nerations; and Constantine himself derived from his royal
father the hereditary honors which he transmitted to his children. The
Emperor had been twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object
of his youthful attachment, had left him only one son, who was called
Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three daughters,
and three sons known by the kindred names of Constantine, Constantius,
and Constans. The unambitious brothers of the great Constantine, Julius
Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, were permitted to enjoy the
most honorable rank and the most affluent fortune that could be
consistent with a private station. The youngest of the three lived
without a name and died without posterity. His two elder brothers
obtained in marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated
new branches of the imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards became
the most illustrious of the children of Julius Constantius the
_Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had been decorated with the
vain title of _censor_, were named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two
sisters of the great Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed
on Optatus and Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular
dignity. His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her
pre-eminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of the
vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties that an innocent boy,
the offspring of their marriage, preserved for some time his life, the
title of Caesar, and a precarious hope of the succession. Besides the
females and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve males to whom
the language of modern courts would apply the title of princes of the
blood, seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined
either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in less
than thirty years this numerous and increasing family was reduced to the
persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had survived a series of
crimes and calamities such as the tragic poets have deplored in the
devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.

DEATH OF JULIAN

While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties of his
situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study and
contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted
slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be
thought surprising that the Geni