The Death of the Gods by Dmitry Merezhkovsky

• FIRST PUBLISHED: Smert Bogov: Yulian Otstupnik, 1895 (English translation, 1901)
• TYPE OF WORK: Novel
• TYPE OF PLOT: Historical romance
• TIME OF WORK: Fourth century
• LOCALE: Ancient Rome

The Story:

The Roman Emperor Constantius had risen to power by a series of assassinations. Two of his cousins, Julian and Gallus, were still alive, prisoners in Cappadocia. No one knew why they were permitted to live, for they were the last people who could challenge the emperor's right to his position. Julian was the greater of the two, a young man steeped in the teachings of the philosophers. His brother was younger and had different habits. Both knew that they could expect death momentarily.

When Julian was twenty years old, Constantius permitted him to travel in Asia Minor, where the lad affected the dress of a monk and passed as a Christian. His younger brother, Gallus, was given high honors as co-regent with Constantius and named Caesar. The affection Constantius seemed to bestow on Gallus was short-lived; however, soon after, the young man was recalled to Milan, and on his journey homeward, he was beheaded by the emperor's orders. When word of his brother’s death reached Julian, he wondered how much longer he himself had to live.

While Julian wandered about Asia Minor, he met many philosophers and was initiated into the mysteries of Mithra, the sun god. Julian felt more power in the religion of the pagans than he did in the Christ his grandfather had declared the Roman Empire's official religion. Knowing the danger of his beliefs, Julian kept them secret.

One day, Publius Porphyrius took Julian to an ancient wrestling arena, where they watched a young woman playing at the ancient Grecian games. She was Arsinoë, who, like Julian, found more joy in paganism than Christianity. One night, she told him that he must believe in himself rather than any gods, and he replied that such was his aim.

Before long, Julian had an opportunity to strike at Constantius. Raised to a position of honor at court and given the purple robe of a Caesar, he was trained as a warrior and sent to Gaul to tame the barbarians. Contrary to Constantius’ hopes that the young man would be killed, he was highly successful in Gaul. When Constantius sent an emissary to recall several of Julian’s legions, the soldiers revolted and hailed Julian as the emperor, making him accept the crown. Meanwhile, Julian’s anger against all Christians had risen; his wife refused to share his bed because she had decided to become a nun. He felt no pity when she fell ill and died. He thought her actions had disgraced him.

Julian began a march of conquest through the empire with his loyal legions. While crossing Macedonia, he received word that Constantius had died in Constantinople.

As soon as word spread among Julian’s legions that he was now the rightful emperor, he gathered his men together for a ceremony at which he denied Christianity and affixed the statue of Apollo in place of the cross on his standards. That act was only the beginning of changes in the empire. On his arrival in Constantinople, he reinstated the pagan gods and returned to their temples the treasure the Christian monks had seized.

The Christians were outraged at his practices, and his popularity waned. Few visited the reopened pagan temples. Julian soon wondered if he would successfully restore a golden age of Hellenism to his empire. He discovered that even his beloved Arsinoë had become a Christian nun in his absence. When he visited her, she agreed to see him but refused to marry him and become the empress. Julian began to wonder to what end he was headed.

At the end of the first year of his reign as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, Julian found that he had become the laughingstock of his people despite his power as a ruler. His appearance and scholarly activities earned him the disrespect of all his subjects, who were accustomed to a Caesar of martial power. Julian adopted a different course when the Christians began to ridicule him and openly defy his edicts. He hit upon the idea of a campaign against Persia. He hoped that after he had conquered Persia and returned as a victor, his people would respect both him and his anti-Christian views.

Julian’s army assembled at Antioch, but before it was ready to march, Julian had a demonstration of the feeling he had evoked by championing the Olympian deities against Christianity. When he ordered a Christian chapel removed from the temple of Apollo at Antioch, the Christians burned the temple. They destroyed the idol in the presence of the emperor and his legions.

Julian and his armies left Antioch in the spring and started toward the Persian frontier. They marched along the Euphrates until they came to the canal the Persians had built to connect that river with the Tigris. The Persians had flooded the area to halt the invaders, and Julian’s army marched in water up to their knees until they were far down the Tigris. After days of marching under a burning sun, they reached Perizibar, a Persian fortress. The fort was gallantly defended, but the Romans finally battered down the walls.

