Julian and the Pagan Counter-Revolution - The Pax Romana Podcast 93

Julian and the Pagan Counter-Revolution - The Pax Romana Podcast 93

From The Pax Romana Podcast by Professor Colin Elliott

November 21, 2025 · 19 min

About this episode

The episode discusses Julian the Apostate's attempts to reverse Constantinian religious policies during his brief reign as Augustus.

In AD 361, Flavius Claudius Julianus--Julian "The Apostate"--entered Constantinople as the unexpected sole Augustus of the Roman world. Here was a thirty-year-old philosopher-king who had spent the previous decade dissimulating Christianity while privately offering midnight sacrifices to pagan gods.He had roughly twenty months left to live. In that brief span he attempted nothing less than the systematic reversal of forty years of Constantinian religious policy. Was Julian genuinely committed to a pluralistic empire in which paganism would simply be allowed to reassert itself, or was his proclaimed “toleration” from the very beginning a calculated strategy of cultural and institutional strangulation designed to break Christianity without ever giving it the propaganda gift of martyrs? Donate: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube Channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Professor Elliott's book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

People in this episode

Host: Professor Colin Elliott

Topics covered

  • Julian the Apostate
  • Paganism
  • Religious policy
  • Constantine
  • Roman Empire
  • Cultural strategy

Keywords

  • Julian
  • pagan counter-revolution
  • Constantinople
  • religious policy
  • Christianity
  • philosopher-king
  • toleration
  • Roman world

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Constantinian

Books & works: Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World

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