THE MAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE UNDER THEODOSIUS II.
408-447 A.D.
SUCH ornamental public works, as have been described, were, like the
blossoms on a plant, indications of the general growth and flourishing
state of the city. In point of fact, we learn from historians of the
times that the population increased at an extraordinary rate, and put a
severe strain upon an adequate supply of food and of sufficient
accommodation. The ships importing wheat from Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria,
and Phoenicia had all they could do to provide enough bread for the
hungry multitudes of the new capital. The dwellings in the city were so
closely packed, that the inhabitants, both at home and out of doors,
felt cribbed, coffined, and confined. The narrow streets were so
encumbered with beasts of burden carrying building material in all
directions, that it was dangerous to walk abroad. Ground for building
had become so scarce that land had to be made by filling in portions of
sea along the shores of the city, and the houses on that artificial
ground alone formed a considerable town. And so the time came when it
was no longer possible to keep the city within the bounds prescribed by
its founder, and measures had to be taken to give Constantinople the
size and strength required by the altered circumstances of its history.
This was done in 413, early in the reign of Theodosius II., and
eighty-five years after the foundation of the city. The western limits
of New Rome were then carried to the line of fortifications, whose
ruins, like veteran warriors loth to quit their post, stretch to-day
from the Sea of Marmora to the old Byzantine Palace, known by the
Turkish name Tekfour Serai. At the latter point the new bulwarks joined
the walls which guarded the outlying 14th ward, the suburb of Blachernæ,
and thus enclosed the city down to the Golden Horn. By this change the
area of Constantinople was almost doubled, and reached its final size.
Any additions to the dimensions of the city after 413, as in the 7th
century when the tract now occupied by the quarter of Aivan Serai was
enclosed, or again in the 11th century when the Palace of Blachernæ was
protected by new ramparts, were extremely insignificant additions, and
were made not for the sake of obtaining more room but for strategic
reasons.
[Illustration: FLOWER-SELLERS
Some of the gypsies wear garments rivalling in brilliancy the flowers
they sell.]
This extension of the city's limits involved, of course, the erection of
new fortifications. Indeed the demand to make the capital of the East a
mightier stronghold was not less urgent than the necessity to enlarge
its borders. No statesman of the 5th century of our era could fail to
realise the formidable character of the barbarian peril which then
lowered over the Empire. A period in which an Alaric, an Attila, a
Genseric, insulted the majesty of the Roman name, and trampled upon
Roman strength, a period in which the Eternal City was captured and
sacked, in which Carthage was lost, and the original fabric of the
Empire in the West was levelled to the ground, must have been a time
when the minds of serious men were troubled by fears and anxieties.
These disasters necessarily cast, ere they came, long and dark shadows
before them.
Most fortunately for the eastern division of the Empire it had, early in
this critical period, a statesman at the head of the Government who
comprehended the situation, and who had the sagacity to devise measures
by which the strength of the impending storm might be greatly reduced,
if not broken. During the first six years of the reign of Theodosius
II., who ascended the throne when a child of eight years, the government
was in the hands of Anthemius, the Prætorian Prefect of the East. His
abilities and character had already made him conspicuous towards the
close of the reign of Arcadius. Chrysostom admired him greatly, and
described him as a person who honoured any office he held more than the
office honoured him. And now that he was Regent of the Empire he did all
in his power to prepare the ship of State to encounter the coming
tempest. His first step for that purpose was to establish peace with
Persia, the standing rival and foe of the Empire. In the next place, he
forced the Huns who had appeared to the south of the Danube to retrace
their steps, and placed a flotilla of warships upon the river to prevent
the return of those fierce barbarians. At the same time he strengthened
also the Illyrian fortresses to render the north-western frontier more
secure. Then, warned by a bread riot in Constantinople due to a scarcity
of wheat in the city, he made arrangements for a more regular supply of
grain from Egypt, thus making the population of the capital more
friendly to the Government. And lastly, as the crowning act of his
administration, he decided to array the city in new and better armour,
and make it the strongest citadel in the Roman world. The great wall,
flanked by ninety-six towers, which forms the innermost line of the
fortifications along the landward side of the city, notwithstanding the
changes it has undergone since his day, is even in its ruins, a
magnificent monument to his wisdom, and to his devotion to the public
weal. Those ramparts proved the shield of European civilisation for more
than a thousand years. Their erection was one of those great acts in
history which confer priceless benefits on mankind.
