commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
Forum, which appears to have been of a circular or rather elliptical
form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos
which inclosed it on every side were filled with statues; 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 marble twenty feet high, and
was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
feet in height and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit of
the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the
colossal statue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either
from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work
of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or as it was
afterwards interpreted, the Emperor Constantine himself with a sceptre
in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of
rays glittering on his head. The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately
building about four hundred paces in length and one hundred in breadth.
The space between the two _metae_ or goals was filled with statues and
obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of
antiquity--the bodies of three serpents twisted into one pillar of
brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden tripod which,
after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long since
defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; but under the
similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise
for their horses. From the throne whence the Emperor viewed the
Circensian games, a winding staircase descended to the palace: a
magnificent edifice which scarcely yielded to the residence of Rome
itself, and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and
porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground upon the banks of
the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia.
We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name
of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched by the munificence of
Constantine with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore
statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the design of this history
if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings or quarters
of the city. It may be sufficient to observe 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
Constantinople. A particular description, composed 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, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs
of water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate or courts
of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand three
hundred and eighty-eight houses which for their size or beauty deserved
to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian habitations.
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted and believed
that all the noble families of Rome, the Senate, and the equestrian
order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their Emperor to
the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. In the course of this history
such exaggerations will be reduced to their just value: yet, since the
growth of Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of
mankind and of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony
was raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
opulent senators of Rome and of the eastern provinces were probably
invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate spot
which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a master
are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the liberality of
the Emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his
favorites the palaces which he had built in the several quarters of the
city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity,
and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital. But
these encouragements and obligations soon became superfluous, and were
gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a
considerable part of the public revenue will be expended by the prince
himself, by his ministers, by the officers of justice, and by the
domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the provincials will be
attracted by the powerful motives of interest and duty, of amusement
and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of inhabitants will
insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who
derive their subsistence from their own labor and from the wants or
luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century Constantinople
disputed with Rome itself the pre-eminence of riches and numbers. New
piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health or
convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for the
perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages. The allotted space
of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing people; and the
additional foundations, which on either side were advanced into the sea,
might alone have composed a very considerable city.
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorer citizens
of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
Caesars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople;
but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
has incurred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had
been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
Augustus that in the enjoyment of plenty the Romans should lose the
memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his new
capital was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace at the expense
of the husbandmen of an industrious province. Some other regulations of
this Emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters,
dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
the rising city the title of colony, the first and most favored daughter
of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and
acknowledged supremacy which was due to her age, her dignity, and to the
remembrance of her former greatness.
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a
lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
completed in a few years, or according to another account, in a few
months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
imperfect a manner that under the succeeding reign they were preserved
with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
of a more singular and permanent nature which ought not entirely to be
overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statue of
Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in its right
hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers and clothed in their
richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication an edict,
engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of SECOND or NEW ROME
on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has prevailed
over that honorable epithet, and after the revolution of fourteen
centuries still perpetuates the fame of its author.
CHARACTER OF CONSTANTINE
The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
constitution of his country, has fixed the attention and divided the
opinions of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the
deliverer of the Church has been decorated with every attribute of a
hero and even of a saint, while the discontent of the vanquished party
has compared Constantine to the most abhorred of those tyrants who by
their vice and weakness dishonored the imperial purple. The same
passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations,
and the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial union of
those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers, and of those
virtues which are acknowledged by his most implacable enemies, we might
hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man which the
truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. But it would
soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors and
to reconcile such inconsistent qualities must produce a figure monstrous
rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper and distinct
lights, by a careful separation of the different periods of the reign of
Constantine.
The person as well as the mind of Constantine had been enriched by
nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was lofty, his
countenance majestic, his deportment graceful, his strength and activity
were displayed in every manly exercise, and from his earliest youth to a
very advanced season of life he preserved the vigor of his constitution
by a strict adherence to the domestic virtues of chastity and
temperance. He delighted in the social intercourse of familiar
conversation; and though he might sometimes indulge his disposition to
raillery with less reserve than was required by the severe dignity of
his station, the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the
hearts of all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has
been suspected; yet he showed on some occasions that he was not
incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of an
illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just estimate
of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences derived some
encouragement from the munificent protection of Constantine. In the
dispatch of business, his diligence was indefatigable; and the active
powers of his mind were almost continually exercised in reading,
writing, or meditating, in giving audience to ambassadors, and in
examining the complaints of his subjects. Even those who censured the
propriety of his measures were compelled to acknowledge that he
possessed magnanimity to conceive and patience to execute the most
arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices of
education or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field he infused
his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he conducted with the
talents of a consummate general; and to his abilities, rather than to
his fortune, we may ascribe the signal victories which he obtained over
the foreign and domestic foes of the republic. He loved glory as the
reward, perhaps as the motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition
which, from the moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as
the ruling passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his
own situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness of
superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would enable him to
restore peace and order to the distracted empire. In his civil wars
against Maxentius and Licinius he had engaged on his side the
inclinations of the people, who compared the undissembled vices of those
tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to direct the
general tenor of the administration of Constantine.
Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tiber, or even in the plains
of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few exceptions, he
might have transmitted to posterity. But the conclusion of his reign
(according to the moderate and indeed tender sentence of a writer of the
same age) degraded him from the rank which he had acquired among the
most deserving of the Roman princes. In the life of Augustus we behold
the tyrant of the republic converted, almost by imperceptible degrees,
into the father of his country and of human kind. In that of Constantine
we may contemplate a hero who had so long inspired his subjects with
love and his enemies with terror, degenerating into a cruel and
dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune or raised by conquest above
the necessity of dissimulation. The general peace which he maintained
during the last fourteen years of his reign was a period of apparent
splendor rather than of real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine
was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness
and prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
Maxentius and Licinius were lavishly consumed; the various innovations
introduced by the conqueror were attended with an increasing expense;
the cost of his buildings, his court, and his festivals required an
immediate and plentiful supply; and the oppression of the people was the
only fund which could support the magnificence of the sovereign. His
unworthy favorites, enriched by the boundless liberality of their
master, usurped with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. A
secret but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration; and the Emperor himself, though he still retained the
obedience, gradually lost the esteem of his subjects. The dress and
manners which towards the decline of life he chose to affect, served
only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The Asiatic pomp which had
been adopted by the pride of Diocletian assumed an air of softness and
effeminacy in the person of Constantine. He is represented with false
hair of various colors, laboriously arranged by the skillful artists of
the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of
gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing robe
of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In such
apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of Elagabulus, we
are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged monarch and the
simplicity of a Roman veteran. A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and
indulgence was incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains
suspicion and dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may
perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy as they are taught in the
schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or
rather murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who could
sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice and the feelings of
nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of his interest.
The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
Constantine seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his domestic
life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the longest and most
prosperous reigns, Augustus, Trajan, and Diocletian, had been
disappointed of posterity; and the frequent revolutions had never
allowed sufficient time for any imperial family to grow up and multiply
under the shade of the purple. But the royalty of the Flavian line,
which had been first ennobled by the Gothic Claudius, descended through
several generations; and Constantine himself derived from his royal
father the hereditary honors which he transmitted to his children. The
Emperor had been twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object
of his youthful attachment, had left him only one son, who was called
Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three daughters,
and three sons known by the kindred names of Constantine, Constantius,
and Constans. The unambitious brothers of the great Constantine, Julius
Constantius, Dalmatius, and Hannibalianus, were permitted to enjoy the
most honorable rank and the most affluent fortune that could be
consistent with a private station. The youngest of the three lived
without a name and died without posterity. His two elder brothers
obtained in marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated
new branches of the imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards became
the most illustrious of the children of Julius Constantius the
_Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had been decorated with the
vain title of _censor_, were named Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two
sisters of the great Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed
on Optatus and Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular
dignity. His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her
pre-eminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of the
vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties that an innocent boy,
the offspring of their marriage, preserved for some time his life, the
title of Caesar, and a precarious hope of the succession. Besides the
females and the allies of the Flavian house, ten or twelve males to whom
the language of modern courts would apply the title of princes of the
blood, seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined
either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in less
than thirty years this numerous and increasing family was reduced to the
persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had survived a series of
crimes and calamities such as the tragic poets have deplored in the
devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.
DEATH OF JULIAN
While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties of his
situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study and
contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted
slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be
thought surprising that the Genius of the Empire should once more appear
before him, covering with a funeral veil his head and his horn of
abundance, and slowly retiring from the imperial tent. The monarch
started from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied
spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor
which shot athwart the sky and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; the council
which he summoned of Tuscan Haruspices unanimously pronounced that he
should abstain from action; but on this occasion necessity and reason
were more prevalent than superstition, and the trumpets sounded at the
break of day. The army marched through a hilly country, and the hills
had been secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the
skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by the
intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of the
weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he snatched a
shield from one of his attendants and hastened with a sufficient
reinforcement to the relief of the rear guard. A similar danger recalled
the intrepid prince to the defense of the front; and as he galloped
between the columns, the centre of the left was attacked and almost
overpowered by a furious charge of the Persian cavalry and elephants.
This huge body was soon defeated by the well-timed evolution of the
light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect,
against the backs of the horsemen and the legs of the elephants. The
Barbarians fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated
the pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards, scattered
and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and enemies, reminded
their fearless sovereign that he was without armor, and conjured him to
decline the fall of the impending ruin. As they exclaimed, a cloud of
darts and arrows was discharged from the flying squadrons; and a
javelin, after razing the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs and
fixed in the inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the
deadly weapon from his side, but his fingers were cut by the sharpness
of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards flew to
his relief, and the wounded Emperor was gently raised from the ground
and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle into an adjacent tent. The
report of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank; but the grief
of the Romans inspired them with invincible valor and the desire of
revenge. The bloody and obstinate conflict was maintained by the two
armies till they were separated by the total darkness of the night. The
Persians derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained
against the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was
slain, and the praefect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of
the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field, their
two generals Meranes and Nohordates, fifty nobles or satraps, and a
multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the success of the Romans, if
Julian had survived, might have been improved into a decisive and useful
victory.