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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
397
meditated his own retreat from public life after he should have accomplished a glorious reign of about twenty years.[1]
Ambition of Galerius disappointed by two revolutionsBut, within less than eighteen months, two unexpected revolutions overturned the ambitious schemes of Galerius. The hopes of uniting the western provinces to his empire were disappointed by the elevation of Constantine; whilst Italy and Africa were lost by the successful revolt of Maxentius.
Birth, education and escape of Constantine, A.D. 274I. The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to the most minute circumstances of his lire and actions. The place of his birth, as well as the condition of his mother Helena, have been the subject not only of literary but of national disputes. Notwithstanding the recent tradition, which assigns for her father a British king, we are obliged to confess that Helena was the daughter of an innkeeper;[2] but at the same time we may defend the legality of her marriage against those who have represented her as the concubine of Constantius.[3] The great Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia,[4] and it is not surprising that, in a family and province- ↑ These schemes, however, rest only on the very doubtful authority of Lactantius, de M. P. c. 20.
- ↑ This tradition, unknown to the contemporaries of Constantine, was invented in the darkness of monasteries, was embellished by Jeffrey of Monmouth and the writers of the xiith century, has been defended by our antiquarians of the last age, and is seriously related in the ponderous history of England, compiled by Mr. Carte (vol. i. p. 147). He transports, however, the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father of Helena, from Essex to the wall of Antoninus.
- ↑ Eutropius (x. 2) expresses, in a few words, the real truth, and the occasion of the error, "ex obscuriori matrimonio ejus filius". Zosimus (l. ii. p. 78 [8]) eagerly seized the most unfavourable report, and is followed by Orosius (vii. 25), whose authority is oddly enough overlooked by the indefatigable but partial Tillemont. By insisting on the divorce of Helena, Diocletian acknowledged her marriage.
- ↑ There are three opinions with regard to the place of Constantine's birth. I. Our English antiquarians were used to dwell with rapture on the words of his panegyrist; "Britannias illic oriendo nobiles fecisti". But this celebrated passage may be referred with as much propriety to the accession as to the nativity of Constantine. 2. Some of the modern Greeks have ascribed the honour of his birth to Drepanum, a town on the gulf of Nicomedia (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 174) which Constantine dignified with the name of Helenopolis, and Justinian adorned with many splendid buildings (Procop. de Edificiis, v. 2). It is indeed probable enough that Helena's father kept an inn at Drepanum; and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned from a Persian embassy in the reign of Aurelian. But in the wandering life of a soldier, the place of his marriage, and the place where his children are born, have very little connexion with each other. 3. The claim of Naissus is supported by the anonymous writer, published at the end of Ammianus, p. 710 [Anonymous Valesii, 2], and who in general copied very good materials; and it is confirmed by Julius Firmicus (de Astrologiâ, l. i. c. 4), who flourished under the reign of Constantine himself. [Mathesis was the name which the author himself, Julius Firmicus Maternus junior Siculus, gave to this work in eight Books.] Some objections have been raised against the integrity of the text, and the application, of the passage of Firmicus; but the former is established by the best Mss., and the latter is very ably defended by Lipsius de Magnitudine Romanâ, l. iv. c. 11, et Supplement.