The change made by Anthemius in the position of the landward walls
involved also the extension of the seaward fortifications to join the
extremities of the new western limits. But, although that work must have
been included in the plans of Anthemius, it was postponed for no less
than a quarter of a century. Lack of funds, or the demands of more
urgent necessities, or that happy sense of security from naval attack,
in which the Government of Constantinople was tempted to indulge, in
view of the city's geographical position, may account for the delay.
But whatever the explanation of the postponement, the gap in the
defences of the capital could not be left open indefinitely, and at
length, in 439, the thirty-first year of the reign of Theodosius II.,
the shores of the city were enclosed by Cyrus, the then Prefect of the
city. It was the year in which the Vandals took Carthage, and possibly
the alarm excited by their successes in Africa roused Constantinople to
defend itself at every point.
[Illustration: CARPET-MENDERS
These boys are engaged in patching up the holes in old carpets; they are
very skilful in matching the faded colours that are so highly prized in
the genuine antique.]
Scarcely, however, had the city girded on its full armour, when, in the
year 447, one of those violent earthquakes, to which Constantinople was
liable, shook the city, and overthrew a large portion of the wall of
Anthemius, with fifty-seven of its towers. The seaward walls of Cyrus
were also injured at the same time. Struck with panic, the population
rushed from the city to the open country, as far away as the plains
about the suburb of the Hebdomon (Makrikeui), and there, with Emperor,
Senate, and clergy, offered prayers and supplication that the quaking
earth should keep still. It was a terrible catastrophe under any
circumstances, but it was the more so at the moment when Attila was
sweeping everything before him in his advance upon the city. The crisis
was, however, met with extraordinary energy. Under the direction of the
Prefect Constantine (whom some authorities identify with Cyrus) the
calamity which had overtaken the city was turned into an opportunity of
building more formidable fortifications than those which had been
destroyed. Requisitions of money and materials were made upon the
citizens, and the Factions of the Hippodrome now vied with each other in
the race to build the most and the fastest. Not only was the wall of
Anthemius repaired, but at a distance of about twenty yards in front of
it was placed a second wall, also flanked with ninety-six towers, and
then at a distance of some twenty yards from the latter line a broad and
deep moat was constructed, with a battlement breast-high surmounting its
inner side. So vigorously was the work pressed forward that the second
wall was completed in two months. Thus, the capital stood behind a
barricade 190-207 feet thick and 100 feet high, comprising four lines of
defence, that rose tier above tier to permit concerted action, with
ample room for the operation of large bodies of troops, and affording
numerous points of vantage from which to pour upon an enemy every
missile of death in the arsenal of ancient warfare--arrows, stones, and
Greek fire. If men did their duty, the city was now impregnable, while
the Prefect Constantine earned the right to be associated with
Anthemius, as one of the forgers of the weapons with which
Constantinople defended the higher life of mankind against the assaults
of barbarism for ten centuries. Two inscriptions on the Gate Yeni
Mevlevi Khaneh Kapoussi (the ancient Gate of Rhegium)--one in Greek, the
other in Latin--have proclaimed the services of the Prefect Constantine
from his day to the present time. "In sixty days, at the command of the
sceptre-loving Emperor, Constantine the Eparch built wall to wall," says
the former in modest terms. The Latin legend breathes the pride and
satisfaction which the work inspired. "By the commands of Theodosius,
the second month not being completed, Constantine set up these strong
fortifications. Scarcely could Pallas have built so quickly so firm a
citadel."
