Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/197

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 175 rence," exclaimed the voice of a citizen, " we reverence the mother of our princes ; but to those princes alone our obedience is due ; and Constantine, the elder emperor, is of an age to sustain, in his own hands, the weight of the sceptre. Your sex is excluded by nature fi-om the toils of government. How could you combat, how could you answer, the barbarians, who, with hostile or friendly intentions, may approach the royal city ? May heaven avert from the Roman republic this national disgrace, which would provoke the patience of the slaves of Persia! " Martina descended from the throne with indignation, and sought a refuge in the female apartment of the palace. The reign of Constantine the Third lasted only one hundred and three days ; he expired in the thirtieth year of his age, and, although his life had been a long malady, a belief was enter- tained that poison had been the means, and his cruel step- mother the author, of his untimely fate. Martina reaped, Heracieonas, indeed, the harvest of his death, and assumed the government m^'^' in the name of the surviving emperor ; but the incestuous widow of Heraclius was universally abhorred ; the jealousy of the people was awakened ; and the two orphans, whom Constantine had left, became the objects of the public care. It was in vain that the son of Martina, who was no more than fifteen years of age, was taught to declare himself the guardian of his nephews, one of whom he had presented at the baptismal font ; it was in vain that he swore on the wood of the true cross to defend them against all their enemies. On his death-bed, the late emperor dispatched a trusty servant to arm the troops and provinces of the East in the defence of his helpless children ; the eloquence and liberality of Valentin had been successful, and from his camp of Chalcedon he boldly demanded the punishment of the assassins and the restoration of the lawful heir. The licence of the soldiers, who devoured the grapes and drank the wine of their Asiatic vineyards, provoked the citizens of Constantinople against the domestic authors of their calamities, and the dome of St. Sophia re-echoed, not with prayers and hymns, but with the clamours and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At their imperious command, Herac- ieonas appeared in the pulpit with the eldest of the royal orphans ; Constans alone was saluted as emperor of the Romans ; and a crown of gold, which had been taken fi-om the tomb of Heraclius, was placed on his head, with the solemn benediction of the patriarch. But in the tumult of joy and indignation the church was pillaged, the sanctuaiy was polluted by a promis-