of the revolt and concludes with a swift description of his rapid advance through Illyricum in 361, ending with his recognition as sole Augustus. In the fifth chapter S. Schmidt-Hofner discusses the behaviour of Julian as social reformer and legislator, with special attention to his concern for the financial well-being of the cities, his efforts to end corruption in the imperial service and his discrete use of the law to promote his anti-Christian religious policy. K. Vössing continues the legal theme in the next chapter, where he contextualises and analyses Julian's so-called ‘School Law’ of June 362 that attempted to purge Christians from higher schools. Wiemer changes the emphasis in the next chapter as he turns from the negative, anti-Christian aspects of Julian's religious policy to the positive, pro-pagan aspects of the same. Hence he discusses the restoration of pagan temples, priesthoods and sacrifice and the innovative nature of Julian's religious reforms. In the eighth chapter C. Riedweg discusses the anti-Christian polemic Against the Galilaeans that Julian composed during the winter of 362/63 with the emphasis on his attack on the Jewish roots of Christianity. This provides the bridge to the next chapter where S. Bradbury discusses the relationship of Julian with the contemporary Jewish community, with the emphasis on his attempted restoration of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 363. In the tenth chapter N. McLynn proceeds through the various stages of Julian's expedition against the Persians in 363, systematically comparing and contrasting what the three main surviving sources – Ammianus, Libanius and Zosimus – have to say about what happened at each point along the journey. There follow then three chapters about the reception of Julian. A. Marcone discusses the pagan reaction to him, proceeding chronologically from Libanius during Julian's own lifetime to Zosimus at the beginning of the sixth century. P. van Nuffelen discusses the Christian reaction to him, identifying three main stages in the process until the sixth century once more, where Julian is the subject of bitter polemic in the first, of less embittered historical analysis in the second and transformed into a hagiographical villain in the third. He concludes the chapter with a lengthy list of the martyrs and confessors alleged to have suffered under Julian, noting the main primary and secondary sources in each case. In the concluding chapter Rebenich discusses the reception of Julian over the last millennium, proceeding chronologically from the high medieval era through the early modern period, the so-called enlightenment and the nineteenth century, before concluding with a brief look once more at his reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Finally, there is a very large and complex bibliography divided into four sections dealing with Julian's life, his writings, his treatment in literary sources and the non-literary sources for his reign. These sections are subdivided in turn so that the first contains sixteen subsections, the second eleven, the third twenty-one and the fourth three.

On the whole, the volume is a success. The individual chapters are well written, nicely judged and provide very good introductions to the subjects that they discuss. The authors are very fair and restrained in their treatment of controversial issues and generally avoid inflicting their own pet theories on the reader. However, the reader also needs to be warned about certain idiosyncrasies or weaknesses in this volume. One is the failure to include any discussion of the life of Julian before he was appointed as Caesar in November 355. While the authors explain that this companion ‘is dedicated to the words and deeds of a late Roman emperor’ (p. 29), one notes that the title of the volume does not include the word ‘emperor’ or any other indication of this important restriction in the scope of the volume, and some readers may be disappointed to discover that there is no introduction to what was the most formative period in Julian's intellectual and spiritual development. A second weakness is that certain important topics within the areas that are actually covered are very much neglected. For example, even though his victory at the battle of Strasbourg in 357 was crucial to the rise of Julian in Gaul and provides an early notice of both his strengths and his weaknesses as a military commander, it receives relatively little attention in Heather's chapter on Julian's campaigns in Gaul. Similarly, if anyone hopes to find any sort of discussion of that perennial topic of debate, whether Julian was assassinated or not, they will search McLynn's description of Julian's expedition against Persia in vain. Many of the chapters pass so quickly over various topics or incidents that a student could easily be misled as to the extent of existing literature on these, not least when the annotation is often quite sparse or repetitive. For example, Heather and Bleckmann rarely do more than provide basic references to the primary sources supported by a few references to certain favoured commentaries or monographs, which are often several decades old. One has to turn to the relevant sections of the bibliography at the end of the volume in order to grasp that there may be much more out there, often in academic journals rather than in monographs. It is disappointing, therefore, that a greater effort was not made to integrate a wider range of more modern literature into the annotation of many of the chapters. Finally, one should note that the length and complexity of the concluding bibliography could persuade the unwary that it is a full and comprehensive listing of the most relevant items. Unfortunately, this is not true. In the preface, the editors declare that ‘the individual chapters were completed by the end of 2018’, but the effective cut-off for inclusion in the general bibliography seems to have been 2016 (with the noteworthy exception of various works by the contributors themselves which can date as late as 2019). Yet even if one assumes that the cut-off date for inclusion in the general bibliography (or in the end-of-chapter bibliographies) was 2016, there still remain many puzzling omissions of directly relevant papers published in leading, peer-reviewed journals, whether on Julian's campaigns in Gaul or on many other issues.

The publication of this volume is extremely welcome because it serves as a very good introduction to the actions and writings of Julian as both Caesar and Augustus. I will certainly recommend the chapters directly relevant to my own lectures to my students as the best places at which to start their exploration of certain key issues. Nevertheless, the chapters are only introductions to these subjects, and students also need to be warned that the authors have often chosen to survey or simplify in order not to confuse the beginner, or so it seems.