Gods and Legions

AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT

The Emperor Julian died at Maranga from a spear thrown by an unknown hand in the year 363. Upon his death, the Empire was offered to Sallustius, who refused it on the grounds of old age. The crown passed instead to Jovian, one of Julian's generals, who was forced to surrender enormous tracts of Roman territory to the Persians and escaped out of the desert only with great loss of life among his men. He died six months later from the poisonous smoke of a charcoal brazier in his room. Like Julian, he was buried at Tarsus, the home of Paul the Apostle.

Maximus fell out of favor with the Emperor Valens and after various changes of fortune was beheaded in Ephesus in the year 371 on charges of conspiracy.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Caesarius' brother, was appointed Bishop of Constantinople and became known as one of the greatest of the early Church Fathers.

Caesarius was appointed provincial treasurer of Bithynia by the Emperor Valentinian, and miraculously survived a terrible earthquake that devastated Nicaea. This experience led him to return home to Nazianzus to live a life of prayer and solitude, but in the year 369, at age thirty-eight, he suddenly died in mysterious circumstances. He was later canonized, for reasons now lost to the mists of history. Saint Caesarius' feast day is celebrated February twenty-fifth.

Ut digni efficiamur…