Jovian (emperor)

Jovian (; Latin: Jovianus; Greek: ἸοβιανόςIobianós; 331 – 17 February 364) was Roman emperor from June 363 to February 364. As part of the imperial bodyguard, he accompanied Julian on his . Julian was killed in battle, and the exhausted and ill-provisioned Roman army declared Jovian his successor. Unable to cross the Tigris, Jovian made peace with the Sasanian Empire on humiliating terms. He spent the rest of his seven-month reign traveling back towards Constantinople, but died at Dadastana without reaching the capital city.

Jovian was a Christian, whose accession ended the imperial endorsement of polytheism briefly revived under Julian; during a stop in Edessa he received petitions from bishops over doctrinal issues. He was also the third-to-last emperor to govern the empire as a single polity, and the last to do so for the whole of his reign. From his successor Valentinian I to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, all subsequent administrations involved co-emperors governing a territory split into jurisdictions of the East and West.