David Hume - The Dark Ages

The Thirteenth Region, beyond the Golden Horn, known as Sycae, and subsequently as Galata, 22was not fortified, and, though formally a part of the city, it was virtually a suburb. The regular communication with this region was by ferry, 23but the Golden Horn was also crossed by a wooden bridge of which the southern end was at Blachernae. 24In the sixth century this was replaced by a bridge of stone.

The Golden Horn itself was the great port of Constantinople. But there were also small harbours on the Propontis. At the end of the fourth century there were two: the Harbour of Eleutherius or of Theodosius, 25and farther east the Harbour of Julian, also known as the New Harbour, and after the sixth century as the Harbour of Sophia. 26At these wharves the corn-ships from Egypt were probably unloaded, for between them were situated the Alexandrine grain magazines. 27In the fifth century the harbour of Eleutherius, which Theodosius the Great had improved and honoured with his own name, was filled up and disused, but a small new harbour was built near it known as the Portus Caesarii. 28It was probably not till a later period, but before the end of the sixth century, that the port of Hormisdas (afterwards known as that of Bucoleon) was constructed. 29These small harbours on the Propontis were a great convenience, indeed a necessity. For the frequently prevailing north winds often rendered it very difficult for ships to round the promontory and enter the Golden Horn. In that gulf the chief landing-place was the Portus Prosphorianus, also called the Bosporion, under the Acropolis and close to the Arsenal.

§ 2. Topography and Buildings

In founding a new city, one of the first things which the practical Romans provided was an abundant supply of water. The construction of aqueducts was a branch of engineering which they had brought to perfection, and it was a task of little difficulty to bring in water from the northern hills. A ruined bit of the old aqueduct is still a striking object in the centre of the city. 30Many reservoirs and cisterns, both open and covered, supplied the inhabitants with water; 31and, a hundred years after the foundation of the city, there were eight public baths ( thermae ), and 153 private baths in the fourteen Regions. 32

Constantine accorded to the citizens of his new capital the same demoralising privilege which Rome had so long enjoyed, a free supply of bread at the public expense. The granaries of Africa were still appropriated to the needs of Rome; the fruitful lands of the Nile supplied Constantinople. There were five corn-stores; there were twenty public bakeries, and 117 ”steps,” from which the bread was distributed to the people, in different parts of the city. 33

A visitor to Constantinople soon after its foundation would have been struck by the fact that there was no public sign of pagan worship. The gods of Greece and Rome were conspicuously absent. If he were a pagan, he might walk to the Acropolis and gaze sadly on the temples of Apollo, Artemis, and Aphrodite, in which the men of old Byzantium had sacrificed, and which Constantine had dismantled but allowed to stand as relics of the past. 34From its very inauguration the New Rome was ostensibly and officially Christian. 35Nor did the statue of the founder, as a sun-god, compromise his Christian intention. In the centre of the oval Forum, which he laid out on the Second Hill just outside the wall of the old Byzantium, he erected a high column with porphyry drums, on the top of which he placed a statue of Apollo, the work of an old Greek master, but the head of the god was replaced by his own. It was crowned with a halo of seven rays, and looked towards the rising sun. 36The column, blackened by time and fire, and injured by earthquakes, still stands, 37the one monument of the founder which has survived. Within the pedestal beneath Constantine is said to have placed the Palladium of Rome and several Christian relics.

Lofty columns, as Imperial monuments, were a feature of Constantinople as of Rome. Theodosius the Great, Arcadius, Marcian, Justinian, all had their memorial pillars like Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. That of Marcian, the least interesting, still towers in the centre of the city; 38and the site of the sculptured column of Arcadius, erected by his son, is marked by the ruins of its high pedestal.

The Tetrastoon (Place of the Four Porticoes), on the First Hill, was the centre of old Byzantium. Constantine laid it out anew, and renamed it the Augusteum in honour of his mother, the Augusta Helena, whose statue he set up here. 39Around it were grouped the buildings which played a principal part in the political life and history of the city. On the north side was the Great Church dedicated to St. Sophia, the Holy Wisdom, which was perhaps founded by Constantine, and certainly completed by his son Constantius. 40On the east was the Senate-house, a basilica with the customary apse at the eastern end. On the south was the principal entrance to the Imperial Palace, and near it the Baths of Zeuxippus. 41The Augusteum was entered from the west, and here was the Milion (Milestone), a vaulted monument, from which the mileage was measured over the great network of roads which connected the most distant parts of the European provinces with Constantinople. 42

Passing the Milion one entered the great central thoroughfare of the city, the Mesê or Middle Street, which led, through the chief Fora and public places, direct to the Golden Gate. Descending the First and ascending the Second Hill, it passed on the right the palace of the rich eunuch Lausus, 43which was a museum of art, and on the left the Praetorium, where the Prefect of the city administered justice. 44Then it reached the oval Forum of Constantine, generally known as “the Forum,” on the north side of which was the second Senate-house. Continuing our way westward we reach the Forum of Taurus, adorned with the column of Theodosius the Great, which could be ascended by an interior staircase. In close proximity to this space was the Capitolium, in which, when a university was established, lecture-rooms were assigned to the professors. 45Just beyond the Forum was a monument known as the Philadelphion, 46perhaps an archway, where an important main street branched off, leading to the Church of the Holy Apostles and to the Gate of Charisius. Following Middle Street one passed through a place called the Amastrianos, and then bearing south-westward reached the Forum of Bous, so named from an oven shaped like an ox, in which calumnious legend said that Julian the Apostate had burned Christians. 47The street soon ascended the Sixth Hill and, passing through the Forum of Arcadius, 48reached the old Golden Gate in the wall of Constantine. Just outside this gate was the Exakionion, perhaps a pillar with a statue of Constantine, which gave its name to the locality. 49Farther on, before reaching the Golden Gate of Theodosius, a street diverged leading to the Gate of Pêgê.

Many streets must have diverged from this thoroughfare, both northwards and southwards, but only for three have we direct evidence: the two already mentioned leading one to the Pêgê Gate, the other to the Church of the Apostles, and a third close to the Augusteum, which conducted to the Basilica and the quarter of the Bronzesmiths (Chalkoprateia), 50where the Empress Pulcheria built a famous church to the Mother of God. The site of the Basilica or law-court can be determined precisely, for the Emperor Justinian constructed beside it an immense covered cistern, which is still preserved, 51a regular underground pillared palace, well described by its Turkish name Yeri Batan Sarai. Julian had endowed the Basilica with a library of 150,000 books, and it was the haunt of students of law. 52The proximity of the cistern seems to have inspired an anonymous writer to pen the following epigram: 53