by some authors named CONSTA'NTIA, daughter of Constantine the Great and Fausta, was married
to Hannibalianus, and received from her father the title of
Augusta. Disappointed in her ambitious hopes by the death of her husband, she
encouraged the revolt of Vetranio [VETRANIO], and is said to have
placed the diadem on his brows with her own hand. She subsequently became the wife of Gallus
Caesar (A. D. 351), and three years afterwards (A.
D. 354) died of a fever in Bithynia. This princess, if we can trust the
highly-coloured picture drawn by Ammianus Marcellinus, must have been a perfect demon in the
human form, a female fury ever thirsting for blood, and stimulating to deeds of violence and
savage atrocity the cruel temper of Gallus, who after her death ascribed many of his former
excesses to her evil promptings.
(Amm. Marc. 14.1, &c.; Aurel. Vict. 41, 42; Julian, Epist. ad Athen. p. 501, ed. 1630; Philostorg. Hist.
Eccl. 3.22, 4.1; Theophan. Chronog. p. 37, ed. 1655.)