son of Julian. His subjects
complained, with superstitious indignation, that famine had pursued the
emperor's steps from Constantinople to Antioch; and the discontent of
a hungry people was exasperated by the injudicious attempt to relieve
their distress. The inclemency of the season had affected the harvests
of Syria; and the price of bread, in the markets of Antioch, had
naturally risen in proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair
and reasonable proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of
monopoly. In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is
claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by another as a
lucrative object of trade, and is required by a third for the daily and
necessary support of life, all the profits of the intermediate agents
are accumulated on the head of the defenceless customers. The hardships
of their situation were exaggerated and increased by their own
impatience and anxiety; and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually
produced the appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens
of Antioch complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian
publicly declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a
regular supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was
the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his people.
With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very dangerous and
doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the value of corn. He
enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should be sold at a price which
had seldom been known in the most plentiful years; and that his own
example might strengthen his laws, he sent into the market four hundred
and twenty-two thousand modii, or measures, which were drawn by his
order from the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt.
The consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The
Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the proprietors of
land, or of corn, withheld from the city the accustomed supply; and the
small quantities that appeared in the market were secretly sold at an
advanced and illegal price. Julian still continued to applaud his own
policy, treated the complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful
murmur, and convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy,
though not the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. The remonstrances of the
municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind. He
wa