7 When the ancient texts, which Hefcribe the fize of Babylon and Thebes, are fettled, the exaggerations reduced, and the measures afcertained, we find that those famous cities filled the great but not incredible circumference of about twenty-five or thirty miles. Compare d'Anville Mém. de l'Académie, tom. xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l'Egypte, p. 201, 202.

38 If we divide Conftantinople and Paris into equal fquares of 50 French toifes, the former contains 850, and the latter 1160 of those divifions.

39 Six hundred centenaries, or fixty thousand pounds weight of gold. This fum is taken from Codinus Antiquit. Conft. p. 11.; but unless that contemptible author had derived his information from fome purer fources, he would probably have been unacquainted with fo obfolete a mode of reckoning.

4. For the forests of the Black Sea, confult Tournefort, Lettre XVI: for the marble quarries of Proconnefus, fee Strabo, 1 xiii. p. 588. The latter had already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of Cyzicus.

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

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

43 Hift. Compend. p. 369. He defcribes the ftatue, or rather bust of Homer with a degree of tafte which plainly indicates that Cedrenus copied the ftyle of a more fortunate age.

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

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

46 Ducange Couft. 1. i. c. 24. p 76. and his Notes ad Alexiad. p. 382. The ftatue of Conftantine or Apollo was thrown down under the reign of Alexis Comnenus.

47 Tournefort Lettre XII.) computes the Atmeidan at four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet each, it was three hundred toifes in length, about forty more than the great Circus of Rome. See d'Anville Mefures Itineraires, p. 73.

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

49 The Latin name Cochlea was adopted by the Greeks, and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine hiftory. Ducange Conft. 1. ii. c. I. p. 104.

so There are three topographical points which indicate the fituation of the palace. 1. The ftair-cafe, which connected it with the Hippodrome, or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on the Propontis, from whence there was an eafy afcent, by a flight of mårble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augufteum was a fpacious court, one fide of which was occupied by the front of the palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.

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

Bæotum in craffo jurares aere natum.

52 See the Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large houses, domus; but the word must have had a more dignified fignification. No infula are mentioned at Conftantinople. The old capital confifted of 424

streets, the new of 322.

53 Liutprand. Legatio ad Imp. Nicephorum, p. 153. The modern Greeks have ftrangely disfigured the antiquities of Conftantinople. We might excufe the errors of the Turkish or Arabian writers; but it is fomewhat aftonishing, that the Greeks, who had access to the authentic materials preferved in their own language, should prefer fiction to truth, and loofe tradition to genuine hiftory. In a fingle page of Codinus we may detect twelve unpardonable, mistakes; the

reconciliation of Severus and Niger, the marriage of their fon and daughter, the fiege of Byzantium by the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which recalled Severus to Rome, the fixty years which elapfed from his death to the foundation of Conftantinople, etc.

54 Montefquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c. 17.

55 Themift. Orat. iii. p. 48. edit. Hardouin. Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 3. Zofim. 1. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valefian. p. 715. If we could credit Codinus (p. 10.), Conftantine built houses for the fenators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and gratified them, as well as himself, with the pleasure of an agreeable furprise; but the whole ftory is full of fictions and inconfiftencies.

56 The law by which the younger Theodofius, in the year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found among the Novella of that emperor at the head of the Theodofian Code, tom. vi. nov. 12. M. de Tillemont (Hift. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 37L.) has evidently miftaken the nature of thefe eftates. With a grant from the Imperial demeines, the fame condition was accepted as a favour which would justly have been deemed a hardship, if it had been impofed upon pri vate property.

57 The paffages of Zofimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen, and of Agathias, which relate to the increase of buildings and inhabitants at Conftantinople, are collected and connected by Gyllius de Byzant. 1. 1. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in Panegyr. Anthem. 56. p. 290. edit. Sirmond) defcribes the moles that were pushed forwards into the fea; they confifted of the famous Puzzolan fand, which hardens in the

water.

58 Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 3. Philoftorg. 1. ii. c. 9. Codin. Antiquitat. Conft. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, 1. ii. c. 13, that, the daily allowances of the city confifted of eight myriads of cry, which we may either translate with Valefius by the words modii of corn, or confider as expreffive of the number of loaves of bread.

59. See Cod. Theodof. 1. xiii. and xiv. Cod. Juftinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648. edit. Genev. See the beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell. Gildonico, ver. 46—64.

Cum fubiit par Roma mihi, divifaque fumfit

Equales aurora togas; Ægyptia rura

In partem ceffere novam.

"The regions of Conftantinople are mentioned in the code of Juftinian, and particularly defcribed in the Notitia of the younger Theodofius; but as the four last of them are not included within the wall of Conftantine, it may be doubted whether this divifion of the city should be referred to the founder.

