ch Constans II.
pronounced in the twelfth year of his age before the Byzantine senate.
After returning his thanks for the just punishment of the assassins, who
had intercepted the fairest hopes of his father's reign, "By the divine
Providence," said the young emperor, "and by your righteous decree,
Martina and her incestuous progeny have been cast headlong from the
throne. Your majesty and wisdom have prevented the Roman state from
degenerating into lawless tyranny. I therefore exhort and beseech you
to stand forth as the counsellors and judges of the common safety." The
senators were gratified by the respectful address and liberal donative
of their sovereign; but these servile Greeks were unworthy and
regardless of freedom; and in his mind, the lesson of an hour was
quickly erased by the prejudices of the age and the habits of despotism.
He retained only a jealous fear lest the senate or people should one day
invade the right of primogeniture, and seat his brother Theodosius on
an equal throne. By the imposition of holy orders, the grandson of
Heraclius was disqualified for the purple; but this ceremony, which
seemed to profane the sacraments of the church, was insufficient to
appease the suspicions of the tyrant, and the death of the deacon
Theodosius could alone expiate the crime of his royal birth. His
murder was avenged by the imprecations of the people, and the assassin,
in the fullness of power, was driven from his capital into voluntary
and perpetual exile. Constans embarked for Greece and, as if he meant
to retort the abhorrence which he deserved he is said, from the Imperial
galley, to have spit against the walls of his native city. After passing
the winter at Athens, he sailed to Tarentum in Italy, visited Rome,
and concluded a long pilgrimage of disgrace and sacrilegious rapine,
by fixing his residence at Syracuse. But if Constans could fly from his
people, he could not fly from himself. The remorse of his conscience
created a phantom who pursued him by land and sea, by day and by night;
and the visionary Theodosius, presenting to his lips a cup of blood,
said, or seemed to say, "Drink, brother, drink;" a sure emblem of the
aggravation of his guilt, since he had received from the hands of the
deacon the mystic cup of the blood of Christ. Odious to himself and to
mankind, Constans perished by domestic, perhaps by episcopal, treason,
in the capital of Sicily. A servant who waited in the bath, after
pouring warm