In Our Time: Julian the Apostate

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Julian the Apostate, the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and introduced a policy of tolerating the faith across the empire, Julian aimed to promote paganism instead. Julian was a philosopher-emperor in the mould of Marcus Aurelius and was noted in his lifetime for his letters and his satires, and it was his surprising success as a general in his youth in Gaul that had propelled him to power barely 20 years after a rival had slaughtered his family