Jovian (emperor)

Jovian was born at Singidunum (today Belgrade in Serbia) in 331 AD, the son of Varronianus,[2] the commander of Constantius II's imperial bodyguards (comes domesticorum).[3] He also joined the guards and in this capacity in 361, escorted Constantius' remains to the Church of the Holy Apostles.[3] Jovian was married to Charito and they had two sons, Varronianus, and the other's name is unknown.[4]

Jovian accompanied the Emperor Julian on the Mesopotamian campaign of the same year against Shapur II, the Sasanid king. At the Battle of Samarra, a small but decisive engagement, Julian was mortally wounded,[5] and died on 26 June 363.[6] The next day, after the aged Saturninius Secundus Salutius, praetorian prefect of the Orient, had declined their offer for Emperor,[7] the army elected, despite Julian's reinstitution of paganism, the Christian Jovian, senior officer of the Scholae, as Emperor.[7][8]

On the very morning of his accession, Jovian resumed the retreat begun by Julian.[7] Though harassed by the Sasanids, the army succeeded in reaching the city of Dura on the banks of the Tigris.[9] There the army came to a halt, hoping to cross the Tigris to reach the Empire on the western bank. When the attempt to bridge the river failed, he was forced to sue for a peace treaty on humiliating terms.[9] In exchange for an unhindered retreat to his own territory, he agreed to a thirty-year truce,[10] a withdrawal from the five Roman provinces, Arzamena, Moxoeona, Azbdicena, Rehimena and Corduena, and to allow the Sasanids to occupy the fortresses of Nisibis, Castra Maurorum and Singara.[9] The Romans also surrendered their interests in the Kingdom of Armenia to the Sasanids.[11] The king of Armenia, Arsaces II (Arshak II), was to receive no help from Rome.[9] The treaty was widely seen as a disgrace.[12]

After crossing the Tigris, Jovian sent an embassy to the West to announce his elevation.[13] With the treaty signed, Jovian and his army marched to Nisibis.[9] The populace of Nisibis, devastated by the news their city was to be given to the Sasanids, were given three days to leave.[9]

In September 363 Jovian arrived at Edessa where he issued two edicts.[10] The first, a limitation on the distance a soldier could be sent for straw, was to indicate an end to the war with Sasanid Persia.[10] The second was the restoration of estates of the res privata to the Imperial finances following Julian's incorporating them to pagan temples.[10]

Jovian's arrival at Antioch in October 363, was met with an enraged populace.[14] Faced with offensive graffiti and insulting authorless bills (famosi) throughout the city,[15] he ordered the Library of Antioch to be burned down.[lower-alpha 1][15][16] Jovian left Antioch in November 363,[lower-alpha 2] making his way back to Constantinople.[15]

By December 363 Jovian was at Ancyra proclaiming his infant son, Varronianus, consul.[18] While en route from there to Constantinople, Jovian was found dead in his tent at Dadastana, halfway between Ancyra and Nicaea, on 17 February 364.[19] His death, which went uninvestigated,[17] was possibly the result of suffocating on poisonous fumes seeping from the newly painted bedchamber walls by a brazier.[8][17][18][20][lower-alpha 3] Jovian died aged 33 and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople,[21][22] in a porphyry sarcophagus.[lower-alpha 4] He was succeeded by two brothers, Valentinian I and Valens, who subsequently divided the empire between them.[24]

Following Jovian's death, Valentinian and Valens removed any threats to their position.[25] Jovian's son Varronianus was blinded to ensure he would never inherit the throne.[25] According to John Chrysostom, Jovian's wife Charito lived in fear the remaining days of her life.[25]

Jovian was met at Edessa by a group of bishops, including Athanasius.[lower-alpha 5][27] The Semi-Arian bishops received a poor greeting, but Athanasius, newly returned from exile,[28] delivered a letter to Jovian insisting on the Nicene Creed and the rejection of Arianism.[28] Having restored Athanasius to his episcopal duties,[29] Jovian allowed Athanasius to accompany him to Antioch.[27]

