Pallas (Dec 2009)
L’empereur Julien et la licence festive
Abstract
On the occasion of the festival of the Calends of January 363, the emperor Julian became the object from the golden youth of Antioch – a city where the emperor was planning a campaign against Persians – of satirical verses bevelled at his physique of ascetic philosopher and his hatred of festive jubilation. The study of the allusions to that satire in the Misopôgôn and other ancient sources, the sophist Libanios in particular, enables us to demonstrate the whole difference in matters of freedom of speech between authoritarian regimes like the later Roman Empire and souch democratic regimes as classical Athens.
Keywords
