In every phase of social as well as of intellectual life, the national inferiority of the Byzantine was manifest. He could copy with a fair degree of skill, but he could not originate. He absorbed little and created almost nothing. The works of art in which he took most pride were rather indebted for their value to the nature of their materials than to the labor and ingenuity that had produced them. In the style of ornamentation,--especially as regards the pattern of textile fabrics and the settings of jewels,--the Syrian taste, which delighted in floral designs and the forms of grotesque animals, predominated. There was little in the work of the Byzantine sculptor to call to mind the simplicity and delicacy that pre-eminently distinguished the exquisite products of the Attic chisel. Yet its imitative tendency induced the genius of the Eastern Empire to borrow from all its neighbors, and especially from Greece, whose art had greatly retrograded even before the accession of Constantine. The adoption of Christianity as the religion of the state was most unfavorable to sculpture, which was associated by the ignorant with the representation and worship of the gods of antiquity. The term “Byzantine,” as applied to decoration, is most comprehensive, and, employed by writers at will, has become indefinite. When examples of this style possess marked characteristics, however, and can readily be identified, they show clearly the impress of foreign influence, resulting commercial activity, and intimate diplomatic relations of the Greek Empire with nations of the most discordant customs and religious traditions. The mural designs in mosaic peculiar to Constantinople were reproduced in temples dedicated to the ceremonial of widely different creeds, as the Mosque of Cordova, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, and the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg.