Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/45

 II.

Having now traced the growth of the city on the Golden Horn from its origin in the dawn of Grecian history until its expansion into the capital of the greatest empire of the past, I have reached the threshold of my actual task—to place before the reader a picture of Constantinople at the beginning of the sixth century in its topographical and sociological aspects. The literary materials, though abundant, are in great part unreliable and are often devoid of information which would be found in the most unpretentious guide-book of modern times. On the other hand the monumental re-*

Crassus). Except the first, however, these were more or less temporary structures. Very substantial extempore walls are frequently mentioned by both Greek and Latin historians as having been erected during sieges, etc. See especially Caesar (i, 8) and Thucydides (iii, 21, Siege of Plataea).]*
 * [Footnote: wall of Crassus against Spartacus was nearly forty miles long (Plutarch,