OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE,

133

several branches of the imperial house, served chap.

. 1 XVIII

only to convince mankind, that these princes _

were as cold to the endearments of conjugalaffection, as they were insensible to the ties ofconsanguinity, and the moving entreaties ofyouth and innocence. Of so numerous a family,

Callus and Julian alone, the two youngest chil-dren of Julius Constantius, were saved from thehands of the assassins, till their rage, satiatedwith slaughter, had in some measure subsided.

The emperor Constantius, who, in the absenceof his brothers, was the most obnoxious to guiltand reproach, discovered, on some future occa- 'sions, a faint and transient remorse for thosecruelties which the perfidious counsels of his mi-nisters, and the irresistible violenceof the troops,had extorted from his unexperienced youth . 1

The massacre of the Flavian race was sue- Division nlceeded by a new division of theprovinces; whichwas ratified in a personal interview of the three Se P l - u -brothers. Constantine , the eldest of the Cae-

sins with the opprobrious epithet of yafxuv r« w yafxw (Orat. vii.p 228).The jurisprudence of the canons has since revived and enforced thisprohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the civil orthe common law of Europe . See on the subject of these marriages,Taylor** Civil Law, p. 331. Biouer de Jure Connub. 1. ii, c. 12. He-ricomt dt s Loix Eeelesiasliqucs, part Hi, c. 5. Fleury Institutions duDroit Canouiquc, tom. i, p. 331. Paris , 1707, and Fra Paolo Istoriadel Concilio Trident. 1. viii.

1 Julian (ad s. p. q. Athen. p. 270) charges his cousin Constantiuswith the whole guilt of a massacre, from which he himself so narrowlyescaped. His assertion is confirmed by Athanasius , wlio, for reasonsof a very different nature, was not less an enemy of Constantius (tom.i, p. 850). Zosinuis joins in the same accusation. But the three ab-breviators, Eutropius and the Victors, use very qualifying expressions ;u sinente potius quam jubentej" “ incertum quo suasore;” u vjmilituin."