THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE
We come now to the greatest political achievement of Constantine’s
reign—the foundation of a new Rome. Let us ask at the outset what led
him to take a step so decisive as the transference of the world’s
metropolis from the Italian peninsula to the borders of Europe and Asia.
The assignation of merely personal motives will not suffice. We are told
by Zosimus that Rome was distasteful to Constantine, because it reminded
him of the son and the wife who had fallen victims to his savage
resentment. He was uneasy in the palace on the Palatine, whose very
stones suggested murder and sudden death, and whose walls were cognisant
of unnumbered treasons. What Zosimus says may very well be true.
Constantine’s conscience was likely to give him less peace in Rome than
elsewhere. But the personal wishes of even the greatest men cannot bind
the generations which come after them. There have been cities founded by
the caprice of royal tyrants which have flourished for a season and then
vanished. Seleucia is perhaps the most striking example, and scarcely a
mound remains to mark its site. But most of the historic cities of the
world owe their greatness and their permanence not to the whims of royal
founders, but to geographical and strategic position. Rome was not
uncrowned by Constantine because he could not forget within its walls
the crimes which had stained his hands with blood.
It is also to be remembered that others had already set the example of
despoiling of her dignities the ancient Queen of the Nations. We have
seen how in the western half of the Empire great Imperial cities had
been rising within easy reach of the frontiers. In far-off Britain
London might be the most opulent city, but York was the chief residence
of the Cæsar of the West when he visited the island. In Gaul Treves had
outstripped Lyons in dignity and wealth, and was now the centre of
military and administrative power. Even in Italy Milan had grown at the
expense of Rome; it was nearer to the frontier and, therefore, nearer to
the armies. Rome lay out of the way. Diocletian, again, had favoured
Nicomedia in Bithynia. In other words, Rome was ceasing to be the one
centre of gravity of the ancient world, or, to express the same truth in
another form, the Roman world was ceasing to be one. Diocletian had
practically acknowledged this when he founded his system of Augusti and
Cæsars. With the subdivision of administrative and executive power there
naturally ceases to be one supreme metropolis. It would be a mistake to
suppose that Constantine, in founding a new Rome, deliberately hastened
the rapid tendency towards separation. The very name of “New Rome” which
he gave his city indicates his belief that he was merely moving Rome
from the Tiber to the Bosphorus—merely changing to a more convenient
site. But the fact that this name dropped out of use almost at once, and
that the city was called after him, not in Latin but in Greek, shews how
strongly the current was flowing towards political division.
[Illustration:
THE GOLDEN HORN
THE BOSPHORUS
THE MARMORA
CHART OF THE EASTERN SECTION OF MEDIÆVAL CONSTANTINOPLE.
FROM GROSVENOR’S “CONSTANTINOPLE.”
]
But what attracted Constantine towards Byzantium? Precisely, of course,
those advantages of situation which have attracted modern statesmen.
Every one knows the story of how, after the Peace of Tilsit, the Tsar
Alexander constantly pressed Napoleon to allow him to take
Constantinople. Napoleon at length told his secretary, M. de Méneval, to
bring him the largest map of Europe which he could procure, and, after
poring over it for some time, he looked up and exclaimed,
“Constantinople! Never! It is the Empire of the world.” Was Napoleon
right? The publicists of to-day return different answers. The
Mediterranean is not the all-important sea it once was, and the
strategical importance of Constantinople has been greatly modified by
the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. But if Napoleon’s
exclamation seems rather theatrical to us, it would not have seemed so
to Constantine, whose world was so much smaller than ours and presented
such different strategical problems calling for solution. Constantine
had won the world when he defeated Licinius and captured Byzantium: he
determined to keep it where he had won it.
It is said by some of the late historians that he was long in coming to
a decision, and that he carefully weighed the rival claims of other
cities. There was his birthplace, Naissus, in Pannonia, though we cannot
suppose that Constantine seriously thought of making this his
metropolis. There was Sardica on the Danube, the modern Belgrade and
capital of Servia, a city well adapted by its position for playing an
important rôle in history, and conveniently near the most dangerous
frontier of the Empire. “My Rome is at Sardica,” Constantine was fond of
declaring at one period of his career, according to a tradition which
was perpetuated by the Byzantine historians. Another possible choice was
Nicomedia, which had commended itself to Diocletian, and, finally, there
was Salonica, which even now has only to fall into capable hands to
become one of the most prosperous cities of eastern Europe.
