Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/326

 308 THE DECLINE AND FALL C II A P. in Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, J ^ eitlier by the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operation of poison'. The Caesar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was involved in the ruin of Crispus^; and the stern jealousy of Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favourite sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only crime, and whose loss she did not long sur- vive. The story of these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt, the forms of tlieir trial, and the circumstances of their death, were buried in mys- terious 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'. 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 behaviour of one of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The czar Peter, in the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgement of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had compelled him to subscribe the con- demnation of a criminal, or at least of a degenerate, son". The em- The innocence of Crispus was so universally ac- ta, knowledged, 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 hu- •■ Ammianus (]. xiv. c. 11.) uses the general expression o! peremptum. Codinus (p. 34.) beheads the young prince ; but Sidonius Apollinaris, (Epistol. V. 8.) for the sake perhaps of an antithesis to Fausta's ivarin bath, chooses to administer a draught o( cold poison. 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 (1. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian Code, which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 267. ' See the Life of Constantine, particularly 1. ii. c. 19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards, Evagrius (1. iii. c. 41.) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument against the reality of tlie fact. " Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii, c. x.
 * Sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem. Eutropius, x. 6. May I not