Meroitic Period and retainer sacrifice in ancient Nubia

Meroë in ancient Nubia, superseded Napata as the capital of the Kingdom of Kush under King Aspelta in about 591 BCE. Meroe's wealth was centered around a strong iron industry, as well as international trade in jewelry, pottery and textiles involving India and China. Meroitic metal workers engaged in both iron and Nubia's longstanding gold production were considered among the best in the world. The kingdom thrived until the 4th century CE and numerous kings and queens were buried in Meroë's royal cemeteries. 

The remains of Meroë were rediscovered by a French mineralogist Frédéric Cailliaud who published an illustrated folio in 1821. The first formal expedition led by Giuseppe Ferlini was launched in 1834. Ferlini primarily recovered mostly jewelry items which are now in the collections of museums in Berlin and Munich.  Then in 1844, C.R. Lepsius examined the ruins and produced plans and sketches of the site. These inspired E. A. Wallis Budge to lead an expedition to Meroë in 1902 and 1905. His finds were transferred to the British Museum. This was followed by excavations led by John Garstang of the University of Liverpool in 1910.

In 1931, British Egyptologist Walter Bryan Emery excavated the Ballana cemetery in Lower Nubia and uncovered 122 tombs dating from 350 to 600 CE.  In addition to objects of Nubian origin, there were many objects imported from Byzantine Egypt and other trading centers around the Mediterranean. His team found  royal crowns, horses, and servants buried with their masters.  

One of the most lavish burials was found in tomb 118 which consisted of a main burial chamber and two storage rooms.  Fortunately, the tomb's roof had collapsed so was apparently overlooked by looters. The body of the person buried there was found on a bier. It was most likely that of a king. Upon his head was found a crown. Under the bier, were the remains of a large wooden gaming board, weapons and an iron folding chair. There were also skeletons of a young male servant and a cow. In the two storerooms, more skeletons of servants, as well as pottery and several bronze lamps were discovered.

Human sacrifice was a longstanding tradition of Nubian civilization.  During the Classic Kerma Period (1700–1550 BCE), funerary monuments of Kerman kings could be up to one hundred meters long and included hundreds of sacrificed individuals.  One of the largest Kerma burials contained the remains of 322 individuals, most them female.  Archaeologist George Reisner speculated that the women could have been members of the royal harem.

The practice of retainer sacrifice appears to have abated while Nubia was under the rule of Egypt during the New Kingdom period and the reign of the 25th dynasty during the Third Intermediate Period.  But the sacrifice of retainers was revived when the royal cemetery was moved south to Meroë during the reign of Arkamaniqo (270-260 BCE).  At least 16 royal tombs including those of five kings, a queen, a prince, and eight of unknown status dating to as late as the 1st century BCE contained human sacrificial victims. I hope none of them were members of Gaius Petronius' retaliatory force!

Image: Nubian royal crown from the royal cemetery at Ballana Tomb 118 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor John Campana (digitally enhanced)

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Death of Antinous

In my travels I have photographed a number of sculptures of Hadrian's companion, Antinous.  Over 100 sculptures of the tragic young man have survived to modern times and classicist Caroline Vout has noted more images have been identified of Antinous than of any other figure in classical antiquity with the exceptions of Augustus and Hadrian himself.  This is probably attributable to Hadrian's deification of the young man after his death and the subsequent cult of Antinous that became widespread throughout much of the Roman Empire. 

Although officially, Hadrian announced that Antinous fell into the Nile and drowned, there have been a number of hypotheses about the young man's death.  Hadrian's entourage at the time is thought to have included  Lucius Ceionius Commodus, a young aristocrat whom Antinous might have deemed a rival to Hadrian's affections. In fact, soon after Antinous died, gossip quickly spread that Antinous had been intentionally killed.  Despite the official circumstances of the young man's death (at the time of his death, Antinous is thought to have been only 18-20 years old), Hadrian does not describe the death as being an accident, however, and some scholars point to this as suspicious.

If Antinous' death was not accidental, some scholars propose that he may have been murdered by a member of a court conspiracy.  The entourage assembled at Heliopolis included powerful military figures including the Prefect in Egypt as well as army and naval commanders.   But Royston Lambert, author of "Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous," points out that, besides lacking any supporting historical evidence, Antinous appeared to exert little influence over Hadrian's political activities, thus an assassination would seem to serve little purpose.

Other scholars have suggested Antinous died during a voluntary castration as part of an attempt to retain his youth and thus his sexual appeal to Hadrian. However, Lambert observes this is improbable because Hadrian deemed both castration and circumcision to be abominations and as Antinous was aged between 18 and 20 at the time of death, any such operation would have been ineffective anyway.

