contempt, of hatred, and
of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks
before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a
public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the
IMMORTAL GODS, and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the
friendship of Constantius.

The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He
had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary,
sacrificing the interest of the State to that of the monarch, had again
excited the barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position
of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of
Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to
indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each
of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather
flour, was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
enemy who prepared to surround him. But the imperial legions were still
in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if
Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of
Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his
standard, and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute
to the expenses of the civil war.

He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers;
inspired them with a just confidence in their general and in themselves;
and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the
enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their
officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest
acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with
alacrity that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of
a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror
of the Germans. This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by
affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had
been a