According to Zosimus, even when Constantine had determined to found his
new city at the point where Europe and Asia are divided by the narrow
straits, he selected first the Asiatic side. The historian says that he
actually began to build and that the foundations of the abandoned city
were still to be seen in his day between Troy and Pergamum. But the
story is more than doubtful. Legend has naturally been busy with the
circumstances attending the Emperor’s final choice of Byzantium. Was it
inspired, as some say, by the flight of an eagle from Chrysopolis
towards Byzantium? Or, while Constantine slept in Byzantium, did the
aged tutelar genius of the place appear to him in a dream and then
become transformed into a beautiful maiden, to whom he offered the
insignia of royalty? Interesting as these legends are, we need seek no
further explanation of Constantine’s choice than his own good judgment
and experience. He was fully aware of the extraordinary natural strength
of Byzantium, for his armies had found great difficulty in taking it by
assault; the supreme beauty of the site and its many other
qualifications for becoming a great capital were manifest to his eyes
every time he approached it. Byzantium had long been one of the most
renowned cities of antiquity. Even in the remotest times the imagination
of the Greeks had been powerfully affected by the stormy Euxine that lay
in what was to them the far north-east, guarding the Golden Fleece and
the Apples of the Hesperidæ, a wild region of big rivers, savage lands,
and boisterous seas. Daring seamen of Megara, in the seventh century
B.C., had effected a landing at the mouth of the Bosphorus, where Io had
fled across from Europe to Asia, turning their galleys up the smooth
estuary that still bears its ancient name of the Golden Horn. Apollo had
told them to fix their habitation “over against the city of the blind,”
and this they had rightly judged could be no other than Chalcedon, for
men must needs have been blind to choose the Asiatic in preference to
the European shore.
The little colony founded by Byzas, the Megarian, had prospered
marvellously, though it had experienced to the full all the vicissitudes
of fortune. It had fallen before the Persian King Darius; it had been
wrested from him after a long siege by Pausanias, the hero of Platæa,
when the Greeks rolled back the tide of invasion. In turn the subject
and successful rival of Athens, Byzantium gained new glory by
withstanding for two years the assaults of Philip of Macedon. Thanks to
the eloquence of Demosthenes, Athens sent help in the shape of ships and
men, and, in commemoration of a night attack of the Macedonians
successfully foiled by the opportune rising of the moon, Byzantium
placed upon her coins the crescent and the star, which for four
centuries and a half have been the familiar symbols of Turkish
sovereignty. Byzantium grew rich on commerce. It was the port of call at
which every ship entering or leaving the Bosphorus was bound to touch;
no craft sailed the Euxine without paying dues to the city at its mouth.
Polybius, in a very interesting passage,[120] points out how Byzantium
occupied “the most secure and advantageous position of any city in our
quarter of the world, as far as the sea is concerned.” Then he
continues:
“The Pontus, therefore, being rich in what the rest of the world
requires to support life, the Byzantines are absolute masters in this
respect. For the first necessaries of existence, cattle and slaves,
are admittedly supplied by the region of the Pontus in better quality
and greater profusion than elsewhere. In the matter of luxuries, they
supply us with honey, wax, and salt fish, while they take our
superfluous olive oil and wines.”
-----
Footnote 120:
Bk. IV., c. 38, _seq._
-----
It was Byzantium, therefore, which kept open the straits, and Polybius
speaks of the city as a common benefactor of the Greeks. When the Romans
began to appear on the scene as a world-power, Byzantium made terms with
the Senate. It well suited the Roman policy to have a powerful ally on
the Bosphorus, strong in the ships in which Rome was usually deficient.
As a _libera et fœderata civitas_, Byzantium enjoyed a more or less
prosperous history until the days of Vespasian, who stripped it of its
privileges. These were restored, but a shattering blow overtook the city
at the close of the second century, when Septimus Severus took it by
storm. Angry at its long resistance, Severus levelled its fortifications
to the ground,—a work of endless toil, for the stones and blocks had
been so clamped together that the walls were one solid mass. However,
before he died, he repented him of the destruction which he had wrought
and gave orders for the walls to be built anew. It was the Byzantium as
rebuilt by Severus that Constantine determined to refound on a far more
splendid scale.
[Illustration:
BAPTISTERY OF SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERAN, ROME.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI.
]
No subsequent historian has improved upon the glowing passage in which
Gibbon summarises the incomparable advantages of its site, which
appears, as he well says, to have been “founded by Nature for the centre
and capital of a great monarchy.” We may quote the passage in full from
his seventeenth chapter:
“Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude—practically the same,
it may be noted, as that of Rome, Madrid, and New York—the imperial
city commanded from her seven hills the opposite shores of Europe and
Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate; the soil fertile; the
harbour secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of the
continent was of small extent and easy of defence. The Bosphorus and
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople; and
the prince who procured those important passages could always shut
them against a naval enemy and open them to the fleets of commerce.