After resting his army for two days, Julian pushed on to Maogamalki. By brilliant strategy and some luck, he carried the second of the Persian defense posts and then pushed onward to Ctesiphon, the Persian capital.

Arriving at a point across the river from the city, Julian consulted his pagan priests. When they failed to foretell a successful attack on the city, Julian became as enraged at Apollo and the other pagan gods as he had been at Christianity. In a frenzy, he overturned the altars, said that he trusted no god but himself, and added that he meant to attack the city immediately.

By a ruse, Julian and his army crossed the Tigris in boats at night. The next morning, a single Persian came to their camp and persuaded Julian to burn his boats, so his men would not lose heart and retreat from the assault. He also promised to lead the Romans into the city by a secret way. Too late, his boats destroyed, Julian realized he had been tricked. Unable to take the city, he ordered a retreat. After the Romans had been weakened by forced marches under burning desert suns, the Persians attacked.

In the battle, the Romans won a victory against heavy odds, but it was a victory for the Romans, not their emperor. In the battle, Julian dressed in his purple robes and refused to wear any armor. He was mortally wounded by a javelin while chasing a band of Persians. When he was carried to his tent, Arsinoë, still a nun, came to him and attempted to make him see that Christ was a god of beauty and mercy. Julian would not listen to her. As he died, he lifted himself up and cried out to his attendants that the Galilean had defeated him.

Critical Evaluation:

Like many authors of his generation, Dmitry Merezhkovsky attempted in his writings to search for solutions to the problems that plagued czarist Russia in the turbulent quarter of a century preceding the Bolshevik Revolution. Merezhkovsky, one of the Russian symbolists and founder of the Religious and Philosophical Society of St. Petersburg, was intensely interested in identifying the philosophical underpinnings of Western civilization. He tried to do this in a fictional form in his trilogy Khristos I Antikrist (Christ And Antichrist), comprising The Death Of The Gods, Voskresshiye Bogi: Leonardo Da Vinci (1901; The Romance Of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1928, 1953), and Antikrist: Pylori Alesksey (1905; Peter And Alexis, 1905).

In The Death of the Gods, Merezhkovsky sets up the thematic structure of opposing concepts upon which the entire trilogy is built. On a general level, this structure reflects the author’s perception of the dualistic nature of man, within whom the forces of flesh and spirit are constantly struggling, and his belief that all of human history has been shaped by this struggle. More specifically, he establishes two sets of values that cluster around Hellenistic and pagan beliefs, on the one hand, and Christian values, on the other, and counterposes them dramatically throughout the work. The author’s purpose in doing this is to illustrate his theory that Western civilization grew out of, and took its direction from, the clash between paganism and Christianity.

The historical novel genre proved a perfect vehicle for a writer with Merezhkovsky’s gift for re-creating the past, and in The Death Of The Gods, this talent is at its best. The setting ranges from all the places visited by the young Julian during his travels in Asia Minor to the capital of Constantinople to the military posts along the Persian frontier stormed by the Roman legions. Each of these settings comes alive in the author’s hands; his use of colorful and specific details infuses both time and place with uniqueness and vividness. The reader feels very close to the real experience of life in the Roman Empire of the fourth century.

When Herbert Trench, a fellow at All Soul’s College, translated The Death of the Gods into English, he felt the novel to be one of the most significant works of the new generation of Russian authors and saw Merezhkovsky as the successor of Dostoevsky. Although time has seen Trench’s enthusiasm replaced by a more moderate critical appraisal, Merezhkovsky’s novel nevertheless remains an excellent example of historical fiction inspired by crucial philosophical concerns.

Principal Characters:

• Caesar Constantiusthe Roman Emperor
• Julian FlaviusCaesar’s cousin
• Gallus FlaviusJulian’s brother
• ArsinoëJulian’s beloved

Bibliography

Bedford, C. H. "Merezhkovsky, Dmitry Sergeyevich." Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, Feb. 1980, pp. 531–32. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=24750848&site=ehost-live. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.

"The Death of the Gods." Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, 4th Edition, May 2015, p. 600. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=102942041&site=ehost-live. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.

Jackson, Jr. Joe W. "Dmitry Merezhkovsky." Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition, Jan. 2010, pp. 1–6. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=164537994&site=ehost-live. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.