But the erection of the new walls of the capital was not by any means
all the building done in Constantinople during the reign of Theodosius
II. The area added to the city naturally offered a wide field for
further construction. Much damage caused to the older portions of the
city by frequent fires and repeated earthquakes in the course of the
Emperor's reign, or shortly before it, had also to be made good. The
Church of S. Sophia, and probably the adjoining Senate-House, now rose
from the ashes to which they had been reduced when Chrysostom was
exiled. The Baths of Achilles and the Public Granaries in the vicinity,
destroyed in the fire which burnt down the quarter now marked by the
Stamboul Custom House, were likewise rebuilt at this time. To the
ornaments of the Hippodrome were now added the four gilt bronze horses
of Lysippus, which to-day adorn the Church of S. Mark at Venice, whither
they were carried as trophies of the capture of Constantinople, in 1204,
by the fleet of the Doge Henrico Dandolo.
In this work of city improvement no one made himself so prominent as the
Prefect Cyrus, already mentioned as concerned in the fortification of
the shores of the city. He was a poet, a student of art and
architecture, and, if not a pagan, strongly imbued with the spirit of
the old faith. Moreover, he was distinguished for great integrity, a
rare virtue among the officials of the day, and, in consequence, had
been appointed simultaneously Prætorian Prefect of the East and Prefect
of the city four times. It was doubtless with the view of checking
corrupt practices that he restricted the powers of the Prefect of the
city in the administration of the municipal revenues. Among the
improvements he introduced, the proper lighting of shops in the evening
is mentioned. His character and services made him immensely popular; but
the fact did not make him happier. The dread of the fickleness of
fortune ever cast its shadow over his mind, and he was often heard to
say, "I do not like Fortune when she smiles much." At length, his worst
fears were realised. Taking his seat one day in the Hippodrome, he
received a great ovation from the vast crowds assembled to witness the
races. "Constantine," they shouted, "founded the city; Cyrus has
restored it." Never had the capricious goddess smiled so benignantly
upon him, and never did she prove more treacherous. Such popularity
offended Theodosius, and he decided to break the idol of the people to
pieces. Cyrus was dismissed from office, deprived of his property, and
reduced to a political nonentity, by being consecrated Bishop of Smyrna
or of Cotæum in Phrygia. Such a proceeding appears very strange, but
probably we are ignorant of facts which would explain this
transformation of a pagan official into a Christian priest. One can
hardly believe that a man like Cyrus was insincere in his new character.
[Illustration: FRUIT-MARKET, STAMBOUL
The street dogs always select the busiest and most inconvenient places
for resting.]
The post assigned to the ex-Prefect was not attractive. Four of his
predecessors in the diocese had been murdered by brigands, and the
people committed to his care doubted the soundness of his faith. But in
a sermon preached on Christmas Day he conciliated his flock by orthodox
statements, pointing out at the same time that the mystery before their
minds was most honoured by silence. And he died unmolested by robbers.
It is curious to observe, in passing, how punishment here assumes a
religious form, and how men tried to hide their cruelty under the
pretence of doing good to the souls of their victims. In the subsequent
history of Constantinople, this species of penalty became common. It was
a symptom at once of the mildness and the meanness of the times.
But the reign of Theodosius II. is not distinguished only for the
material growth of Constantinople. It is not less memorable for the
advance of the city in its intellectual character, as the nursery of
learning and the seat of justice. In this reign the University of
Constantinople was opened. It found a home in the building known as the
Capitol, on the hill now occupied by the Turkish War Office. Judging
from the descriptions we have of the building, it resembled in its
arrangements a Turkish theological school, _medresseh_,--an open court,
surrounded by class-rooms on the level of the court. Some of the rooms
were spacious halls, richly decorated, and accommodating large
audiences. The studies pursued were chiefly grammar, rhetoric, and
literature, both in Latin and in Greek, there being thirteen professors
for these studies in the former language and fifteen in the latter. To
philosophy only one professor was assigned, while the department of law
was in charge of two professors. In the charter, so to speak, of the
University, particular stress is laid upon the need of a separate
class-room for each teacher, lest the different classes should disturb
one another by simultaneous talking and variety of languages, with the
result that the ears and minds of the students would be diverted from
their proper occupation. A candidate for a professor's chair was
required to undergo an examination before the Senate both as to his
learning and his character. After twenty years' service a professor was
rewarded with the title of a Count of the Empire. Only the professors
attached to the University were allowed to lecture in public, and they
were not permitted to give private instruction. The foundation of the
University had two objects mainly in view--to prepare young men for the
civil service, and to supersede the pagan schools of learning. It had
certainly a lofty ideal, for, in the language of an inscription that
refers to the institution, it was to be "a glory to scholars, an
ornament to the city, the hope of youth, weapons to virtue, and wealth
to the good." Thus, while the shadows of ignorance were gathering to
settle down upon western Europe, the light of knowledge was kept burning
in the capital of the East until the darkness passed away. The study of
Latin indeed was erelong abandoned in Constantinople, but Greek learning
had always its friends there, who handed that treasure down from century
to century, and bequeathed it at last to safer keeping and wider use.
