red a blood vessel in his lungs,
which caused his death upon the spot.

At the moment, Justina was occupying a palace at a short distance from
Bregetio, where the death of her husband occurred. Gratian, the son of
Severa, had already been invested by his father with the imperial
purple; but the court ministers, inspired probably with the thought of
those advantages which such men enjoy during the reign of an infant,
immediately planned to exalt to the throne of Valentinian the latter's
four-year-old son, who bore the same name. Justina was sent for and
placed by the ministers on a regal platform facing the troops. She held
her young son in her arms; and the picture of a beautiful woman, endowed
both with the fruit and the graces of motherhood, had its never failing
effect of stirring the soldiers to an outburst of chivalric enthusiasm.
The infant was there and then invested with the purple and the insignia
of empire, which, it may be added, he never wore with greater effect
than in the hour when his puny infant form was first arrayed in them.
Whatever real influence his name had in the government was wielded by
Justina. But Gratian was emperor. He it was who commanded the army and
ruled the Empire, while Justina held court and engaged in petty domestic
politics at Milan and Sirmium. One thing is certain and is remarkable
enough to be mentioned--the two empress-mothers, Severa and Justina,
lived as co-widows in that mutual harmony which Socrates would have us
believe characterized them as co-wives.

Perhaps the principal event of the life of Justina was her controversy
with Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was one of the noblest men of
the ancient Church, and who, by his courage and integrity, set an
example for all succeeding bishops. Contemning the pomps and vanities of
the world, he did not disdain to use the powers of his office for the
political advantage of either the Church or the state; so, when Maximus
usurped the imperial privilege in the Gallic provinces, Ambrose was sent
as an ambassador by Justina to beg the clemency of the new emperor for
herself and her son. Maximus reigned in the far West, while at his
sufferance Valentinian II. was emperor in Italy.

While this young emperor--who died at the age of twenty-one--reigned,
his mother ruled. Justina, however, appears to have been an easy-going
woman. She does not seem to have been possessed of much ambition, and
there is no indication that she interfered