Part 1 – Caesar's Apostasy was the last pagan Roman emperor and tried in vain to suppress Christianity and bring the empire back to its ancient religion.
Act 1 Julian, a cousin of Emperor Constantine II, lives at the court in Christian Constantinople, surrounded by constant surveillance. His mentor, a teacher of theology called Ekivoly, fears the impact the sophist
Libanius might have on Julian and so distributes poems round the city, hostile to Julian and attributed to Libanius. Julian learns the truth about the poems from Agathon, son of a winegrower from
Cappadocia. Constantius announces his will – his heir will be his cousin
Gallus, Julian's half-brother – and his banishment of Libanius to Athens. Julian then asks for permission to study in
Pergamum, which Constantius grants, though thinking it a strange wish. However, unbeknown to Constantius, Julian goes to Athens instead. The first act takes place in Christian
Constantinople, ruled by the emperor
Constantius II. There the play's main character, Constantius' young cousin prince Julian, is under constant surveillance; the city's inhabitants are very divided as to what is correct Christianity; the emperor's court is corrupt. For his part, Julian is a searching soul and wants answers to the central questions of life. He is visited by his childhood friend Agathon, who is an honest Christian. Julian, on the other hand, is in love with ancient Greece and asks himself why Christianity has destroyed the beauty of Greek thought. He follows his teacher Libanius to Athens. Agathon, on the other hand, tells Julian about a vision he has had – he believes that this referred to Julian and Julian agrees, in that it showed God designating him to "break with the lions".
Act 2 The second act takes place in
Athens, where Julian talks with Libanius, in whom he soon loses interest, and with the Church Fathers
Basil of Caesarea and
Gregory of Nazianzus, who become less and less of an influence on him. These three are all members of the intellectual circle which has gathered around Julian as he becomes popular in the Greek Academy, running rhetorical discussions and logical debating. Julian becomes disenchanted with his teacher and does not think he has found what he was really looking for – that is, the truth. He hears rumours of a mystic named Maximus, and Julian decides to leave Athens to find him.
Act 3 This act takes place in
Ephesus, where the mystic Maximus has set up a mysterious symposium for Julian to communicate with the other world and thus find out the meaning of his life. Here Julian first encounters a voice in the light, telling him that he must "establish the kingdom on the freedom road". The voice also states that "Freedom and necessity are one" and that Julian will do "what he will have to do". The voice says no more and Julian is then presented with a vision of the two great deniers,
Cain and
Judas Iscariot. The third great denier is still in the land of the living and Maximus will show Julian no more. Immediately news arrives that Gallus, heir to the imperial throne, is dead and that Julian has been appointed Caesar of the Roman Empire. Julian takes this as a sign that he will establish the kingdom referred to in the vision.
Act 4 as
Helena in the play's Oslo premiere (1903) This act occurs in
Lutetia, where it turns out that Julian has made himself unpopular with the emperor because of a misconception by a local tribal chief who came to pay him tribute as "Emperor". Gallus is suspected of trying to murder the emperor and removed, thus clearing Julian's way to power. He marries
Helena, Constantius's sister and
Constantine the Great's daughter, but he does not enjoy his family life for long – Constantius' assassins poison Helena in a conspiracy and in her delirious dying moments she reveals to Julian that she had loved his dead brother and that she had committed treason against Constantius. The soldiers backing Julian then convince him to go to Constantinople and seize power.
Act 5 The act takes place in
Vienne, where Julian is waiting for news of the intrigues around the emperor's sick-bed and updates from the mystic Maximus. The act is a long struggle, which ends in Julian finally making a complete rejection of Christianity in favour of pure
neo-Platonism. It ends with him making an offering to
Helios as he is proclaimed emperor of the Roman Empire.
Part 2 – The Emperor Julian After becoming emperor, Julian reveals his commitment to paganism. He calls for tolerance, but Christians quickly begin to destroy pagan temples, and the pagans retaliate. Julian, believing he has a destiny, leads an army against the Persians. He is tricked into burning his ships, and his army is defeated. Julian is killed, and we hear the army rejoicing that the new Emperor is a Christian. ==Characters==