Jovian - Roman Emperor: 363-364 A.D. -
Bronze Æ3 19mm (3.6 grams) Alexandria mint: 363-364 A.D.
Reference: RIC 92 (Alexandria), C 31
DNIOVIANVSPFAVG - Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust left.
Wreath, VOT/V within, ALEA in exergue.
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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.
[1] The
Labarum of
Constantine the Great again became the standard of the army.[2]
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[3].
However, in 363 he issued an edict ordering the Library of
Antioch to be
burnt
down[4],
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)[5].
Jovian entertained a great regard for
Athanasius, whom he reinstated on the archiepiscopal throne,[1]
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. |