forseeing an explosion of imperial rage, which would sweep them all away, hastened to receive the sacrament of regeneration, and then Claudius and Maximus calmly informed the emperor that the maiden preferred a heavenly to an earthly crown. Diocletian was furious, and gave over Maximus, Claudius, and the whole family to be disposed of by one Julian, a heathen favourite, and apparently personally hostile to Maximus and Claudius. He hurried these brothers, with the wife and sons of Claudius, to Cumæ, where they were burnt alive, and their ashes cast into the river. Gabinius and his daughter Susanna were reserved in prison to suffer later. SS. CONSTANTIA, AND HER COMPANIONS, VV. (4TH CENT.) [In some authors on Jan. 28th; in others, on Feb. 17th; in others, on Feb, 25th; also on Feb. 18th. Authority:--The Acts of S. Agnes, attributed to S. Ambrose, but of questionable authenticity; and the apocryphal Acts of SS. John and Paul.] S. Constantia, daughter of Constantine the Great, was afflicted with a distressing disease, apparently scrofula. The Roman general, Gallicanus, being much in favour with Contantine, and having lost his wife, was offered Constantia in marriage by the emperor. Gallicanus was called off to oppose an inroad of the barbarians on Thrace, and he vowed, if he obtained the victory, to accept the faith of Christ. He succeeded in repulsing the enemy, and returned to Rome to find that Constantia had been healed of her scrofula at the tomb of S. Agnes, and that she had persuaded his three daughters, Augusta, Attica, and Artemia, to live with her, as consecrated virgins, near the shrine of the virgin martyr, to whose intercession she attributed her cure. It is difficult to decide what shadow of historical foundation there is for this story. S. FLAVIAN OF CONSTANTINOPLE, B. M. (A.D. 449.) [Roman Martyrology; but by the Greeks on Feb. 16th. Authorities:--Nicephorus Callistus, Evagrius, and the letters of S. Leo the Great to Flavian.[54]]