The new sovereign
successfully repelled some fresh attacks of the Persians, but
despairing of final success, he entered into a treaty with
Sa'por, and purchased a peace, or rather a long truce of thirty years,
by the cession of several frontier provinces.
[Illustration: Jovian issuing the edict in favour of Christianity.]
8. The first care of Jo'vian was to fulfil the stipulated articles;
the Roman garrisons and colonies so long settled in the frontier towns
that they esteemed them as their native soil, were withdrawn; and the
Romans beheld with regret the omen of their final destruction in the
first dismemberment of the empire. The first edict in the new reign
contained a repeal of Julian's disqualifying laws, and a grant of
universal toleration. This judicious measure at once showed how
ineffectual had been the efforts of the late emperor to revive the
fallen spirit of paganism; the temples were immediately deserted, the
sacrifices neglected, the priests left alone at their altars; those
who, to gratify the former sovereign assumed the dress and title of
philosophers, were assailed by such storms of ridicule, that they laid
aside the designation, shaved their beards, and were soon
undistinguished in the general mass of society.
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