Editing Antioch (section)

=== Age of Julian and Valens ===
[[File:JulianusII-antioch(360-363)-CNG.jpg|thumb|250px|A bronze coin from Antioch depicting the [[Julian the Apostate|emperor Julian]]. Note the pointed beard.]]
When the [[Julian the Apostate|emperor Julian]] visited in 362 on a detour to the [[Sasanian Empire]], he had high hopes for Antioch, regarding it as a rival to the imperial capital of [[Constantinople]]. Antioch had a mixed pagan and Christian population, which [[Ammianus Marcellinus]] implies lived quite harmoniously together. However, Julian's visit began ominously as it coincided with a lament for [[Adonis]], the doomed lover of [[Aphrodite]]. Thus, Ammianus wrote, the emperor and his soldiers entered the city not to the sound of cheers but to wailing and screaming.

After being advised that the bones of third-century martyred bishop [[Babylas of Antioch|Babylas]] were suppressing the oracle of Apollo at Daphne,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-09/npnf1-09-20.htm |title=St John Chrysostom's homily on Saint Babylas |access-date=2012-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706194336/http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-09/npnf1-09-20.htm |archive-date=2008-07-06 |url-status=dead }}</ref> he made a public-relations mistake in ordering the removal of the bones from the vicinity of the temple. The result was a massive Christian procession. Shortly after that, when the temple was destroyed by fire, Julian suspected the Christians and ordered stricter investigations than usual. He also shut up Constantine's Great Church, before the investigations proved that the fire was the result of an accident.<ref>Ammianus Marcellinus, ''Res Gestae'', 22.12.8{{snd}}22.13.3</ref><ref>[[Socrates of Constantinople]], ''Historia ecclesiastica'', 3.18</ref>

Julian found much else to criticize about the Antiochenes; he had wanted the empire's cities to be more self-managing, as they had been some [[Antonines|200&nbsp;years before]], but Antioch's [[Decurion (administrative)|city councilmen]] showed themselves unwilling to shore up a local food shortage with their own resources, so dependent were they on the emperor. Ammianus wrote that the councilmen shirked their duties by bribing unwitting men in the marketplace to do the job for them. Further, Julian was surprised and dismayed when at the city's annual feast of Apollo the only Antiochene present was an old priest clutching a goose, showing the decay of paganism in the town.

Ammianus writes that the Antiochenes hated Julian in turn for worsening the food shortage with the burden of his [[billet]]ed troops. His enthusiasm for large scale [[animal sacrifice]] meant that the soldiers were often to be found gorged on sacrificial meat, making a drunken nuisance of themselves on the streets while Antioch's hungry citizens looked on in disgust. The Christian Antiochenes and Julian's pagan [[Gauls|Gallic]] soldiers also never quite saw eye to eye. Even to those who kept the old religion, Julian's brand of paganism was distasteful, being very much unique to himself, with little support outside the most educated [[Neo Platonism|Neoplatonist]] circles. Julian gained no admiration for his personal involvement in the sacrifices, only the nickname ''axeman'', wrote Ammianus.

The emperor's high-handed, severe methods and his rigid administration prompted Antiochene [[parody|lampoon]]s about, among other things, Julian's unfashionably [[goatee|pointed beard]].<ref>''Ridebatur enim ut Cercops...barbam prae se ferens hircinam.'' [[Ammianus Marcellinus|Ammianus]] XXII 14.</ref>

Julian's successor [[Valens]] endowed Antioch with a new forum, including a statue of his brother and co-emperor [[Valentinian I]] on a central column, and reopened the great church of Constantine, which stood until the Persian sack in 538, by [[Khosrau I|Chosroes]].{{sfn|Rockwell|1911|p=131}}