New and Old Letter Types in the Corpus of Julian the Apostate ( 361–363 )

Abstract

Abstract The emperor Julian’s career as a letter writer began long before his brief term as sole ruler of the united Roman empire from 361 to 363. In the surviving collection of 82 letters, only 73 were deemed authentic by their editor Emily Wilmer Cave Wright in the 1923 Loeb edition. The remaining nine she deemed apocryphal. This paper looks at two methodological issues associated with Julian’s letter collections. What grounds should the modern scholar use to discern authentic from forged letters; and were Julian’s letters of the same types as Christian letters of Late Antiquity or were they closer to Classical models? A third question arises from a survey of Julian’s epistolary addressees. These reveal a diverse network of people of various levels of status, including Basil, bishop of Caesarea, the Jews of Alexandria, and a priestess of Demeter and Cybele. How does this diversity compare with the correspondence of ( Christian ) emperors and bishops of the fourth century? I aim to answer these questions by considering those letter types in Julian’s letter corpus that were new in the fourth century, such as letters of recommendation for travellers and letters to religious groups, and others more familiar, that is, letters of friendship and letters of consolation. The overarching hypothesis is that Julian was inspired to write and have collected his public and personal letters in the same way as the Christian bishops whom he knew and with whom he corresponded, notably Bishop Basil of Caesarea.