On the Gods and the World

Sallustius was a 4th-century philosopher and friend of the Roman Emperor Julian "the Apostate." His treatise On the Gods and the Cosmos is a kind of catechism of 4th-century Hellenic paganism. In a time of Christian preeminence, Julian and Sallustius were part of a movement to return Greco-Roman thought to its Neoplatonic roots. Sallustius' work owes much to that of Iamblichus of Chalcis, who synthesized Platonism with Pythagoreanism and theurgy, and also to Julian's own philosophical writings.