with an eye of prejudice and
aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a general
prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon
diffused over the Roman world. [29]

[Footnote 26: See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian himself
in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and just picture of
his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows, however, a tendency to
exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating, though in obscure terms, that
they lasted above a year; a period which cannot be reconciled with the
truth of chronology.]

[Footnote 27: Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the family
of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily conceived and
agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the seventh Oration, from
whence it has been detached and translated by the Abbe de la Bleterie,
Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]

[Footnote 28: She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of a noble
family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls. Her marriage
with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a divided age, the
historians of all parties agree in her praises. See their testimonies
collected by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]

[Footnote 29: Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the arts as
well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent Julian as the first
of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory was his fellow-student at
Athens; and the symptoms which he so tragically describes, of the future
wickedness of the apostate, amount only to some bodily imperfections,
and to some peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests,
however, that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]

Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,
resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was
not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late Caesar
had left Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by
the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil
discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a
deluge of Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier
of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and
numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy
mountains to rava