that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to
forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by
the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of tyrants;
but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather murders, which
sullied the declining age of Constantine, will suggest to our most
candid thoughts the idea of a prince who could sacrifice without
reluctance the laws of justice, and the feelings of nature, to the
dictates either of his passions or of his interest.

The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his domestic
life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the longest and
most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and Diocletian, had been
disappointed of posterity; and the frequent revolutions had never
allowed sufficient time for any Imperial family to grow up and multiply
under the shade of the purple. But the royalty of the Flavian line,
which had been first ennobled by the Gothic Claudius, descended through
several generations; 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
preeminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of the
vanquished L