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. [69]

[Footnote 68: The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur,
&c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p. 448, 449,) excuses
this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing that actions the most
indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a Roman mind, the idea of
guilt and danger. This strange apology is supported by a strange
misapprehension of the English laws, "chez une nation.... ou il est
defendu da boire a la sante d'une certaine personne."]

[Footnote 69: The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which was
formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus (xxii. 9,
10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 99, p. 323.)]

Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. [70] 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. [71] 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; [72] but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus,
or Lord, [73] 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 t