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artificers urged the conclufion of the work with CHAP. inceffant toil: but the impatience of Conftantine XVII. foon discovered, that, in the decline of the arts, the fkill as well as numbers of his architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatnefs of his defigns. The magiftrates of the most distant provinces were therefore directed to inftitute schools, to appoint profeffors, and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study and practice of architecture a fufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education". The buildings of the new city were executed by fuch artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the hands of the moft celebrated mafters of the age of Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lyfippus, furpaffed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were expofed without defence to the rapacious vanity of a defpot. By his commands the cities of Greece and Afia were defpoiled of their most valuable ornaments 42. The trophies

p. 588. The latter had already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of Cyzicus.

41 See the Codex Theodof. 1. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1. This law is dated in the year 334, and was addreffed to the præfect of Italy, whofe jurifdiction extended over Africa. The commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deferves to be confulted

42 Conftantinopolis dedicatur pœne omnium urbium nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The author of the Antiquitat. Conft. 1. iii. (apud Banduri Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 41.) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens, and a long lift of other cities. The provinces of Greeee and Afia Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.

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CHA P. of memorable wars, the objects of religious ve XVII. neration, the most finished ftatues of the gods and heroes, of the fages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the fplendid triumph of Conftantinople; and gave occafion to the remark of the hiftorian Cedrenus 43, who obferves, with fome enthusiasm, that nothing feemed wanting except the fouls of the illuftrious men whom thofe adinirable monuments were intended to reprefent. But it is not in the city of Conftantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the human mind was depreffed by civil and religious flavery, that we should feek for the fouls of Homer and of Demofthenes.

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During the fiege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the commanding eminence of the fecond hill. To perpetuate the memory of his fuccefs, he chofe the fame advantageous pofition for the principal Forum ** ; which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form. The two oppofite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticoes, which inclofed it on every fide, were filled with ftatues; and the centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of white

43 Hift. Compend. p. 369. He defcribes the ftatus, or rather buft of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly indicates that Cedrenus copied the flyle of a more fortunate age.

44 Zofim. 1. 2. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel Pafchal, p. 284. Ducange Conft. I. i. c. 24. Even the laft of those writers feems to confound the Forum of Conftantine with the Augufteum, or court of the palace. I am not fatisfied whether I have properly diftinguifhed what belongs to the one and the other.

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marble twenty feet high; and was compofed of CHA P. ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference 45. On the fummit of the pillar above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, ftood the coloffal ftatue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was fupposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had reprefented the god of day, or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Conftantine himfelf, with a fceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glit. tering on his head 46. The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth 47. The space between the two meta or goals was filled with ftatues and obelifks; and we may still remark a very fingular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of three ferpents, twisted into one pillar of brafs. Their triple heads had once fupported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was confecrated in the temple of

45 The most tolerable account of this column is given by Pocock. Defcription of the Eaft, vol. ii. part ii. P. 131, But it is fill in many inftances perplexed and unfatisfactory.

46 Ducange Coust. I. i. c. 24. p. 76. and his notes ad Alexiad. p. 382. The ftatue of Conftantine or Apollo was thrown down under the reign of Alexis Comnenus.

47 Tournefort (Lettre XII) computes the Atmeidan at four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet each, it was three hundred toifes in length, about forty more than the great Circus of Rome. See d'Anville Mesures Itineraires,

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Delphi

CHAP. Delphi by the victorious Greeks 4. The beauty XVII. of the Hippodrome has been long fince defaced

by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; but, under the fimilar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence the emperor viewed the Circenfian games, a winding staircase "9 defcended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the refidence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and porticoes, covered a con*fiderable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia ". We might likewife celebrate

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48 The guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be alleged on this occafion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat. Conft. p. 668. Gyllius de Byzant. 1. ii. c. 13, 1. The original confecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may be proved from Herodotus and Paufanias. 2. The Pagan Zofimus agrees with the three ecclefiaftical historians, Eufebius, Socrates, and Sozomen, that the facred ornaments of the temple of Delphi were removed to Conftantipople by the order of Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European travellers who have vifited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to Pocock, defcribe it in the fame place, and almoft in the fame manner; the differences between them are occafioned only by the in. juries which it has fuftained from the Turks. Mahomet the Second broke the under-jaw of one of the ferpents with a stroke of his battle-axe. Thevenot, l. i. c. 17.

49 The Latin name Cochlea was adopted by the Greeks, and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine hiftory. Ducange Const, 1. ii. c. 1. p. 194.

50 There are three topographical points which indicate the fi ation of the palace. 1. The staircase, which connected it with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A fmall artificial port on the Propontis from whence there was an eafy afcent, by a flight of marble steps,

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celebrate the baths, which still retained the name CHA P. of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by XVII. the munificence of Conftantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore ftatues of bronze". But we fhould deviate from the defign of this hiftory, if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be fufficient to obferve, that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Conftantinople. A particular defcription, compofed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three private, baths, fiftytwo porticoes, five granaries, eight aqueducts or refervoirs of water, four fpacious halls for the meetings of the fenate or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thoufand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for their fize or beauty, deferved to be

to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augufteum was a spacious court, one fide, of which was occupied by the front of the palace and another by the church of St. Sophia.

51 Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of affigning their true fituation has not been felt by Ducange. Hiftory feems to connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the original plan, inserted in Banduri, places them on the other fide of the city, near the harbour. For their beauties, fee Chron. Pafchal, p. 285, and Gyllius de Byzant. J. ii. c. 7. Chriftodorus (fee Antiquitat. Conft. 1. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for each of the statutes. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as in birth :

Brotum in craffo jurares aere natum.

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