Another possibility is that Antinous represented a voluntary human sacrifice. The earliest surviving evidence for this comes from the writings of Dio Cassius, 80 years after the event, although it was subsequently repeated in many later sources. In the 2nd century Roman Empire, a belief that the death of one could rejuvenate the health of another was widespread, and Hadrian had been ill for many years. In this scenario, Antinous could have sacrificed himself in the belief that Hadrian would have recovered. If this last situation were true, Hadrian might not have revealed the cause of Antinous's death because he did not wish to appear either physically or politically weak. Conversely, opposing this possibility is the fact that Hadrian disliked human sacrifice and had strengthened laws against it in the Empire. Hadrian also appeared to be genuinely devastated by the youth's death and was probably directly responsible for his immediate deification by the local Egyptian priests. Although deification was not uncommon, in the Roman world formal divinization was, until that time,  reserved for the Emperor and members of the imperial family. Hadrian also did so without permission of the Senate, making the establishment of Antinous' cult highly unusual.

Archaeological evidence makes it clear that the cult ended up being genuinely popular among the different societal classes in the Empire. Part of the appeal was that Antinous had once been human himself, and thus was more relatable than many other deities. It is also possible, however, that his cult borrowed power from parallels between Antinous and beautiful young male immortals in the Greco-Roman pantheon like Apollo, Dionysus, and Silvanus as well as mortal youths beloved by gods in classical mythology like Ganymede, Hylas, Hyacinth, and Narcissus. These characteristics were common also to the cults of Attis, Endymion, and Adonis. Like the latter and the god of the newly established Christian religion, Antinous was also treated as a dying-and-rising god, not only in Egypt, but in Rome and Greece.

By the way, Lucius Ceionius Commodus was eventually named Hadrian's heir and became Lucius Aelius Caesar, who would father the Emperor Lucius Verus. Although Lucius had no military experience, he had served as a senator, and had powerful political connections. Perhaps Hadrian's affection for Antinous just proved to be too much of an obstacle to the political proponents of Lucius Ceionius Commodus even though Antinous himself expressed no political ambitions.  After all, Hadrian was seriously ill during this period and succession may have appeared imminent.

Image: A portrait bust of Antinous thought to have been sculpted around the time of his death that I photographed at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence in 2005. 

 

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Cannibalism in Roman Egypt

Historical resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2017

Funerary complex of the 5th Dynasty pharaoh Unas at Saqqara
Image courtesy of Wiimedia Commons.

King Unis is one who eats men and lives on gods,
Lord of messengers, who dispatches his messages;
It is ‘Grasper-of-Forelocks’ living in Kehew
Who binds them for King Unis. It is the serpent ‘Splendid-Head’
Who watches them for him and repels them for him.
It is ‘He-who-is-upon-the-Willows’
Who lassoes them for him.
It is ‘Punisher-of-all-Evil-doers’
Who stabs them for King Unis.
He takes out for him their entrails,
He is a messenger whom he (King Unis) sends to punish.

Shesmu cuts them up for King Unis
And cooks for him a portion of them
In his evening kettles (or ‘as his evening kettles = meal’).
King Unis is he who eats their charms,
And devours their glorious ones (souls).
Their great ones are for his morning portion,
Their middle(-sized) ones are for his evening portion,
Their little ones are for his night portion.
Their old men and their old women are for his incense-burning.
It is the ‘Great-Ones-North-of-the-Sky’
Who set for him the fire to the kettles containing them,
With the legs of their oldest ones (as fuel).
The ‘Dwellers-in-the-Sky’ revolve for King Unis (in his service).
The kettles are replenished for him with the legs of their women.
He has encircled all the Two Skies (corresponding to the Two Lands),
He has revolved about the two regions.
King Unis is the ‘Great Mighty-One’
Who overpowers the ‘Mighty Ones’


So, who is this bloodthirsty King Unas (Spelled Unis in the above translation)? As it turns out, he was the last of the fifth dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs. The above passage is part of the Cannibal Hymn included in the first copy of the Pyramid Texts ever found in his tomb in Saqqara.

I had never associated cannibalism with ancient Egypt before until I read about the sacrifice and consumption of a 2nd century CE Roman legionary serving in Egypt during the Boukoloi uprising of 171-172 CE. Our ancient source for this rather gruesome event is Cassius Dio.

"The people called the Bucoli [also spelled Boukoloi] began a disturbance in Egypt and under the leadership of one Isidorus, a priest, caused the rest of the Egyptians to revolt. At first, arrayed in women's garments, they had deceived the Roman centurion, causing him to believe that they were women of the Bucoli and were going to give him gold as ransom for their  husbands, and was then struck down when he approached them. They also sacrificed his companion, and after swearing an oath over his entrails, they devoured them." - Cassius Dio, Roman History LXXII.4

2nd century CE Roman Centurion in Egypt
Image courtesy of weaponsandwarfare.com

I first read about this act of cannibalism in Adrian Goldsworthy's excellent book Pax Romana. I was quite literally astounded by his description of it and immediately began to wonder about the history of human sacrifice in ancient Egypt. The Cannibalism Hymn, quoted above, was among the first references to human sacrifice I encountered in my research. Like the spells in the Book of the Dead, though, I realized this hymn was probably mostly symbolic.

