e 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 had despatched
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 license 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 reechoed, not with prayers and hymns, but with the
clamors and imprecations of an enraged multitude. At their imperious
command, Heracleonas 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 from 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
sanctuary was polluted by a promiscuous crowd of Jews and Barbarians;
and the Monothelite Pyrrhus, a creature of the empress, after dropping a
protestation on the altar, escaped by a prudent flight from the zeal
of the Catholics. A more serious and bloody task was reserved for
the senate, who derived a temporary strength from the consent of the
soldiers and people. The spirit of Roman freedom revived the ancient
and awful examples of the judgment of tyrants, and the Imperial culprits
were deposed and condemned as the authors of the death of Constantine.
But the severity of the conscript fathers was stained by the
indiscriminate punishment of the innocent and the guilty: Martina and
Heracleonas were sentenced to the amputation, the former of her tongue,
the latter of his nose; and after this cruel execution, they consumed
the remainder of their days in exile and oblivion. The Greeks who were
capable of reflection might find some consolation for their servitude,
by observing the abuse of power when it was lodged for a moment in the
hands of an aristocracy.

We shall imagine ourselves transported five hundred years backwards to
the age of the Antonines, if we listen to the oration whi