Each division of the octagon formed a bay under a semi-dome, and above the bays was a rich entablature, with a cornice that projected so as to constitute a gallery. The floor was paved with slabs of porphyry and variegated marbles, arranged to form beautiful designs and set in borders of silver, while walls and vaults gleamed with mosaics. The hall was entered from the west, and in the bay directly opposite stood the throne, with an icon of Christ in mosaic in the conch above it. The bay immediately to the south of the throne was the emperor’s robing-room, leading to a chapel in which his robes of state, his crowns and arms, and two enamelled gold shields, studded with pearls and precious stones, were kept under the guardianship of S. Theodore. The other state rooms of the palace were all varieties of the same type, displaying more or less skill and taste, according to the fluctuations of art in Constantinople. Of all the magnificence that once adorned these slopes, nothing remains but unshapely masses of brickwork, broken shafts, fallen capitals and empty sarcophagi! Slopes that vied with the Palatine as a seat of power, they are without a vestige of the grandeur that lingers around the ruined home of the Cæsars! The higher part of the site of the palace is now occupied by the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, the six minarets of which, combined with the four minarets of S. Sophia, make so striking a feature in the aspect of this part of the city. Upon the lower slopes lives a Turkish population that never dreams of the splendour buried beneath its humble dwellings.