Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van MillingenVan Millingen, Alexander
Philosophy
Constantinople, painted by Warwick Goble, described by Alexander Van Millingen
Van Millingen, Alexander
Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Istanbul (Turkey) -- History
defence, that rose tier above tier to permit concerted action, with
ample room for the operation of large bodies of troops, and affording
numerous points of vantage from which to pour upon an enemy every
missile of death in the arsenal of ancient warfare--arrows, stones, and
Greek fire. If men did their duty, the city was now impregnable, while
the Prefect Constantine earned the right to be associated with
Anthemius, as one of the forgers of the weapons with which
Constantinople defended the higher life of mankind against the assaults
of barbarism for ten centuries. Two inscriptions on the Gate Yeni
Mevlevi Khaneh Kapoussi (the ancient Gate of Rhegium)--one in Greek, the
other in Latin--have proclaimed the services of the Prefect Constantine
from his day to the present time. “In sixty days, at the command of the
sceptre-loving Emperor, Constantine the Eparch built wall to wall,” says
the former in modest terms. The Latin legend breathes the pride and
satisfaction which the work inspired. “By the commands of Theodosius,
the second month not being completed, Constantine set up these strong
fortifications. Scarcely could Pallas have built so quickly so firm a
citadel.”
But the erection of the new walls of the capital was not by any means
all the building done in Constantinople during the reign of Theodosius
II. The area added to the city naturally offered a wide field for
further construction. Much damage caused to the older portions of the
city by frequent fires and repeated earthquakes in the course of the
Emperor’s reign, or shortly before it, had also to be made good. The
Church of S. Sophia, and probably the adjoining Senate-House, now rose
from the ashes to which they had been reduced when Chrysostom was
exiled. The Baths of Achilles and the Public Granaries in the vicinity,
destroyed in the fire which burnt down the quarter now marked by the
Stamboul Custom House, were likewise rebuilt at this time. To the
ornaments of the Hippodrome were now added the four gilt bronze horses
of Lysippus, which to-day adorn the Church of S. Mark at Venice, whither
they were carried as trophies of the capture of Constantinople, in 1204,
by the fleet of the Doge Henrico Dandolo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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