Another act that does honour to the reign of Theodosius II. is the
codification of the laws enacted since the time of Constantine the
Great. The compilation took nine years to be made, and is known as the
Theodosian Code. How great a need it supplied is quaintly set forth in
the preamble to the Code. "The chaos presented by the state in which the
laws were found was such that few persons had an adequate knowledge of
the subject, even though their faces have grown pale from late
lucubrations." "When we consider," to quote Professor Bury's
translation, "the enormous multitude of books, the divers modes of
process, and the difficulty of legal cases, and further the hugeness of
imperial constitutions, which, hidden as it were under a veil of gross
mist and darkness, precludes men's intellects from gaining a knowledge
of them, we feel that we have met a real need of our age, and,
dispelling the darkness, have given light to the laws by a short
compendium."
[Illustration: CARPET WAREHOUSE
The interior of an old Khan now used as a show-room for antique rugs and
carpets.]
On 23rd December of the year 438, the Code compiled at Constantinople
was presented to the Senate of Rome and recognised by that body. It was
a curious reversal of the part which the elder city had acted in the
world. The teacher had become the pupil. Or is it truer to say, the
pupil then did homage to the teacher? The Theodosian Code was superseded
by the Code of Justinian the Great, but the earlier compilation retains
the honour of being the first great legal instrument to confer upon New
Rome the distinction of becoming the tribunal which has guided the most
civilised nations of the world into the paths of righteousness and
justice in the dealings between man and man. Into the religious
controversies which agitated Constantinople while Theodosius II. was
upon the throne, this is not the place to enter. But Constantinople
would not have been itself without a hard theological problem to
discuss, if not to solve, and we do not know the soul, so to speak, of
Constantinople unless we recognise what may be termed the religious
temperament of the city. At a period, indeed, when a great religious
revolution in the faith of men had taken place, and men were called to
make clear to themselves what exactly they believed, and how their
beliefs were to be harmonised with their philosophy and the general
principles of reason, religious questions could not fail to be prominent
everywhere. They were as naturally prominent in the fourth and fifth
centuries of our era, when Christianity became the religion of the
State, as they were at the time of the Reformation. But Constantinople
made these questions peculiarly its own. It could not well be otherwise
where the seat of the chief bishop of the Church in the East was found,
and in the capital of a Government which concerned itself in these
debates as matters of political importance. Nor can it be denied that in
the discussion of the subjects before the public mind we often witness
great intellectual acumen, and a profound religious spirit. Able and
pious men anxiously sought to reconcile faith in the unity of the
Divine, with faith in the intimate oneness between the Divine and the
human manifested in the life of Christ. No age is dishonoured by keen
interest in that theme.
[Illustration: SHOEMAKER, STAMBOUL
His business plant consists of an awning propped up against the wall of
a fountain and a few broken-down old stools.]
On the other hand, these discussions sometimes degenerated into idle
debate, and displayed some of the most odious feelings of human nature.
And Constantinople laid itself open to the well-known satirical
description of its theological bias by Gregory of Nyssa. "The city is
full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians,
and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to
change a piece of money for you, he informs you wherein the Son differs
from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of
reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether
the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son was made out of nothing."
