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Constantine’s Virtues, Vices & Family – Crispus and his father’s Jealousy – The Edict of Constantine – The Disgrace and Death of Crispus (324 - 326 A.D.)
The character of the prince who removed the seat of Empire,
and introduced such important changes into the civil and
religious constitution of his country, has fixed the attention,
and divided the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the
Christians, the deliverer of the church has been decorated with
every attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the
discontent of the vanquished party has compared Constantine to
the most abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and
weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have
in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and
the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present
age, as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the
impartial union of those defects which are confessed by his
warmest admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by
his most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just
portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of
history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon
appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors,
and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a
figure monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its
proper and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the
different periods of the reign of Constantine.
Footnote 1: On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
tout le mal ru'en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu'en dit Zosime.
Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
religious zeal.
The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
enriched by nature with her choices endowments. His stature was
lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
enable him to restore peace and order to tot the distracted
Empire. In his Civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had
engaged on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared
the undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom
and justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
administration of Constantine. 2
Footnote 2: The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere
pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even
Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian, acknowledge his personal courage
and military achievements.
Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in
the plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed
tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from
the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the
Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant
of the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into
the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of
Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired
his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating
into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or
raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The
general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years
of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of
real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by
the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and
prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various
innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his
festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
oppression of the people was the only fund which could support
the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites,
enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5
A secret
but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind.
The Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of
Diocletian, assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the
person of Constantine. He is represented with false hair of
various colors, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to
the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a
profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a
variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with
flowers of gold. In such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the
youth and folly of Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the
wisdom of an aged monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran.
6 A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was
incapable of rising to 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.
Footnote 3: See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written vix
mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the
wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
Trachala decem annis praestantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
latro; decem novissimis pupillus ob immouicas profusiones.
Footnote 4: Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Caesares, p. 336.
Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
&c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
profuseness of their founder.
Footnote 5: The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.
Footnote 6: Julian, in the Caesars, attempts to ridicule his
uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.
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, 7 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, 8 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 Licinius; and it was by her
entreaties, that an innocent boy, the offspring of their
marriage, preserved, for some time, his life, the title of
Caesar, and a precarious hope of the succession. Besides the
females, and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve
males, to whom the language of modern courts would apply the
title of princes of the blood, seemed, according to the order of
their birth, to be destined either to inherit or to support the
throne of Constantine. But in less than thirty years, this
numerous and increasing family was reduced to the persons of
Constantius and Julian, who alone had survived a series of crimes
and calamities, such as the tragic poets have deplored in the
devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.
Footnote 7: Zosimus and
Zonaras agree in representing Minervina as the concubine of
Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly rescued her
character, by producing a decisive passage from one of the
panegyrics: "Ab ipso fine pueritiae te matrimonii legibus
dedisti."
Footnote 8: Ducange (Familiae Byzantinae, p. 44) bestows on him,
after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.
Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive
heir of the Empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
the title of Caesar, and the administration of the Gallic
provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the Civil war
which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven , and the lively image
of his father's perfections.
The public favor, which seldom
accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor , they
fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
public felicity. 10
Footnote 9: Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mem.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliotheque
Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel
History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.
Footnote 10: Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius
(x. 6) styles him "egregium virum;" and Julian (Orat. i.) very
plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the Civil war. See
Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.
This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
Caesar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
provinces, 11 he, a prince of mature years, who had performed
such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
father's court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under
such painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be
able to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we
may be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet
or perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and
who were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of
his resentment.
An edict of Constantine, published about this
time, manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that
a secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration , that he
himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
the Empire. 12
Footnote 11: Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The year in which Constantius was
created Caesar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
chronologist s; but the historian who lived in his court could not
be ignorant of the day of the anniversary. For the appointment
of the new Caesar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primaute
de l'Eglise, p. 1183.
Footnote 12: Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.
The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation,
were sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the
friends and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is
there any reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had
promised an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy
of Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of
regard and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as
his most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the
customary vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young
Caesar; 13 and as the people, who were not admitted into the
secrets of the palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his
dignity, a poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with
equal devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14
The time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of
the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor,
for that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where
the most splendid preparations had been made for his reception.
Every eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of
the general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation
was drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and
murder. 15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus
was apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
The examination was short and private; 16 and as it was thought
decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of
the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola , in
Istria , where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
poison . 17
The Caesar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of
Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop , who
has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
least of a degenerate son. 20
Footnote 13: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv.
p. 610.
Footnote 14: His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of
his panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in
vile acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250,
Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l.
iv. c. 1.
Footnote 15: Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
28.
Footnote 16: The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
speaks with becoming caution. "Natu grandior incertum qua causa,
patris judicio occidisset." If we consult the succeeding writers,
Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
diminished - a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
disquisition.
Footnote 17: Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
an antithesis to Fausta's warm bath, chooses to administer a
draught of cold poison .
Footnote 18: Sororis filium, commodae indolis juvenem.
Eutropius, x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus
had married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that
on the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
iii. p. 267
Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The obscurity of
the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely allows any
inference, and there is extant but one meda which can be
attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.
Footnote 19: See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
against the reality of the fact.
Footnote 20: Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
c. 10.
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To cite original text:
Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. (NY : Knopf, 1993), v. 2, pp. 152 - 161 .