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 C 0 N T R A C T (near the Mosque Shah Zade); the Forum of the Bous (at Ak Serai); the Forum of Arcadius, or of Theodosius II. (on the summit of the Seventh Hill, at Avret Bazaar). A branch of the Mese led to the Church of the Holy Apostles, on the summit of the Fourth Hill, and to the Gate of Adrianople (Gate of Charisius) in the city walls. Of the edifices and monuments which adorned the Fora just mentioned, it must here suffice to say that the Augustaion (so named in honour of Augusta Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great) was the heart of the city’s political and ecclesiastical life. The great cathedral of Eastern Christendom rose on the north side of the square ; the splendid gateway of the Chalce, leading to the Imperial Palace, the Baths of Zeuxippus, with the Hippodrome behind them, stood on the south ; the Senate House was on the east; while to the west, at a short distance off the Mese, which issued from the square, were the Law Courts. In the area of the square stood the Milion, whence distances from Constantinople were measured ; the equestrian statue of Justinian the Great, on a lofty column ; the statue of the Empress Eudoxia, famous in the history of Chrysostom, and the inscribed pedestal of which remains. With the Forum of Constantine the Great the commercial activity of the city was closely associated, the most remarkable monument in the forum being the porphyry column which still stands there, and which earned aloft the statue of that emperor. In the Forum of Theodosius I. rose a column in his honour, constructed on the model of the hollow column of Trajan at Rome; there also stood the Anemodoulion, a beautiful structure surmounted by a vane to indicate the direction of the wind ; and close to the Forum, if not within its precints, was the Capitol, in which the University of Constantinople was established. The most conspicuous object in the Forum of the Bous was an ancient bronze figure of an ox, which gave name to the Forum, and beside which criminals were sometimes burned to death. Another hollow column, the pedestal of which still remains, rose in the Forum of Arcadius in honour of that emperor. The city possessed also a column in honour of the Emperor Marcian, which still stands in the valley of the Lycus, below the Mosque of Sultan Mahomet II. In the decoration of the Fora and streets of the city there was a strange mingling of works belonging to good periods of Greek and Roman Art, with works made when Art had fallen on evil days. An immense number of churches, enriched by the reputed relics of saints, prophets, and martyrs, made Constantinople a holy city, attracting to its shrines devout pilgrims from every part of the empire. Only some twenty of these sanctuaries survive, and most of them are now used as mosques for Moslem worship, exhibiting few traces of the beauty created by the combination of dome and arch, of marble revetment and mosaics. But S. Sophia still impresses the mind as one of the grandest buildings ever reared by human hands, while the Churches of S. Irene, SS. Sergius and Bacchus (Kutchuk Aya Sofia), S. Mary Diaconissa (Kalender Djamissi), S. Saviour of the Chora (Kahriyeh Djamissi), and S. Saviour Pantocrator (Klissd Djamissi) are interesting monuments of Byzantine art. The Church of the Holy Apostles, to which the Imperial Cemetery was attached, on the summit of the Fourth Hill, has been replaced by the Mosque of Sultan Mahomet II., the conqueror of the city. Of the imperial palaces in and around the city we can mention only the Great Palace, a group of detached edifices scattered over the ground descending to the Sea of Marmora from the Hippodrome and the eastern side of the Augustaion ; the Palace of Hormisdas, or of the Bucoleon, near Tchatlady Kapou ; the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, Tekfour Serai; the Palace of Blachernae, in the quarters of Egri Kapou and Aivas Effendi ; the suburban Palace of Pege, at Balukli; the Palace of the Hebdomon, at Makrikeui. The last has generally been identified with Tekfour Serai, but the fact that the suburb and palace at the Hebdomon stood at Makrikeui, beside the Sea of Marmora, at the seventh milestone from the Milion, is one of the surest results of recent archaeological investigations. The fortress of the Cyclobion was in the same vicinity. The Hippodrome, which entered so much into the life of the city, is represented by the large open space to the west of the Mosque of Sultan Achmet. An Egyptian obelisk on a pedestal covered with sculptured work portraying Theodosius I., sometimes accompanied by his empress and his sons, presiding at scenes in the Hippodrome; the Serpent Column, which stood originally at Delphi, in commemoration of the battle of Plataea ; and a lofty pile of masonry in the form of an obelisk, once covered with gilded plates of bronze, indicate the line of the Spina; while under the prison and offices along the western side of the area arches are visible, against which seats for the spectators were built. Water was brought to the city from the country to the west and north-west by aqueducts, sometimes above and sometimes under ground, and was stored within the city in large open reservoirs (now changed into vegetable gardens) and in cisterns covered with vaulted roofs supported on columns. They are important specimens of Byzantine architecture, as the works of Andreossy {Constantinople et le Bosphore), of Forchheimer and Strzygowski {Die

