History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
26 (return) [ He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis
quam æterno nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l.
xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]
27 (return) [ The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and
general expressions. For a more particular account of the vision,
we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]
28 (return) [ See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that
purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the
settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
his new country.]
29 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though
borrowed from a suspected writer, is characteristic and
probable.]
30 (return) [ See in the Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxxv p.
747-758, a dissertation of M. d’Anville on the extent of
Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium
Orientale of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of
very nice observations, he reduced the extravagant proportion of
the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the circumference of
the city as consisting of about 7800 French _toises_.]
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the
Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven
hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our own
measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on
the foundations of a Grecian republic; but it may be supposed
that the Byzantines were tempted by the conveniency of the harbor
to extend their habitations on that side beyond the modern limits
of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched from the
port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the
triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful
order. 31 About a century after the death of the founder, the new
buildings, extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other
along the Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the
sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of
protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of the
barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. 32 From the
eastern promontory to the golden gate, the extreme length of
Constantinople was about three Roman miles; 33 the circumference
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