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