Edward Gibbon Quote

When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The 2. Ed. - London, W. Strahan 1776-1788 (ed. 1781)