Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/214

196 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. miliar. What they saw in the capital of the East, their de- scendants were destined to see in Venice, Marseilles, Paris, and London. Life among the wealthier classes of Constantinople and its neighborhood must have been, on the whole, very pie a city of" pleasant. There were villas on the neighboring p easure. gj^oi^es of the Bosphorus, on the Marmora towards San Stefano, and on the shore beyond Chalcedon, where one might escape from the great heat of summer and spend half the year in a country life, while the well-built palaces of the city were warm and comfortable in winter. The inhabitants appreciated these privileges and were proud of the Queen of Cities. The Byzantine noble, when compelled to leave it, longed to be back again. He loved the sacred city and the Marmora, where the zephyrs blew so softly, where the foun- tains were so pleasant, the baths so delicious, where the dol- phins and other varieties of fish disported themselves on the surface of the waters, and where the nightingales and other singing birds made delightful music for those who flocked from all parts of the world to hear it.* Constantinople was a city of business, but it was likewise a city of pleasure. Every- thing that wealth could buy could be secured within its walls. As in our own days men who have acquired money in remote regions flock to Paris or London to take part in the luxurious life of these capitals, so the Cyprian, the islander, the trader from many a remote province or country, went to Constanti- nople as the place where he could make the best investment of his money in pleasure. But the inhabitant of what the Western writers then called Romania had a greater induce- ment to go to Constantinople than the inhabitant of Manches- ter or Marseilles to go to London and Paris. Property is, in modern times, as safe in these provincial cities as in the capi- tals of the countries in which they are situated, but property at Sm3^rna or elsewhere in Asia Minor was liable to attacks from the Turks ; property in Mitylene or others of the islands of the ^gean and along the seaboard of the empire had to be ^ Nicetas, " Alexis Comnenos," iii. 1.