The Empresses of Rome

by Joseph McCabe

The race to Constantinople after the death of the Emperor may be imagined, but the suddenness and horror of the consequent tragedy must have sobered even the most frivolous. Constantius, the second son, was the first to arrive, and to him the conduct of the impressive funeral was entrusted. The members of the family gathered round the marble palace from all quarters of the Empire, and the shade of Constantine continued for some months to rule the State, until their conflicting claims should be adjusted. Julius Constantius and Delmatius, the legitimate heirs of Constantius Chlorus, who had been thrust aside thirty years before by the vigorous son of Minervina, were now men in the prime of life. The younger son of the latter, Hannibalian, the “King of Kings,” strutted in a scarlet and gold mantle, and had married the fiery and ambitious young daughter of the late Emperor, Constantina. Anastasia, Constantine’s sister, brought her husband, the “Patrician” Optatus. The partition of power seemed a formidable task. But in the weeks that succeeded Constantine’s death a new and sinister power arose, and its secret designs prepared a ghastly simplification of the problem.

Constantius became insensibly the central figure of the drama. A callous youth, with little strength of character, he was selected by the eunuchs and corrupt officers of Constantine’s court as a likely instrument of their plans. It was agreed that the interests of these officers and of the sons of Constantine would be best served by a removal of all the other competitors, and a diabolical plot was devised. The details are given at length only by the Christian historian Philostorgius, of the next century, and are regarded with reserve; but an Arian writer would hardly inculpate an Arian bishop and an Arian monarch without some just ground. His story is that Constantine left a will in which he declared that he had been poisoned by his two half-brothers. The will was given to Bishop Eusebius. When the brothers were eager to see the will of Constantine, Eusebius is said to have discovered a fine piece of casuistry. He put the will in the hands of the dead Emperor, and covered it with his robes, so that he might, without injury to his delicate conscience, assure the brothers that Constantine had indeed shown him a will, but he had returned it into his hands. The will—or a will—was now produced, and the people and army were assured by their dead ruler that he had been poisoned by his family.

The story is regarded with suspicion by most historians. For the reason I have given, and because it is the only plausible explanation of what followed, it seems probable that such a will was produced and published by Constantius. It was probably forged by the palace officials. Whether they and the sons of Constantine used this device or no, they somehow directed the tempestuous anger of the troops upon the older princes and their families, and extinguished their claims in a brutal massacre. Julian casts the blame on Constantius, admitting that he acted under compulsion, and the other fourth-century writers do not differ. Constantius “permitted,” rather than “commanded.” The corrupt power behind the throne directed the murders, and the sons of Constantine purchased a larger dominion by the blood of their uncles and cousins. The two uncles, seven cousins, and other distinguished men, were included in the bloody list. Then the three Imperial youths divided the Empire between them, and departed to their provinces.

The wives of the eldest and the youngest of the brothers are unknown to us, and the first wife of Constantius is so little known that we may pass rapidly over a number of years. The Imperial sisters of Constantine—except Constantia, whom we have considered—enter little in the history of the time. Anastasia disappears after the murder of her husband. Eutropia will presently mingle her blood with that of her insurgent son on the soil of Italy. Constantina, the daughter of Constantine who had married Hannibalian, and who already bore the title of Augusta, retired into a long widowhood, from which we shall find her emerging later in a monstrous character.

Constantius had been married to his cousin Galla in 336. She seems to have been the daughter of Julius Constantius, since Julian says that her father and brother were included in the massacre. Her personality is never outlined for us in the historical writings of the time, and we are left to imagine her shuddering or languishing in the arms that were stained with the blood of her family. She died some time before 350, as Magnentius offered his daughter to Constantius in that year. We have, therefore, no Empress who can engage our attention until 353, and may be content with a slight summary of the events which lead on to the appearance of Eusebia and the reappearance of the repulsive Constantina.

