CHAPTER XXI

DEATH OF CONSTANTIUS, WHO LEAVES HIS SON CONSTANTINE EMPEROR

IMMEDIATELY therefore on his escape from the plots which had been thus insidiously laid for him, he made his way with all haste to his father, and arrived at length at the very time that he was lying at the point of death. As soon as Constantius saw his son thus unexpectedly in his presence, he leaped from his couch, embraced him tenderly, and, declaring that the only anxiety which had troubled him in the prospect of death, namely that caused by the absence of his son, was now removed, he rendered thanks to God, and said that he now thought death better than the longest life. He next completed the arrangement of his private affairs, and took a final leave of the circle of sons and daughters by whom he was surrounded; and then, in his own palace, and on the imperial couch, he committed the administration of the empire, according to the law of nature, to his eldest son, and breathed his last.