But as I researched further, I discovered that a cult grew up around King Unas, who was venerated as a local god of the Saqqara necropolis, that extended through the centuries all the way down to as late as the Late Period (664–332 BCE). This is attested to by the discovery of numerous scarabs bearing Unas' name found in Saqqara and dated from the New Kingdom (c.1550–c.1077 BCE) until the Late Period. Since King Unas lived and ruled during the mid-24th century BCE, there must have been something unique about his worship to endure over 2000 years after his death.

In his paper Sacred Violence: When Ancient Egyptian Punishment was Dressed in Ritual Trappings, Dr. Kerry Muhlestein, director of Brigham Young University's Egypt Excavation Project, points out, based on epigraphic evidence, institutionally sanctioned ritual violence in ancient Egypt centered around interference with a religious cult or rebellion.  Muhlestein considered an event to have ritual trappings if it mirrored that which was regularly experienced in Egyptian cultic activities.

"In other words, if the language used to describe an action matches the language used to describe cultic activity, or if an action took place in the same way it would in a cultic setting, we will consider that text or action to have ritual trappings...While the lack of ritually charged terminology does not mean that ritual trappings were not present and thus we must be careful in assuming that there was no ritual aspect, if terminology or actions are employed that were routinely part of a ritual, we can be sure that a ritual aspect was intended," Muhlestein explains.

Muhlstein says evidence for ritual killings is well documented in the Early Dynastic Period. Muhlestein points to an ivory label of King Aha that appears to depict a ritual slaying of a human being. Such labels were found in retainer burials associated with Early Dynastic kings including Aha and Djer.

He considers the strongest piece of evidence that ritual violence was employed in the Middle Kingdom is an inscription attributed to Senusret I.

"Senusret claims to have found the temple of Töd in a state of disrepair and desecration. The "guilty" parties were killed in a variety of ways, including flaying, beheading, and burning. The language of the inscription draws an intentional parallel with animal sacrifices. It states that these punishments were inflicted as sacrifices." Muhlestein observes.

Muhlestein says Harco Willems points to numerous inscriptions from the First Intermediate and New Kingdom Periods that make it clear interference with funerary cults could be met with ritual slaying with references to having one's neck severed like a sacrificial bird's.

But, even though sacrificed animals were usually consumed by temple priests, did this apply to human sacrifices as well? Amenhotep III decreed burning for any who interfered with the funerary cult of one of his favorite courtiers. Muhlestein thinks this refers to just burning the corpse thereby totally destroying a person eliminating the possibility of an afterlife but admits there are inscriptions that point to more than mere destruction of the body.

"For instance, First Intermediate Period (ca. 2130-2010 BCE) Assiut Tombs III and IV have inscriptions that say a desecrator will be burned, or cooked..."

He goes on to describe two ritual killings described in the Petition of Petiese (a petition for redress from the early fifth century BCE).

"Petiese felt that while others had been involved, the death of these two would suffice for the sake of justice, and that others did not need to be burned in a brazier. Burning in a brazier carries strong ritual connotations,and in this case it was clear that the crime which demanded such action was murder," Muhlestein observes.

He also mentions a literary tale from the 4th century BCE in which a murderer is burned on a brazier at the door of the palace.

"While the tale is fictive, it surely drew from situations with which its intended audience would be familiar, strongly suggesting that it was known that murderers were burned in a manner similar to other sacrifices, but perhaps at the palace rather than at the temple. These two sources make it clear that at least during later time periods, murder was punishable by burning, likely with ritual trappings."

Ritualized sacrifices related to rebellion are also epigraphically documented.

"Amenhotep II reportedly slew seven princes at his coronation festival. Ramesses III records slaying captured Libyans using language that mirrored the descriptions of sacrificial birds...it seems extremely likely that there were a number of ritual slayings of rebellious enemies by the kings of Egypt," Muhlestein states.

I noticed in his discussion of prisoner executions by Prince Osorkon after a rebelliion in Thebes that once again braziers were lit. You don't normally incinerate entire human bodies on a brazier. Braziers were used for heat and cooking.

So, it appears human sacrifice and in some cases possibly cannibalism were indeed practiced in ancient Egypt. Dio's description of the fate of that 2nd century legionary could have definitely been based in fact.

Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa and Tomasz Polański of Jagiellonian University in their paper The Boukoloi Uprising, or How the Greek Intellectuals Falsified Oriental History, disagree, however.

They point to descriptions of the Boukoloi in the 3rd century Greek romances of Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus of Emesa saying "The novelists’ evidence mirrors ethnical prejudice, historical resentments, the Greeks’ cultural and linguistic alienation in the Orient. Here and there it also resounds with the slogans and images coined for the needs of war propaganda."

Achilles Tatius describes a horrific scene of human sacrifice while the Boukoloi priest sings a ritual hymn in Egyptian. In it the Boukoloi want to kill the innocent and beautiful Leukippe, rip her stomach open, roast and eat her entrails, with every detail of the macabre ritual performed under the supervision of the Egyptian priest singing hymns to their barbaric gods.

Polański and Bałuk-Ulewiczowa point to how Dio's account of the sacrifice of the legionary in the uprising of 171 CE compares to that of the novelists. With no other corroborating ancient sources, they then examine what can be gleaned from a wider historical and cultural context.

