Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/265

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 247 trious province ". Some other regulations of this em- c U A P. peror are less liable to blame, but they are less deserv- ing of notice. He divided Constantinople into four- teen regions or quarters °, dionified the public council with the appellation of senate , communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy , and bestowed on the rising city the title of colony, the first and most fa- voured- daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was due to her age, to her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former greatness '. As Constantine urged the progress of the work with Dedication. the impatience of a lover, the walls, the porticoes, and g„Q ' 2j_j the principal edifices wei'e com])leted in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few months*: " See Cod. Theodos. 1. xiii. and xiv. and Cod. Justinian, edict, xii. torn. ii. p. 648. edit. Genev. See the beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell. Gildonico, ver. 46 — 64. Cum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque sumsit ^quales aurora togas ; ^Egyptia rura In partem cessere novam. ° The regions of Constantinople are mentioned in the code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia of the younger Theodosius ; but as the four last of them are not included witiiin the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted whether this division of the city should be referred to the founder. P Senatum constituit secundi ordinis ; clatos vocavit. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old Rome were styled claiissimi. See a curious note of alesius ad Ammian. JMarcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it should seem that the place of senator was considered as a bur- den, rather than as an honour : but the abbe de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, torn. ii. p. 371.) has shown that this epistle could not relate to Constanti- nople. Might we not read, instead of the celebrated name of Bv^dvTwig, the obscure but more probable word BKTavQijvoiQt Bisanthe or Rhoedestus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See Stephan. Byz, de Urbibiis, p. 225. and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i. p. 849. •1 Cod. Theodos. 1. xiv. 13. The commentary of Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220.) is long, but perplexed ; nor indeed is it easy to ascertain in what the jus Italicum could consist, after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole empire. ■■ Julian (Orat. i. p. 8.) celebrates Constantinople as not less superior to all other cities, than she was inferior to Rome itself. His learned com- mentator Spanheim, (p. 75, 76.) justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary instances, Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished after tlie division of the empire between the two 5ons of Theodo- sius, which established a perfect eijitatity between the old and the new capital. nople were laid in the year of the world 5H37, (A. J). 329.) on the twenty- sixth of Seplembf r, and that the city was dedicated the eleventh of May, 6838. (A. IJ. 330.) He connects these dates with several characteristic epochs, but they contradict each other : the authority of Codinus is of little
 * Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8.) affirms, that the foundations of Constanti-