Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC

History magazine. It's one of the great what-ifs of ancient history. After Constantine the

Great converted Rome to Christianity, it seemed that the

faith's progress was inevitable. But just a few decades later, a new pagan emperor sought to turn

back the clock and reinstate the old gods, only to die before his plan was completed.

That emperor was Julian,

and his story is the subject of a new biography

by Professor Philip Freeman.

Philip spoke to Rob Atar

about a remarkable man who almost turned world history on its head.

I wonder if we could begin with Julian's early life.

So he was born in 331 AD, and it's not too long

before many of his close family end up getting murdered. So what's going on there? Well, Julian was

born into a Christian family. He was the nephew, actually, of the great Emperor Constantine,

who was the first Christian emperor of Rome.

But when Constantine died, I think Julian was about six or seven years old.

Then there was a power struggle with Constantine's sons, who were Christian, at least nominally Christian, but they were absolutely ruthless.

And they ended up killing each other's

followers, and then eventually each other, until only Julian's cousin, Constantius, was the last one.

And Constantius ended up killing Julian's father and a lot of his relatives.

So in the end, there wasn't anybody left, except Julian, who was just a young boy, and his brother

Gallus, who was just a few years earlier.

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