"...we are dealing with the problem of peripheral communities and cultures, tribal groups living at a remote distance from the centre of power, with their own local histories, not very well known to the outside world, and developing ‘outside the Roman establishment’...The Boukoloi belonged to all those freedom-loving peoples, nomadic tribes or highlanders, who lived on the peripheries of the Graeco-Roman world or within the borders of the Roman Empire, but were never subdued and never controlled."

"...The image of the Boukoloi is strongly blended with the Hellenic literary lore populated with the wicked aliens, monsters and ogres like Busiris, Antaios or Cyclops.  It is clear, for example, that the opening scene of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica with the Boukoloi, was modelled on Euripides’ Iphigenia Taurica. In the above-discussed context we should not forget about the standard view of Egypt and the Egyptians in the Graeco-Roman letters, which is a blend of literary convention on the one hand and of cultural and ethnic prejudice on the other."

Polański and Bałuk-Ulewiczowa do not totally dismiss the possibility that ritual violence including cannibalism could have occurred but point out that wars involving a native minority population and a prevailing military force of a powerful state often result in cruel, if not bestial, behavior with intensifying brutality.

As for my opinion, I think the events related by Cassius Dio could have happened as described. Considering the numerous examples provided by Muhlestein, we have a long history of ritual killings in Egypt, especially in the context of interference with cultic practices. The Boukoloi, living on the fringe of Greco-Roman Egypt on boats moored along the banks of the Nile in the Western Delta, were an isolated group who spoke Egyptian despite their relative proximity to Alexandria where Greek had been spoken since the Ptolemaic dynasty was founded in 305 BCE.  Likewise, there was a strong likelihood they may have practiced Egyptian religion based in more archaic traditions as well. We know the Boukoloi were at least perceived as a group that conducted human sacrifice as evidenced by the novels of  2nd century CE authors Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus of Emesa.

We also know that the Romans despised any cult practices that included human sacrifice.

"... the killing of humans offerings to the gods as a regular, required part of worship was sacrifice and it was generally unacceptable. It was foreign to Roman practice or, if we accept what the Roman themselves claimed, foreign to Roman practice in the historical period. The Romans did not tolerate human sacrifice among the peoples they conquered, forbidding the Bletonesii [a Celtic tribe living in the central part of the Iberian peninsula] from performing it and seriously curtailing (if not actually eliminating it) among the Carthaginians and among the Celts. Even so, the Romans were willing on at least three occasions to offer human victims to the gods. This type of ritual was permissable but only just barely, within the Roman religious tradition because it was enacted only as an extraordinary, or ad hoc, response to an exceptional circumstance. It was not part of regular worship, but was ordered, as Plutarch points out, by the Sibylline books." - Celia E. Schultz, The Romans and Ritual Murder

It is not much of a stretch to imagine a scenario in which the Romans could have observed a religious ritual of the Boukoloi and intervened. To a Boukoloi priest, like Isidorus, the appropriate response would be to ritually sacrifice the offending soldier or even use one soldier as a representative of the offending body of soldiers.

Additional resources: The Pyramid Texts Online

References:

Sirry, M. (n.d.). The Pyramid Texts - Cannibal Hymn. Retrieved August 02, 2017, from http://www.experience-ancient-egypt.com/egyptian-religion-mythology/ancient-egyptian-mythology/pyramid-texts-cannibal-hymn
Translation by James Henry Breasted

Kerry Muhlestein. (2015). Sacred Violence: When Ancient Egyptian Punishment was Dressed in Ritual Trappings. Near Eastern Archaeology, 78(4), 244-251. doi:10.5615/neareastarch.78.4.0244

Bałuk-Ulewiczowa , T., & Polański, T. (n.d.). The Boukoloi Uprising, Or How the Greek Intellectuals Falsified Oriental History [Scholarly project]. In Academia.edu. Retrieved July 31, 2017, from https://www.academia.edu/4434569/Tomasz_Pola%C5%84ski_Bukoloi

Schultz, C. (2010). The Romans and Ritual Murder. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 78(2), 516-541. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40666530

.

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Anthropomancy and other slanders against Julian the Apostate

A history resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2014 updated 2017

In Terry Deary's book "Dangerous Days in the Roman Empire" Deary apparently promotes claims that the ancient Romans and the emperor known as Julian "The Apostate" in particular regularly engaged in anthropomancy, the foretelling of the future by the examination of the entrails of human sacrifices.  Deary gained notoriety for his "Horrible Histories" series for children. The books were later the basis for a BBC television series.

Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by Edward Armitage, 1875

19th century agnostic and orator
Robert Green Ingersoll. 

It's fairly common knowledge among Roman scholars, though, that the Romans abhorred human sacrifice.

