ance which frequently
occurs in historical disquisition.]

[Footnote 17: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general expression
of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince; but Sidonius
Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of an antithesis to
Fausta's warm bath, chooses to administer a draught of cold poison.]

[Footnote 18: Sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem. Eutropius, x. 6
May I not 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 (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of
the Theodosian code, which has so much embarrassed the interpreters.
Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The
obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely allows any
inference, and there is extant but one meda which can be attributed to a
Helena, wife of Crispus.]

[Footnote 19: See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c. 19,
20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii. c. 41)
deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument against the reality
of the fact.]

[Footnote 20: Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii. c.
10.]

The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, 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 human
nature forbade them to justify. They pretend, that as soon as the
afflicted father discovered the falsehood of the accusation by which
his credulity had been so fatally misled, he published to the world
his repentance 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. [21] 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 will 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 step-