spatched the informer with a present of a pair of purple
slippers, to complete the magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more
dangerous conspiracy was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had
resolved to assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch.
Their intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in
chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a lively
representation of the wickedness and folly of their enterprise, instead
of a death of torture, which they deserved and expected, pronounced a
sentence of exile against the two principal offenders. The only instance
in which Julian seemed to depart from his accustomed clemency, was the
execution of a rash youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to
seize the reins of empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the
general of cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had
deserted the standard of the Caesar and the republic. Without appearing
to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily confound
the crime of the son and of the father; but he was reconciled by the
distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of the emperor endeavored to
heal the wound which had been inflicted by the hand of justice.

Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. From his studies
he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and heroes; his life and
fortunes had depended on the caprice of a tyrant; and when he ascended
the throne, his pride was sometimes mortified by the reflection, that
the slaves who would not dare to censure his defects were not worthy
to applaud his virtues. He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental
despotism, which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of
fourscore years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had frequently
meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but
he absolutely refused the title of Dominus, or Lord, a word which
was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer
remembered its servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather
the name, of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with
reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which had
been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by Julian from
choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at break of day, the
new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, h