Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/27



CHAP. XIV. He is ac- knowledged by Gale- rius, who gives him only the title of Cæ- sar, and that of Au- gustus to Severus.

and when he recollected the doubtful chance of war, when he had weighed the character and strength of his adversary, he consented to embrace the honour- able accommodation which the prudence of Constan- tine had left open to him. Without either condemning or ratifying the choice of the British army, Galerius accepted the son of his deceased colleague as the sovereign of the provinces beyond the Alps; but he gave him only the title of Cæsar, and the fourth rank among the Roman princes, whilst he conferred the vacant place of Augustus on his favourite Severus. The apparent harmony of the empire was still pre- served; and Constantine, who already possessed the substance, expected, without impatience, an opportu- nity of obtaining the honours of supreme power.

The children of Constantius by his second marriage were six in number, three of either sex, and whose imperial descent might have solicited a preference over the meaner extraction of the son of Helena. But Constantine was in the thirty-second year of his age, in the full vigour both of mind and body, at the time when the eldest of his brothers could not possibly be more than thirteen years old. His claim of superior merit had been allowed and ratified by the dying emperor. In his last moments, Constantius bequeathed to his eldest son the care of the safety as well as greatness of the family; conjuring him to assume both the authority and the sentiments of a father with regard to the children of Theodora. Their liberal education, advantageous marriages, the secure dignity of their lives, and the first honours of the state with which they were invested, attest the fraternal affection of Constantine; and as those princes possessed a mild and grateful dis