After dwelling so long on things which ought to be distinguished from the Corcyrean sedition, it is time now, if ever, to produce those which admit of being compared with it. We have but two to bring forward: the second bears a more than usual resemblance to it in respect of the events which took place; the first bears little resemblance to it in respect of events, but is distinguished, if we may trust the contemporary historian, by a forgetfulness of natural ties, and relaxation of the bonds of society, very like that described by Thucydides, and not less worth noticing because the two arose out of entirely different circumstances, political and other. We allude to the seditions which tore Constantinople, especially under the reign of Justinian, ostensibly commencing in so petty a cause as the superiority of one colour to another in skill or fortune in the public games, in which those who contended for prizes, like our jockies, were distinguished by colours. “The race,” says Gibbon, “in its first institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a light green and a cerulean blue, were afterwards introduced, and as the races were repeated twenty–five times, one hundred chariots contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced either a plentiful harvest, or a prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardour of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to the colour which they had espoused.”[63]