In the Augusteum was erected a Senate, its front facing the west. “The Senate,” says Mordtmann, “was placed where to-day stands the Tribunal of Commerce.” That is, on the east side of the present place of S. Sophia against what must have been the eastern side of the Augusteum and the ancient Acropolis, on the seaward wall of which it was probably founded. In digging the foundations of the Tribunal of Commerce in 1847 the ancient pavement was found, at a depth of twelve feet, and the base of the celebrated statue of Eudoxia, with an inscription, marked it as the site of the Courts of Justice (Mordtmann, p. 64). The statue, Socrates[20] says, was “of silver, and it stood upon a lofty pedestal (_bema_), not far from the church called S. Sophia, with a road between.” The Augusteum, following the Hippodrome, does not lie four-square with the cardinal points, but almost diagonally to them: for convenience, however, we shall speak of the directions as North, South, East, and West, calling the side towards the _Mese_ the west. On the north side, and following the same system of alignment, is the present S. Sophia. The palace of the Patriarch probably adjoined the church, on the north side of the square. The royal palaces mentioned in the _Notitia_ were on the south of the Augusteum. According to the _Paschal Chronicle_, written about 630 A.D., Constantine the Great made a palace beside the Hippodrome, “and the ascent from the palace to the stand of the Hippodrome was by means of the stair called the spiral” (Paspates, _Great Palace_, p. 47). This palace does not seem to have become of great importance until Justinian’s time. The _Notitia_ merely mentions the House of Placidia Augusta, and the House of the most noble Marina, the daughters of Arcadius, in the first ward; and the House of Pulcheria Augusta in the third; and speaks of several other royal palaces in the 9th, 10th, and 11th wards. The palace of the emperor at this time was in the 14th ward, which was outside the walls and isolated, making “the figure of a small city by itself;” this is the celebrated palace of Blachernae. _The Church._--It was in May 328 that Helena is said to have discovered the true cross and other relics at Jerusalem. And this event, which synchronizes exactly with Constantine’s choice of Byzantium as his capital, was probably not without direct relation to the foundation of the church dedicated to Christ. Socrates writes, “A portion of the cross she (Helena) inclosed in a silver chest and left in Jerusalem as a memorial, but the other part she sent to the king.”[21]