Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust, online at at www

history of philosophy dot net

today's episode

a tale of two cities

the last pagan philosophers

I'm gonna go out on a limb and get pagan philosophers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you have never sacrificed an animal to Zeus.

If I'm right that you haven't, some of the credit should go to an anonymous Persian infantryman.

In the year 363, this unknown soldier thrust a spear through the unarmored abdomen of the Roman Emperor we call Julian the apostate.

As so often in history, if things had gone differently, the consequences could have been

enormous.

Had Julian not ventured into a rash campaign against the Persians, had he not rushed into battle without

pulling on his armor, he might have lived, and had he lived he might have gotten further with

his project of weakening Christianity's hold on the Roman

Empire, of resurrecting the pagan rituals and rededicating the temples.

But as always in history, things did not go differently. Julian was mortally wounded and died sometime later.

He was 32 years old and had ruled the empire for less than two years.

Julian was like Marcus Aurelius before him,

a philosopher as well as an emperor,

but Julian was no stoic.

He was a Platonist and his philosophy went hand in hand with belief in the existence and power of the traditional gods.

Julian was a great admirer of the yamblicus and a great believer in the pagan ritual practices known as Theurgy.

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