Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/61

There are in truth limits to what the most enterprising man can accomplish; and from the beginning Constantine's work had in it many elements of weakness, which could not be avoided. The city, as he made it, was an artificial product; it did not grow slowly into greatness, as Rome had done. It thus laboured under a serious disadvantage, which affected it for evil throughout its whole history. In many respects it was a bad copy of the old city. Several of the most vicious features of Rome were reproduced in Constantinople. It was comparatively easy for Constantine to attract new citizens; any city, indeed, which is made a seat of government must become moderately populous, and even already the new capital must have been well furnished with inhabitants. We hear of the desertion of Rome by its old and noble families, which are said to have followed the emperor to the Bosporus. But these stories are mainly due to the lively Greek imagination. Rome was not quite shorn of its glory or of its population. We may assume that a number of rich idlers gladly accepted Constantine's invitation to settle in his city. Some he bribed to live there, giving them estates in the neighbouring districts of Asia Minor on condition that they were to maintain a town establishment. These people, we may be sure, had no sort of patriotism or good principle. The poor and lower class were kept, as at Rome, by what was called the emperor's bounty; that is, they lived in perpetual idleness on supplies of corn furnished by the farmers of Egypt, whose industry was thus taxed for the benefit of a demoralized populace. We can hardly