61 Senatum conftituit fecundi ordinis; Claros vocavit. Anonym. Valefian. p. 715. The fenators of old Rome were filed Clariffimi. See a curious note of Valefius and Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epiftle of Julian, It should feem that the place of fenator

was confidered as a burthen, rather than as an honour: but the Abbé de la Bletterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371.) has shewn that this epiftle could not relate to Conftantinople. Might we not read, instead of the celebrated name of Bugavricis, the obfcure but more probable word Bioavfaves? Bifanthe or Rhodeftus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See Stephan. Byz. de Urbibus, p. 225. and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i. p. 849.

62 Cod. Theodof. 1. xiv. 13. The Commentary of Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220.) is long, but perplexed; nor indeed is it eafy to afcertain in what the Jus Italicum could confift, after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole empire.

63 Julian (Orat. i. p. 8.) celebrates Conftantinople as not lefs fuperior to all other cities, than she was inferior to Rome itself.. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76.) juftifies this language by feveral parallel and contemporary inftances. Zofimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished after the divifion of the empire between the two fons of Theodofius, which established a perfect equality between the old and the new capital.

64 Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8.) affirms, that the foundations of Conftantinople were laid in the year of the world 5837 (A. D. 329), on the 26th of September, and that the city was dedicated the 11th of May 1938 (A. D. 330.`. He connects thefe dates with feveral characteristic epochs, but they contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little weight, and the space which he affigns must appear infufficient. The term of ten years is given us by Julian Orat. i p. 8.1, and Spanheim labours to establish the truth of it (p. 69-75), by the help of two paffages from Themiftius (Orat. iv. p. 58.) and Philoftorgius (1. ii. c. 9.), which from a period from the year 324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this point of chronology, and their different fentiments are very accurately difcuffed by Tillemont, Hift. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 619-625.

5 Themiftius, Orat. iii. p. 47. himself, in one of his laws (Cod. impatience.

Conftantine

Zofim. 1. ii. p. 108.
Theod. 1. xv. tit. i.), betrays his

66 Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of fuperftition which prevailed in their own times, affure us, that Conftantinople was confecrated to the Virgin Mother of God.

67 The earliest and most complete account of this extraordinary ceremony may be found in the Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 285. Til lemont, and the other friends of Conftantine, who are offended with the air of Paganifm which feems unworthy of a Christian prince, had a right to confider it as doubtful, but they were not authorifed to omit the mention of it.

68 Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 2. Ducange C. P. 1. i. c. 6. Velut ipfius Romæ filiam, is the expreffion of Augustin de Civitat. Dei, 1. v. c. 25. "Eutropius, 1. x. c. 8. Julian. Orat. i. p. 8. Ducange C. P

1. i. c. 5. The name of Conftantinople is extant on the medals of Conftantine.

70 The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.) affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and feems to triumph in the disappointment of Conftantine, whofe immortal name is now loft in the vulgar appellation of Iftanıbol, a Turkish corruption of εις την πολιν. Yet the original name is ftill preferved, 1. By the nations of Europe. 2. By the modern Greeks. 3. By the Arabs, whofe writings are diffused over the wide extent of their conquefts in Afia and Africa. See d'Herbelot Bibliothéque Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and by the emperor himself in his public mandates. Cantemir's Hiftory of the Othman Empire, p. 51.

71 The Theodofian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. I. p. 185.

72 Pancirolus, in his elaborate Commentary, affigns to the Notitia a date almost fimilar to that of the Theodofian code; but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely feeble. I should be rather inclined to place this ufeful work between the final divifion of the empire (A. D. 395), and the fuccefsful invafion of Gaul by the Barbarians (A. D. 407). See Hiftoire des anciens Peuples de l'Europe tom. vii. p. 40. 73 Scilicet externæ fuperbiæ fueto, non inerat notitia noftri (perhaps noftra); apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania tranfmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from the style of freedom and fimplicity, to that of form and fervitude, may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and of Symmachus.

74 The emperor Gratian, after confirming a law of precedency published by Valentinian, the father of his Divinity, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum fibi locum ufurpaverit, nulla fe ignoratione defendat; fitque plane facrilegii reus, qui divina præcepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod. 1. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.

75 Confult the Notitia Dignitatum, at the end of the Theodofian Code, tom. vi. p. 316.

76 Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriufque Imperii, p. 39. But his explanations are obfcure, and he does not fufficiently diftinguish the painted, emblems from the effective ensigns of office.

77 In the Pandects, which may be referred to the reigns of the Antonines, Clariffimus is the ordinary and legal title of a fenator.

78 l'ancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of the two inferior ranks, Perfectiffimus, and Egregius, which were given to many perfons, who were not raised to the fenatorial dignity.

7 Cod. Theodof. 1. vi. tit. vi. The rules of precedency are afcertained with the moft minute accuracy by the emperors, and illuftrated with equal prolixity by their learned interpreter.

Cod. Theod. 1. vi. tit. xxii.

1 Aufonius (in Gratiarum Actione) bafely expatiates on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 16. 19.) with fomewhat more freedom and ingenuity.