Religious Policy

A Roman emperor in late antiquity had to deal not only with military, administrative, and communicative matters, but also with the complex religious affairs of the time. Jovian was a Christian, and he made a clean break with Julian’s pro-pagan measures and returned to the religious policy of Constantine and Constantius II. He did not, however, issue anti-pagan measures. Jovian may have been in favor of Nicene Christianity if we can believe Athanasius’s letter addressed to him, as well as the Petitiones Arianorum. This set of four petitions to Jovian have been preserved among the apologetical writings of Athanasius and should therefore be treated with caution. In general, Jovian seems to have taken no sides in the various christological conflicts and debates of his time. He propagated religious tolerance as is evident from Themistius’s consular oration. Whether he issued a law of religious tolerance, as Themistius seems to suggest, remains in doubt. Regulating religion, dealing with dogmatic issues, or taking a position himself in religious conflicts seem not to have been among Jovian’s primary concerns.

Ruling the Empire

Jovian, who had been elevated to imperial status in Persia, soon after his treaty with Shapur II started to secure his position as emperor. Like any ruler, Jovian was aware of the fact that his authority depended not only on his authoritative position as emperor, but also on how his imperial power was presented and perceived. A variety of visual, literary, and other media, such as coins, inscriptions, legislation, panegyrics, and official ceremonies, were available to help in publicizing an emperor’s supremacy and legitimacy as ruler. This chapter focuses on how Jovian established his rule by using the media of coinage, legislation, and inscriptions, as well as Themistius’s oration in honor of his first consulship. Ideologically he clearly distinguished himself from the regime of Julian by connecting himself to Constantius II and especially by anchoring himself in the imperial tradition of Constantine the Great. The chapter also discusses practical matters of imperial administration and the nomination of officials, and very importantly, how Jovian secured the western provinces of the empire, in particular Gaul, by sending various envoys, among them his father-in-law Lucillianus and the later emperor Valentinian. Jovian’s imperial administration relied for the most part on military and civil officials that had already been nominated under Constantius II and Julian.

The Forgotten Reign of the Emperor Jovian (363-364)

This book is the first modern scholarly monograph on the emperor Jovian (363–364). It offers a new assessment of his reign and argues that Jovian’s reign was of more importance than assumed by most (ancient and modern) historians. This study argues that Jovian restored the Roman Empire after the failed reign of Julian by returning to the policies of Constantius II and Constantine the Great. Jovian’s general strategies were directed to getting the Roman Empire back on its feet militarily, administratively, and religiously after the failed reign of his predecessor Julian (361–363), as well as to establish more peaceful relations with the Sassanid Empire. For an emperor who ruled only eight months, Jovian had an unexpected and surprising afterlife. The rarely studied and largely unknown Syriac Julian Romance offers a surprising and different perspective on person and reign of Jovian. In the Romance, Jovian is presented as the ideal Christian emperor and a new Constantine. But the Romance is also an important source for Roman–Persian relations and the positioning of Syriac Christianity in the late antique world of Christendom.

Revaluing Roman Cyprus

This study addresses the traditional characterization of Roman Cyprus’s history as a Roman province as uneventful, insignificant, and ‘weary’. It brings fresh insight to the study of its culture and society by taking an integrated approach and bringing together well-known, less familiar, and new evidence to reassess cultural change, local responses to Roman rule, and the articulation of local identity in the Cypriot context. While it focuses primarily on material from the annexation of the island in 58 BC until the mid fourth century AD, or more specifically the refoundation of Salamis by Constantius II between AD 332 and 342, where relevant space will be given to discussion of evidence from across all periods of the island’s ancient history to facilitate a meaningful investigation of the key themes of this work. Ultimately, this study aims to reinsert Roman Cyprus into academic narratives about culture and society of the Roman provinces. Furthermore, it has been put together with the undergraduate student in mind to encourage and promote the study of Roman Cyprus—and, of course, ancient Cyprus—by collating key studies, evidence, and material, and thus making them accessible to new audiences

Codex Nicholsonianus

Frankness is not a quality one naturally associates with Themistius, that most sinuous of the fourth century's official spokesmen, but the opening of his first speech (‘On the Love of Mankind’) is disarmingly frank. Invited to address Constantius II at Ancyra in the spring of 342, the young orator had an unusually difficult brief: violent riots in Constantinople had recently seen Hermogenes (a senior general) killed by a mob, relations with Constans (emperor in the west) were tense and war with Persia was rumbling away on the eastern frontier. The situation surely called for cliché — the familiar refuge of the panegyrist in a tight spot — but Themistius responded with a rather daring candour. Not for him some faltering introduction of the various themes set out in the rhetorical handbooks. Instead, he opened by offering his listeners an expert's guide to the tropes of conventional panegyric: those familiar descriptions of magnificent armies, glittering imperial adornment and the emperor's physical vigour (Or. 1.2a–b) to which his courtly audience must have been almost numb. With these curtly dismissed as so much hackwork, he delivered a boldly original oration: a philosophical treatment of the emperor's inner virtue. It is quite a performance. One can see why so many and such different emperors found themselves in need of Themistius’ eloquence.

Roman Renewal versus Christian Progress

Constantine’s son Constantius II particularly worked to encourage the emergence of a new, Christian Roman Empire by restricting pagan practices and transferring pagan temples to the ownership of the church. Christian authors like Firmicus Maternus framed actions like these as a form of progress that moved the empire closer to a better, Christian condition—a dramatic break from the traditional cycle of decline and renewal. Constantius also elevated the new city of Constantinople to parity with Rome, an action described to the Roman senate by his propagandist Themistius. The pagan emperor Julian, Constantius’s successor, set about undoing many of the steps Constantine and his sons had taken. Julian framed these actions as a restoration of Roman power and religious traditions, but, in some ways, his initiatives departed from past practices as well.

The Labarum – from Crux Dissimulata and Chi-Rho to the Open Image Cross

Based on the testimony of emperor Constantine the Great himself, Eusebius of Caesarea presented a labarum in the form of crux dissimulata crowned with the Chi-Rho. The continuers of his Church History in the next century, Rufinus of Aquileia, Philostorgius, Socrates of Constantinople, and Sozomen, only kept the cross-shape of the banner, excluding the christogram. This might have happened because in two main sources informing about the vision of Constantine – the accounts of Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius – it was not only the monogram of Christ that played a significant role. The motif of the cross also appears in them, in the account of Eusebius directly, and Lactantius indirectly. Furthermore, Christians interpreted the cross explicitly as a sign of victory. Eusebius wrote about the cross as a symbol of immortality, a triumphant sign of Christ overcoming death. In the account of the bishop of Caesarea, on the other hand, Constantine’s supposed vision included a triumphal sign in the form of a luminous cross, or the symbol of the trophy of salvation. Numismatic evidence also cannot be ignored. Already during the reign of Constantine the Great, the Chi-Rho appeared on the coins both on the shields and on the labarum. However, starting from the reign of Constantius II, coins that were minted included the cross instead of the Chi-Rho on the labarum. It also began to be placed on the shields, in their central part, where the monogram of Christ used to be. Over time, the cross replaced the entire labarum. The iconography present on the coins may prove that the phenomenon of identifying the labarum or Chi-Rho with the cross was not limited to church historiography and was more widespread, although it should be remembered that coins continued to also be decorated with the letters Chi-Rho. Therefore, the representation of the cross did not replace this symbol. However, it cannot be ruled out that the increasingly common image of the cross on coins also contributed to the aforementioned perception of the labarum by church historians.