CHAPTER XVIII. CONSTANTINE. GOTHIC WAR. DEATH ОР - PERSIAN THE YOUNGER AND CONSTANS. CIVIL WAR. VICTORY OF CONSTANTIUS. THE character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and introduced such important changes into the civil and religious constitution of his country, has fixed the atten tion, and divided the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the character of Constantine is congidered, even in the present age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his most implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. But it would soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities must produce figure monstrou stature was lofty, his countenance majestic, his dep graceful his strength and activity were displayed i manly exercise, and from his earliest youth, to a very ad season of life, he preserved the vigor of his constituti strict adherence to the domestic virtues of chastity an perance. He delighted in the social intercourse of conversation; and though he might sometimes indulge position to raillery with less reserve than was required severe dignity of his station, the courtesy and liberality manners gained the hearts of all who approached him. sincerity of his friendship has been suspected; yet he s on some occasions, that he was not incapable of a war lasting attachment. The disadvantage of an illiterat cation had not prevented him from forming a just estim the value of learning; and the arts and sciences derived encouragement from the munificent protection of Consta In the despatch of business, his diligence was indefatig and the active powers of his mind were almost conti exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in giving aud to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints of his jects. Even those who censured the propriety of his mea were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed nanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most ous designs, without being checked either by the prejudic education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the fiel infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he ducted with the talents of a consummate general; and t abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the s victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic of the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhap the motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, wh from the moment of his accepting the purple at York, app as the ruling passion of his soul, may be justified by the gers of his own situation, by the character of his rivals, by consciousness of superior merit, and by the prospect that success would enable him to restore peace and order to distracted empire. In his civil wars against Maxentius Licinius, he had engaged on his side the inclinations of people, who compared the undissembled vices of those ra with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to dir the general tenor of the administration of Constantine.2 The virtues of Constantine are collected for the most part fr Had Constantine fallen on the oanks of the Tyber, or even in the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the Roman princes.3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of the republic, converted, almost by imper ceptible degrees, into the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of real pros perity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the oppression of the people was the only fund which could support the magnificence of the sovereign. His unworthy favorites, enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine 4 Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian, acknowledge his personal courage and military achieve. ments. 3 See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient Greek version of Poanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written vix mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses he general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb. Trackla decem annis præstantissimus ; Jordanim maanantibus Intur, docem novissimis munillus ob immodices and corruption.5 A secret but universal decay was every part of the public administration, and the emper self, though he still retained the obedience, gradually esteem, of his subjects. The dress and manners, owards the decline of life, he chose to affect, served degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian, as an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of Const He is represented with false hair of various colors, labo arranged by the skilful artists of the times; a diaden new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gem pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowin of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gol such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and of Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom aged monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence was inca of rising to that magnanimity which disdains suspicion dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy, as the taught in the schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrati the executions, or rather murders, which sullied the dec age of Constantine, will suggest to our most candid tho the idea of a prince who could sacrifice without reluc the laws of justice, and the feelings of nature, to the di either of his passions or of his interest. The same fortune which so invariably followed the stan of Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comfor his domestic life. Those among his predecessors who enjoyed the longest and most prosperous reigns, Augu Trajan, and Diocletian, had been disappointed of poster and the frequent revolutions had never allowed sufficient for any Imperial family to grow up and multiply under The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence. Proxi rum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c. 8. sebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. 1. iv. c. 29, 5 and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the remedy. above, p. 146 of this volume. Julian, in the Cæsars, attempts to ridicule his uncle. His su cious testimony is confirmed, however, by the learned Spanheim, v the authority of medals, (see Commentaire, p. 156, 299, 397, 4 Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that Constantine dressed for the pub not for himself. Were this admitted, the vainest coxcomb co never want an excuse. shade of the purple. But the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by the Gothic Claudius, de scended through several generations; and Constantine himself derived from his royal father the hereditary honors which he transmitted to his children The emperor had been twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his youthful attachment, had left him only one son, who was called Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three daughters, and three sons known by the kindred names of Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious brothers of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus,8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank, and the most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a private station. The youngest of the three lived without a name, and died without posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new branches of the Im perial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards became the most illustrious of the children of Julius Constantius, the Patrician. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had been decorated with the vain title of Censor, were named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of the great Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity. His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her preeminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties, that an innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved, for some time, his life, the title of Cæsar, and a precarious hope of the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of modern courts would apply the title of princes of the blood, seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family 7 Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina as the con |