The preservation of the Eastern provinces may, in some degree, be
ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the
Euxine, who, in the preceding age, had poured down their armaments
into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise
of piracy and despaired of facing this insurmountable barrier. When
the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
enjoyed, within their spacious inclosure, every production which could
supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous inhabitants.
The seacoasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight
of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of
gardens and plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been
renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that
are taken in their stated seasons without skill and almost without
labour. But, when the passages of the Straits were thrown open for
trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the North and South, of the Euxine and the Mediterranean. Whatever
rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes, whatever was
manufactured by the skill of Europe and of Asia, the corn of Egypt and
the gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying
winds into the port of Constantinople, which, for many ages, attracted
the commerce of the ancient world.”
From a strategical point of view, it was of inestimable advantage that
the capital and military centre of the Empire should be within striking
distance of the route taken by the nomad populations of the East as they
pressed towards the West, at the head of the Euxine. The Scythians, the
Goths, and the Sarmatæ had all crossed that great region; the Huns were
to cross it in the coming centuries. Placed on shipboard at
Constantinople, the legions of the Empire could be swiftly conveyed into
the Euxine, and could penetrate up the Danube, Tanais, or Borysthenes to
confront the invaders where the danger threatened most.
The story of how Constantine marked out the boundaries of his new
capital is well known. Not content with the narrow limits of the ancient
city—which included little more than the district now known as Seraglio
Point—Constantine crossed the old boundary, spear in hand, and walked
with his attendants along the shores of the Propontis, tracing the line
as he went. His companions expressed astonishment that he continued so
far afield, and respectfully drew the Emperor’s attention to the
enormous circuit which the walls would have to enclose. Constantine
rebuked them. “I shall still advance,” he said, “until He, the invisible
guide who marches before me, thinks it right to stop.” The legend is
first found in Philostorgius, and it is not of much importance. But
Constantine, as usual, took care to foster the belief that his will was
God’s will, even in the matter of founding Constantinople, and that he
had but obeyed the clearly expressed command of Heaven. In one of his
edicts he incidentally refers to Constantinople as the city which he
founded in obedience to the mandate of God (_Jubente Deo_). It is a
phrase which has meant much or little according to the character of the
kings who have employed it. With Constantine it meant much, and, above
all, he wished it to mean much to his subjects.
Archæologists have not found it an easy task to trace the line of the
walls of Constantine, especially on the landward side. It followed the
coast of the Propontis from Seraglio Point, the Emperor adding height
and strength to the wall of Severus and extending it to the gate of St.
Æmilianus, which formed the south-west limit of his city. This section
was thrown down by an earthquake and had to be rebuilt by Arcadius and
Theodosius II. From St. Æmilianus the landward wall, with seven gates
and ninety-five towers, stretched across from the waters of the
Propontis to those of the Golden Horn, which was reached, it is
supposed, at a point near the modern Djubali Kapou. This was demolished
when the city had outgrown it, and Theodosius erected the new great wall
which still stands almost unimpaired. The course of the old one can
hardly be traced, but it is generally assumed that it did not include
all the seven hills of Constantinople, though New Rome, like Old Rome,
delighted in the epithet of Septicollis—the Seven-Hilled. Along the
Golden Horn no wall was built until five centuries had elapsed. On this
side Constantine considered that the city was adequately protected by
the waters of the estuary, closed against the attack of an enemy by a
huge iron chain, supported on floats, which stretched from the Acropolis
of St. Demetrius across to the modern Galata. Confidence in the
chain—some links of which are still preserved in the Turkish
arsenal—seems to have been thoroughly justified. Only once in all the
many sieges of Constantinople was it successfully pierced, when, in
1203, the Crusading Latins burst in upon the capital of the East.
Within the area we have described, great if compared with the original
Byzantium, but small in comparison with the size to which it grew by the
reign of Theodosius II., Constantine planned his city. Probably no great
capital has ever been built so rapidly. It was finished, or so nearly
finished that it was possible to hold a solemn service of dedication, by
May, 330—that is to say, within four years. Throughout that period
Constantine seems to have had no thought for anything else. He urged on
the work with an enthusiasm equal to that which Dido had manifested in
encouraging her Tyrians to raise the walls of Carthage,—_Instans operi
regnisque futuris._
The passion for bricks and mortar consumed him. Like Augustus, he
thought that a great imperial city could not be too lavishly adorned as
a visible proof of present magnificence and a guarantee of future
permanence. Nor was it in Constantinople alone that he built. Throughout
his reign new public buildings kept rising in Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch,
and the cities of Gaul. His impatience manifested itself in his letters
to his provincial governors. “Send me word,” he wrote imperiously to one
of them, “not that work has been started on your buildings, but that the
buildings are finished.” To build Constantinople he ransacked the entire
world, first for architects and builders, and then for art treasures.
