The Empresses of Rome

by Joseph McCabe

In the middle of the festivity Rome was startled to hear that Crispus had been arrested, by his father’s command, and exiled to Pola, in Istria. From that remote and solitary region the report at length came that he had been put to death. Every eye was turned on the palace, and before long—most of the historians say—the gay figure of the beautiful young Empress disappeared, and the report spread that she had been brutally suffocated in the steam of a dense vapour-bath. The horror was increased, and the prospect of a humane interpretation lessened, when it was learned that the innocent child of Constantia also had been put to death. Such is the grave and mysterious tragedy of Constantine’s mature years. As Fausta has been heavily indicted by those who have sought to defend her husband, and Helena impeached by his accusers, we may glance at the evidence on which one’s verdict must be based.

There are partisan historians who would cast doubt on the whole story; there are more serious historians, such as Gibbon (who again gallantly opposes the critics), who say that Fausta, at least, was not slain; and the rest are divided in opinion as to whether it was a just execution or a ghastly crime. The first two opinions are now untenable. There is no serious dispute that Crispus and Licinius were put to death. That Fausta was killed is now equally established. Gibbon relied upon a certain anonymous writer to show that Fausta was living long afterwards, but it has been shown that the writer is not speaking of Fausta and Constantine. Moreover, Dr. Seeck, in a special study of the evidence (“Die Verwandtenmorde Constantins des Grossen,” Zeitschrift für Wiss. Theol., Bd. 33), has shown that the coins of Fausta and Crispus, unlike those of the other members of the Imperial family, end before the year 330. Dr. Görres, who held Gibbon’s view, consents that this proof is decisive. The only serious question is that of motive or justification.

Let us glance at the authorities, in the order of their nearness to the event. Bishop Eusebius is naturally silent; he professes to give only the things that edify in the life of Constantine, and is writing almost in his son’s court. Eutropius, the soundest and most impartial writer of the next generation, says (x. 6) that the character of Constantine “was somewhat changed with prosperity,” and that “following the exigencies of the situation [necessitudines rerum], he put to death, first his excellent son and the son of his sister, a boy of promising character, then his wife and a number of friends.” St. Jerome, in his Latin version of the “Chronicle” of Eusebius, writes, at the year 329, that “Crispus, the son of Constantine, and Licinius the younger, the son of Constantia, are most cruelly put to death in the ninth year of his reign,” and three years later we read: “Constantine put to death his wife Fausta.”[25] Dr. Seeck believes that we have here only an echo of Eutropius, but Jerome would hardly add “most cruelly” on so cautious a narrative. Aurelius Victor, a contemporary of Eutropius, says that Crispus “was put to death by his father for some unknown reason,” and Orosius, the Christian historian, merely observes that Constantine put Crispus and Licinius to death.

From these earlier writers we learn only that the deaths were cruel, and the motive unknown, but later writers have successively built up a story that has provoked endless discussion. Sidonius Apollinaris, the most cultivated and liberal Christian writer of the fifth century, says, with the confidence of a parenthesis (Ep. v), that Crispus was poisoned, and Fausta killed in a vapour-bath; and that a couplet was fixed on the palace-gate recalling the crimes of Nero. The epitomist of Aurelius Victor declares that Crispus was put to death at the instigation of Fausta, and Fausta was “thereupon” killed in a vapour-bath, as Helena bitterly reproached Constantine for the death of Crispus. Zosimus (ii. 29) says: “With no regard for the law of nature he put to death his son Crispus, on the ground that he was suspected of intimacy with Fausta,” and, when Helena heavily reproached him, he, “as if to console her,” suffocated Fausta in an overheated bath. Philostorgius, a Christian writer of the same (fifth) century, declares that Fausta was put to death because she was caught in adultery with a groom. The story culminates in the twelfth-century annalist Zonaras. After telling his incredible legend about Constantine and the babies, he represents Fausta in the character of Potiphar’s wife. She conceived a passion for the handsome Cæsar, was repelled by him, and then denounced him to Constantine as having offered violence to her. Crispus was put to death. Then Constantine learned in some way—Helena is left to the imagination—that he had been deceived, and he angrily killed Fausta in a vapour-bath.

It is remarkable how many grave writers have favoured this legend of the mediæval writer,[26] yet, besides its obvious growth through the centuries, it has the fatal weakness of throwing no light whatever on the murder of Licinius, the son of Constantine’s most cherished sister. We are reduced to conjecture in face of this mysterious and terrible tragedy. That the youths met with some violent death at the hands of the Emperor, that Helena bitterly remonstrated with him, and that the savage suffocation of Fausta followed this remonstrance, seems to be clear. We may further conclude with some confidence, from the persistent rumour of amorous relations, that this charge was allowed to reach the outside world in extenuation of the murders. But it is suspected by many historians, and seems to be suggested by the obscure language of Eutropius, that the real motive was political.

FAUSTA

FLAVIA HELENA

ENLARGED FROM COINS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Crispus was in great favour with both the people and the troops, and had distinguished himself in the war with Licinius. If anything happened to Constantine, who was in his fifty-second year, Crispus had a clear prospect of the throne. It would not be unnatural for Fausta to resent this, and one is tempted to see, either an effect of her importunity or a proof of Constantine’s jealousy of his son, in the fact that Constantine took away the province of Gaul from Crispus, without compensation, in 323, and gave it to the eldest of his legitimate sons. From that time Crispus was retained in idleness, and probably discontent, under the eye of his father. He would be a natural focus for all the dissatisfaction in the Empire, and the Romans, and pagans generally, regarded Constantine and his family with anger and disdain on account of their abandonment of the old religion. By the year 326 Constantine was in a state of extraordinary nervousness and suspicion. Before going to Rome he issued an edict in which he revealed his frame of mind to the whole Empire. At Rome he flouted the most cherished customs of the city, and may well have incurred fresh murmurs. Something occurred that brought his suspicion of Crispus—who may not have become a Christian—to an acute stage, and he condemned him to exile and death. This theory is also the only one to explain, with any plausibility, the execution of young Licinius. He was the only other rival of Constantine’s legitimate sons. It is impossible for us to say whether Crispus had incurred any guilt or no, but the silence of the earlier writers and panegyrists is a grave circumstance. If there had been plausible evidence of conspiracy they would not have remained silent. In any case, the sentence on Crispus was harsh and unjustifiable, and the execution of a twelve-year-old boy was a piece of brutality that only the worse Emperors would have perpetrated.