Three years after the partition of the Empire Constantine and Constans quarrelled about their territory. The elder brother led his troops into the dominion of Constans, and was slain; and his provinces were added to those of Constans. The character of the youngest son of Constantine was gross and intolerable. He revived the lowest vice of his pagan predecessors, and his open parade of the handsome barbarian youths whom he bought, or attracted to his frivolous court, disgusted his officers. In the beginning of the year 350 they rebelled against him. A banquet was given at Augustodunum (Autun) to the notables of the town and the officers of the camp, and at a late hour, when the abundant wine had warmed the hearts and obscured the judgment of the diners, the commander of two of the chief legions, Magnentius, was brought before them in a purple robe. Constans awoke from his vices to find that he had lost the throne and the army, and fled toward Spain. He was overtaken and slain. Some blood-curse seemed to hang over the house of Constantine. Constantius, who had been long occupied in resisting the Persians, now wheeled round his troops, and faced the usurper.

In the long struggle that followed there were two incidents of interest for us. Constantina, the Imperial widow, was living in restless impotence at the time. Between the rebellious provinces of the West and the loyal provinces of the East was the intermediate district between the Danube and the Greek sea. Constantina, it is said, instigated the commander of the troops in these regions, Vetranio, to assume the purple. What we shall see of her character presently will dispose us to believe that she meditated a return to power through Vetranio, but Constantius astutely disarmed and exiled him, and accepted her explanation that she had acted with the pure aim of resisting the advance of the Western usurper. Constantine’s sister Eutropia also appears in the struggle. Her son Nepotian assumed the purple at Rome, and led out a motley army to attack Magnentius. They were quickly annihilated, and mother and son—two of the few remaining members of Constantine’s family—were slain.

The interest of the student of the time is divided between the clash of armies and the not wholly bloodless conflicts of theologies. We are concerned with neither, and need only observe that Constantius defeated Magnentius, after a long and costly struggle—in one battle 54,000 Roman soldiers perished in civil warfare—and reunited the Empire under his sole dominion. The young Empress of the defeated Magnentius retired into widowhood, and will be restored to us in the next chapter. In the meantime Constantina has returned to the field, and her Imperial adventures call for our notice.

Two children, the sons of Julius Constantius, had survived the massacre at Constantinople. Gallus was in his twelfth year, Julian in his sixth. They were hidden until the fury of the soldiers had abated, and then their tender age induced the murderers to overlook them. The jealous eye of Constantius fell on them when they approached manhood, and they were confined in a fortress, or ancient palace, in Cappadocia. In the solitude of Macellum no company was offered them but that of slaves and soldiers. Julian, in whose mind the seeds of an elevated philosophy had taken root, resisted the pressing temptations, and devoted the long days to culture; but Gallus, a sensual and ill-balanced youth, adopted the coarse distractions of his spacious jail. After six years (in 351) they were not only set at liberty, but Gallus was amazed to find himself clothed with the dignity of Cæsar and married to the Emperor’s sister Constantina. Constantius was compelled to leave the East in order to face Magnentius, and he needed a Cæsar to rule in his name.

The three years’ rule of Gallus and Constantina was an Imperial scandal. Unscrupulous and unbridled, the daughter of Constantine lives in the literature of the time as a monstrous perversion of womanhood. With her begins the historical work (as we have it) of Ammianus Marcellinus, a retired general, one of the most scrupulous and ample chroniclers of his time. He bursts at once into a vivid denunciation of her vices. She was “a mortal Megæra,” an ogre, swollen with pride and thirsting for human blood. It is unfortunate that Ammianus gives us no personal description of the women of his time. His work contains charming vignettes of the Emperors and princes, but he seems never to have looked on the face or figure of their wives. Gallus, he tells us, was a superb youth in figure and stature, his handsome features crowned with soft golden hair, and bearing a look of dignity and authority, in spite of his vices. The strain of cruelty and coarseness in him was provoked to excesses by his wife. When his savage conduct had exasperated his subjects he used to send his spies, in the disguise of beggars, to gather the secret whispers of discontent; and he even stooped to the practice of wandering himself, in disguise, from tavern to tavern on the well-lit streets of Antioch to discover his critics. Antioch had been noted for centuries for its freedom of speech, and the prisons and torture-chambers of Gallus were busy.