With such impetuous haste there was sure to be scamped work. Some of the
buildings crumbled at the first slight tremor of earthquake or did not
even require that impulse from without to collapse into ruin. It is by
no means impossible that the havoc which seems to have been wrought in
Constantinople by earthquakes during the next two or three centuries was
largely due, not to the violence of the seismic disturbances but to
insecure foundations and bad materials. The cynical Julian compared the
city of Constantine to the fabled gardens of Adonis, which were planted
afresh each morning and withered anew each night. Doubtless there was a
substantial basis of fact for that bitter jibe.
Yet, when all allowances are made, it was a marvellous city which
Constantine watched as it rose from its foundation. Those who study the
archæology of Constantinople in the rich remains which have survived in
spite of Time and the Turk, are surprised to find how constantly the
history of the particular spot which they are studying takes them
straight back to Constantine. Despite the multitude of Emperors and
Sultans who have succeeded him, each anxious to leave his mark behind
him in stone, or brick, or marble, Constantinople is still the city of
Constantine. In the centre, he laid out the Augustæum, the ancient
equivalent, as it has well been pointed out, of the modern “Place
Imperiale.” It was a large open space, paved throughout in marble, but
of unknown shape, and historians have disagreed upon the probability of
its having been circular, square, or of the shape of a narrow rectangle.
It was full of noble statuary, and was surrounded by an imposing pile of
stately buildings. To the north lay the great church of Sancta Sophia;
on the east the Senate House of the Augustæum, so called to distinguish
it from the Senate House of the Forum; on the south lay the palace,
entered by an enormous brazen gate, called Chalce, the palace end of the
Hippodrome, and the Baths of Zeuxippus. The street connecting the
Augustæum with the Forum of Constantine was known as Μέση, or
Middle-street, and was entered on the western side. In the Augustæum,
which later Emperors filled with famous statues, there stood in
Constantine’s day a single marble column known as the Milion—from which
were measured distances throughout the Empire,—a marble group
representing Constantine and Helena standing on either side of a
gigantic cross, and a second statue of Helena upon a pedestal of
porphyry. It was in this Augustæum, moreover, that was to stand for a
thousand years the huge equestrian statue of Justinian, known through
all the world and described by many a traveller before the capture of
the city by the Turks, who broke it into a thousand pieces.
[Illustration:
ST. HELENA AND THE CROSS.
BY CRANACH. LICHTENSTEIN GALLERY, VIENNA.
]
To the west of the Augustæum lay the Forum of Constantine, elliptical in
form and surrounded by noble colonnades, which terminated at either end
in a spacious portico in the shape of a triumphal arch. In the centre,
which, according to an old tradition, marked the very spot on which
Constantine had pitched his camp when besieging Licinius, stood, and
still stands, though in sadly mutilated and shattered guise, the Column
of Constantine, which has long been known either as the Burnt Pillar,
owing to the damage which it has suffered by fire, or as the Porphyry
Pillar, because of the material of which it was composed. There were
eight drums of porphyry in all, brought specially from Rome, each about
ten feet in height, bound with wide bands of brass wrought into the
shape of laurel wreaths. These rested upon a stylobate of white marble,
some nineteen feet high, which in turn stood upon a stereobate of
similar height composed of four spacious steps. Sacred relics were
enclosed—or are said to have been enclosed—within this pediment,
including things so precious as Mary Magdalene’s alabaster box, the
crosses of the two thieves who had suffered with Christ upon Mount
Calvary, the adze with which Noah had fashioned the Ark out of rough,
primeval timber, and—in strange company—the very Palladium of ancient
Rome, transported from the Capitol to an alien and a rival soil. At the
foot of the column there was placed the following inscription: “O
Christ, Ruler and Master of the world, to Thee have I now consecrated
this obedient city and this sceptre and the power of Rome. Guard and
deliver it from every harm.”
[Illustration:
COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
FROM GROSVENOR’S “CONSTANTINOPLE.”
]
At the summit of the column was a colossal statue of Apollo in bronze,
filched from Athens, where it was believed to be a genuine example of
Pheidias. But before the statue had been raised into position, it
suffered unworthy mutilation. The head of Apollo was removed and
replaced by a head of Constantine. This may be interpreted as a
confession of the sculptors of the day that they were unable to produce
a statue worthy of their great Emperor; but the fact that a statue of
Apollo was chosen for this doubtful honour of mutilation is worth at
least passing remark, when we remember that before his conversion
Constantine had selected Apollo for special reverence. It is certainly
strange that the first Christian Emperor should have been willing to be
represented, on the site which was ever afterwards to be associated with
his name, by a statue round which clustered so many pagan associations.
