We have spoken of a marked degeneracy observable in Constantine as his life drew to a close. Perhaps the clearest proof of this is to be found in a momentous step taken by him in 335, when he divided the sovereignty of the world among his heirs. Such a partition meant the stultification of his political career, for he thus destroyed at a blow the political unity which he had so laboriously restored out of the wreck of the system of Diocletian. Eusebius gives us the truth in a single sentence when he says that Constantine treated the Empire for the purposes of this division as though he were apportioning his private patrimony among members of his own family.[133] He was much more concerned to make handsome provision for his sons and nephews than to secure the peace and well-being of his subjects. Crispus had now been dead nine years, and the three sons of Constantine and Fausta were still young, the eldest being only just twenty-one. Eusebius tells us how carefully they had been trained. They had been instructed in all martial exercises, and special professors had been engaged to make them proficient in political affairs and a knowledge of the laws. Their religious education had been personally supervised by their father, who zealously sowed “the seeds of godly reverence” and impressed upon them that “a knowledge of God, who is the king of all things, and true piety were more deserving of honour than riches or even than sovereignty itself.” Admirable precepts and Eusebius declares again and again that this “Trinity of Princes”—so he calls them in one place—were models of deportment, modesty, and piety. Unfortunately, we know how emphatically their future careers belied their early promise and the eulogies of the Bishop of Cæsarea. We do not doubt his statement that Constantine spared no effort to educate them aright, but it was most unfortunate that the remarkable success of their father’s political career bore testimony rather to the efficacy of ambition without scruple than of “godly reverence and true piety.” ----- Footnote 133: οἷα τινα πατρώαν οὐσίαν τοὶς αὐτõυ κληροδοτῶν φιλτάτοις. -----