Page:History of the First Council of Nice.djvu/35

Rh Gallus and Julian were sons of Julius Constantius, and Dalmatius had two sons, named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. Crispus was an amiable and accomplished youth. Eusebius, the historian, calls him a "brave and pious son." He had been engaged in his father's wars since 17 years of age, and had the deserved esteem and admiration of the court, the army and the people. "This dangerous popularity," says Gibbon, "soon excited the attention of Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient of an equal." He was confined almost as a prisoner to his father's court, and exposed, without power of defence, to the calumny of his enemies. The emperor began to hint at suspicions of a conspiracy against his person and government. By rewards he invited informers to accuse even his most intimate favorites. The adherents of Crispus were the victims chosen. Constantine soon ordered him to be apprehended and killed, and the only son of Constantia, the emperor's sister, in spite of her prayers and tears, shared the same fate. She did not long survive this blow, dying A. D. 329.

The church historian, Eusebius, first orator at the Nicene Council, no where mentions these horrible scenes in his prince's life. Other writers say that Fausta was the instigator of the murder of her stepson, Crispus. And they say Constantine so much repented of his cruelty, that he had her killed soon after, by being suffocated in a boiling hot bath. Philostorgius says the emperor murdered two wives, and that his three sons, who