X. The above were the works of the Emperor Justinian upon the churches of Constantinople and its suburbs; but as to the other buildings constructed by him, it would not be easy to mention them all. However, to sum up matters, he rebuilt and much improved in beauty the largest and most considerable part both of the city and of the palace, which had been burned down and levelled with the ground. It appears unnecessary for me to enter into particulars on this subject at present, since it has all been minutely described in my ‘History of the Wars.’ For the present I shall only say this much, that the vestibule of the palace and that which is called Chalce, as far as what is known as the House of Ares, and outside the palace the public baths of Zeuxippus,[30] and the great porticoes and all the buildings on either hand, as far as the forum of Constantine, are the works of this Emperor. In addition to these, he restored and added great magnificence to the house named after Hormisdas, which stands close to the palace, rendering it worthy of the palace, to which he joined it, and thereby rendered it much more roomy and worthy of admiration on that side. In front of the palace there is a forum surrounded with columns. The Byzantines call this forum the Augustæum. I mentioned it in a former part of this work, when, after describing the Church of St. Sophia, I spoke of the brazen statue of the Emperor, which stands upon a very lofty column of stones as a memorial of that work. On the eastern side of this forum stands the Senate House, which baffles description by its costliness and entire arrangement, and which was the work of the Emperor Justinian. Here at the beginning of every year the Roman Senate holds an annual festival, according to the custom of the State. Six columns stand in front of it, two of them having between them that wall of the Senate House which looks towards the west, while the four others stand a little beyond it. These columns are all white in colour, and in size, I imagine, are the largest columns in the whole world. They form a portico covered by a circular dome-shaped roof. The upper parts of this portico are all adorned with marble equal in beauty to that of the columns, and are wonderfully ornamented with a number of statues standing on the roof.