overnment.
Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of
moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence. Peace
was the object of my counsels as long as peace was consistent with the
public welfare; but when the imperious voice of my country summoned me
to arms, I exposed my person to the dangers of war with the clear
foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of divination) that I
was destined to fall by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude
to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty
of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures
of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an honorable
career, a splendid and glorious departure from this world; and I hold it
equally absurd, equally base, to solicit or to decline the stroke of
fate. Thus much I have attempted to say; but my strength fails me, and I
feel the approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word
that may tend to influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor.
My choice might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be
ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the person
whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my
hopes that the Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous
sovereign." After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and
gentle tone of voice, he distributed by a military testament the remains
of his private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not
present, he understood from the answer of Sallust that Anatolius was
killed, and bewailed with amiable inconsistency the loss of his friend.
At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators, and
conjured them not to disgrace by unmanly tears the fate of a prince who
in a few moments would be united with heaven and with the stars. 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 drunk 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