JOVELLANOS (or Jove Llanos), GASPAR MELCHOR DE (1744-1811), Spanish statesman and author, was born at Gijon in Asturias, Spain, on the 5th of January 1744. Selecting law as his profession, he studied at Oviedo, Avila, and Alcalá, and in 1767 became criminal judge at Seville. His integrity and ability were rewarded in 1778 by a judgeship in Madrid, and in 1780 by appointment to the council of military orders. In the capital Jovellanos took a good place in the literary and scientific societies; for the society of friends of the country he wrote in 1787 his most valuable work, Informe sobre un proyecto de ley agraria. Involved in the disgrace of his friend, François Cabarrus, Jovellanos spent the years 1790 to 1797 in a sort of banishment at Gijon, engaged in literary work and in founding the Asturian institution for agricultural, industrial, social and educational reform throughout his native province. This institution continued his darling project up to the latest hours of his life. Summoned again to public life in 1797, Jovellanos refused the post of ambassador to Russia, but accepted that of minister of grace and justice, under “the prince of the peace,” whose attention had been directed to him by Cabarrus, then a favourite of Godoy. Displeased with Godoy’s policy and conduct Jovellanos combined with his colleague Saavedra to procure his dismissal. Godoy returned to power in 1798; Jovellanos was again sent to Gijon, but in 1801 was thrown into prison in Majorca. The revolution of 1808, and the advance of the French into Spain, set him once more at liberty. Joseph Bonaparte, on mounting the Spanish throne, made Jovellanos the most brilliant offers; but the latter, sternly refusing them all, joined the patriotic party, became a member of the central junta, and contributed to reorganize the cortes. This accomplished, the junta at once fell under suspicion, and Jovellanos was involved in its fall. To expose the conduct of the cortes, and to defend the junta and himself were the last labours of his pen. In 1811 he was enthusiastically welcomed to Gijon; but the approach of the French drove him forth again. The vessel in which he sailed was compelled by stress of weather to put in at Vega in Asturias, and there he died on the 27th of November 1811.
The poetical works of Jovellanos comprise a tragedy El pelayo, the comedy El delincuente honrado, satires, and miscellaneous pieces, including a translation of the first book of Paradise Lost. His prose works, especially those on political and legislative economy, constitute his real title to literary fame. In them depth of thought and clear-sighted sagacity are couched in a certain Ciceronian 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 ive siècle (4th ed. 1882). For the relations of Rome and Persia see [Persia]: Ancient History.