n a few moments would be united with heaven, and
with the stars. [98] The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into
a metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on
the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as
body, most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with
fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the
veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon as he had
drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was
the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-second year of his
age, after a reign of one year and about eight months, from the death
of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps with some
ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling
passions of his life. [99]

[Footnote 95: The character and situation of Julian might countenance
the suspicion that he had previously composed the elaborate oration,
which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The version of the Abbe de la
Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I have followed him in expressing
the Platonic idea of emanations, which is darkly insinuated in the
original.]

[Footnote 96: Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that doctrine in
an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th book of the Iliad,) who
laments with tears of blood the death of Sarpedon his son, had a very
imperfect notion of happiness or glory beyond the grave.]

[Footnote 97: The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory
testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,) were exempted from the
formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius, (Antiquit. Jur. Roman.
tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxvii.)]

[Footnote 98: This union of the human soul with the divine aethereal
substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and
Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or conscious immortality.
See Warburton's learned and rational observations. Divine Legation, vol
ii. p. 199-216.]

[Footnote 99: The whole relation of the death of Julian is given by
Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who turns with
horror from the scene, has supplied some circumstances, (Orat. Parental.
c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The calumnies of Gregory, and the legends
of more recent saints, may now be silently despised. * Note: A very
remarkable fragment of Eunapius describes, not without spirit, the