Per la rifondazione di una religione civile: Giuliano, ovvero il nuovo Quirino

This study aims at investigating Julian’s restoration of the Roman civil religion, through a detailed analysis of the myth of Romulus-Quirinus, as it is presented in the last section of the Hymn to King Helios. In Julian’s times, the exemplum of Rome’s divine founder – still central to imperial ideology and propaganda – was strongly criticized by Christian intellectuals who brought to light the ‘dark legend’ of the first king (described as a fratricide, a tyrannical mass-rapist torn to pieces by the Senate). Julian defends Romulus’ sacredness : he represents the king as a semi-divine protegé of Ares and Athena, a kind of ‘emanation’ of Helios who acts as a mediating entity into a Iamblichean universe, in order to actualize on earth the providential plan of the divine intellectual and intelligible principles. Romulus’ condition can be compared to that of Heracles : both are in a certain way Julian’s predecessors and models, in his work of restauration and ‘refoundation’ of Hellenism.