Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/258

 9A0 THE D1<:CLINE AND FALL CHAP. Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumfer- X'I1 ... ^ ence of his native city". Such an extent may seem not unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constanti- nople must yield to Babylon and Thebes", to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Parish. Progress of The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution of that great work the wealth, the labour, and all that yet remained of the genius, of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the construction of the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts''. The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to the harbour of Byzantium ^ A multitude of labourers and artificers urged the conclusion of tiie work with inces- sant toil : but the impatience of Constantine soon dis- covered, that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his designs. The ma- " One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be translated into modern Greek miles, each of seven stadia, or six hundred and sixty, sometimes only six hundred French toises. See d'Anville, Mesures Itineraires, p. 53. ° When the ancient texts, which describe the size of Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the exaggera'.ions reduced, and the measures ascertained, we find that those famous cities filled the great but not incredible circum- ference of about twenty-five or thirty miles. Compare d'Anville, Mem. de TAcad^mie, tom. xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de I'Egypte, p. 201,202. P If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal squares of fifty French toises, the former coniains eight hundred and fifty, and the latter one thou- sand one hundred and sixty of those divisions. 1 Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds' weight of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const, p. 11 ; but unless that contemptible author had derived his information from some purer sources, he would probably have been unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning. ' For the forests of the Black sea, consult Tournefort, Lettre xvi : for the marble quarries of Proconnesus, see Strabo, 1. xiii. p. 588. The latter had already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of Cyzicus.