Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I

Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of
Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian
War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—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 attention, 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 considered, 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. 1 But it would soon appear,
that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to
reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure
monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper
and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different
periods of the reign of Constantine.

1 (return) [ On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
tout le mal ru’en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu’en dit Zosime.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
religious zeal.]

The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was
lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire.
In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged
on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the
undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and
justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
administration of Constantine. 2

2 (return) [ The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
most part from 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 achievements.]

Had Constantine fallen on the banks 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 imperceptible 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 prosperity; 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. 4 His unworthy favorites,
enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret
but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The
Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian,
assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of
Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors,
laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a
diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems
and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing
robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In
such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of
Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged
monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus
relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to
that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive.
The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by
the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of
tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather
murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who
could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the
feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of
his interest.

3 (return) [ See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
Greek version of Poeanius, (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
the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
_Trachala_ decem annis præstantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
_latro;_ decem novissimis _pupillus_ ob immouicas profusiones.]

4 (return) [ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Cæsares, p. 336.
Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
&c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
profuseness of their founder.]

5 (return) [ The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]

6 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, attempts to ridicule his
uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]

The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his
domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the
longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and
Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial
family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But
the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by
the Gothic Claudius, descended 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, 7 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 Imperial 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
preëminence 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 was
reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had
survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as the tragic
poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.

7 (return) [ Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina
as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly
rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one
of the panegyrics: “Ab ipso fine pueritiæ te matrimonii legibus
dedisti.”]

8 (return) [ Ducange (Familiæ Byzantinæ, p. 44) bestows on him,
after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]

Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir
of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
the title of Cæsar, and the administration of the Gallic
provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war
which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image
of his father’s perfections. The public favor, which seldom
accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they
fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
public felicity. 10

9 (return) [ Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliothèque
Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel
History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]

10 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x.
6) styles him “egregium virum;” and Julian (Orat. i.) very
plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See
Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]

This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
Cæsar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
provinces, 11 _he_, a prince of mature years, who had performed
such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
father’s court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such
painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able
to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may
be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or
perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who
were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his
resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time,
manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a
secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he
himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
the empire. 12

11 (return) [ Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The _year_ in which Constantius was
created Cæsar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not
be ignorant of the _day_ of the anniversary. For the appointment
of the new Cæsar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primauté
de l’Eglise, p. 1183.]

12 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]

The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were
sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends
and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any
reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised
an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of
Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard
and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his
most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary
vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Cæsar; 13 and
as the people, who were not admitted into the secrets of the
palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity, a
poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal
devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14 The
time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of the
twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor, for
that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the
most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every
eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the
general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was
drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder.
15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was
apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
The examination was short 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 sent under a strong guard to Pola, in
Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
poison. 17 The Cæsar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of
Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who
has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
least of a degenerate son. 20

13 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p.
610.]

14 (return) [ His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his
panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in vile
acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250, Tillemont,
tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]

15 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
28.]

16 (return) [ The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
speaks with becoming caution. “Natu grandior incertum qua causa,
patris judicio occidisset.” If we consult the succeeding writers,
Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
diminished—a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
disquisition.]

17 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
an antithesis to Fausta’s _warm_ bath, chooses to administer a
draught of _cold_ poison.]

18 (return) [ Sororis filium, commodæ indolis juvenem. Eutropius,
x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus had
married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on
the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The
obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely
allows any inference, and there is extant but one meda which can
be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]

19 (return) [ See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
against the reality of the fact.]

20 (return) [ Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
c. 10.]

The innocence of Crispus was so universally 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 soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of
the accusation by which his credulity had been so 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
lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of
Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I
unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would
deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if
we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will
inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only
in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder
of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.
They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his
step-mother Fausta, whose 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 accused her son-in-law of an
incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father’s wife; and
easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of
death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as
the most formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the
aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely
fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or
pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a
criminal connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial
stables. 23 Her condemnation and punishment were the instant
consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated by
the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to
an extraordinary degree. 24 By some it will perhaps be thought,
that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the
honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the
throne, might have softened the obdurate heart of Constantine,
and persuaded him to suffer his wife, however guilty she might
appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary prison. But it
seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we could
ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended
with some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have
attacked, and those who have defended, the character of
Constantine, have alike disregarded two very remarkable passages
of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The former
celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the
empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many
princes. 25 The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the
mother of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years
after his father’s death, survived to weep over the fate of her
son. 26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers
of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may
still remain some reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that
Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of her husband.
2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a
great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who
were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to
justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the
satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the
splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28

21 (return) [ In order to prove that the statue was erected by
Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the
Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary
histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]

22 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints
from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and
imperfect narrative.]

23 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,
116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the
innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his
three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed
between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor
is prudently silent.]

24 (return) [ If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to
believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene
of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
beasts.]

25 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of
Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least, she
was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the
fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A
Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:
Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancêtres: Moi, fille,
femme,sœur, et mere de vos maitres.]

26 (return) [ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.
edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious
of queens.]

2611 (return) [ Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats this
inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals,
with too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of
proof on this curious question.—M.]

27 (return) [ Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]

28 (return) [ Saturni aurea sæcula quis requirat? Sunt hæc
gemmea, sed Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. ——It is somewhat
singular that these satirical lines should be attributed, not to
an obscure libeller, or a disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius,
prime minister and favorite of the emperor. We may now perceive
that the imprecations of the Roman people were dictated by
humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]