"... the killing of humans offerings to the gods as a regular, required part of worship was sacrifice and it was generally unacceptable. It was foreign to Roman practice or, if we accept what the Roman themselves claimed, foreign to Roman practice in the historical period. The Romans did not tolerate human sacrifice among the peoples they conquered, forbidding the Bletonesii [a Celtic tribe living in the central part of the Iberian peninsula] from performing it and seriously curtailing (if not actually eliminating it) among the Carthaginians and among the Celts. Even so, the Romans were willing on at least three occasions to offer human victims to the gods. This type of ritual was permissible but only just barely, within the Roman religious tradition because it was enacted only as an extraordinary, or ad hoc, response to an exceptional circumstance. It was not part of regular worship, but was ordered, as Plutarch points out, by the Sibylline books." - Celia E. Schultz, The Romans and Ritual Murder

So where did these charges originate?  The 19th-century agnostic Robert Green Ingresoll references such reports and attributes them to two of the Roman emperor Julian's Christian enemies, Gregory of Nazianzus and Theodoret of Cyrrhus.

How did the cousin of Constantius II, the emperor who actively promoted Christianity at the expense of paganism and decreed the closing of pagan temples, the banning of animal sacrifices, and introduced the death penalty for those who performed such sacrifices, end up the target of such Christian invectives?

"Constantius' cousin Julian, who was overseeing the Western Empire as Caesar, saw such actions as undermining the Empire, " explains Dr. Eugenia Russell, Lecturer in History at St Mary's University, Twickenham, UK. "He was already a successful general who had been proclaimed Augustus (in 360 CE) by his troops in Paris, and a decisive conflict between the two was only averted by the death-bed recognition by Constantius of Julian as his successor, leaving the latter in sole control in AD 361...With an empire riven by internal conflict and beset by external forces, he attempted to promote peace and tolerance through the reaffirmation of what he saw as Roman virtues, becoming the last emperor to worship the pagan deities and uphold the customs of the ancient world." — Eugenia Russell, "The Last Non-Christian Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate"

19th century depiction of Julian being proclaimed Emperor in Paris at the Thermes de Cluny, standing on a shield in the Frankish manner, in February 360. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Julian was actually raised in a Christian household, even serving as a Church reader (Anagnostes) at one point. But, after studying philosophy and the classics at the Academy at Athens, he became an admirer of the academy's founder, Plato, and of the Homeric deities in traditional Graeco-Roman religion.

However, Julian remained a monotheist who sought to unite Neoplatonism with Homeric myth.

"Julian insisted there is one supreme god called by many names," observes Vasiliki Limberis in his paper 'Religion' as the Cipher for Identity: The Cases of Emperor Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus. 

So was Julian really a pagan or not?

"In some aspects, Julian's religion is consistent with Greco-Roman tradition. It is noteworthy, for example, that for Julian, religion is a public duty, whose obligations are designated by the civic calendar and local custom. This includes pleasing a host of gods by ritual sacrifice, proper fulfillment of ritual obligations, and festive celebrations in feasts, theatre events, games, or contests, all arranged in an annual cycle. Nor was Julian much of an innovator when he emphasized the ritual, even the magical, aspects of religion; he was simply tapping into current trends of the days a combination of philosophy and cultic ritual. However despite the elements of Julian's religious program that appear traditional, it was his attempt to democratize religion that represented his most startling innovation." - Vasiliki Limberis

An official coin depicting the Emperor Julian minted in Antioch in 360 CE
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Limberis points out that at that time there was a surge of interest in theurgy, the practice of rituals for the purpose of encouraging divine intervention in the perfection of oneself. Many of the popular mystery religions incorporated theurgy into their practice and even some Christian teachers including Clement of Alexandria, Cyrillus and Synesius embraced the concept.

 But, Christians were also engaged in fighting between themselves over the "nature" of Christ. Those referred to as Arians considered Christ to be begotten of God but distinctly separate from him and subordinate. The Monophysites believed Christ was of a single essence with God the Father. The single essence concept was officially adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and Arians were declared heretical and, for all intents and purposes, considered no longer doctrinal Christians, splitting a very small minority, less than 10% of the total Roman population at the time, even further.

"Julian adhered to the syncretic form of Graeco-Roman religion popular in the Late Empire that absorbed a wide variety of beliefs and practices. Although an initiate in at least three of the 'mystery religions' (including Mithraism), he abhorred the exclusivity that made Christianity incompatible with his view of toleration, referring to it as a disease." —  Eugenia Russell, "The Last Non-Christian Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate"

Unlike previous emperors like Diocletian, however, Julian still protected Christianity's followers, making it unlawful to force a Christian to offer a sacrifice, even if this was expected of someone in a public office. Julian did, however, give preference to pagan citizens for public duty, revoke exemptions previously granted to Christian clergy, return public property that had been confiscated for the building of Christian churches, and ban the teaching of classical texts by Christians, apparently fearing the Homeric myths would be presented with a negative spin.

But if Julian only attempted to return the Empire to a religious status quo, why did his actions inflame such influential Christian leaders as Gregory of Nazianzus?

St. Gregory Nazianzen.
Image courtesy of
Wikipedia.