He did not even disdain the pagan inscription, “To Constantine shining
like the Sun”; nor did he reject the pagan attribute of a radiated crown
around the head. In the right hand of Apollo the old Greek artist had
placed a lance; in the left a globe. That globe was now surmounted by a
cross and lo! Apollo had become Constantine; the most radiant of the
gods of Olympus had become the champion of Christ upon earth. The fate
of this statue—which was held in such superstitious reverence that for
centuries all horsemen dismounted before passing it, while below it, on
every first day of September, Emperor, Patriarch, and clergy assembled
to chant hymns of prayer and praise—may be briefly told. In 477 the
globe was thrown down by an earthquake. The lance suffered a like fate
in 541, while the statue itself came crashing to earth in 1105, killing
a number of persons in its fall. The column was then surmounted by a
cross, and fire and time have reduced it to its present almost shapeless
and unrecognisable mass.
Close to the Augustæum there began to rise the stately magnificence of
the Imperial Palace, the Great Palace, τὸ μέγα παλάτιον, as it was
called to distinguish it from all others. This was really a cluster of
palaces spread over an enormous area, a self-contained city within
itself, strongly protected with towers and walls. Here were the Imperial
residences, gardens, churches, barracks, and baths, and for eight
hundred years, until this quarter was forsaken for the palace of
Blachernæ in another region of the city, Emperors continued to build and
rebuild on this favoured site. In later years the Great Palace consisted
of an interconnected group of buildings bearing such names as
Chrysotriklinon, Trikonchon, Daphne,—so called from a diviner’s column
brought to Constantinople from the Grove of Daphne near Antioch,—Chalce,
Boucoleon, and Manavra. One at least of these dated back to Constantine.
This was the Porphyry Palace, with a high pyramidal roof, constructed of
porphyry brought especially from Rome. It was dedicated to the service
of the ladies of the Imperial Family, who retired thither to be away
from the vexations, intrigues, and anxieties of every-day life during
the time of their pregnancy. In the seclusion of this Porphyry Palace
they were undisturbed and secure, and the children born within walls
thus sacred to Imperial maternity were distinguished by the title of
“Porphyrogeniti,” which plays so prominent a part in Byzantine history.
Constantine built below ground as well as above. One of the principal
drawbacks—perhaps the only one—to the perfect suitability of the site of
Constantinople was that it contained very few natural springs. Water,
therefore, had to be brought into the town by gigantic aqueducts and
stored in cisterns, some small, some of enormous size, which must have
cost fabulous sums. The two greatest of these are still in good
preservation after nearly sixteen centuries of use. One is the Cistern
of Philoxenos, called by the Turks Bin Bir Derek, or the Thousand and
One Columns. The columns stand in sixteen rows of fourteen columns each,
each column consisting of three shafts, and each shaft being eighteen
feet in height, though all the lower and most of the middle tiers have
long been hidden by masses of impacted earth. Philoxenos, whose name is
thus immortalised in this stupendous work, came to Constantinople from
Rome at the request of the Emperor, and lavished his fortune upon the
construction of this cistern in proof of his public spirit and in order
to please his master. Assistance was also invited from the public. And
just as in our own day subscriptions are often coaxed out of reluctant
purses by deft appeal to the harmless vanity which delights to see one’s
own name inscribed upon a foundation stone, so in this Cistern of
Philoxenos there are still to be deciphered upon the columns the names
of the donors, names, as Mr. Grosvenor points out in his most
interesting account of these cisterns, which are wholly Greek. “It is a
striking evidence,” he says, “how little Roman was the Romanised
capital, that every inscription is in Greek.” The second great cistern
is the Royal or Basilike Cistern, begun by Constantine and restored by
Justinian, which is called by the Turks Yeri Batan Serai, or the
Underground Palace. This is supported by three hundred and thirty-six
columns, standing twelve feet apart in twenty-eight symmetrical rows.
The cistern is three hundred and ninety feet long and a hundred and
seventy-four feet wide, and still supplies water from the Aqueduct of
Valens as fresh as when its first stone was laid.
