On 11 December 361 CE Flavius Claudius Julianus, aged twenty-nine, arrived in Constantinople as sole ruler of the Roman empire. A few months later an equally young man from a small city in Cappadocia apologized to his family and friends for a choice that few had anticipated: he wished henceforth to lead “the true philosophical life.” Two men, two signal events in their personal lives that stand paradigmatic for a phenomenon central to John Matthews's work: the later Roman empire, seen either as a “new age” described with “more or less traditional way[s]” or as a period, as once again argued, of decline and fall.

The fate of the late Roman empire has captured the imagination of historians for a very long time (as the introduction suggests, John Matthews's more or less explicit interlocutions with Gibbon merit a study in themselves), and much of that fascination found focus and drama in the person of Emperor Julian.