quam jubente;" "incertum quo suasore;" "vi militum."]
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new
division of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal
interview of the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the
Caesars, obtained, with a certain preeminence of rank, the
possession of the new capital, which bore his own name and that
of his father. Thrace, and the countries of the East, were
allotted for the patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was
acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the
Western Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary
right; and they condescended, after some delay, to accept from
the Roman senate the title of Augustus. When they first assumed
the reins of government, the eldest of these princes was
twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third only seventeen,
years of age. ^53

[Footnote 53: Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus,
l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont, Hist.
des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest
brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
Chronicle.]

While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards
of his brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate
troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian
war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was
filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of
Narses, who, after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed
the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the
thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of