Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/260

 242 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his success, J '__ he chose the same advantageous position for the prin- cipal forum''; which appears to have been of a cir- cular, or rather elliptical form. The two opposite en- trances formed triumphal arches ; the porticoes, which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues ; and the centre of the forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now de- graded by the appellation of the burnt pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high ; and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference ^. On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal stptue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was sup- posed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had re- presented the god of day, or, as it was afterwards in- terpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head ^. The circus, or hippodrome, was a stately building, about four hundred paces in length and one hundred in breadth ^. The space between the two metce or goals was filled with statues and obelisks : and we may still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity ; the bo- dies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden tri- " Zosim. 1. ii.p. 106 ; Chron. Alexandrin. vel Paschal, p. 284 ; Ducange, Const. 1. i. c. 24. Even the last of those writers seems to confound the forum of Constantine with the Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the other. > The most tolerable account of this column is given by Pocock, De- scription of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131. But it is still in many in- stances perplexed and unsatisfactory. ^ Ducange, Const. 1. i. c. 24. p. 76, and his notes ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or Apollo was thrown down under the reign of Alexis Comnenus. If he means geometrical paces of five feet eacli, it was three hundred toises in length, about forty more than the great circus of Rome. See d'Anvilie, Rlesures Itineraires, p. 73.
 * Tournefort ( Lettre xii.) computes the Atmeidan at four hundred paces.