The chief glories of Constantinople, however, were the Hippodrome and
the churches. With the latter we may deal very briefly, the more so
because the world-renowned St. Sophia is not the St. Sophia which
Constantine built, but the work of Justinian. Constantine’s church, on
which he and many of his successors lavished their treasures, was burnt
to the ground and utterly consumed in the tumult of the Nika which laid
half the city in ashes. Nor had St. Sophia been intended to be the
metropolitan church. That distinction belonged to the church which
Constantine had dedicated not to the Wisdom but to the Peace of God, to
St. Irene. It, too, shared the fate of the sister church in the tumult
of the Nika, and was similarly rebuilt by Justinian. This was regarded
as the Patriarchal church and called by that name, for here the
Patriarch conducted the daily services, since the church had no clergy
of its own. It was at the high altar of St. Irene that the Patriarch
Alexander in 335 prayed day and night that God would choose between
himself and Arius; while the answer—or what was taken for the answer—was
delivered at the foot of Constantine’s Column. It was in this church
nearly half a century later that the great Arian controversy was ended
in 381, and here that the Holy Spirit was declared equal to the Father
and the Son. Since the Ottoman conquest this church—the sole survivor of
all that in Byzantine times once stood in the region of what is now the
Seraglio—has been used as an arsenal and military museum. On its walls
hang suits of armour, helmets, maces, spears, and swords of a bygone
age, while the ground floor is stacked with modern rifles. The temple of
“the Peace that Passeth Understanding” has been transformed into a
temple of war. Mr. Grosvenor well sums up its history in the fine
phrase, “Saint Irene is a prodigious hearthstone, on which all the ashes
of religion and of triumph and surrender have grown cold.”
There is yet another church in Constantinople which calls for notice. It
is the one which Constantine dedicated to the Holy Trinity, though its
name was soon afterwards changed to that of the Holy Apostles, in honour
of the remains of Timothy, Andrew, and Luke, the body of St. Mathias,
the head of James, the brother of Jesus, and the head of St. Euphemia,
which were enshrined under the great High Altar. So rich a store of
relics was held to justify the change of name. It was from the pulpit of
this Church of the Holy Apostles that John Chrysostom denounced the
Empress Eudoxia, but the chief title of the building to remembrance is
that it was for centuries the Mausoleum of Constantinople’s Emperors and
Patriarchs. None but members of the reigning house, or the supreme Heads
of the Eastern Church, were accorded burial within its walls.
Constantine built a splendid Heroon at the entrance, just as Augustus
had built a magnificent Mausoleum on the Field of Mars. When it could
hold no more, Justinian built another. Each monarch, robed and crowned
in death as in life, had a marble sarcophagus of his own; no one church
in the world’s history can ever have contained the dust of so much
royalty, sanctity, and orthodoxy. Apart from the rest lay the tombs of
Julian the Apostate and the four Arian Emperors, as though cut off from
communion with their fellows, and removed as far outside the pale as the
respect due to an anointed Emperor would permit. It was not the
conquering Ottoman but the Latin Crusaders, the robbers of the West, who
pillaged the sacred tombs, stole their golden ornaments, and flung aside
the bones which had reposed there during the centuries.
[Illustration:
THE THREE EXISTING MONUMENTS OF THE HIPPODROME.
FROM GROSVENOR’S “CONSTANTINOPLE.”
]
We pass from the churches to the Hippodrome, a Campus Martius and
Coliseum combined, which now bears the Turkish name of Atmeidan, a
translation of its ancient Greek name. Its glories have passed away. It
has shrunk to little more than a third of its original proportions, and
is merely a rough exercise ground surrounded by houses. But it preserves
within its attenuated frame three of the most famous monuments of
antiquity, around which it is possible to recreate its ancient
splendours. These three monuments are the Egyptian obelisk, the Serpent
Pillar, and a crumbling column that looks as though it must snap and
fall in the first storm that blows. They preserve for us the exact line
of the old spina, round which the charioteers used to drive their steeds
in furious rivalry. The obelisk stood exactly in the centre of the
building, which was shaped like a narrow magnet with long arms. From the
obelisk to the middle of the sphendone—that is to say, the curving top
of a magnet, or the loop of a sling—was 691 feet, while the width was
395 feet. The Hippodrome, therefore, was nearly 1400 feet long by 400
wide, the proportions of three and a half to one being those of the
Circus Maximus at Rome. It lay north-north-east, conforming in shape to
the Augustæum. The Hippodrome had been begun in 203 by Severus, to whom
belongs the credit of having conceived its stupendous plan, but it had
remained uncompleted for a century and a quarter.
At the northern end, reaching straight across from side to side, was a
lofty structure, raised upon pillars and enclosed within gates. Here
were the stables and storehouses, known to the Romans by the name of
Carceres and to the Greeks as Mangana. Above was a broad tribunal, in
the centre of which, and supported by marble pillars, stood the
Kathisma, with the throne of the Emperor well in front. This, in modern
parlance, was the Royal Box, and, when the Emperor was present, the
tribunal below was thronged with the high dignitaries of State and the
Imperial Bodyguard, while, in front of the throne, but at a rather lower
level, was the pillared platform, called the Pi, where stood the royal
standard-bearers. Behind this entire structure, fully three hundred feet
wide and so spacious that it was dignified with the name of palace and
contained long suites of royal apartments, was the Church of St.
