History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence;
and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice, by the
vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the roof,
was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious
quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls
were incrusted with many-colored marbles—the emerald green of
Laconia, the fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone, intersected
with veins of a sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of the dome
and sides represented the glories of the African and Italian
triumphs. On the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small
distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens
of Heraeum 108 were prepared for the summer residence of
Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of the age
have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony
of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the waves: yet
the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of
their inconvenient lodgings, 109 and the nymphs were too often
alarmed by the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in
breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the mouth of
the River Sangaris, after he had infested more than half a
century the seas of Constantinople. 110
106 (return) [ The six books of the Edifices of Procopius are
thus distributed the first is confined to Constantinople: the
second includes Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia and the
Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine;
the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgot by the emperor or
the historian, who published this work of adulation before the
date (A.D. 555) of its final conquest.]
107 (return) [ Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries of gold
(180,000 L.) for the repairs of Antioch after the earthquake,
(John Malala, tom. ii p 146—149.)]
108 (return) [ For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora, see
Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,) Aleman. (Not. ad.
Anec. p. 80, 81, who quotes several epigrams of the Anthology,)
and Ducange, (C. P. Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p. 175, 176.)]
109 (return) [ Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,) and in
the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of adulation and
malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the dirt,
the object appears to be the same.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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