Jovian (Flavius Jovianus Augustus)

GIOVIANO (Flavius Iovianus Augustus). - Roman emperor, b. at Singidunum in Moesia in 331, d. in Bithynia on 17 February 364. Son of the count Varronianus, he pursued a military career under Constantius II. At the accession of Julian he was a tribune, and after the edict in which the latter put the soldiers to the alternative of sacrificing or abandoning the service, he preferred to resign; he was, however, retained because of the imminent war against the Persians. On the death of Julian, despite his reluctance, he was acclaimed emperor by the army (28 June 363).

Compelled by the disastrous circumstances of the Persian campaign and in order to consolidate his authority, he had to accept the peace terms of Shapur, renouncing some provinces. A convinced Christian and Catholic, J. immediately saw to revoking Julian's anti-Christian laws, promulgating tolerance for all; he prohibited only the public sacrifices instituted by his predecessor. He recalled all the bishops who were still in exile and chiefly St. Athanasius, whom he also invited to Antioch. J.'s good dispositions led the various Arian 18:te to ask him for protection, hoping to draw him to their own ideas. Thus the Macedonians sent him a libellus with which they asked that the Anomoeans be driven out; the latter tried to have Athanasius expelled from Alexandria, but both sides were rebuffed and threatened. During the journey toward Constantinople he attended at Tarsus the funeral of Julian, then at Ancyra he took the consulate, but at Dadastana, between the borders of Galatia and Bithynia, he suddenly died, cutting short the hopes placed in him.

Agostino Amore