Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/44

 which they had rendered to many Roman generals, to Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey, among them, in Rome's eastern wars. Cicero, in one of his speeches, was able to speak of Byzantium as specially loyal in its friendship to Rome. One of the heaviest charges he brings against Lucius Piso, the governor of Achaia, was that he had grievously wronged this faithful ally. The city, it seems, was still rich and flourishing, and it was, Cicero adds, known to all the world that it was crowded with statues and works of art. These the Byzantines, though they had had to bear the brunt of the Mithridatic war, had, to their great glory, says the orator, most sedulously and religiously guarded. The city had often indeed been brought low, but it is clear that it had a wonderful capacity of recovering itself A tributary of Rome, as it had formerly been of Athens, it kept its municipal freedom, and with it not merely material prosperity, but also some sense of dignity and self-respect.