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Byzantinischen Wasscrbehalter von Konstantinopel), and of Choisy {L'Art de Bdtir chez les Byzantins) testify. The Aqueduct of Yalens spans the valley between the Fourth Hill and the Third Hill of the city, and still carries on its beneficent work. The Cistern of Bin-Bir-Derek (Cistern of Ulus) and the Cistern of Yeri-Batan-Serai (Cisterna Basilica) are noteworthy. Much of the water introduced into the city was used in the public baths and fountains, which formed as characteristic a feature of Byzantine Constantinople as similar erections do of Stamboul. Byzantine Constantinople was a great emporium of trade, and a striking evidence of its commercial activity is seen in the number of harbours with which the city was provided. In addition to the Golden Horn and its bays, several artificial harbours, traces of which remain, were constructed on the shore of the city beside the Sea of Marmora. First (beginning from the east) came the Harbour of the Bucoleon, attached to the palace of that name, for the service of the Imperial Court. Then, at a short distance to the west of Tchatlady Kapou, came the Harbour of the Emperor Julian (Kadriga Limani), or of Sophia, as it was called after its reconstruction by the empress of Justin II. ; the Harbour of Condoscalion (Koum Kapou) followed ; next came (a little to the east of Yeni Kapou) the Harbour of Kaisarius, or the Heptascalon ; then, the Harbour of Theodosius I., or of Eleutherius (Vlanga Bostan) ; and lastly, the Harbour of the Golden Gate, on the shore south of that entrance. Besides the works mentioned above, the following will assist the student of the archaeology of the city:—Petrus Gyllius. De Topographia Constantinopoleos et de illius Antiquitatibus.—Du Cange. Constantinopolis Christiana. — Paspates. Bv^avrival MeXirai.—Salzenberg. Altchristliche Baudenkmale von Konstantinopel—Lethaby and Swainson. The Church of Sancta Sophia.—Pulgher. Les Anciennes iZcjlises Byzantines de Constantinople.—Labarte. La Palais Imperial de Constantinople et ses Abords.—Mordtmann. Bsquisse Topographique de Constantinople. (a. van M.) Contract.—The purpose of this article is not to give technical details and authorities for professional use, but to exhibit the characteristic features of English law in connexion with their historical and rational grounds. Enforcement of good faith in matters of bargain and promise is among the most important functions of legal justice in modern civilized countries. It might not be too much to say that, next after keeping the peace and securing property against violence and fraud so that business may be possible, it is the most important. Yet we shall find that the importance of contract is developed comparatively late in the history of law. The commonwealth needs elaborate rules about contracts only when it is advanced enough in civilization and trade to have an elaborate system of credit. The Roman law of the empire dealt with contract, indeed, in a fairly adequate manner, though it never had a complete or uniform theory • and the Roman law, as settled by Justinian, appears to have satisfied the Eastern empire long after the Western nations had begun to recast their institutions, and the traders of the Mediterranean had struck out a cosmopolitan body of rules, known as the Law Merchant, which claimed acceptance in the name neither of Justinian nor of the Church, but of universal reason. It was amply proved afterwards that the foundations of the Roman system were strong enough to carry the fabric of modern legislation. But the collapse of the Roman power in western Christendom threw society back into chaos, and reduced men’s ideas of ordered justice and law to a condition compared with which the earliest Roman law known to us is modern. In this condition of legal ideas, which it would be absurd to call jurisprudence, the general duty of keeping faith is not recognized except as a matter of religious or social observance. Those who desire to be assured of anything that lies in promise must exact an oath, or a pledge, or personal sureties; and even then the court of their people—in England the Hundred Court in the first instance—will do nothing for them in the first case, and not much in the two latter. It is more a question of acquiring a good title to help one’s self than of becoming entitled to active assistance from any person in authority. S. III.— 28