JULIAN (FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS) (331-363), commonly called JULIAN THE APOSTATE, Roman emperor, was born in Constantinople in 331,[1] the son of Julius Constantius and his wife Basilina, and nephew of Constantine the Great. He was thus a member of the dynasty under whose auspices Christianity became the established religion of Rome. The name Flavius he inherited from his paternal grandfather Constantius Chlorus; Julianus came from his maternal grandfather; Claudius had been assumed by Constantine's family in order to assert a connexion with Claudius Gothicus. Julian lost his mother not many months after he was born. He was only six when his imperial uncle died; and one of his earliest memories must have been the fearful massacre of his father and kinsfolk, in the interest and more or less at the instigation of the sons of Constantine. Only Julian and his elder half-brother Gallus were spared, Gallus being too ill and Julian too young to excite the fear or justify the cruelty of the murderers. Gallus was banished, but Julian was allowed to remain in Constantinople, where he was carefully educated under the supervision of the family eunuch Mardonius, and of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia. About 344 Gallus was recalled, and the two brothers were removed to Macellum, a remote and lonely castle in Cappadocia. Julian was trained to the profession of the Christian religion; but he became early attracted to the old faith, or rather to the idealized amalgam of paganism and philosophy which was current among his teachers, the rhetoricians. Cut off from all sympathy with the reigning belief by the terrible fate of his family, and with no prospect of a public career, he turned with all the eagerness of an enthusiastic temperament to the literary and philosophic studies of the time. The old Hellenic world had an irresistible attraction for him. Love for its culture was in Julian's mind intimately associated with loyalty to its religion.