What if Julian the Apostate had returned from Persia?
The last pagan emperor died on the retreat from Ctesiphon in 363. What if he had won his Persian war?
What actually happened
Julian, nephew of Constantine, became sole emperor in 361 and set out to restore the old gods, reopening temples and limiting the privileges of the Church. In March 363 he invaded the Sasanian Empire of Shapur II with one of the largest armies of late antiquity, perhaps 65,000 men, marching down the Euphrates with a river fleet.
The invasion went well at first. Julian's army reached Ctesiphon, the Persian capital on the Tigris, and defeated a Persian force outside the walls. But he did not attempt a siege. Instead, for reasons the eyewitness Ammianus Marcellinus found hard to explain, he burned most of his fleet and turned north up the Tigris, hoping to meet a second Roman army and perhaps draw Shapur into battle.
Harried by Persian cavalry in the summer heat, the army suffered. On 26 June 363, rushing into a skirmish without his breastplate, Julian was struck by a spear and died that night. His successor Jovian, desperate to get the army home, agreed to a humiliating peace: Rome gave up Nisibis, Singara and five provinces beyond the Tigris, and abandoned its ally Armenia.
The turning point
Two decisions stand out: not besieging Ctesiphon and burning the fleet. Historians still debate them; a siege might have failed against strong walls with a Persian field army nearby, but without boats the army lost its supplies and its line of retreat. Julian's own death was pure chance, a moment's carelessness in a skirmish.
Who threw the spear was debated even at the time. Libanius, Julian's pagan friend, suspected a Christian in the Roman ranks; Christian writers later told of divine punishment; most ancient accounts point to an enemy soldier, possibly an Arab auxiliary in Persian service. Julian had a Persian prince in his camp, Hormizd, a brother of Shapur who had fled to Rome, and some historians think Julian meant to set him on the Persian throne.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: Julian did not burn the fleet; the army withdrew down the river and came back the next year; Shapur fled to the mountains, and Hormizd, raised in the Roman camp, took the throne of Ctesiphon. Across the empire the old gods' temples opened again. In that world the scripted Theodosian settlement of the Church does not happen as in history.
Beyond the game, a client king in Ctesiphon would have been a revolution in Roman–Persian relations, which had been a stalemate for a century. It is doubtful it would have lasted: Persian nobles rarely accepted a Roman-backed king for long, and Rome had failed before to hold Mesopotamia.
The religious question is even harder. Julian was childless and only 31; his restoration of paganism depended on his own life and energy. Most historians think Christianity's hold on the cities and the imperial administration was by then too strong to be reversed by one reign, though a long-lived Julian could certainly have slowed the Church's rise and changed the character of late Roman religion.
Ripples through time
In the game a living Julian strengthens the empire on the eve of the Gothic crisis: a Roman victory at Adrianople becomes more likely.
Carried into the Age of Vikings and Coronations, the memory of a Persian defeat leaves the Abbasid Caliphate in 800 with a somewhat smaller army.
- Shapes What if the Romans had won at Adrianople?
- Carries into the next era Age of Vikings and Coronations
Play this turning point
Start in the Roman Empire era and live into the 360s; there is no dedicated scenario. The turning point needs both Rome and Persia to exist. Fighting for Rome against Persia, or serving a lord on Julian's side, adds to the chance of the alternative; serving Shapur II keeps history.
This is one of the most stubborn turning points in the game: Rome's historical outcome is weighted heavily, so expect history to hold unless you rule a large realm on Julian's side.
Questions and answers
Why is Julian called the Apostate?
Raised a Christian, he openly returned to the traditional Greek and Roman gods as emperor. Christian writers called him the Apostate, one who abandoned the faith.
Who killed Julian?
Nobody knows. Ammianus says the spear came from an unknown hand during a skirmish. Libanius suggested a Christian Roman soldier; other accounts blame a Persian or an Arab fighting for Persia.
What did Rome lose after Julian's death?
In the peace of 363 Jovian ceded Nisibis, Singara and five regions east of the Tigris to Persia and gave up Rome's claim to protect Armenia.
Sources and further reading
Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, books 23–25 (an eyewitness); Libanius, Orations. Modern accounts: Glen Bowersock, Julian the Apostate; Adrian Murdoch, The Last Pagan.
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