elegance and classical purity of style. Besides the Ley agraria he
wrote Elogios; various political and other essays; and Memorias
politicas (1801), suppressed in Spain, and translated into French,
1825. An edition of his complete works was published at Madrid
(1831–1832) in 7 vols., and another at Barcelona (1839).
See Noticias historicas de Don G. M. de Jovellanos (1812), and Memorias para la vida del Señor . . . Jovellanos, by J. A. C. Bermudez (1814).
JOVELLAR Y SOLER, JOAQUIN (1819–1892), captain-general
of Spain, was born at Palma de Mallorca, on the 28th
of December 1819. At the close of his studies at the military
academy he was appointed sub-lieutenant, went to Cuba as
captain in 1842, returned to the War Office in 1851, was promoted
major in 1853, and went to Morocco as private secretary to
Marshal O’Donnell, who made him colonel in 1860 after Jovellar
had been wounded at the battle of Wad el Ras. In 1863 Jovellar
became a brigadier-general, in 1864 under-secretary for war; he
was severely wounded in fighting the insurgents in the streets
of Madrid, and rose to the rank of general of division in 1866.
Jovellar adhered to the revolution, and King Amadeus made
him a lieutenant-general in 1872. He absented himself from
Spain when the federal republic was proclaimed, and returned
in the autumn of 1873, when Castelár sent him to Cuba as
governor-general. In 1874 Jovellar came back to the Peninsula,
and was in command of the Army of the Centre against the
Carlists when Marshal Campos went to Sagunto to proclaim
Alfonso XII. General Jovellar became war minister in the first
cabinet of the restoration under Canovas, who sent him to Cuba
again as governor-general, where he remained until the 18th of
June 1878, when the ten years’ insurrection closed with the peace
of Zaujon. Alfonso XII. made him a captain-general, president
of the council, life-senator, and governor-general of the
Philippines. Jovellar died in Madrid on the 17th of April
1892.
JOVIAN (Flavius Jovianus) (c. 332–364), Roman emperor
from June 363 to February 364, was born at Singidunum in Moesia
about 332. As captain of the imperial bodyguard he accompanied
Julian in his Persian expedition; and on the day after
that emperor’s death, when the aged Sallust, prefect of the East,
declined the purple, the choice of the army fell upon Jovian.
His election caused considerable surprise, and it is suggested by
Ammianus Marcellinus that he was wrongly identified with
another Jovian, chief notary, whose name also had been put
forward, or that, during the acclamations, the soldiers mistook
the name Jovianus for Julianus, and imagined that the latter
had recovered from his illness. Jovian at once continued the
retreat begun by Julian, and, continually harassed by the
Persians, succeeded in reaching the banks of the Tigris, where a
humiliating treaty was concluded with the Persian king, Shapur II.
(q.v.). Five provinces which had been conquered by Galerius
in 298 were surrendered, together with Nisibis and other cities.
The Romans also gave up all their interests in the kingdom of
Armenia, and abandoned its Christian prince Arsaces to the
Persians. During his return to Constantinople Jovian was found
dead in his bed at Dadastana, halfway between Ancyra and
Nicaea. A surfeit of mushrooms or the fumes of a charcoal fire
have been assigned as the cause of death. Under Jovian,
Christianity was established as the state religion, and the
Labarum of Constantine again became the standard of the army.
The statement that he issued an edict of toleration, to the effect
that, while the exercise of magical rites would be severely
punished, his subjects should enjoy full liberty of conscience,
rests on insufficient evidence. Jovian entertained a great regard
for Athanasius, whom he reinstated on the archiepiscopal throne,
desiring him to draw up a statement of the Catholic faith. In
Syriac literature Jovian became the hero of a Christian romance
(G. Hoffmann, Julianus der Abtrünnige, 1880).
See Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 5–10; J. P. de la Bléterie, Histoire de Jovien (1740); Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chs. xxiv., xxv.; J. Wordsworth in Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, vol. ii. (1887); A. de Broglie, L’Église et l’empire romain au iv e siècle (4th ed. 1882). For the relations of Rome and Persia see Persia: Ancient History.
