Death
Helena is next mentioned by Ammianus as already deceased for some time: Julian "being now an Augustus, he celebrated quinquennial games… While these games were going on, he had sent to Rome the remains of his deceased wife Helena, to be laid to rest in his villa near the city on the Via Nomentana, where also her sister Constantina, formerly the wife of Gallus, was buried." In his assessment of Julian, Ammianus claims Julian practiced chastity and avoided sexual intercourse for the rest of his life. "He was so conspicuous for inviolate chastity that after the loss of his wife it is well known that he never gave a thought to love…" Barnes notes that Ammianus offers much praise of both Julian and Eusebia. In contrast, there is no such praise for Helena, nor an actual assessment of her.
The "Funeral Oration upon the Emperor Julian" by Libanius elaborates on the subject of Julian's chastity: "This was the pleasure our emperor reaped from the length of the nights, whilst others were following the business of Venus. But he was so far from inquiring where there was a fair daughter, or wife, that had he not once been tied by Juno with the bond of marriage, he would have ended his days knowing nothing of sexual intercourse but by name. But as it was he regretted his wife, yet did not touch another woman, either before or after her; being by his constitution enabled to be continent, and his constant occupation in the art of soothsaying concurring to require this restraint."
Gibbon notes that Helena's "pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself." Gibbon used as his source another work by Libanius, "a very weak apology, to justify his hero [Julian] from a very absurd charge of poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother's jewels." Libanius suggests that this rumour, which is only known from this work, was spread by the former praetorian prefect Helpidius and Polycles who he sought to discredit while praising Julian.
An entry of the Liber Pontificalis, the one covering Pope Liberius, mentions Helena being a devout Christian and an adherent of the Nicene Creed. However, like Sozomen, the entry writer confused her with her sister and calls her "Constantia Augusta".