Under Theodosius II., the interest taken by the citizens of
Constantinople in theological controversy was all the greater, inasmuch
as the points at issue were raised by religious teachers in the capital
itself; one of the heretics being no less a personage than Nestorius,
the patriarch of the city. He denied the propriety of the epithet,
Theotokos, Mother of God, commonly bestowed upon the Mother of our
Lord. A great controversy followed, in which all classes of society,
from the Emperor and his family to the monks and populace, took part,
and displayed, as usual in such cases, a spirit unworthy of the
Christian name. So great was the commotion caused by the questions in
dispute, that two General Councils of the Church--that of Ephesus in
431, and that of Chalcedon in 451--were convened to affirm the orthodox
faith, if not to restore peace. And thus for some twenty years people in
Constantinople had all the theology they could wish to discuss. One
result of these religious troubles was to evoke the latent antagonism
between the different races which composed the population of the Empire.
Under the guise of religious differences, national diversities asserted
themselves. Rome and Constantinople, the West and the East, did not
learn to love each other better in the heat of such debates. While from
the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenian Church
and the Coptic Church date, respectively, their separation from the main
body of Christendom. The extent to which religious and political
aspirations are associated in the minds of the populations of the modern
East casts much light upon the formation of different Churches along
national lines in the earlier days of the Christian world, and also
enables us to understand why religious conflicts caused so much anxiety
to the imperial Government of New Rome.
Another feature in the religious life of Constantinople that became very
distinct in the time of Theodosius II., was the veneration cherished for
relics, and the growing desire to consecrate and enrich the city by
their presence. The body of Chrysostom was taken from its grave in
Pityus and entombed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as an act of
reparation for the wrongs he had suffered, and as an atonement for the
sins of his persecutors. The supposed relics of Joseph and of Zacharias,
on their arrival in the city, were received with great pomp by the
Emperor, the Senate, and great officials, as though the saints were
being welcomed in person. Pulcheria brought the relics of the Forty
Saints martyred at Sivas, and enshrined them in a church she erected on
the Xerolophus. To her also is ascribed the foundation of the three
principal churches dedicated to the Mother of the Lord, S. Mary of
Blachernæ, S. Mary Chalcoprateia and S. Mary Hodegetria, to become
treasuries rich in relics of the Theotokos. The Empress Eudocia, on her
return to Constantinople from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, brought with
her, besides other relics, the portrait of Christ ascribed to S. Luke.
In this way, Constantinople grew to be a sacred city, a sanctuary to
which pilgrims came to acquire merit and receive benefits, almost as
great as those obtained by a pilgrimage to the land over whose acres
walked the blessed feet of the Saviour.
To omit all reference, however brief, to the influence of ladies in the
public life of Constantinople while Theodosius II. occupied the throne,
would be to omit an important feature of the time; a feature which often
reappeared in the subsequent life of the Empire, and profoundly affected
the course of its history. Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius II., was
the power behind her brother's throne. She directed his education,
arranged his marriage, and was, with brief interruptions, the presiding
genius of his career. The vow of virginity which she had taken, and
which she persuaded her sisters to take, her charities, her activity in
building churches, her orthodoxy, all rendered her popular in devout
circles and with the dominant ecclesiastical party. To her was due the
strong religious tone of the Court, and in the theological disputes
that agitated the Church and the State in her day she took an active
interest, and helped materially to determine the particular form of
their settlement. Her opposition to Nestorius and Eutychius had much to
do with the condemnation of their views. And notwithstanding the
occasional loss of her influence over a brother who was too weak to
adhere steadily to a single course, she triumphed at last over all her
rivals, and upon his death mounted the throne as the consort of Marcian.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE, ROUMELI HISSAR
Roumeli Hissar is the most interesting of the many Turkish villages on
the shores of the Bosporus.]
