Julian

Julian was born in 331, a nephew of Constantine the Great, and became an orphan at six when his father was executed during the family purges of 337. He survived his cousin Constantius II's reign under close watch, but was granted freedom to study Greek philosophy in the east. In 355, Constantius appointed him to govern Gaul, where he beat back Germanic incursions and won his soldiers' loyalty - so much that in 360 they proclaimed him emperor at Lutetia, igniting a civil war that never came to battle. Constantius died before they could meet, naming Julian his successor. As sole emperor, Julian set out to reverse Christianity's rise: he purged bureaucrats, promoted Neoplatonic paganism, backed a Third Temple in Jerusalem to undercut the faith, and barred Christians from teaching the classics. In 363, he launched a campaign against Sasanian Persia, won outside Ctesiphon, but then pushed into the heartland without taking the capital. Harassed and starved, the army retreated north until Julian took a fatal wound at the Battle of Samarra on 26 June 363. His successor Jovian bought the army's escape by surrendering Roman territory, and the empire split for good.