Julian’s Victories and the Death of Constantius

While the emperor Constantius was staying at Antioch, Julian Caesar fought a huge army of barbarians in Gaul and defeated them. This made him extremely popular with the soldiers, and they proclaimed him emperor. When this became known, the emperor Constantius was deeply distressed. So he was baptized by Euzoius, and at once prepared to march against Julian. But when he reached the borders of Cappadocia and Cilicia, his extreme agitation of mind brought on a stroke, which ended his life at Mopsucrene, in the consulship of Taurus and Florentius, on the third of November. This was in the first year of the two hundred eighty-fifth Olympiad. Constantius had lived forty-five years and had reigned thirty-eight. For thirteen of these he was his father’s colleague in the empire, and after his father’s death he was sole emperor for twenty-five years; the history of this latter period is contained in this book. [a]