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encompaffed by a train of indifcreet or perfidious C H A P.
followers, who affiduoufly ftudied to inflame, and XVIII.
who were perhaps inftructed to betray, the un-
guarded warmth of his refentment. An edict of A.D. 325.
Conftantine, publifhed about this time, mani- October 1.
feltly indicates his real or affected fufpicions, that
a fecret confpiracy had been formed against his
perfon and government. By all the allurements
of honours and rewards, he invites informers of
every degree to accufe without exception his ma-
giftrates or minifters, his friends or his moft inti-
mate favourites, protefting, with a folemn affe-
veration, that he himself will liften to the charge,
that he himself will revenge his injuries; and con-
cluding with a prayer, which discovers fome ap-
prehenfion of danger, that the providence of the
Supreme Being may ftill continue to protect the
safety of the emperor and of the empire 2.

The informers, who complied with fo liberal
an invitation, were fufficiently versed in the arts
of courts to felect the friends and adherents of
Crifpus as the guilty perfons; nor is there any
reason to diftruft the veracity of the emperor, who
had promised an ample measure of revenge and
punishment. The policy of Conftantine main-
tained, however, the fame appearances of regard
and confidence towards a fon, whom he began to
confider as his moft irreconcileable enemy. Me-
dals were struck with the customary vows for the
long and aufpicious reign of the young Cæfar 3;

12 Cod. Theod. 1. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy fufpected the secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.

13 Ducange Fam. Byzant. p. 28. lillemont, tom. iv. p. 619.

and

Difgrace

and death of Crifpus. A.D. 326, July.

CHA P. and as the people, who were not admitted into the XVIII. fecrets of the palace, still loved his virtues, and

refpected his dignity, a poet who folicits his recal from exile, adores with equal devotion the majesty of the father and that of the fon 4. The time was now arrived for celebrating the auguft ceremony of the twentieth year of the reign of Conftantine; and the emperor, for that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the moft fplendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every eye, and every tongue, affected to exprefs their fenfe of the general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and diffimulation was drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder ". In the midst of the feftival, the unfortunate Crifpus was apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid afide the tenderness of a father, without affuming the equity of a judge. The examination was fhort and private 16; and as it was thought decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of the Roman people, he was fent under a

14 His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his panegyris, written according to the taste of the age in vile acroftics, is fettled by Scaliger ad Eufeb. p. 250. Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 607. and Fabricius Biblioth. Latin, 1. iv. c. I.

15 Zofim. 1. ii. p. 103. Godefroy Chronol. Legum, p. 28.

16 AxpTws, without a trial, is the ftrong, and most probably the juft expreffion of Suidas. The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign, speaks with becoming caution. "Natû grandior incertum quâ causâ, patris judicio occidiffet." If we confult the fucceeding writers, Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orofius, Jerom, Zofimus, Philoftorgius, aud Gregory of Tours; their knowledge will appear gradually to increase, as their means of information must have diminished, a circumftance which frequently occurs in historical difquifition.

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ftrong guard to Pola, in Iftria, where, foon after- CHA P.
wards, he was put to death, either by the hand of XVIII.
the executioner, or by the more gentle operation
of poifon ". The Cæfar Licinius, a youth of
amiable manners, was involved in the ruin of
Crifpus' and the ftern jealoufy of Conftantine
was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his fa-
vourite fifter, pleading for the life of a fon;
whofe rank was his only crime, and whofe lofs fhe
did not long furvive. The ftory of thefe unhappy
princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
the forms of their trial, and the circumftances of
their death, were buried in myfterious obfcurity;
and the courtly bifhop, who has celebrated in
an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his hero,
obferves a prudent filence on the fubject of these
tragic events". Such haughty contempt for the
opinion of mankind, whilft it imprints an inde-
lible stain on the memory of Conftantine, must re-
mind us of the very different behaviour of one of

tum.

17 Ammianus (1. xiv. c. 11.) ufes the general expreffion of peremp
Codinus (p. 34.) beheads the young prince; but S.donius
Apollinaris (Epiftol. v. 8.), for the fake perhaps of an antithefis to
Faufta's warm bath, chooses to adminifter a draught of cold poison.

18 Sororis filium, commode indolis juvenem. Eutropius, x. 6.
May I not be permitted to conjecture, that Crifpus had married Hele-
na, the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on the happy de-
livery of the princefs, in the year 322, a general pardon was granted
by Conftantine? See Ducange Fam. Byzant. p. 47. and the law
(1. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodofian Code, which has fo much em.
barraffed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom. iii. P. 267.

19 See the life of Conftantine, particularly l. ii. c. 19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (1. iii. c. 41.) deduced from the filence of Eufebius a vain argument againff the reality of the

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the

CHA P. the greatest monarchs of the prefent age. The XVIII. Czar Peter, in the full poffeffion of defpotic

The em

prefs Faufta.

power, fubmitted to the judgment of Ruffia, of Europe, and of pofterity, the reasons which had compelled him to fubfcribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at least of a degenerate, fon 2.

The innocence of Crifpus was fo univerfally acknowledged, that the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend, that as foon as the afflicted father discovered the falfehood of the accufation by which his credulity had been fo fatally misled, he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the lafting inftruction of pofterity, he erected a golden ftatue of Crifpus, with this memorable infcription: TO MY SON, WHOM I UNJUSTLY CONDEMNED A tale fo moral and fo interefting would deferve to be fupported by lefs exceptionable authority; but if we confult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will inform us, that the repentance of Conftantine was manifefted only in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder of an innocent fon, by the execution,

20 Hiftoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii. c. x.

21

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21 In order to prove that the ftatue was erected by Conftantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34.) two witneffes, Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whofe imaginary hiftories he appeals with unblufhing confidence.

perhaps

P

perhaps, of a guilty wife. They afcribe the CHA P.
misfortunes of Crifpus to the arts of his step- XVIII.
mother Faufta, whofe implacable hatred, or
whose disappointed love, renewed in the palace
of Constantine the ancient tragedy of Hippolitus
and of Phædra 22. Like the daughter of Minos,
the daughter of Maximian accufed her fon-in-
law of an incestuous attempt on the chastity of
his father's wife; and eafily obtained, from the
jealoufy of the emperor, a fentence of death
against a young prince, whom fhe confidered with
reafon as the most formidable rival of her own
children. But Helena, the aged mother of Con-
stantine, lamented and revenged the untimely fate
of her grandfon Crifpus: nor was it long before
a real or pretended discovery was made, that
Faufta herself entertained a criminal connection
with a flave belonging to the Imperial stables 23.
Her condemnation and punishment were the inftant
confequences of the charge; and the adulterefs
was fuffocated by the fteam of a bath, which
for that purpose had been heated to an extra-
ordinary degree 24. By fome it will perhaps be
thought,

22 Zofimus (1. ii. p. 103.) may be confidered as our original.
The ingenuity of the moderns, affifted by a few hints from the
ancients, has illuftrated and improved his obfcure and imperfect
narrative.

23 Philoftorgius, 1. ii. c. 4. Zofimus (l. ii. p. 104. 116.) imputes
to Conftantine the death of two wives, of the innocent Faufte, and
of an adulterefs who was the mother of his three fucceffors. Ac-
cording to Jerom, three or four years elapfed between the death of
Crifpus and that of Faufta. The elder Victor is prudently filent.
24 If Faufta was put to death, it is reafonable to believe that the
private apartments of the palace were the fcene of her execution.
VOL. III.

Ι

The

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