"Gregory of Nazianzus was born into an elite family around 329 or 330 CE near the provincial city of Nazianzus in southwest Cappadocia. At the time of his birth, his father and the rest of his family had only recently converted to Christianity, according to Raymond van Dam, due to Constantine’s patronage." - Benjamin James Rogaczewski, Killing Julian: the Death of an Emperor and the Religious History of the Later Roman Empire

Gregory's father was eventually named Bishop of Nazianzus and, like many Roman fathers, wanted his son to become a cleric, too. But Gregory, educated in the classics at Athens, chose to teach rhetoric instead until his father ordained him a priest against his wishes in 361 CE. Gregory rebelled and fled with his friend Basil of Caesarea to a monastery.

"Around early 361, soon after Gregory left Nazianzus, emperor Constantius compelled many eastern bishops to sign a creed meant to unify the eastern churches under an “Arian” doctrine of faith. Although many of these bishops, one of whom was Gregory’s father, opposed Constantius, they feared possible persecution and subscribed to the creed. When Constantius died, the Nicene accused Gregory the Elder of heresy and “betraying” orthodox doctrine..."

"In 361, while Gregory was in monastic retreat, Julian became emperor and declared not only his rejection of Christianity, but also economical and religious reforms that directly affected the church. He allowed all previously exiled bishops and clerics to return, which only fueled the Arian controversy, creating more dissension within Christian communities, such as Nazianzus. He also removed state funding for the church and seized the municipal lands Constantine and Constantius had given to the church and returned them to the cities. These measures were intended to restore the finances of many cities, which had fallen into neglect, but they also had the effect of removing an important source of income from the control of the church." Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Julian penned a satirical work entitled The Caesars in which he attacked what he viewed as Constantine's hypocritical advocacy of Christianity. Julian was particularly critical of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness of sins:

"He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer, he that is sacrilegious and infamous, let him approach without fear! For with this water will I wash him and will straightway make him clean. And though he should be guilty of those same sins a second time, let him but smite his breast and beat his head and I will make him clean again." - Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus, The Caesars 

Julian also despised  his predecessors' luxuriant lifestyle. He forbid the use of the reference Dominus (Lord) when addressed and dispensed with court formalities and elaborate dress, preferring to live simply. He even espoused chastity outside of marriage.

You would have thought Julian's character that closely resembled the qualities, once so admired by early Christian believers would have found favor among the pious. But the wealthy Christians that had once populated the imperial court and dominated Antioch were enraged by his behavior and his scraggly philosopher's beard, considering it inappropriate for a ruling monarch.

Already seething with anger, Gregory also appears to have had to defend his abandonment of his priestly duties to his father's Christian constituents when he penned the Apology for his Flight to Pontus. Then Gregory went on the attack penning two long rambling invectives against the emperor himself.. Gregory needed a worthy adversary to oppose in his prodigious literary outpourings and Julian, the "apostate" who had been raised a Christian then rejected its teachings, was just the target he needed.

"Gregory’s acutely hostile language in this oration foreshadows the vicious attacks against the emperor in his Invectives against Julian. The emperor of course opposed the use of violence against Christians and carefully avoided persecuting them. Instead, he removed the privileges previously granted to the church to encourage Christians to turn away from Christianity as he had done. However, Gregory wished to convey the impression that Julian actually was persecuting Christians and hurting the church—and, indeed, he may have perceived it that way; for Gregory surely understood the importance of imperial patronage to the church. Hence, it is perhaps not surprising that he portrays Julian as a persecutor of Christians, recalling images of the Christian persecutions of old. This “wild beast” that now ruled the empire had discovered “fresh tortures of greater severity” namely tortures that affected the coffers of the church." - Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Rogaczewski also points out that Gregory also had personal reasons to despise Julian

"Around the time he wrote the Apology, Julian had passed Nazianzus on his way to Antioch to prepare for war against the Persians. Julian was displeased with the Christian zeal of the Cappadocians and his correspondence during this time suggests that he dismissed many, if not all, Christian Cappadocians from court, including Gregory’s brother, Caesarius [a court physician]. Not only had Julian prohibited Gregory from teaching rhetoric, which he loved, but he also slighted Gregory’s family."  - Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Gregory actually knew Julian personally, having become acquainted when both young men studied the classics in Athens. I also wonder if Gregory had attempted a relationship with Julian that was rejected or if Gregory had become deeply jealous of Julian because, as the emperor's cousin, he probably received more of the teachers' attention.

In any case, Gregory's apparent hatred of Julian was so complete, Gregory, who would be later referred to with the reverential epithet of "the Theologian," is suspected of fictionalizing his account of Julian's death and to make it appear that, in the end, Julian surrendered to the Christ on his deathbed.

Gregory actually relays more than one account of Julian's death.

"In one of Gregory’s versions, Julian’s death was similar to the death of Cyrus the Younger who fought alongside Xenophon and his “Ten-Thousand” in the battle of Cunaxa. The story goes that Cyrus recklessly attacked the enemy king, his brother Artaxerxes, and was killed by enemies because of his rashness. This version of Julian’s death, comparing Julian’s death to that of the reckless Cyrus, finds an echo in the versions of Libanius and Ammianus in which a reckless Julian is mortally wounded because he is not wearing a breastplate." - Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Closeup of the fallen Julian inscribed on the Sassanian relief of the investiture of Ardashir II showing Mithra, Shapur II and Ahura Mazda above a defeated Julian, lying prostrate. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Then Gregory goes on to claim Julian was actually assassinated by one of his own soldiers.

