page_title: Julian (emperor)
section_title: Persian campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Julian (emperor) / Life / Persian campaign
caption_attribution_description: Illustration from the "The Fall of Princes" by Giovanni Boccaccio, depicting the skin of Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus
context_page_description: Julian was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate by the Christian Church.
  A member of the Constantinian dynasty, Julian was orphaned as a child. He was raised by the Gothic slave Mardonius, who had a profound influence on him, providing Julian with an excellent education. Julian became caesar over the western provinces by order of Constantius II in 355, and in this role he campaigned successfully against the Alamanni and Franks. Most notable was his crushing victory over the Alamanni at the Battle of Argentoratum in 357, leading his 13,000 men against a Germanic army three times larger. In 360, Julian was proclaimed Augustus by his soldiers at Lutetia, sparking a civil war with Constantius. However, Constantius died before the two could face each other in battle, and named Julian as his successor.
  In 363, Julian embarked on an ambitious campaign against the Sasanian Empire. The campaign was initially successful, securing a victory outside Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia.
context_section_description: Julian's rise to Augustus was the result of military insurrection eased by Constantius's sudden death. This meant that, while he could count on the wholehearted support of the Western army which had aided his rise, the Eastern army was an unknown quantity originally loyal to the Emperor he had risen against, and he had tried to woo it through the Chalcedon tribunal. However, to solidify his position in the eyes of the eastern army, he needed to lead its soldiers to victory and a campaign against the Sassanid Persians offered such an opportunity.
  An audacious plan was formulated whose goal was to lay siege on the Sassanid capital city of Ctesiphon and definitively secure the eastern border. Yet the full motivation for this ambitious operation is, at best, unclear. There was no direct necessity for an invasion, as the Sassanids sent envoys in the hope of settling matters peacefully. Julian rejected this offer. Ammianus states that Julian longed for revenge on the Persians and that a certain desire for combat and glory also played a role in his decision to go to war.
caption: Illustration from The Fall of Princes by John Lydgate (which is a translation of De Casibus Virorum Illustribus by Giovanni Boccaccio) depicting "the skyn of Julyan". There is no evidence that Julian's corpse was skinned and displayed, and it is likely that the illustrator simply confused the fate of Julian's body with that of Emperor Valerian.
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