JOVINIANUS, or Jovianus, a Roman monk of heterodox
views, who flourished during the latter half of the 4th century.
All our knowledge of him is derived from a passionately hostile
polemic of Jerome (Adv. Jovinianum, Libri II.), written at
Bethlehem in 393, and without any personal acquaintance with
the man assailed. According to this authority Jovinian in 388
was living at Rome the celibate life of an ascetic monk, possessed
a good acquaintance with the Bible, and was the author of several
minor works, but, undergoing an heretical change of view, afterwards
became a self-indulgent Epicurean and unrefined sensualist.
The views which excited this denunciation were mainly these:
(1) Jovinian held that in point of merit, so far as their domestic
state was concerned, virgins, widows and married persons who
had been baptized into Christ were on a precisely equal footing;
(2) those who with full faith have been regenerated in baptism
cannot be overthrown (or, according to another reading, tempted)
of the devil; (3) to abstain from meats is not more praiseworthy
than thankfully to enjoy them; (4) all who have preserved their
baptismal grace shall receive the same reward in the kingdom of
heaven.[1] Jovinian thus indicates a natural and vigorous reaction
against the exaggerated asceticism of the 4th century, a protest
shared by Helvidius and Vigilantius. He was condemned by
a Roman synod under Bishop Siricius in 390, and afterwards
excommunicated by another at Milan under the presidency of
Ambrose. The year of his death is unknown, but he is referred
to as no longer alive in Jerome’s Contra Vigilantium (406).
JOVIUS, PAULUS, or Paolo Giovio (1483–1552), Italian
historian and biographer, was born of an ancient and noble family
at Como on the 19th of April 1483. His father died when he was
a child, and Giovio owed his education to his brother Benedetto.
After studying the humanities, he applied himself to medicine
and philosophy at his brother’s request. He was Pomponazzi’s
pupil at Padua; and afterwards he took a medical degree in the
university of Pavia. He exercised the medical profession in
Rome, but the attraction of literature proved irresistible for
Giovio, and he was bent upon becoming the historian of his age.
He presented a portion of his history to Leo X., who read the
MS., and pronounced it superior in elegance to anything since
Livy. Thus encouraged, Giovio took up his residence in Rome,
and attached himself to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, the pope’s
nephew. The next pope, Adrian VI., gave him a canonry in
Como, on the condition, it is said, that Giovio should mention
him with honour in his history. This patronage from a pontiff
who was averse from the current tone of Italian humanism
proves that Giovio at this period passed for a man of sound learning
and sober manners. After Adrian’s death, Giulio de’ Medici
became pope as Clement VII. and assigned him chambers in the
Vatican, with maintenance for servants befitting a courtier of
rank. In addition to other benefices, he finally, in 1528, bestowed
on him the bishopric of Nocera. Giovio had now become in a
special sense dependent on the Medici. He was employed by
that family on several missions—as when he accompanied
Ippolito to Bologna on the occasion of Charles V.’s coronation,
and Caterina to Marseilles before her marriage to the duke of
Orleans. During the siege of Rome in 1527 he attended Clement
in his flight from the Vatican. While crossing the bridge which
connected the palace with the castle of S. Angelo, Giovio threw
his mantle over the pope’s shoulders in order to disguise his
master.
In the sack he suffered a serious pecuniary and literary loss, if we may credit his own statement. The story runs that he deposited the MS. of his history, together with some silver, in a box at S. Maria Sopra Minerva for safety. This box was discovered by two Spaniards, one of whom secured the silver, while the other, named Herrera, knowing who Giovio was, preferred to hold the MSS. for ransom. Herrera was so careless, however, as to throw away the sheets he found in paper, reserving only that portion of the work which was transcribed on parchment. This he subsequently sold to Giovo in exchange for a benifice at Cordova, which Clement VII. conceded to the Spaniard. Six books of the history were lost in this transaction. Giovo contented himself with indicating their substance in a summary. Perhaps he was not unwilling that his work should resemble that of Livy, even in its imperfection. But
