And the next year the emperor went to Rome to celebrate the Ides of Quintilis, the anniversary of the battle of Lake Regillus, in which, according to the chronicles of pagan Rome, the twin-gods Castor and Pollux had fought in defense of the Eternal City, and brought thereto the welcome news of victory. It was esteemed to be the most sacred ceremony known to the Roman people. During the grand festival, Constantine, believing that after the Council of Nicea his own ecclesiastical system was so powerful and so securely established that he need not longer patronize the heathen, refused to take his proper place in the ancient ritual appropriate to the occasion, and even exhibited his contempt for the empty pageantry of a legion of knights passing in solemn procession, by commenting upon their appearance with that caustic, epigrammatic wit of which few men were more thoroughly master. That large portion of the Romans who yet openly adhered to the ancient religion were insulted and furious at the conduct of the emperor, and there was a fierce riot in the streets, during which stones were hurled at the statues of the emperor, and attempts made to overthrow them. His wife Fausta, the daughter of the fierce old emperor Maximian, inherited much of her father’s cruel nature and imperious ambition. She and Constantine had three sons--Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. She had always envied Crispus Cæsar the superiority which his primogenial rights gave to him as the first-born of Constantine over her own sons, and especially had her jealousy been inflamed by the splendid reputation which young Cæsar had gained by the skill and courage wherewith he had defeated the vastly superior navy of Licinius in the straits of the Hellespont. Next to the great emperor himself stood Crispus Cæsar, not only in official station, but in the love and admiration of the world; and her own sons occupied a far less conspicuous position, which was rendered more galling to her pride by the very prominence derived from the fact that they also were the sons of the emperor. Fausta had remarked with secret joy the open aid and friendship showed by Crispus Cæsar for Arius, which fact had aroused the suspicions, as much as the victory of Crispus had excited the jealousy, of the emperor. She failed not, also, to perceive that the devotion of Constantia, the widow of Licinius, and of the Empress Helena, Constantine’s mother, to this same Arius, had created a common interest and friendship between Cæsar, Helena, and Constantia, while Eusebius of Nicomedia was the trusted friend and adviser of all of them, and the tutor of young Licinius. Fausta herself, the daughter of a pagan and the wife of an atheist, was as nearly devoid of religious sentiment as it was ever possible for a woman to become; and, like her husband, thought that all faith is only superstition, which may be advantageously used by a wise ruler for the government of men; and understanding better