ho arrogantly refused to solicit the
protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was the
chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with
such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an
impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty favorite.
By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the
long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the house of
Constantine.
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from
the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter
about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be of a
sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious
and dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was
sensible that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been
esteemed, by all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. *
Different cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of
their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years excited
the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those
unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum, near Caesarea. The
treatment which they experienced during a six years' confinement, was
partly such as they could hope from a careful guardian, and partly
such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant. Their prison was an
ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation
was pleasant, the buildings of stately, the enclosure spacious. They
pursued their studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition
of the most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to
attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not unworthy
of the dignity of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves
that they were deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety; secluded
from the society of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned
to pass their melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the
commands of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope
of reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state
compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus, in the
twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Caesar, and to cement
this political connection by his marr
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