Book Reviews Stefan Rebenich and Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, eds., A Companion to Julian the Apostate. Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, 5. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020. 495 pp. ISBN: 9789004414563 (hardcover), ISBN: 9789004416314 (e-book). €188.00/$226.00. Despite the flood of various companions and handbooks on the late antique period in recent years, none has thus far been dedicated to the Emperor Julian (r. 361 –363 CE). This volume, which takes its origins in a conference organized in Munich, April 2015 , fills the need for a fresh appraisal of the various perspectives and approaches to the controversial ruler, his writings, and his reception since the fourth century CE. The book succeeds in its goal of providing such an overview as well as a valuable introduction for students and scholars of Julian alike. Since many of the authors are German speaking, including both editors, and they naturally have a tendency to refer to schol- arship in German over other languages, readers with little knowledge of the language will also find in this book a recent overview of scholarship on Julian in German (an unintended goal, no doubt). The Companion presents thirteen chapters, which aim to cover as many key aspects as possible of Julian’s life, reign, writings, and how posterity viewed him through the ages. There is an extremely valuable bibliography at the end of the volume (421 –72 ), although its odd organization (by topic and in chronological order for each of the 51 subsections) makes it unwieldy and cumbersome to use, and each chapter ends with its own bibliography for titles not mentioned in the overall one. The introduction (and first chapter) by the two editors starts by present- ing Julian’s polarizing reception in the modern world, hereby introducing readers to the historiography on Julian before providing an overview of his 370 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article-pdf/6/2/370/705928/sla.2022.6.2.370.pdf by West Chester University of Pennsylvania user on 29 November 2023