His force grew so quickly that the weak and nervous Emperor of the East was disposed to yield him the throne, but his older officers urged him to resist. In the short struggle that followed we meet again the third wife, and widow, of Constantius. Faustina had been _enceinte_ at the death of her husband, and she was living at Constantinople, with her four-year-old daughter, when Procopius made his romantic attempt on the throne. With some shrewdness he withdrew her from her retirement, and associated her with him in his claim. The legitimate dynasty seemed to be wresting the throne from usurpers when the widow and daughter of the son of Constantine appeared at the head of the troops. Even when they marched out to meet the forces of Valens, Faustina, in a litter, accompanied them. But the new hope of Faustina died away as quickly as it had been born. The soldiers were persuaded to return to their allegiance, and the power of Procopius swiftly melted away. Faustina sank again into obscurity, and the adventurous career of Constantia was postponed for some years. Dominica returned to her position in the enervated and luxurious court, and the rest of her life offers little interest. The ecclesiastical historians describe her as egging her husband to persecute the Trinitarians, but we must read the charge with discretion. There is little positive trace of persecution. One day eighty Trinitarian priests came to plead their cause at the court, and Valens is said to have ordered them back to their ship. At some distance from port the vessel was found to be aflame, and the priests were burnt to death. The orthodox writers declare that the vessel was purposely fired, at the command of Valens, but it is impossible to adjust the conflicting statements of the rival schools of theology. Valens was an ardent Arian, but he upheld the principle of religious toleration, and confined theologians to the use of theological weapons. The only occasion on which he is known to have ordered or countenanced violent persecution was in the suppression of magic. In some obscure chamber of the capital a group of men resorted to this dark means of discovering who would be the successor of Valens. Some say that a ring dangling from a mystic tripod spelt out the name on painted letters; some that grains of corn were placed on letters of the alphabet, and, when a cock was admitted to peck them, the order of the letters which it first attacked was noticed. In either case, the result was to give the letters Th E O D. It would be a remarkable forecast, if the story did not belong to a generation after the accession of Theodosius. However, the attempt became known, and a searching inquiry and savage persecution followed. The despicable trade of the informer was encouraged, whole libraries of valuable books were destroyed, and numbers of innocent philosophers and matrons were included in the bloody lists of the condemned.