The sons of Constantine have succeeded to the throne of their father; and the portions of Constantine II, the eldest of the three, and Constans, the youngest, have at last fallen into the hands, or the web, of Constantius,—­a sort of cross between a spider, an octopus, and an elderly maiden aunt,—­and in general about as unpleasant a creature as ever sat on a throne.  Constantine the Great, indeed, had willed the succession into the hands of a much larger number of his relatives; but this Constantius, his father once decently buried, had taken time by the forelock, and insured things to his two brothers and himself by killing out two of his uncles and seven of their sons; so that now, Constantine II and Constans being dead, no male scions of the house of Constantius Chlorus remain as possible rivals to him, except two boys who had been at the time of the massacre, the one too young, and the other too sickly, to count.  We shall come to them by and by.

Christianity is well established; though Constantius, followed his father’s wise example, is deferring his baptism until the last possible moment:  he partly knows the weakness of his nature, and desires to have license for a little pleasant sinning until the end, with the certainty of a glorious resurrection to follow in despite of it.—­Dismiss your kindly apprehensions; God was good to Constantius; no untimely accident cut him off unbaptized; his plan worked excellently, and providing an Arian heretic may go to heaven, in heaven he is to this day, singing his Alleluias with the best of them,—­and perhaps between whiles arguing it out with the various uncles and cousins he murdered.

Meanwhile, however, priests and bishops are the great men of his empire; and they enjoy immunities from duties and taxation to an extent that throws the whole rational order of government out of gear.  Thus, for example, the upkeep of the great roads and posts system,—­the lines of communication,—­falls upon a certain class called the Decurions, who in each district at their own expense have to maintain all in order.  But churchmen,—­an enormous class now,—­are immune from the decurionship; and are allowed further the use of the post-horses and inns free of cost;—­with the result that, practically speaking, no one else can use them at all.  Because these churchmen are forever hurrying hither and thither to conference, council, or synod; there each sect,—­ Arian and Athanasian chiefly,—­to damn to eternal perdition (and temporal excommunication when possible) the vile heretics of the other:  Homoiousian to thunder against Homoousian, Homoousian against Homoiousian:  Arius contra Athanasium, and Athanasius contra mundum:—­till the air of the whole Roman world is thick with the fumes of brimstone and the stench of the Nether Pit.  Taxation, on those left to tax, falls an intolerable burden; —­we have seen how Shah Sapor is dealing with one end of the empire;—­at the other end, in Gaul, one Magnentius rose against