Abstract
Scholars have looked to the demigods presented in the writings of the emperor Julian (r. 361-363) as models for his own identity as a so-called heroic son of god. Greenwood in particular fixates on Julian’s autobiographical myth in his oration Against Heraclius to demonstrate his direct claim to be such a divinity. This paper considers the evidence in light of the metaphysics of the Neoplatonist Iamblichus, whom Julian cites as his chief theological authority. I argue that while Julian did affirm that he was sent by the gods to restore the imperial cosmos, he personally resisted notions that he himself was of any superior class above a normal human soul, a reluctant Numa more than a Romulus. Read literally, Julian’s autobiographical myth in the Against Heraclius suggests that Julian was literally the son of the god Helios; but it may also be interpreted as a Neoplatonic allegory: all souls are in a sense the offspring of Helios, the equivalent of Plato’s Demiurge, and his soul in particular descended in a cycle of eternal refoundation whereby the soul of each successive emperor is tasked with renewing the Roman Empire in order to reascend to the gods. This cyclical process is allegorically presented in another myth, that of Julian’s satire The Caesars, where the “deified” emperors attend a symposium on Olympus. Read both literally and allegorically, Julian’s myths offer to various readers both the exoteric Roman ideology of imperial divinity and an esoteric understanding of its true metaphysical underpinnings.