Filosofia, regalità e "arte della scrittura" in Giuliano Imperatore

In his Letter to Themistius Julian regards rulership based on laws as the best possible approximation to an ideal government. The best ruler is no philosopher king, as Themistius had suggested, but a guardian of the laws. Furthermore, Julian ranks contemplative life above active life. Julian distinguishes between those who can attain the superior knowledge of intelligible beings, and are thus foreign to politics, and those who are engaged in practical life, and are thus subject to fortune and hazard. These views appear in tension with what Julian says in his later works, where he fully emphasizes the importance of his own political engagement. Here I argue that Julian’s emphasis on contemplation depends on the polemical framework of the Letter directed against Themistius’ mundane view of the philosophical life. Furthermore, in the Letter Julian does not yet reveal his full political and philosophical programme, where contemplation has to be supplemented through rituals and theurgy which only make it possible for human beings “here below” to approach the divine and grant an adequate foundation for political acrivity.