After her
return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new persecution in
the bosom of her family. She was averse to a marriage, which had been
stipulated without her consent; and the brave Constantius, as a noble
reward for the tyrants whom he had vanquished, received, from the hand
of Honorius himself, the struggling and the reluctant hand of the widow
of Adolphus. But her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials:
nor did Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian
the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over the mind
of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose time had hitherto
been divided between social pleasure and military service, was taught
new lessons of avarice and ambition: he extorted the title of Augustus:
and the servant of Honorius was associated to the empire of the West.
The death of Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of
diminishing, seemed to increase the power of Placidia; and the indecent
familiarity of her brother, which might be no more than the symptoms of
a childish affection, were universally attributed to incestuous love.
On a sudden, by some base intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this
excessive fondness was converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the
debates of the emperor and his sister were not long confined within the
walls of the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen,
the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous tumults,
which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary retreat of
Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at Constantinople,
soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the festival of the
Persian victories. They were treated with kindness and magnificence;
but as the statues of the emperor Constantius had been rejected by the
Eastern court, the title of Augusta could not decently be allowed to
his widow. Within a few months after the arrival of Placidia, a swift
messenger announced the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy;
but the important secret was not divulged, till the necessary orders had
been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the `-coast
of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople remained shut
during seven days; and the loss of a foreign prince, who could neither
be esteemed nor regretted, was celebrated with loud and affected
demonstrations of the public grief.

While the ministers of Con