While private houses and public buildings for business, for convenience, for amusement, and splendour rose with the rapidity of enchantment, one class of edifices was wanting. A few temples, such as those of the Sun, the Moon, and Aphrodite, were permitted to stand in the Heropolis, though deprived of their revenues. (Malala, Constant. x.) But few churches were built; of these one was dedicated to the Supreme Wisdom. The ancient Temple of Peace, which afterwards formed part of Santa Sophia, was appropriately transformed into a church. The Church of the Twelve Apostles appears from Eusebius (Vit. Const. iv. 58) to have been finished a few days before the death of Constantine; it fell to ruin 20 years afterwards, was repaired by Constantius, rebuilt by Justinian, and demolished by Mohammed II. Theodosius the Great built the principal gate of Constantinople, The Golden Gate, so celebrated by the Byzantine writers; this gate, on the S. of the town, was that by which the emperors made their solemn entry, and stood at the beginning of the principal street, which crossed the town up to the Bosporus. Gyllius (Bandur. Imp. Orient. vol. ii. p. 595), in the 16th century, saw the remains of it. It is now sought for in vain, though a gate entirely blocked up is sometimes shown to travellers for it. The Empress Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius, ornamented her city with a palace and baths. Theodosius II. loved the arts, and himself cultivated painting and sculpture; he encouraged architecture, and executed considerable works; in his reign the walls of Constantinople were in great measure rebuilt, and the city adorned with thermae, a forum, and two palaces for the sisters of Pulcheria. In 447, after the great earthquake, the edifices of Constantinople were restored with renewed splendour. Marcian turned his attention chiefly to the aqueducts; Leo I. Thrax to the churches of Constantinople. Nothing is recorded as having been constructed under Zeno and Anastasius. Justin I., besides his great works at Antioch, contributed to the embellishments, or rather restoration of Constantinople. The reign of Justinian is the most brilliant epoch of the Neo-Greek or Byzantine architecture; and, like Hadrian, this emperor was entitled to the proud distinction of being called by his contemporaries reparator orbis. The great ornament of Constantinople was the temple reared by Justinian in honour of the Eternal Wisdom (S. Sophia). This, the principal church of Constantinople, had been twice destroyed by fire, after the exile of John Chrysostom, and during the Nika of the Blue and Green factions. Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus, were the builders employed by Justinian to rebuild the church on a plan in which, as Mr. Hope (Hist. of Architecture, p. 126) remarks, the wisdom of man shows but little. Disregarding the cardinal rule that all architectural trick is inconsistent with good taste, they endeavoured to make it 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 theformer, was employed to restore it; an elevation of 20 feet more than it had before its fall was given to |
The Latin crusaders, Mohammed II., and subsequent neglect and recklessness, have effected such results, that it may be said, with almost literal truth of the city of Constantine and Justinian, not one stone resteth upon another. VI. Government and Administration. With the foundation of a new capital a new order of things in the civil and military administration was introduced; commenced by Diocletian it was perfected by Constantine. In the hierarchy of the state the magistrates were divided into 3 classes, There were 2 inferior ranks conferred on those who were not raised to the senatorial dignity. The 3rd epithet belonged to the senatorial rank, the 2nd to those of superior distinction; the 1st was granted only to |
Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/681
