The Dark Ages Collection. David Hume
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;38 and 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.39 Around 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.40 On 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.41 The 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,43 which was a museum of art, and on the left the Praetorium, where the Prefect of the city administered justice.44 Then 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.45 Just beyond the Forum was a monument known as the Philadelphion,46 perhaps 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.47 The street soon ascended the Sixth Hill and, passing through the Forum of Arcadius,48 reached 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.49 Farther 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),50 where 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,51 a 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.52 The proximity of the cistern seems to have inspired an anonymous writer to pen the following epigram:53
This place is sacred to Ausonian law;
Here wells a spring abundant, here a rill Of legal lore, that all who run may draw
And studious throngs of youth may drink their fill. The Church of the Holy Apostles stood in the centre of the city, on the summit of the Fourth Hill.54 It was built in the form of a basilica by Constantine, and completed and dedicated by his son Constantius.55 Contiguous to the east end Constantine erected a round mausoleum, to receive the bodies of himself and his descendants.56 He placed his own sarcophagus in the centre, and twelve others (the number was suggested by the number of the Apostles) to right and left. This mausoleum remained intact till the Turkish conquest, and many emperors were laid to rest in it; but the church itself was rebuilt in the sixth century. In its new form it was the most magnificent ecclesiastical building in Constantinople, next to St. Sophia, but it was less fortunate than its greater rival. After the Turkish conquest it was destroyed to make room for the mosque of Mohammad the Conqueror, and no vestige remains of it or of the imperial burying-place.
§ 3. The Imperial Palaces
The Great Palace lay east of the Hippodrome. Ultimately it was to occupy almost the whole of the First Region, extending over the terraced slopes of the first hill down to the sea-shore.57 Thus gradually enlarged from age to age it came to resemble the mediaeval palaces of Japan or the Kremlin at Moscow,58 and consisted of many isolated groups of buildings, throne rooms, reception halls, churches, and summer houses amid gardens and terraces. But the original palace which was designed for Constantine, and to which few or no additions were made till the sixth century, was of more modest dimensions. It was on the top and upper slopes of the hill, and was perhaps not much larger than the fortified residence which Diocletian built for himself at Salona.59 It is reasonable to suppose that the two palaces resembled each other in some of their architectural features; but the plan of the palace at Salona can hardly serve as a guide for attempting to reconstruct the palace at Constantinople;60 for not only were the topographical conditions different, but the arrangements requisite in the residence of a reigning sovereign could not be the same as those which sufficed for a prince living in retirement. It is indeed not improbable that Constantine’s palace, like Diocletian’s, was rectangular in form. It was bounded on the west by the Hippodrome, on the north by the Augusteum, and on this side was the principal entrance.61 This gate was known as the Chalkê, called so probably from the bronze roof of the vestibule. Immediately inside the entrance were the quarters of the Scholarian guards, and here one may notice a resemblance to the palace of Diocletian, in which the quarters of the guards were close to the chief entrance, the Porta Aurea.62 On the western side of the enclosure, towards the Hippodrome, was a group of buildings specially designated as the Palace of Daphne, of which the two most important were the Augusteus, a throne room, on the ceiling of which was represented a large cross wrought in gold and precious stones,63 and the Hall of the Nineteen Akkubita, which was used for ceremonial banquets.64 It is possible that the Tribunal, a large open terrace, lay in the centre of the precincts. On the eastern side were the Consistorium,65 or Council Chamber, the Chapel of the Lord,66 and the quarters of the Candidati and the Protectors.67
If all these buildings, with other apartments and offices,68 were, as seems not improbable, arranged symmetrically in a rectangular enclosure, there was outside this enclosure another edifice contiguous and in close communication, which might be regarded either as a separate palace or as part of the Great Palace. This was the Magnaura.69 It was situated on the east side of the Augusteum, close to the Senate-house, and the passage which connected the Great Palace with the precincts of the Magnaura was near the Chapel of the Lord.
On the sea-shore to the south of the Palace was the House of Hormisdas, which Constantine the Great is said to have assigned as a dwelling to Hormisdas, a Persian prince who had fled to him for protection. In later times this house was enclosed within the grounds of the Great Palace.70 The sea-shore and the lower slopes of the hill, for a long time after the foundation of the city, were covered with the private houses of rich senators, which were destined gradually to disappear as the limits of the Imperial residence were extended.71
There was another Imperial Palace at Blachernae, in the north-west of the city. We know little of it in early times, but in the thirteenth century it superseded the Great Palace as the home of the Emperors.72
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