house has been steeped. For untimely loss of parents, and of husbands, and violent forms of death, more outrageous and painful than those which occur in tragedies, especially beset this kind of government. Now passing over ancient times, of those who have reigned in our own generation, nine in all, only two have ended their life by a natural death; and of the others one was slain by a usurper,349 one in battle,350 one by a conspiracy of his household guards,351 one by the very man who elected him, and invested him with the purple,352 and of their wives some, as it is reported, perished by poison, others died of mere sorrow; while of those who still survive one, who has an orphan son, is trembling with alarm lest any of those who are in power dreading what may happen in the future should destroy him;353 another has reluctantly 125 yielded to much entreaty to return from the exile into which she had been driven by him who held the chief power.354 And of the wives of the present rulers the one who has recovered a little from her former calamities has much sorrow mingled with her joy because the pos- sessor of power is still young and inexperienced and has many designing men on all sides of him;355 and the other is ready to die of fear, and spends her time more miserably than criminals condemned to death because her husband ever since he assumed the crown up to the present day has been constantly engaged in warfare and fighting, and is more exhausted by the shame and the reproaches which assail him on all sides than by actual calamities.356 For that which has never taken place has now come to pass, the barbarians leaving their own country have overrun an infinite space of our territory, and that many times over, and having set fire to the land, and captured the towns they are not minded to return home again, but after the manner of men who are keeping holiday rather than making war, they laugh us all to scorn;357 and it is said that one of their kings declared that he was amazed at the impudence of our soldiers, who although slaughtered more easily than sheep still expect to conquer, and are not willing to quit their own country; for he said that he himself was 349 Constans by Magnentius. 350 Constantine the younger. 351 Jovian: there were several other versions of his death. See Gibbon, iv. 221 (Milman’s edition). Chrysostom repeats this story in Homily XV., ad Philipp. 352 Gallus Cæsar (who never became Augustus) by Constantius. 353 Widow of Jovian, whose son Varronianus had been deprived of one eye (see Gibbon as above). 354 Doubtful, possibly first wife of Valentinian I., divorced from him and sent into exile. 355 Constantia, wife of Gratian. 356 Flacilla, wife of Theodosius. The two emperors who died natural deaths were Constantine the Great, and his son Constantius. Compare this mournful list with the celebrated passage in Shakespeare’s Richard II., act III. sc. 2. “For Heaven’s sake let’s sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings,” etc. 357 See Introduction. 175 Letter to a Young Widow.