The story of Athenaïs, and her marriage to Theodosius II., is well
known, but it will always retain the attraction which belongs to a life
in which romance and tragedy acted their opposite parts. A beautiful and
talented girl, brought up as a pagan by her father Leontius, who
cultivated philosophy in the schools of Athens, she came to
Constantinople to seek redress for what she deemed a great wrong. Her
father, at his death, had divided his fortune between his sons, and left
her to struggle with the world almost penniless. This arrangement was a
philosopher's eccentric way of indicating his appreciation of his
daughter's loveliness and genius, and his confidence that they would win
greater success for their possessor than any prosperity his money could
ever secure. But either because of her modesty or her practical sense,
Athenaïs differed from her father on that point, and wished his decision
reversed. We can readily imagine how her story would circulate in the
society of the capital, and make its heroine a topic of general
conversation and interest. It raised so many questions to discuss, it
appealed to the sympathy of so many feelings. Naturally, the charming
girl was introduced to Pulcheria. She soon won the affection and
admiration of the princess, under whose austerities a woman's heart
still beat, and it was not long before Pulcheria thought she could do
more for Athenaïs than obtain for her a share in the fortune of
Leontius. In fact she considered no one so fit to become the Emperor's
wife. The interest of Theodosius was readily excited by a description of
the maiden's charms: large eyes, the nose of Aphrodite, a fair
complexion, golden hair, a slender figure, graceful manners, clever,
accomplished, and "of wondrous virtues." Accompanied by his friend
Paulinus, he went to his sister's apartments, and standing concealed
behind a curtain, saw the fair form and was conquered. So Athenaïs
received baptism, and under the name of Eudocia became the bride of the
Emperor of the East. Like Portia, her father had scanted her and
hedged her by his wit that she might reach the pinnacle of human joys.
And with the spirit of Joseph in Egypt, she forgave the brothers who had
injured her, summoned them to Constantinople, and secured for them high
positions. Her talents appeared in her writings, and in her friendship
with the most intelligent men of the day. But erelong clouds began to
gather on this sunny sky. First came the natural rivalry between herself
and Pulcheria as to whether a wife's influence or a sister's would be
stronger over the mind of the Emperor; then estrangement, due to their
different temperaments and education; then diversity of theological
opinion, Eudocia taking the side opposite to Pulcheria in the
controversy raised by Nestorius. But perhaps these clouds might have
passed away, and the heavens grown radiant again, had not the friendship
between the Empress and Paulinus aroused the jealousy of Theodosius, and
excited his worst suspicions. According to a discredited tale the crisis
was brought about under the following circumstances--"One day the
Emperor was met by a peasant who presented him with a Phrygian apple of
enormous size, so that the whole Court marvelled at it. And he gave the
man a hundred and fifty gold pieces in reward, and sent the apple to
the Empress Eudocia. But she sent it, as a present to Paulinus, the
Master of the Offices, because he was a friend of the Emperor. But
Paulinus, not knowing the history of the apple, took it and gave it to
the Emperor as he reëntered the palace. And Theodosius having received
it, recognised it and concealed it, and calling his wife asked her,
"Where is the apple that I sent you?" She replied, "I have eaten it."
Then he bade her swear by his salvation the truth, whether she had eaten
it or sent it to some one. And Eudocia swore that she had sent it to no
man, but had herself eaten it. Then the Emperor showed her the apple,
and was exceedingly angry, suspecting that she was enamoured of
Paulinus, and had sent it to him as a love-gift; for he was a very
handsome man." But however idle this tale may be, the fact is that
Paulinus was put to death, and the Empress was banished to Jerusalem.
She spent the last sixteen years of her life there in retirement and
abounding charities, and died protesting her innocence.
[Illustration: GRAND BAZAAR, STAMBOUL
One of its many vault-like passages in which the merchants are
displaying their goods.]
Before concluding this account of the making of Constantinople, we must
note another of the characteristics which the city gradually manifested
in the development of its life--the tendency to cease to be Roman and
to become Greek. It is true, that in one sense Constantinople always
remained Roman, and this character of the city should never be ignored.
The people preferred to be known as Romans rather than by any other
name. No title of the Eastern Emperors was so glorious in their view as
to be styled the Great Emperor of the Romans. Roman law ruled in the
Empire of which Constantinople was the head. The autocratic power
inherited from strictly Roman days was maintained there to the last.