Stephen, through which, by means of a spiral stairway, access was
obtained to the Kathisma. It was always used by the Emperor on his
visits to the Hippodrome, and was considered to be profaned if trodden
by meaner mortals. The palace, raised as it was over the stables of the
Hippodrome and looking down the entire length of the arena, had no
communication with the body of the building, and on either side the long
arms of the Hippodrome terminated in blank walls. The first tier of
seats, known as the Bouleutikon or Podium, was raised thirteen feet
above the arena. This was the place of distinction. At the back rose
tier upon tier, broken half-way by a wide passage, while at the very top
of all was a broad promenade running right round the building from pole
to pole of the magnet. This was forty feet above the ground, and the
benches and promenades were composed of gleaming marble raised upon
arches of brick. There was room here for eighty thousand spectators to
assemble in comfort, and one seems to hear ringing down the ages the
frenzied shouts of the multitudes which for centuries continued to
throng this mighty building, of which now scarce one stone stands upon
another. Mr. Grosvenor very justly says that
“no theatre, no palace, no public building has to-day a promenade so
magnificent.... Within was all the pomp and pageantry of all possible
imperial and popular contest and display; without, piled high around,
were the countless imposing structures ‘of that city which for more
than half a thousand years was the most elegant, the most civilised,
almost the only civilised and polished city in the world.’ Beyond was
the Golden Horn, crowded with shipping; the Bosphorus in its winding
beauty; the Marmora, studded with islands and fringing the Asiatic
coast, the long line of the Arganthonius Mountains and the peaks of
the Bithynian Olympus, glittering with eternal snow—all combining in a
panorama which even now no other city of mankind can rival.”
[Illustration:
PLAN OF THE HIPPODROME.
FROM GROSVENOR’S “CONSTANTINOPLE.”
]
In the middle of the arena stood the spina, a marble wall, four feet
high and six hundred feet long, with the Goal of the Blues at the
northern end facing the throne, and that of the Greens facing the
sphendone. The spina was decorated with the choicest statuary, including
the three surviving monuments. Of these the Egyptian obelisk, belonging
to the reign of Thotmes III., had already stood for more centuries in
Egypt than have elapsed since Constantine transported it to his new
capital. When it arrived, the engineers could not raise it into position
and it remained prone until, in 381, one Proclus, a præfect of the city,
succeeded in erecting it upon copper cubes. The shattered column belongs
to a much later epoch than that of Constantine. It was set up by
Constantine VIII. Porphyrogenitus, and once glittered in the sun, for it
was covered with plates of burnished brass. The third, and by far the
most interesting monument of the three, is the famous column of twisted
serpents from Delphi. Its romantic history never grows dull by
repetition. For this is that serpent column of Corinthian brass which
was dedicated to Apollo by the thankful and exultant Greeks after the
battle of Platæa, when the hosts of the Persian Xerxes were thrust back
from the soil of Greece never to return. It bears upon its coils the
names of the thirty-one Greek cities which fought for freedom, and there
is still to be seen, inscribed in slightly larger characters than the
rest, the name of the Tenians, who, as Herodotus tells us, succeeded in
proving to the satisfaction of their sister states that they deserved
inclusion in so honourable a memorial. The history of this column from
the fifth century before the Christian era down to the present time is
to be read in a long succession of Greek, Roman, mediæval, and modern
historians; and as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century the
three heads of the serpents were still in their place. But even in its
mutilated state there is perhaps no relic of antiquity which can vie in
interest with this column, associated as it was in the day of its
fashioning with Pausanias and Themistocles, with Xerxes and with
Mardonius. We have then to think of it standing for seven centuries in
the holiest place of all Hellas, the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. There
it was surmounted by a golden tripod, on which sat the priestess who
uttered the oracles which, in important crises, prompted the policy and
guided the development of the cities of Greece. The column is hollow,
and it is possible that the mephitic exhalations, which are supposed to
have stupefied the priestess when she was possessed by the god, mounted
up the interior of the spiral. The golden tripod was stolen during the
wars with Philip of Macedon; Constantine replaced it by another when he
brought the column from Delphi to Constantinople. And there, surviving
all the vicissitudes through which the city has passed, still stands the
column, still fixed to the pedestal upon which Constantine mounted it,
many feet below the present level of the Atmeidan, still an object of
superstition to Christian as well as to the Turk, and owing, no doubt,
its marvellous preservation to the indefinable awe which clings, even in
ruin, to the sacred relics of a discredited religion.
[Illustration:
THE SERPENT OF DELPHI.
FROM GROSVENOR’S “CONSTANTINOPLE.”
]
To the Hippodrome itself there were four principal entrances. The gate
of the Blues was close by the Carceres or Mangana, on the western side,
with the gate of the Greens facing it. At the other end, just where the
long straight line was broken and the building began to curve into the
sphendone, was a gate on the eastern side which bore the ill-omened name
of the Gate of the Dead, opposite another, the name of which is not
known. The gate of the Blues—the royal faction—was the grand entrance
for all state processions.
