If this statement is correct, the Venetians must have been sadly deficient in taste, or history has wrongfully accused the founders of Constantinople of spoliation. According to the early accounts, Constantine, in the reconstruction of Byzantium, despoiled the cities of Asia and Greece of their most valuable ornaments, the trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times. The most celebrated works of the age of Pericles and Alexander were remorselessly seized by the Emperor and transferred to his capital to enhance its beauty and its renown. So many statues and architectural masterpieces had been transported to the Bosphorus that the historian Cedrenus ironically said, “Nothing in this great city was wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those admirable monuments were intended to represent.” In the reign of Justinian the city was decorated by the best of living artists. In the construction of the public edifices, the richest materials were sought for and used with lavish hand. The bright hues, the primitive lustre, of many of the stones of which the buildings were composed were so remarkable as to form the theme of a poet. Distant countries were explored for choice materials. The costly marbles of Asia, Gaul, Greece, and Africa were transported to the Bosphorus. Among the rare stones used by the Greek architects, one may recognize in the ruins of the present day, the emerald-green marble of Laconia, the golden-hued of Mauritania, the black of Gaul, and the purple and red, with intersecting veins of sea-green, of Phrygia. The shrine which stood in the Mosque of Saint Sophia a thousand years ago or more must have been of marvellous beauty. The wealth and energy of the ancient world was expended upon it; and we can form some picture of it in our imagination from the fact that the Emperor Justinian, on beholding it after its completion, exclaimed, with outstretched arms, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.”