"[Julian] had gone up upon a lofty hill to take a view of his army and ascertain how much was left him for carrying on the war; and then when he saw the number considerable and superior to his expectation, he exclaimed, “What a dreadful thing if we shall bring back all these fellows to the land of the Romans!” as though he begrudged them a safe return. Whereupon one of his officers, being indignant and not able to repress his rage, ran him through the bowels, without caring for his own life." - Gregory of Nazianzus, Second Invective Against Julian The Emperor

Then Gregory continues, as if spinning a tale, blaming an itinerant barbarian jester. This is thought to be a reference to the death of the emperor Alexander Severus as described in the Historia Augusta which had been recently published at the time.

"Gregory likely has included this story, a fool killing an even greater fool, to incite laughter amongst his audience at the expense of Julian," observes Rogaczewski.

David Woods disagrees saying Gregory may have misinterpreted the reference and that it may have pointed to the member of a barbarian light infantry unit known as the Petulantes.

"As an auxilium  palatinum, the Petulantes were an elite mobile unit attached to the palace, and it would have not have been surprising had they been fighting in relatively close proximity to the emperor himself at the time of his fatal wounding. More importantly, the auxilia palatina were light-infantry units, and Ammianus seems to describe the main group involved in the repulse of the Persians during the skirmish in which Julian was wounded as a light-infantry force. Given the confused circumstances of the skirmish, the fact that there seems to have been no co-ordination between this light-infantry force on the one hand and the small group gathered about Julian on the other, it is not impossible that a  weapon thrown by a member of the light-infantry force may have hit Julian as he was engaged in hot pursuit of the retreating Persians. In this way, although relatively little is known about the skirmish which resulted in the death of  Julian, such details as are preserved by Ammianus at least are consistent with the belief that it was a member of the  Petulantes, or an associated light-infantry unit, who threw the weapon that fatally wounded him." - David Woods, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Death of Julian the Apostate 

Finally, Gregory claims Julian, an obvious madman, tried to throw himself into a river to attain godhood. Rogaczewski thinks Gregory wanted to not only mock Julian's attempt to attain divinity but  to criticize the pagan ritual of deification.

"The story is particularly interesting in that it is not completely Gregory’s, but rather a twisted borrowing, taken from Arrian’s narrative of Alexander the Great’s death in the Anabasis," Rogaczewski points out.

Unfortunately, Gregory's grossly biased narratives would be embraced by three other revered Christian historians, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Socrates Scholasticus of Constantinople, and Sozomen of Gaza and  whose histories of the church became enormously influential in the Byzantine East and the medieval West.

"It is related that when Julian had received the wound, he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, "Thou hast won, O Galilean." Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Ch. 20 (c. 429)

"...The story that the dying emperor acknowledged that he was conquered by the Galilean was originated by some of the so-called Fathers of the Church, probably by Gregory or Theodoret. They are the same wretches who said that Julian sacrificed a woman to the moon, tearing out her entrails with his own hands."  — Robert Green Ingersoll, Julian the Apostate

Theodoret of Cyrus, the fifth-century Eusebian scholar, was probably merely repeating stories promulgated by Gregory and, perhaps, Theodoret's knowledge that Julian was an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries (associated with mysterious nighttime rituals).

Theodoret may have been further motivated by Gregory's possible association of Julian with the Assyrian Church of the East since Gregory derogatorily refers to Julian as "the Assyrian" in his invectives. This could have been merely an ethnic slur, though, as Julian was born in Constantinople - ancient Assyria, known for its martial brutality.

The Assyrian Church of the East originally developed during the 1st century CE in the Mesopotamian Eastern Aramaic speaking regions of Assyria, Babylonia, and northwestern Persia (today's Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwestern Iran.  It is considered an apostolic church founded by the apostles St. Thomas (Mar Toma), St. Thaddeus (Mar Addai), and St. Bartholomew (Mar Bar Tulmay). Scholars of the church advanced the doctrine that Christ embodied two natures, one human and the other divine.  But this viewpoint (later referred to as Nestorianism) was later declared heretical and was one of many rejected by Theodoret and other followers of Eusebius of Caesarea who promoted Arian-like interpretations of the nature of Christ.  I find this villification ironic, though, since Julian actually spent his early childhood with Eusebius of Nicomedia.

Julian spent quite a bit of time in Mesopotamia and another scenario could have been that he at one point actively studied cultural beliefs of the region in anticipation of its conquest and this apparent interest was misinterpreted. Sadly, our contemporary source material for the 4th century is woefully fragmented, so all we can do is speculate.

Socrates Scholasticus embroiders the death of Julian still further in his Ecclesiastical History of 439.

