Letter 40

40. Julian to Basil.

Displaying, up to the present, the gentleness and love of mankind that is inborn in me from childhood, I have brought into subjection all who dwell beneath the sun. For lo, every race of barbarians, as far as the bounds of Ocean, has come bringing me gifts at my feet. Likewise also the Sagadares, reared beside the Danube, of strange and many-coloured aspect, like beetles, in whom there is no sight resembling that of human beings, but a savage form — these, in the present circumstances, grovel in my tracks, promising to do for me those things that befit my sovereignty. Nor is it in this alone that I am drawn on, but I must with great speed overtake the land of the Persians and put to flight that Sapor, who has become the descendant of Darius, until he becomes tributary and subject to me; and at the same time lay waste the country round about of the Indians and of the Saracens, until all these too come, in a second rank, to be tributary and subject to me.

But you yourself have thought beyond their power, saying that you are clothed in piety, while putting forward shamelessness; and everywhere proclaiming that I have become unworthy of the empire of the Romans. Do you not yourself know that I have become the descendant of Constantius the mighty? And though these things are thus known to us on your account, we have not departed from our former disposition, in which, while still young in age, both I and you partook. But with a serene mind I decree that ten hundred pounds of gold be sent to me by you on my passage by Caesarea, while I am still upon the highway, coming with great speed to the Persian war; for I am ready, if you do not do this, to demolish every place in Caesarea, and to overthrow the fair works long ago raised up in it, and to set up in their place temples and images, so that I may persuade all to yield to the emperor of the Romans, and not to lift themselves up. The gold named, then, weighing and measuring it out by number, scale, balance, and weight, send to me securely by one of your household who is faithful to you, sealing it with your own ring, so that I, having recognized — even if late, beyond the season — the inexorable thing, may become serene toward you concerning your offences. And what I have read, I have known and condemned.