The magnificence displayed by the wealthy houses of Byzantium in their internal arrangements must have been of an extraordinary character if we can judge correctly from the invectives of Chrysostom; and the utensils of silver and gold were in massiveness far beyond the prodigality of modern times. Ramusio, the Venetian historian, dazzles the reader with his glittering descriptions of the acquisitions of his countrymen. He mentions with preciseness the vases whose forms were as grotesque and varied as the caprice of man,--the murrhines Pompey won in his triumphs over Mithridates and Tigranes; chalices decked with gems or formed of turquoise, jasper, and amethyst; crowns of gold, studded with pearls; unnumbered emeralds, sapphires, topazes, jacinths, and other gems; also the matchless carbuncles which afterwards adorned the altar at Saint Mark’s, and which were believed by the superstitious to have the power of dissipating the darkness by their refulgent beams of light. Constantinople, with its remaining works of art, again fell into the power of the Greeks and was retained by them until captured by the Turks. To describe the treasures of the Greek capital before its capture, and correctly estimate the character and value of the objects removed, and those secreted and again brought to light, will be a difficult task for some restless antiquary. We are, however, inclined to believe the Greeks successfully secreted many of their choicest gems. All through the pages of early and mediæval history, the reader will observe that by a strange caprice of fortune many of the richest and rarest works of art and nature passed into the possession of the rulers of Byzantium, Constantinople, or Stamboul. These three names, distinct in their meaning, yet relate to one and the same city, which, during its existence of more than a thousand years, passed successively under the sway of the Roman, the Greek, and the Turk. Stamboul is still the Mecca of the antiquary. CHAPTER VII. RUSSIAN REGALIA.