THE unfortunate Licinius was the laft rival who opposed the greatness, and the laft captive who adorned the triumph, of Conftantine. After a tranquil and profperous reign, the Conqueror bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman Empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the innovations which he established have been embraced and confecrated by fucceeding generations. The age of the great Conftantine and his fons is filled with important Vol. III. A CHAP XVII. СНАР. Design of a new ca pital. 2 events; but the hiftorian must be oppreffed by their number and variety, unless he diligently feparates from each other the fcenes which are connected only by the order of time. He will defcribe the political inftitutions that gave ftrength and ftability to the empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions which haftened its decline. He will adopt the divifion unknown to the ancients, of civil and ecclefiaftical affairs: the victory of the Chriftians, and their inteftine difcord, will fupply copious and diftinct materials both for edification and for fcandal. After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival proceeded to lay the foundations A. D. 324. of a city, deftined to reign, in future times, the mistress of the East, and to furvive the empire and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first induced, Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient feat of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his fucceffors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was infenfibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her fupremacy; and the country of the Cæfars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighbourhood of the Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Afia, and invefted with the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received Conftantine as their deliverer, fubmiffively obeyed the edicts which he fometimes condefcended to addrefs to the fenate and people of Rome; but XVII. they were feldom honoured with the presence of CHAP their new fovereign. During the vigour of his age, Conftantine, according to the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extenfive dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domeftic enemy. But as he gradually reached the fummit of profperity and the decline of life, he began to meditate the defign of fixing in a more permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the choice of an advantageous fituation, he preferred the confines of Europe and Afia; to curb, with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealoufy the conduct of the Perfian monarch, who indignantly fupported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With thefe views, Diocletian had felected and embellished the refidence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was juftly abhorred by the protector of the church; and Conftantine was not insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a foldier and as a ftatefman, the incomparable Situation pofition of Byzantium; and to obferve how ftrong of Byzan. ly it was guarded by nature against an hoftile attack, whilft it was acceffible on every fide to the benefits of commercial intercourfe. Many ages before Conftantine, one of the moft judicious tium. СНАР. XVII. Defetip tion of CON NOPLE. I hiftorians of antiquity had defcribed the advantages of a fituation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the fea, and the honours of a flourishing and independent republic 2. If we furvey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the auguft name of Conftantinople, STANTI- the figure of the imperial city may be reprefented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the eaft and the shores of Afia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bofphorus. The northern fide of the city is bounded by the harbour; and the fouthern is washed by the Propontis, or fea of Marmara. The bafis of the triangle is opposed to the weft, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and divifion of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly or fufficiently understood. The Bofphorus. The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid and inceffant course towards the Mediterranean, received the appellation of Bofphorus, a name not lefs celebrated in the hiftory, than in the fables, of antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars, profufely scattered along its fteep and woody banks, attefted the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian navigators, who after the example of the Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhofpitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preferved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infefted by the obfcene harpies; and of the fylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the fon of Leda to the combat of the Ceftus. The ftreights of the Bofphorus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face of the waters; and were deftined by the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiofity. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bofphorus extends about fixteen miles', and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe and Afia are constructed, on either continent, upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Seraphis and of Jupiter Urius. The old caftles, a work of the Greek emperors, command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where the oppofite banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortreffes were restored and ftrengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the fiege of Conftantinople but the Turkish conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand years before his reign, Darius had chofen the fame fituation to connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. At a fmall diftance from the old caftles we discover the little town of Chryfopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be confidered as the Afiatic fuburb of Conftantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis, paffes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of CHA XVI |