th fails me, and I feel the approach
of death. I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to
influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice might
be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be ratified by the
consent of the army, it might be fatal to the person whom I should
recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, express my hopes, that the
Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous sovereign."
After this discourse, which Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone
of voice, he distributed, by a military testament, the remains of his
private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not present,
he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that Anatolius was killed;
and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency, the loss of his friend. At
the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators; and
conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince,
who in a few moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars.
The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the
soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably
hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence; his
respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the veins; he called
for a draught of cold water, and, as soon as he had drank it, expired
without pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was the end of that
extraordinary man, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign
of one year and about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In
his last moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love
of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his life.

The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire, may, in
some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had neglected to
secure the future execution of his designs, by the timely and judicious
nomination of an associate and successor. But the royal race of
Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own person; and if he entertained
any serious thoughts of investing with the purple the most worthy among
the Romans, he was diverted from his resolution by the difficulty of the
choice, the jealousy of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural
presumption of health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death
left the empire without a master, and wit