Upon arriving at Antioch, Jovian received a letter from the Synod of Antioch, imploring for Meletius' restoration as bishop of Antioch.[30] By September 363,[31] Jovian reestablished Christianity as the state religion,[17] restored the labarum ("Chi-Rho") as the army's standard,[24] and revoked the edicts of Julian against Christians, but did not close any pagan temples.[32] He issued an edict of toleration, to the effect that his subjects could enjoy full liberty of conscience,[32] but he banned magic and divination.[33] Despite supporting the Nicene doctrines, he passed no edicts against Arians.[24] Philostorgius, an Arian church historian, stated, "The Emperor Jovian restored the churches to their original uses, and set them free from all the vexatious persecutions inflicted on them by the Apostate Julian."[24]

• List of Byzantine emperors

• Anatolios, Khaled (2004). Athanasius. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415202039.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Barker, John W. (1966). Justinian and the Later Roman Empire. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299039448.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Baynes, Norman H. (1967). "Constantine's Successors to Jovian: And the Struggle with Persia". In Gwatkin, H.M.; Whitney, J.P. (eds.). The Cambridge Medieval History. I. Cambridge at the University Press. p. 55-86. ISBN 9781463690311.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Browning, Robert (1976). The Emperor Julian. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03731-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Cooley, Alison E. (2012). The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84026-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Curran, John (1998). "From Jovian to Theodosius". In Cameron, Averil; Garnsey, Peter (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425. XIII (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 78-110. ISBN 978-0521302005.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Drijvers, Jan Willem (2018). "Jovian between History and Myth". In Burgersdijk, Diederik W.P.; Ross, Alan J. (eds.). Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire. Brill. p. 234-256. ISBN 9789004370890.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Elm, Susanna (2012). Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520269309.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Elton, Hugh (2018). The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521899314.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Eusebius (2016). History of the Church. Translated by Amidon, Philip R. The Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 9780813229027.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Frend, W.H.C. (2003). The Early Church: From the Beginnings to 461. SCM Press. ISBN 978-0334029090.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Gwynn, David M. (2012). Athanasius of Alexandria: Bishop, Theologian, Ascetic, Father. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199210954.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Heather, Peter (1999). "Ammianus on Jovian: history and literature". In Drijvers, Jan Willem; Hunt, David (eds.). The Late Roman World and Its Historian: Interpreting Ammianus Marcellinus. Routledge. p. 93-103. ISBN 0-415-20271-X.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Hughes, Ian (2013). Imperial Brothers: Valentinian, Valens and the Disaster at Adrianople. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1848844179.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin (1986). The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social Economic and Administrative Survey. Volume 1 (2nd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801833533.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Jones, A. H. M.; Martindale, J. R.; Morris, John (2001). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: AD 260-395. Volume 1 (5th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 07233 6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Lenski, Noel (2002). Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520-23332-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Moffatt, Ann; Tall, Maxeme (2012). Constantine Porphyrogennetos - The Book of Ceremonies. Brill. ISBN 978-18-76-50342-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Ostrogorsky, George (1995). History of the Byzantine State (4th ed.). Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813505992.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Rohmann, Dirk (2016). Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 978-3-11-048445-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Tougher, Shaun (2018). "Jovian". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
• Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804726306.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Vasiliev, A. A. (1948). "Imperial Porphyry Sarcophagi in Constantinople" (PDF). Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 4: 3–26. doi:10.2307/1291047.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Vasiliev, Alexander (1980). History of the Byzantine Empire. Vol. I (2nd ed.). The University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-80925-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Watts, Edward J. (2015). The Final Pagan Generation. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-28370-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Banchich, Thomas, "Jovian", De Imperatoribus Romanis.
• Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 5–10
• J. P. de la Bleterie, Histoire de Jovien (1740)
• Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chapters xxiv., xxv.
• Gibbon, Edward, 1737–1794. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. (NY : Knopf, 1993), v. 2, pp. 517 – 529.
• G. Hoffmann, Julianus der Abtrünnige, 1880
• J. Wordsworth in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography
• H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, volume ii. (1887)
• A. de Broglie, L'Église et l'empire romain au IV^e siècle (4th ed. 1882).

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