Jovian Roman Emperor 363-364AD
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Example of Authentic Ancient
Coin of:
Jovian - Roman Emperor: 363-364 A.D. -
Bronze Ζ3 Heraclea mint circa 363-364 A.D.
RIC 110 (Heraclea), LRBC 1913
DNIOVIANVSPFAVG - Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust left.
VOT/V/MVLT/X Exe: HERACA - Wreath, legend within.
Flavius Iovianus,
anglicized to Jovian, (331 17
February 364) was a
soldier elected
Roman Emperor by the army on 27 June
363 upon the death of Emperor
Julian the Apostate during his
Sassanid campaign. Jovian reestablished
Christianity as the favored religion of
the Empire.
Rise
to power
Jovian was born at
Singidunum (today
Belgrade,
Serbia) in 331, son of (Flavius?)
Varronianus, the commander of
Constantius II's imperial bodyguards
(comes domesticorum). He also joined the guards, and by 363 had risen to
the same command that his father had once held. In this capacity, Jovian
accompanied the Roman Emperor
Julian on the Mesopotamian campaign of
the same year against
Shapur II, the
Sassanid king. After a small but
decisive engagement the Roman army was forced to retreat from the
numerically superior Persian force. Julian was mortally wounded during
the retreat and died on 26 June 363. The next day, after the aged
Saturninius Secundus Salutius,
praetorian prefect of the Orient,
declined the purple, the choice of the army fell upon Jovian. His
election caused considerable surprise, and it is suggested by
Ammianus Marcellinus that he was
wrongly identified with another Jovianus, chief notary (primicerius
notariorum), whose name also had been put forward, or that during the
acclamations the soldiers mistook the name Jovianus for Julianus, and
imagined that the latter had recovered from his illness.
Restoration
of Christianity
Jovian, a
Christian, reestablished
Christianity as the favoured religion
of the
Roman Empire ending the brief revival
of paganism under his predecessor Julian. Upon arriving at Antioch, he
revoked the edicts of Julian against the Christians. The
Labarum of
Constantine the Great again became the
standard of the army. He issued an edict of toleration, to the effect
that, while the exercise of magical rites would be punished, his
subjects should enjoy full liberty of conscience.
However, in 363 he issued an edict ordering the
Library of Antioch to be
burnt down, and another on 11 September
subjecting the worship of ancestral gods to the
death penalty, which, on 23 December,
he also applied to participation in any pagan ceremony (even private
ones). Jovian entertained a great regard for
Athanasius, whom he reinstated on the
archiepiscopal throne, desiring him to draw up a statement of the
Orthodox faith. In
Syriac literature Jovian became the
hero of a Christian romance. From Jovian's reign until the 15th century
Christianity remained the dominant religion of both the Western and
Eastern Roman Empires, until the fall of
Constantinople to the
Turks in 1453.
Rule
Jovian continued the retreat begun by Julian, and,
continually harassed by the Persians, succeeded in reaching the banks of
the Tigris, where Jovian, deep inside Sassanid territory, was forced to
sue for a peace treaty on humiliatingly unfavourable terms. In exchange
for his safety, he agreed to withdraw from the five
Roman provinces conquered by
Galerius in 298, east of the Tigris,
that
Diocletian had annexed and allow the
Persians to occupy the fortresses of
Nisibis, Castra Maurorum and
Singara. The Romans also surrendered
their interests in the
Kingdom of Armenia to the Persians and
the Christian king of Armenia,
Arshak II, was to stay neutral in
future conflicts between the two empires, and was forced to cede part of
his kingdom to Shapur. The treaty was widely seen as a disgrace and
Jovian rapidly lost popularity.
After arriving at Antioch, Jovian decided to rush to
Constantinople to consolidate his political position there.
He died on 17 February 364 after a reign of only
eight months. During his return to Constantinople, Jovian was found dead
in bed in his tent at
Dadastana, halfway between
Ancyra and
Nicaea. A surfeit of mushrooms or the
poisonous
carbon monoxide fumes of a charcoal
warming fire has been assigned as the cause of death.
Jovian was buried in the
Church of the Holy Apostles in
Constantinople.
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