Names of offices, epithets of officials, the denomination of taxes,
legends upon the coinage of the realm, the terms in which Emperors were
acclaimed by the army or the Factions were long preserved in their old
Latin forms, but slightly, if at all, altered, and showed clearly the
family connection that bound Rome upon the Bosporus to Rome upon the
Tiber. Nevertheless, the daughter-city, though proud of her lineage, was
also eager to declare her independence and to assert her individuality.
It could not be otherwise. A city exalted to be the capital of the part
of the Empire under the sway of Greek traditions, and employing the
Greek language as a vernacular speech, would inevitably consider itself
called upon to embody and champion the peculiar properties of the
society of which it was the constituted head. Nor could a community
whose religious life was under the direction of a Church that worshipped
in the Greek tongue, and was stirred by the eloquence of the
Chrysostoms, the Gregories, and the Basils of the East retain a Roman
complexion and character without serious modifications. So long, indeed,
as the western division of the Empire existed, the political union
between Rome and Constantinople proved a check upon the Greek bias of
the latter city, owing to the necessity of using Latin, as the language
whose writ could run equally in both parts of the Roman world. The Popes
of Rome, with characteristic insight, recognised the value of a common
official language as a bond of unity, and an instrument of maintaining
universal rule. The use of the Latin in the services and administration
of the Roman Church is a master-stroke of political genius. But when
partly by the estrangement of the two portions of the Empire, and partly
by the Fall of the Empire in the West, the need of a common speech
ceased to exist, the stream of tendency in the East was left free to
follow its natural bent.
[Illustration: A BLACKSMITH'S SHOP]
Within the period under review we see, of course, only the early
symptoms of the Greek bias to gain ascendency, but though these symptoms
are comparatively slight, they are the proverbial straws that indicate
the direction of the wind. While Latin alone glitters in the
inscriptions upon the Golden Gate, Greek also is allowed a place in the
legends which celebrate the elevation of the obelisk upon its pedestal
in the Hippodrome. The pedestal adorned by the statue of the Empress
Eudoxia likewise bore a bilingual inscription. The extraordinary energy
displayed by the Prefect Constantine in the erection of the outer
Theodosian Wall is lauded, on the Gate of Rhegium, in both languages.
Probably the same was the case in the record of that splendid
achievement put upon another gate of the fortifications--the Gate
Xylokerkou--although the historian, owing doubtless to his ignorance of
Latin, has preserved only the Greek version. But the balance inclines in
favour of Greek, when, at the University of Constantinople, there are
more professors attached to the studies in that language than to the
studies in the tongue of the elder Rome. At the same time also, the
Prefect Cyrus introduced the custom of publishing decrees in Greek
instead of in Latin. And along with this preference for Greek in speech,
there is a marked growth of what was Greek in spirit. Thus in the
relations between the Empire and Persia, as well as in the relations
between the Empire and the barbarians, the Government of Constantinople
depends now for success rather upon the devices of diplomacy than upon
the force of arms. The negotiations between the Court of Theodosius II.
and Attila are a remarkable chapter in the history of the diplomatic
art--not of the noblest character. When Marcian replied to the demand of
Attila for an increase of the tribute paid to the chief of the Huns by
the Government of Constantinople, in the haughty terms, "We give gold to
our friends, and steel to our enemies," words were spoken that had
become somewhat unfamiliar, while the first Greek Emperor, as Theodosius
II. has been styled, sat upon the throne.
Furthermore, it is the Greek spirit, not the Roman, that appears in the
theological speculations of the Eastern Church, in the stress laid on
correct thinking, and in the philosophical development of Christian
dogma. After making every allowance for the vast difference between the
splendid genius of Ancient Greece and the mental life that flourished in
New Rome, it does not seem too much to say, that the old intellectual
temperament of Hellas survived and prevailed in the capital of the
East. There was undoubtedly, at all times, enough and to spare of
ignorance, superstition, and narrow-mindedness in Constantinople, but no
period in the history of the Byzantine world quite corresponds to the
Dark Ages in Western Europe. As in the Parthenon on the Acropolis of the
city with the violet crown, so, under the dome of S. Sophia, beside the
blue waters of the Bosporus, men agreed that the highest attribute of
the Divine, and the ideal of human attainment, is Wisdom.