Julian II (the Apostate) and his policies

[Theodosius the Great]

He did not say that a great emperor is so just if loves to kill or torture the Christians for a simple capriccio, nor that in his opinion a great emperor is so when he promotes religious persecutions due to faith/unfaith matter!

It sounded that way when Severus made his statement and I responded accordingly. Thank you, Titus, for clearing that up. But the statement is still wrong as I just cited Emperors who were not great and persecuted Christians.

the Romans did not persecute anyone for religious reasons, being very tolerant towards any religion (Hebraism too) often integrating them, but of course persecuted any politically subversive act and the Christians acted so.

I agree and disagree. I've address these points on a previous thread and I shouldn't repeat my response here since this is off-topic. But I'll be happy to pursue this topic further elsewhere if you like, Titus, since it's an interest of mine too.

Was Julian forgotten in popular memory? Sure. And he still is. But then popular memory only knows Julius, not Julian, nor any of the others.

Agreed. My comments were strictly limited to popular consciousness. I'm sorry if my comments weren't explicit enough. But Julian's memory was brought to some public attention during the nineteenth century as evidenced by paintings of him that were commissioned. Granted, exposure to the public of his existence must have been extremely limited but the misguided motivation behind the effort is what I object to.

So Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius did't have a heir either and that's bad? Hmmm what about Marcus his son Commodus? If I understand you correctly Julian was wrong not to produce a heir? I don't agree with you here...

Having no heir-apparent is bad. It fosters political instability especially among the Army. The only Emperors from the period you mention who had no sons and adopted heirs are Nerva and Hadrian. Hadrian claimed that Trajan adopted him but we don't know if that was true. And Hadrian arranged for Antonius and Marcus Aurelius to succeed him. Antoninus had no say on his successor.

The adoptions of Trajan by Nerva and of Antoninus and Marcus by Hadrian were both adhoc occurrences. There was no system or method involved such as a "meritocracy" as some have suggested.

But if an Emperor has a son then everyone is assured of a peaceful transition of power to next ruler, generally speaking.

Commodus from what I have read doesn't seem to have been all that bad. The historian Cassius Dio thought him to be a competent ruler. He did rule for 12 years constantly putting down palace and senatorial plots. And he successfully incorporated into the Empire some of the tribes that his father fought against. But his main fault was the same as Julian's : he had no heir-apparent.

Julian did nothing to preserve his dynasty - which was the most successful dynasty in Roman history since the Julio-Claudians.

~Theo