by Greek superstition from the Inhospitable (Axenos) into the Euxine (.e., Hospitable), first works his way against the rapid current, which flows for sixty miles between winding shores only three miles apart, but belonging to different continents. The channel received from the fables of mythology the name of Hellespont, and the fame of the mythic Dardanus is still preserved in the name applied to it from the Turkish forts of the Dardanelles, which guard the entrance, near which Troy once stood. A sail of 120 miles carries us across the Sea of Marmora, the Vestibule to the Pontus (Propontis), to the mouth of the inner channel, which gives direct access to the Euxine, having a length of about seventeen miles and an average breadth of one and a-half, while its least width (600 yards between the Old Castles of the Greek emperors) afforded an easy ferry to the old pastoral tribes, who therefore called it Bosporus, that is, the Ox-ford. The mouth of

of Fausta to me, the son of a repudiated woman.' Such a thought, if it did occur to Crispus, must have stung him to the quick, and might easily have driven him into a conspiracy against his father. That a father should order his own son to be put to death is certainly repulsive to our feelings, but it is rash and inconsiderate to assert that Crispus was innocent. It appears to me highly probable that Constantine himself was quite convinced of his son's guilt. I infer this from his conduct towards the three step-brothers of Crispus, whom he always treated with the highest respect; his unity and harmony with his sons are in fact truly exemplary." This conclusion is supported by the certain falsehood of the story that Constantine was ever after tormented with remorse, and that he erected a statue to Crispus with the inscription, "To my son, whom I unjustly condemed."

*

Bosphorus is a corruption to be resisted with the utmost pertinacity. The inner Ox-ford, at the mouth of the sea of Azov, was called the Cimmerian Bosporus, the outer being the Thracian. Besides the retention of the old name of Bosporus, the strait is now called the Channel of Constantinople, in Turkish Boghas. The narrow part, at which the Old Castles were built by the Greek emperors, is said to have been the place where Mandrocles built the bridge of boats for Darius, though the exact spot must have been a little higher up, where the sea is more tranquil. The Old Castles were restored by Mahmoud II. before the final siege of Constantinople: they are now called Rumili-Hisar and Anadoli-Hisar, i.e., the Castles of Roumelia (in Europe) and Anatolia (in Asia). The New or Genoese Castles were built on the summits of two opposite hills, upon the foundations of old temples of Serapis and Jupiter Urius, to command the mouth of the strait and levy the toll on vessels entering the Bosporus. Outside the mouth were the Cyanea Insula, so called from the colour which the volcanic rocks owe to the presence of copper. Strabo describes them as two little isles, one upon the European, and the other on the Asiatic side of the strait, separated from each other by twenty stadia (two geographical miles). The fabled motion of these rocks, embodied in the name Symplegades, is supposed to have been suggested by a circumstance described by Tournefort :-"Each of them consists of one craggy island, but when the sea is disturbed, the water covers the lower parts, so as to make the different points of either resemble insular rocks. They are in fact each joined to the mainland by a kind of isthmus, and appear as islands when this is inundated, which always happens in stormy weather." The Bosporus itself forms in its

this strait, where the Argonauts passed safely between the fabled rocks (Symplegades), whose collision crushed the hapless mariner, received from early Greek colonists the more effectual guard of the two cities of Chalcedon on the Asiatic and Byzantium on the European shore, both founded by the Megarians.

In addition to the central position, and the wonderful command both of sea and land, common to the two cities, there is one feature which perfects the site of Byzantium, the magnificent harbour formed by the arm of the Bosporus, called from its shape and from the riches daily brought into it, the Golden Horn (Chrysoceras, in Greek). The little river Lycus pours a constant flow of fresh water into this inlet, which is about seven miles in length, and, from the absence of tides in the Mediterranean, of a constant depth. The lower part expands into a splendid basin, nearly three quarters of a mile in width, contracting again to a breadth of only 500 yards, where a chain could be drawn across the mouth of the harbour. Between the Golden Horn and the Propontis lies a tongue of land, which gradually contracts from a wide base to an obtuse point, opposite to the site of the ancient harbour of Chalcedon, Chrysopolis, the modern Scutari. The peninsula slopes down from the high ground of Thrace to the level of the sea, as if to link the continent of Europe to that of Asia; and the undulations of its descent form themselves into seven hills -a fortunate resemblance, as it was esteemed, to the site of Rome. On the last of these hills, now occupied by the Seraglio, stood the Acropolis of Byzantium, and the city spread over the point of land now covered by the gardens of the Seraglio, and probably over the three adjacent regions of the city of Constantine. It had a circuit

of about four geographical miles.* But the design of Constantine embraced the whole peninsula, with all its seven hills. He professed himself to be under the guidance of a divine inspiration, alike in the choice of the site and in the settlement of its limits.† "The windings a chain of seven lakes. According to the law of all estuaries, these seven windings are indicated by seven promontories, forming as many corresponding bays, on the opposite coast; the projections on the one shore being similar to the indentations on the other. Seven currents, in different directions, follow the windings of the coast. Each has a counter-current, and the water, driven with violence into the separate bays, flows upward in an opposite direction in the other half of the channel. It is from this cause that an upward current, constantly thrown into the Golden Horn, serves the same purpose of preventing the stagnation of its waters, that the tide does in our own harbours.

* In some respects the site of Byzantium resembled that of Carthage.

