Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/317

 tine. CHAPTER XVIII. 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. — USURP- ATION OF MAGNENTIUS. — CIVIL WAR. — VICTORY OF CONSTANTIUS. X HE character of the jjrince who removed the seat Character of empire, and introduced such important clianges into ° on^tan- the civil and rehgious constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided the opinions, of man- kind. By the grateful zeal of the christians, the deli- verer of the church has been decorated with every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint ; while the dis- content of the vanquished party has compared Constan- tine to the most abhorred of those tyrants who, by their vice and weakness, dishonoured the imperial pur- ple. The same passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations; and the cha- racter 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 extraor- dinary man, which the truth and candour of history should adopt without a blush". But it would soon ap- pear, that the vain attem])t to blend such discordant colours, and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a 'figure monstrous rather than human, ^ On ne se troinpera point sur Constantin, en croyaut tout le mal qu'en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu'en dit Zosime. Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, torn, iii. p. 233. Eusebius and Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective. The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers wiiose character or situation variously tempered the influence of their religious zeal.