[A]
καὶ τὰς ἀστυγείτονας ἐσυκοφαντήσατε πόλεις ἱερὰς καὶ ὁμοδούλους ἐμοί, ὡς δὴ παρ ̓ αὐτῶν εἴη τὰ εἰς ἐμὲ ξυντεθέντα, ὃν εὖ οἶδ ̓ ὅτι φιλοῦσιν ἐκεῖναι μᾶλλον ἢ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν υἱέας, οἳ τὰ μὲν τῶν θεῶν ἀνέστησαν αὐτίκα τεμένη, τοὺς τάφους δὲ τῶν ἀθέων ἀνέτρεψαν πάντας. ἀπὸ τοῦ συνθήματος, ὃ δὴ δέδοται παρ ̓ ἐμοῦ πρῴην, οὕτως ἐπαρθέντες τὸν νοῦν καὶ μετέωροι γενόμενοι τὴν διάνοιαν, ὡς καὶ πλέον ἐπεξελθεῖν τοῖς
[B]
εἰς τοὺς θεοὺς πλημμελοῦσιν ἢ βουλομένῳ μοι ἦν.
Τὰ δ ̓ ὑμέτερα· πολλοὶ μὲν ἐγειρομένους ἄρτι τοὺς βωμοὺς ἀνέτρεψαν, οὓς ἡ πρᾳότης ἡμῶν ἐδίδαξε μόλις ἡσυχάζειν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀπεπεμψάμεθα τὸν νεκρὸν τῆς Δάφνης, οἱ μὲν ἀφοσιούμενοι τὰ πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἀντέδωκαν τοῖς ὑπὲρ τῶν λειψάνων ἠγανακτηκόσι
[C]
τοῦ νεκροῦ τὸ τέμενος τοῦ Δαφναίου θεοῦ, οἱ δὲ εἴτε λαθόντες εἴτε μὴ τὸ πῦρ ἐνεῖσαν1ἐνεῖσαν Hertlein suggests, ἔδειξαν MSS. ἐκεῖνο, τοῖς μὲν ἐπιδημοῦσι τῶν ξένων φρικῶδες, ὑμῶν δὲ τῷ δήμῳ μὲν ἡδονὴν παρασχόν, ὑπὸ δὲ τῆς βουλῆς ἀμεληθὲν καὶ εἰσέτι ἀμελούμενον. ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν ἐδόκει καὶ πρὸ τοῦ πυρὸς ἀπολελοιπέναι τὸν νεὼν ὁ θεός, ἐπεσήμηνε γὰρ εἰσελθόντι μοι πρῶτον τὸ ἄγαλμα, καὶ τούτου μάρτυρα καλῶ τὸν μέγαν Ἥλιον πρὸς τοὺς ἀπιστοῦντας, ὑμᾶς δὲ ὑπομνῆσαι βούλομαι καὶ ἄλλης ἀπεχθείας εμῆς,
[D]
ἔπειτα, ὅπερ εἴωθα ποιεῖν ἐπιεικῶς, ὀνειδίσαι ἐμαυτῷ καὶ ὑπὲρ ταύτης καὶ κατηγορῆσαι καὶ μέμψασθαι.
Δεκάτῳ γάρ που μηνὶ τῷ παρ ̓ ὑμῖν ἀριθμουμένῳ· Λῶον οἶμαι τοῦτον ὑμεῖς προσαγορεύετε· τοῦ θεοῦ τούτου πάτριός ἐστιν ἑορτή, καὶ ἔδει σπουδῇ πρὸς τὴν Δάφνην ἀπαντᾶν. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἀπὸ τοῦ Κασίου Διὸς ἐπὶ τοῦτο ἔδραμον, οἰόπμενος ἐνταῦθα μάλιστα τοῦ πλούτου καὶ τῆς φιλοτιμίας ὑμῶν ἀπολαύσειν. εἶτα ἀνέπλαττον παρ ̓ ἐμαυτῷ πομπήν,
[A]
For besides this you falsely accused the neighbouring cities, which are holy and the slaves of the gods, like myself, of having produced the satires which were composed against me; though I know well that those cities love me more than their own sons, for they at once restored the shrines of the gods and overturned all the tombs2i.e. the sepulchres over which the Christian churches were built; cf. 357 C, note. of the godless, on the signal that was given by me the other day; and so excited were they in mind and so exalted in spirit that they even attacked those who were offending against the gods
[B]
with more violence than I could have wished.
But now consider your own behaviour. Many of you overturned the altars of the gods which had only just been erected, and with difficulty did my indulgent treatment teach you to keep quiet. And when I sent away the body from Daphne,3Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, had been buried in the grove of Daphne, and the priests of Apollo retired from it. When the church over his tomb was demolished by Julian he removed the body of St. Babylas to Antioch, and that night (October 22. 362 A.D.) the people of Antioch burned the temple of Apollo which Julian had restored. Cf. Johannes Chrysostomos, De S. Babyla et contra Julianum; and Libanius, Monody on the Temple of Apollo at Daphne. some of you, in expiation of your conduct towards the gods, handed over the shrine of the god of Daphne to those who were aggrieved about the relics of the body,
[C]
and the rest of you, whether by accident or on purpose, hurled against the shrine that fire which made the strangers who were visiting your city shudder, but gave pleasure to the mass of your citizens and was ignored and is still ignored by your Senate. Now, in my opinion, even before that fire the god had forsaken the temple, for when I first entered it his holy image gave me a sign thereof. I call mighty Helios to bear me witness of this before all unbelievers. And now I wish to remind you of yet another reason for your hatred of me, and then to abuse myself
[D]
–a thing which I usually do fairly well– and both to accuse and blame myself with regard to that hatred.
In the tenth month, according to your reckoning, – Loos I think you call it – there is a festival founded by your forefathers in honour of this god, and it was your duty to be zealous in visiting Daphne. Accordingly I hastened thither from the temple of Zeus Casius,4Kasios was the name of a mountain near Antioch where there was a temple of Zeus. thinking that at Daphne, if anywhere, I should enjoy the sight of your wealth and public spirit. And I imagined in my own mind the sort of procession it would be, like a man seeing visions in a dream,
EN translation: Wilmer Cave Wright, 1913
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| Title | London: The Works of the Emperor Julian, Volume II/III |
| Publisher | London: William Heinemann |
| Year | 1913-23 |
| Pages | 416-511 pp. [vol. II: 538 pp.] |
| Translation | Wilmer Cave Wright. PhD |
| Editors | T.E. Page and W.H.D. Rouse |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