Such was the outward form of the famous Hippodrome, and Mr. Grosvenor
justly dwells on the imposing vastness and beauty of its external
appearance.
“The walls were of brick, laid in arches and faced by a row of
Corinthian pillars. What confronted the spectator’s eye was a wall in
superposed and continuous arches, seen through an endless colonnade.
Seventeen columns were still erect upon their bases in 1529. Gyllius,
who saw them, says that their diameter was three and eleven-twelfths
feet. Each was twenty-eight feet high, and pedestal and capital added
seven feet more. They stood eleven feet apart. Hence, deducting for
the gates, towers, and palace, at least two hundred and sixty columns
would be required in the circuit. If one, with the curiosity of a
traveller, wished to journey round the entire perimeter, he must
continue on through a distance of three thousand and fifteen feet,
before his pilgrimage ended at the spot where it had begun; and ever,
as he toiled along, there loomed into the air that prodigious mass,
forty feet above his head. No wonder that there remained, even in the
time of the Sultan Souleiman, enough to construct that most superb of
mosques, the Souleimanieh, from the fallen columns, the splintered
marbles, the brick and stone of the Hippodrome.”
But it was not merely the shell of the Hippodrome that was imposing by
reason of its size and magnificence. It was filled with the choicest art
treasures of the ancient world. Constantine stole masterpieces with the
catholicity of taste, the excellence of artistic judgment, and the
callous indifference to the rights of ownership which characterised
Napoleon. He stripped the world naked of its treasures, as St. Jerome
neatly remarked.[121] Rome and its conquering proconsuls and proprætors
had done the same. Constantine now robbed Rome and took whatever Rome
had left. Greece was still a fruitful quarry. We have already spoken of
the Serpent Column, which was torn from Delphi. The historians have
preserved for us the names of a number of other famous works of art
which adorned the spina and the promenade of the Hippodrome. There was a
Brazen Eagle, clutching a withing snake in its talons and rising in the
air with wings outspread; the Hercules of Lysippus, of a size so heroic
that it measured six feet from the foot to the knee; the Brazen Ass and
its driver, a mere copy of which Augustus had offered to his own city of
Nicopolis founded on the shores of Actium; the Poisoned Bull; the Angry
Elephant; the gigantic figure of a woman holding in her hand a horse and
its rider of life size; the Calydonian Boar; eight Sphinxes, and last,
but by no means least, the Horses of Lysippus. These horses have a
history with which no other specimens of equine statuary can compare.
They first adorned a temple at Corinth. Taken to Rome by Memmius when he
laid Corinth in ashes, they were placed before the Senate House. Nero
removed them that they might grace his triumphal arch; Trajan, with
juster excuse, did the same. Constantine had them sent to
Constantinople. Then, after nearly nine centuries had passed, they were
again packed up and transported back to Italy. The aged Dandolo had
claimed them as part of his share of the booty and sent them to Venice.
There they remained for almost six centuries more until Napoleon cast
covetous eyes upon them and had them taken to Paris to adorn his Arc de
Triomphe. On his downfall Paris was compelled to restore them to Venice
and the horses of Lysippus paw the air once more above the roof of St.
Mark’s Cathedral.
-----
Footnote 121:
_Constantinopolis dedicatur pæne omnium urbium nuditate._
-----
We have thus briefly enumerated the most magnificent public buildings
with which Constantine adorned his new capital, and the choicest works
of art with which these were further embellished. The Emperor pressed on
the work with extraordinary activity. No one believes the story of
Codinus that only nine months elapsed between the laying of the first
stone and the formal dedication which took place in the Hippodrome on
May 11th, 330, but it is only less wonderful that so much should have
been done in four years. The same untrustworthy author also tells a
strange story of how Constantine took advantage of the absence of some
of his officers on public business to build exact models of their Roman
mansions in Constantinople, and transport all their household
belongings, families, and households to be ready for them on their
return as a pleasant surprise. What is beyond doubt is that the Emperor
did offer the very greatest inducements to the leading men of Rome to
leave Rome for good and make Constantinople their home. He even
published an edict that no one dwelling in Asia Minor should be allowed
to enter the Imperial service unless he built himself a house in
Constantinople. Peter the Great issued a like order when he founded St.
Petersburg and opened a window looking on Europe. The Emperor changed
the destination of the corn ships of Egypt from Rome to Constantinople,
established a lavish system of distributions of wheat and oil and even
of money and wine, and created at the cost of the treasury an idle and
corrupt proletariate. He thus transported to his new capital all the
luxuries and vices of the old.
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[Illustration]