XI. As one sails from the Propontis towards the eastern part of the city, there is a public bath on the left hand which is called the Baths of Arcadius, and which forms an ornament to the city of Constantinople, great as it is. Here our Emperor constructed a court standing outside the city, intended as a promenade for the inhabitants, and a mooring-place for those who sail past it. This court is lighted by the sun when rising, but is conveniently shaded when he proceeds towards the west. Round it the sea flows quietly with a gentle stream, coming like a river from the main sea, so that those who are taking their walks in it are able to converse with those who are sailing; for the sea reaches up to the basement of the court with great depth, navigable for ships, and by its remarkable calm enables those on the water and on the land to converse with one another. Such is the side of the court which looks upon the sea, adorned with the view over it, and refreshed with the gentle breezes from it. Its basement, its columns, and its entablature are all covered with marble of great beauty, whose colour is of a most brilliant white, which glitters magnificently in the rays of the sun; moreover, many statues adorn it, some of brass and some of marble, composing a sight well worth mention; one would conjecture that they were the work of Phidias the Athenian, of Lysippus of Sicyon, or of Praxiteles. Here also is a statue of the Empress Theodora on a column, which was erected in her honour by the city as an offering of gratitude for this court. The face of the statue is beautiful, but falls short of the beauty of the Empress, since it is utterly impossible for any mere human workmen to express her loveliness, or to imitate it in a statue; the column is of porphyry, and clearly shows by its magnificent appearance that it carries the Empress, before one sees the statue.