CHAP. XVIII.
denination 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[1]. By
some it will perhaps be thought, that the remembrance
of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the honour
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
labour 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[2]. The latter asserts, in
explicit terms, that the mother of the younger Con-
stantine, who was slain three years after his father's
death, survived to weep over the fate of her son[3].
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
- ↑ 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 empress on a desert mountain, to be devoured by wild beasts.
- ↑ 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 ancetres;
Moi, fille, femme, sœur, et mère de vos maitres. - ↑ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4. ad calcem Eutrop. edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious of queens.
ess who was the mother of his three successors. According to Jerome, three or four years elapsed between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor is prudently silent.