The emperor's silence respecting the mode of this intimation is supplied by the imagination of later chroniclers, "who describe the noctural vision which appeared to

day which gave birth to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites which savoured too strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the solemn procession, and directed the line which was traced as the boundary of the destined capital, till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the assistants, who at length ventured to observe that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. I shall still advance, replied Constantine, till HE, the invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." The walls which stretched across the base of the peninsula were fifteen stadia (a geographical mile and a-half) beyond the ancient walls, and enclosed five of the seven hills: the remaining two were afterwards built over, and formed a suburb, which was surrounded with a new wall by Theodosius in A.D. 413. "From the eastern promontory to the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was about three Roman miles, the circumference measured between ten and eleven, and the surface might be computed as equal to about 2000 English acres. The suburbs of Pera and Galata,* though situate beyond the harbour, may deserve to be considered as a part of the city; and this addition may perhaps authorise the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem not unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London,† and even to Paris."

In imitation of Rome, the city was divided into fourteen wards (regiones), and provided with public buildings for business, state, and recreation. The chief FORUM, which was of a round shape, stood upon the second hill, on which Constantine had pitched his tent during the siege of Byzantium. Its centre was marked by a

the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable matron, sinking under the weight of years and infirmi ties, was suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned with the symbols of imperial greatness."

* Galata, on the projection which contracts the mouth of the Golden Horn, on the side opposite to the city, corresponds to the ancient Syce (or Fig Trees), which formed the XIIIth region of the city.

This was the London of Gibbon's time. What would he have said of the London of 1865 ?

column, composed of ten cylinders of porphyry, each 10 feet high, upon a pedestal of white marble 20 feet high, and surmounted by a bronze colossus of Apollo, supposed to be the work of Phidias. The statue of the Sun-god,-whom the artist had represented with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head,-was invested with Christian emblems,* and made to do duty as the image of the emperor a medley of heathenism, Christianity, and imperialism, which may be regarded as a fit type of Constantine's system of government in church and state. The site of the splendid HIPPODROME―destined to be deluged with blood by the factions of white, red, blue, and green-is still marked by one of the goals (meta), a curious bronze pillar formed by the entwined bodies of three serpents, whose heads supported the golden tripod dedicated at Delphi by the united Greeks after the defeat of Xerxes. Other trophies of art were transported in immense numbers from all parts of the Hellenic world, to adorn this building and the whole city, which, like the empire itself, owed its splendour to the plunder of the universe, not to a spontaneous growth of art.† Stripped of its innumerable statues, the Hippodrome (in Turkish, atmeidan) served the Moslem conquerors as a place for equestrian exercise, till it was burnt in 1808 in a revolt of the Janissaries. From the emperor's seat in the Hippodrome, a private staircase descended to the PALACE, which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and porticoes, covered a considerable extent of ground on the shore of the Propontis, between the Hippodrome and the church of S. SOPHIA. This, the principal church of Constantinople, built on the site of an old temple of Wisdom, suffered for its proximity to the Hippodrome by being twice

* An ancient author asserts that the rays of the sun were replaced by the nails of the Passion. Afterwards Constantine gave way to Julian, and Julian to Theodosius, and at last the statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and was replaced by the cross. The palladium was said to be buried under the column, the mutilated fragment of which, still standing, is called the burnt pillar.

These inestimable treasures of Greek art were destroyed at the taking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders and the Venetians in A.D. 1284; their only remains being the four bronze horses, which adorn the piazza of St. Mark at Venice. Since that time Constantinople has suffered more from the Greeks than from the Turks.

In the court called the Forum Augusteum, one side of which was formed by the palace and the other by the church, stood the Milliarium Aureum, not, as at Rome, a gilt marble pillar, but a spacious edifice, the centre from which all the roads of the empire were measured, and on the walls of which the distances to all the chief places were inscribed.

destroyed in the triumphs of the Blue and Green factions.* It was rebuilt by Justinian, and formed the grandest of those works of the new Byzantine architecture, which gained for that emperor the title, formerly borne by Hadrian, of " Restorer of the World." But, while dedicating the church to the Holy Eternal Wisdom (S. Sophia),† Justinian, and his architects, Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus, showed, as Mr. Hope remarks, but little of the wisdom of man. Disregarding the cardinal rule, that all architectural trick is inconsistent with good taste, they endeavoured to make the dome appear entirely hovering in air, without the least earthly resting-place. The attempt was unsuccessful, for, in A.D. 558, twenty-one years after the dedication, an earthquake nearly destroyed it. Another Isidorus, nephew of the former, was employed to restore it. An elevation of 20 feet more than it had before its fall was given to the dome, and the original circular was changed to an elliptical form. Though such was the lightness of the dome, that it appeared suspended "by a chain from heaven," it rested on four strong arches, supported on four massive piles, assisted on the north and south sides by four columns of granite, each having a shaft 40 feet in length. Two larger and six smaller semi-domes encircled the central cupola. The groundplan describes the figure of a Greek cross within a quadrangle, but on the inside it was oval. It is to the magnificent boast of Michael Angelo, that he would rear the dome of S. Sophia in the air, resting it upon a proper basis, that we owe those perfect specimens of domed architecture, St. Peter's at Rome and our own St. Paul's. As to the other edifices of Constantinople, we must be content with the summary of Gibbon :-"A particular description, composed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus, 2 theatres, 8 public and 153 private baths, 52 porticoes, 5 granaries, 8 aqueducts or reservoirs of water, 4 spacious halls for the meetings of the Senate or courts of justice, 14 churches, 14 palaces, and 4383 houses which, for their size or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian habitations. Some estimate may be

formed of the expense bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance of about £2,500,000 for the construction of the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts. The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of Procon

For a full account of these factions and their fights, see Gibbon, chap. xl. + Proverbs viii., &c.