Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/327

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 309 man nature forbade them to justify. They pretend, CHAT, that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the false- ' hood of the accusation by which his creduhty had been so fotally misled, he published to the world his repent- ance and remorse ; that he mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of Crispus, with this memorable inscription : To my Son, WHOM I UNJUSTLY CONDEMNED''. A tale SO moral and so interesting would deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority : but if we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they M'ill inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only in acts of blood and revenge ; and that he atoned for the murder of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife. They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his stepmother Fausta, whose im- placable hatred, or whose disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the ancient tragedy of I lip- polytus and of PhaBdra^. Like the daughter of Mi- nos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father's wife ; and easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as the most formid- able rival of her own children. But Helena, the aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the un- timely fate of her grandson Crispus : nor was it long before a real or pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a criminal connection with a slave belonging to the imperial stables^. Her con- ^ In order to prove that the statue was erected by Constantine, and after- wards concealed by the malice of the Arians, Codinus very readily creates (^p. 34.) two witnesses, Ilippolytus, and the younper Herodotus, to wiiose imaginary histories he appeals with unblushing confidence. y Zosimus (1. ii. p. 103.) may be considered as our original, '("lie inge- nuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints from the ancients, has illus- trated and improved his obscure and imperfect narrative. stantine the ileath of two wives, of the innocent Fausta, and of an adulter-
 * Philostorgius, 1. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (1. ii. p. 104. 116.) imputes to Con-