"Socrates discusses the reign of Julian in book three, where he also describes Julian’s death, drawing on Libanius and Gregory Nazianzus. However, Socrates provides his own commentary on the events. For instance, he quotes verbatim a passage from Libanius’s Funeral Oration, but then proceeds to a discussion on whether or not a Christian soldier killed Julian. After considering the charge, he replaces the Christian murderer with an evil supernatural being, whom Christians often associated with the pagan gods." - Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Sozomen of Gaza, in his work composed between 440 and 443 with much of it based on the works of Socrates Scholasticus, admits Julian was killed by a Christian soldier but claims the murder was not a crime because "God Willed It!," an excuse that would be used liberally later during the Crusades.

Some early Christians attribute Julian's death to Saint
Mercurius, a converted Roman soldier executed by the
Roman emperor Decius during one of his religious persecutions.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

"All these stories rest upon the same foundation, the mendacity of [Christian] priests. Julian changed the religion of the Empire, and diverted the revenues of the church. Whoever steps between a priest and his salary, will find that he has committed every crime. No matter how often the slanders may be refuted, they will be repeated until the last priest has lost his body and found his wings. These falsehoods about Julian were invented some fifteen hundred years ago, and they are repeated to-day by just as honest and just as respectable people as these who told them at first. Whenever the church cannot answer the arguments of an opponent, she attacks his character. She resorts to falsehood, and in the domain of calumny she has stood for fifteen hundred years without a rival." — Robert Green Ingersoll, Julian the Apostate

Ingersoll claims the description provided by pagan contemporaries of the emperor, the philosopher Libanius and soldier/historian Ammianus Marcellinus, appeared to provide an ending more consistent with Julian's character and philosophical education.

'Brought back to his tent, and feeling that he had but a short time to live, he [Julian] spent his last hours in discoursing with his friends on the immortality of the soul. He reviewed his reign and declared that he was satisfied with his conduct, and had neither penitence nor remorse to express for anything that he had done.' His last words were: 'I submit willingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced that he who is captivated with life, when his last hour has arrived is more weak and pusillanimous than he who would rush to voluntary death when it is his duty still to live.'"  — Robert Green Ingersoll, Julian the Apostate

Some scholars think Libanius may have been trying to give the philosopher-emperor a more Socratic end, though.

However, I thought it was particularly interesting that Ammianus Marcellinus, a historian who was serving as a soldier on Julian's Persian campaign, claiming not to have been present at the emperor's death, mentions a rumor among the Persians that the emperor Julian was killed by his own men.

The period immediately following Julian's death was especially dangerous with the wealthy Christians seizing power once more. Even Libanius, a respected sophist, teacher of rhetoric, and comrade of Julian did not publish his Funeral Oration in which he defended Julian as a just ruler, a devout Hellene, and most importantly, a monarch treacherously murdered, until a year after Julian's death. This was followed by an entreaty for justice entitled Avenging Julian. Even Marcellinus waited until the 390s to pen his thirty-one volume Res Gestae and notably published it in Latin in Rome not his native Greek in his hometown of Antioch, a city that had been so adamantly opposed to Julian.

"Libanius hints that Julian was not only killed by a Roman soldier, but by a Christian soldier. This shift in blame from a foreign enemy to a domestic, internal one is highly significant, since with that Libanius clearly sought more explicitly to implicate Christians in the death of an emperor—an act of high treason. The charge would prove to be both controversial and influential. Libanius’s imperial connections, his familiarity with Julian, his renown as an effective orator, and wide readership (which included none other than John Chrysostom, one of his Christian students) may have fueled the controversy around the allegation long into the fifth century when the ecclesiastical historians Socrates and Sozomen picked it up and responded to it in their church histories..." - Benjamin James Rogaczewski

Anyway, I hope I have made my point about the folly of quoting sources (even ancient ones) without investigating the social and political context in which they were made and the relationship of the source with the target, especially if the information is defamatory in nature. Blindly repeating such allegations as a sensational "fact" as Deary does in a book touted as "nonfiction" may sell books but is not the kind of  "shallow" scholarship I would want foisted on children.

References:

Schultz, C. (2010). The Romans and Ritual Murder. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 78(2), 516-541. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40666530

Ingersoll, R. G. (1881). The Great Infidels: A Lecture

Russell, E. (2017, August). The Last Non-Christian Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate". Ancient History Magazine, (11), 15-17.

Rogaczewski, Benjamin James, "Killing Julian: the Death of an Emperor and the Religious History of the Later Roman Empire"(2014). Theses and Dissertations Paper 423.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Second Invective Against Julian

Limberis, V. (2000). "Religion" as the Cipher for Identity: The Cases of Emperor Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus. The Harvard Theological Review, 93(4), 373-400. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.uoregon.edu/stable/1510164

Woods, D. (2015). Gregory of Nazianzus on the Death of Julian the Apostate (Or. 5.13). Mnemosyne, 68, 297–303. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525X-12301532

Related articles

• Dangerous days in the Roman Empire: It wasn't just the Christians who had it tough
• Julian's Religious Approach and Resemblance to pre-Constantinian Pagan Practices
• Gibbon on Julian - 14

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