"Hating pomp and show, impatient of the petty, hampering rules of Court etiquette, constantly dwelling in thought on the ancient glories of democratic Athens and senatorial Rome, he could hardly view the orientalising and inordinate exaltation of the Imperial dignity in the light of a reform. Yet his almost single-handed efforts to revive the great days of the Roman Senate and of Greek municipal freedom were not productive of very great results, either for good or for evil. … As to the change in spiritual conditions, this was to him not merely an adverse element of the environment in which he had to work; it was the destruction of all that he held dear and believed to be most necessary for the common good. He felt bound to prevent such a destruction at any cost, or to perish in the attempt."
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Alice Gardner, in Julian, Philosopher and Emperor : And the Last Struggle of Paganism against Christianity (1895), p. 5
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
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Julian (emperor)
Flavius Claudius Julianus (c. 331 – 26 June 363) was a Hellenistic philosopher, military leader, Roman emperor, and satirist, often referred to as Julian the Apostate because of his rejection of formal Christian doctrines, and opposition to their spread, and sometimes as Julian II, to distinguish him from Didius Julianus. Sometimes now referred to as Julian the Philosopher, he was the last pagan Augustus of the Roman Empire.
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