Julian: a late antique Emperor?

Abstract

Within that complex period, which we have long been accustomed to calling Late Antiquity (regardless of the controversies surrounding its supposed beginning and end), Julian was a highly distinctive and deeply divisive figure, who did not leave his contemporaries indifferent. In my opinion, he lends himself, in several respects, to a particularly valuable “case study”. Julian’s appeal is in many ways linked to his being, in a wholly original way, a “late antique emperor”.