erived from the liberality of their
uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the tide of popular fury, they seem
to have remained, without the power of flight or of resistance, in the
hands of their implacable enemies. Their fate was suspended till the
arrival of Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
sons of Constantine.

[Footnote 48: Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6) terminates his narrative by
this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids all the invidious
circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]

[Footnote 49: The character of Dalmatius is advantageously, though
concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.) Dalmatius Ceasar prosperrima
indole, neque patrou absimilis, haud multo post oppressus est factione
militari. As both Jerom and the Alexandrian Chronicle mention the third
year of the Ceasar, which did not commence till the 18th or 24th
of September, A. D. 337, it is certain that these military factions
continued above four months.]

Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.--Part III.

The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his funeral
to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the vicinity of his
eastern station, could easily prevent the diligence of his brothers, who
resided in their distant government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had
taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was
to remove the apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which
he pledged for their security. His next employment was to find some
specious pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation
of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the
designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by a person of
the most sacred character. From the hands of the Bishop of Nicomedia,
Constantius received a fatal scroll, affirmed to be the genuine
testament of his father; in which the emperor expressed his suspicions
that he had been poisoned by his brothers; and conjured his sons to
revenge his death, and to consult their own safety, by the punishment
of the guilty. [50] Whatever reasons might have been alleged by these
unfortunate princes to defend their life and honor against so incredible
an accusation, they were silenced by the furious clamors of the
soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their enemies, their
judges, and their executioners. The spirit, and even the forms of legal
proceedings were repeatedly viola