been confided by his father, a
merchant of Rome.

Ambition was the ruling passion of the father of Emilius. It had
prompted him to aspire to every distinction granted to the successful
by the state, but it had not gifted him with the powers requisite to
turn his aspirations in any instance into acquisitions. He passed
through existence a disappointed man, planning but never performing,
seeing his more fortunate brother rising to the highest distinction in
the priesthood, and finding himself irretrievably condemned to exist in
the affluent obscurity ensured to him by his mercantile pursuits.

When his brother Macrinus, on Julian's accession to the imperial
throne, arrived at the pinnacle of power and celebrity as high priest
of the Temple of Serapis, the unsuccessful merchant lost all hope of
rivalling his relative in the pursuit of distinction. His insatiable
ambition, discarded from himself, now settled on one of his infant
sons. He determined that his child should be successful where he had
failed. Now that his brother had secured the highest elevation in the
temple, no calling could offer more direct advantages to a member of
his household that the priesthood. His family had been from their
earliest origin rigid Pagans. One of them had already attained to the
most distinguished honours of his gorgeous worship. He determined that
another should rival his kinsman, and that that other should be his
eldest son.

Firm in this resolution, he at once devoted his child to the great
design which he now held continually in view. He knew well that
Paganism, revived though it was, was not the universal worship that it
had been; that it was now secretly resisted, and might soon be openly
opposed, by the persecuted Christians throughout the Empire; and that
if the young generation were to guard it successfully from all future
encroachments, and to rise securely to its highest honours, more must
be exacted from them than the easy attachment to the ancient religion
require from the votaries of former days. Then, the performance of the
most important offices in the priesthood was compatible with the
possession of military or political rank. Now, it was to the temple,
and to the temple only, that the future servant of the gods should be
devoted. Resolving thus, the father took care that all the son's
occupations and rewards should, from his earliest years, be in some way
connected with the career for which he was intend