Chapter III

THE MAKING OF CONSTANTINOPLE UNDER THEODOSIUS II.

408-447 A.D.

SUCH ornamental public works, as have been described, were, like the blossoms on a plant, indications of the general growth and flourishing state of the city. In point of fact, we learn from historians of the times that the population increased at an extraordinary rate, and put a severe strain upon an adequate supply of food and of sufficient accommodation. The ships importing wheat from Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia had all they could do to provide enough bread for the hungry multitudes of the new capital. The dwellings in the city were so closely packed, that the inhabitants, both at home and out of doors, felt cribbed, coffined, and confined. The narrow streets were so encumbered with beasts of burden carrying building material in all directions, that it was dangerous to walk abroad. Ground for building had become so scarce that land had to be made by filling in portions of sea along the shores of the city, and the houses on that artificial ground alone formed a considerable town. And so the time came when it was no longer possible to keep the city within the bounds prescribed by its founder, and measures had to be taken to give Constantinople the size and strength required by the altered circumstances of its history. This was done in 413, early in the reign of Theodosius II., and eighty-five years after the foundation of the city. The western limits of New Rome were then carried to the line of fortifications, whose ruins, like veteran warriors loth to quit their post, stretch to-day from the Sea of Marmora to the old Byzantine Palace, known by the Turkish name Tekfour Serai. At the latter point the new bulwarks joined the walls which guarded the outlying 14th ward, the suburb of Blachernæ, and thus enclosed the city down to the Golden Horn. By this change the area of Constantinople was almost doubled, and reached its final size. Any additions to the dimensions of the city after 413, as in the 7th century when the tract now occupied by the quarter of Aivan Serai was enclosed, or again in the 11th century when the Palace of Blachernæ was protected by new ramparts, were extremely insignificant additions, and were made not for the sake of obtaining more room but for strategic reasons.

Some of the gypsies wear garments rivalling in brilliancy the flowers they sell.]

This extension of the city's limits involved, of course, the erection of new fortifications. Indeed the demand to make the capital of the East a mightier stronghold was not less urgent than the necessity to enlarge its borders. No statesman of the 5th century of our era could fail to realise the formidable character of the barbarian peril which then lowered over the Empire. A period in which an Alaric, an Attila, a Genseric, insulted the majesty of the Roman name, and trampled upon Roman strength, a period in which the Eternal City was captured and sacked, in which Carthage was lost, and the original fabric of the Empire in the West was levelled to the ground, must have been a time when the minds of serious men were troubled by fears and anxieties. These disasters necessarily cast, ere they came, long and dark shadows before them.

Most fortunately for the eastern division of the Empire it had, early in this critical period, a statesman at the head of the Government who comprehended the situation, and who had the sagacity to devise measures by which the strength of the impending storm might be greatly reduced, if not broken. During the first six years of the reign of Theodosius II., who ascended the throne when a child of eight years, the government was in the hands of Anthemius, the Prætorian Prefect of the East. His abilities and character had already made him conspicuous towards the close of the reign of Arcadius. Chrysostom admired him greatly, and described him as a person who honoured any office he held more than the office honoured him. And now that he was Regent of the Empire he did all in his power to prepare the ship of State to encounter the coming tempest. His first step for that purpose was to establish peace with Persia, the standing rival and foe of the Empire. In the next place, he forced the Huns who had appeared to the south of the Danube to retrace their steps, and placed a flotilla of warships upon the river to prevent the return of those fierce barbarians. At the same time he strengthened also the Illyrian fortresses to render the north-western frontier more secure. Then, warned by a bread riot in Constantinople due to a scarcity of wheat in the city, he made arrangements for a more regular supply of grain from Egypt, thus making the population of the capital more friendly to the Government. And lastly, as the crowning act of his administration, he decided to array the city in new and better armour, and make it the strongest citadel in the Roman world. The great wall, flanked by ninety-six towers, which forms the innermost line of the fortifications along the landward side of the city, notwithstanding the changes it has undergone since his day, is even in its ruins, a magnificent monument to his wisdom, and to his devotion to the public weal. Those ramparts proved the shield of European civilisation for more than a thousand years. Their erection was one of those great acts in history which confer priceless benefits on mankind.

The change made by Anthemius in the position of the landward walls involved also the extension of the seaward fortifications to join the extremities of the new western limits. But, although that work must have been included in the plans of Anthemius, it was postponed for no less than a quarter of a century. Lack of funds, or the demands of more urgent necessities, or that happy sense of security from naval attack, in which the Government of Constantinople was tempted to indulge, in view of the city's geographical position, may account for the delay. But whatever the explanation of the postponement, the gap in the defences of the capital could not be left open indefinitely, and at length, in 439, the thirty-first year of the reign of Theodosius II., the shores of the city were enclosed by Cyrus, the then Prefect of the city. It was the year in which the Vandals took Carthage, and possibly the alarm excited by their successes in Africa roused Constantinople to defend itself at every point.

These boys are engaged in patching up the holes in old carpets; they are very skilful in matching the faded colours that are so highly prized in the genuine antique.]

Scarcely, however, had the city girded on its full armour, when, in the year 447, one of those violent earthquakes, to which Constantinople was liable, shook the city, and overthrew a large portion of the wall of Anthemius, with fifty-seven of its towers. The seaward walls of Cyrus were also injured at the same time. Struck with panic, the population rushed from the city to the open country, as far away as the plains about the suburb of the Hebdomon (Makrikeui), and there, with Emperor, Senate, and clergy, offered prayers and supplication that the quaking earth should keep still. It was a terrible catastrophe under any circumstances, but it was the more so at the moment when Attila was sweeping everything before him in his advance upon the city. The crisis was, however, met with extraordinary energy. Under the direction of the Prefect Constantine (whom some authorities identify with Cyrus) the calamity which had overtaken the city was turned into an opportunity of building more formidable fortifications than those which had been destroyed. Requisitions of money and materials were made upon the citizens, and the Factions of the Hippodrome now vied with each other in the race to build the most and the fastest. Not only was the wall of Anthemius repaired, but at a distance of about twenty yards in front of it was placed a second wall, also flanked with ninety-six towers, and then at a distance of some twenty yards from the latter line a broad and deep moat was constructed, with a battlement breast-high surmounting its inner side. So vigorously was the work pressed forward that the second wall was completed in two months. Thus, the capital stood behind a barricade 190-207 feet thick and 100 feet high, comprising four lines of defence, that rose tier above tier to permit concerted action, with ample room for the operation of large bodies of troops, and affording numerous points of vantage from which to pour upon an enemy every missile of death in the arsenal of ancient warfare--arrows, stones, and Greek fire. If men did their duty, the city was now impregnable, while the Prefect Constantine earned the right to be associated with Anthemius, as one of the forgers of the weapons with which Constantinople defended the higher life of mankind against the assaults of barbarism for ten centuries. Two inscriptions on the Gate Yeni Mevlevi Khaneh Kapoussi (the ancient Gate of Rhegium)--one in Greek, the other in Latin--have proclaimed the services of the Prefect Constantine from his day to the present time. "In sixty days, at the command of the sceptre-loving Emperor, Constantine the Eparch built wall to wall," says the former in modest terms. The Latin legend breathes the pride and satisfaction which the work inspired. "By the commands of Theodosius, the second month not being completed, Constantine set up these strong fortifications. Scarcely could Pallas have built so quickly so firm a citadel."

But the erection of the new walls of the capital was not by any means all the building done in Constantinople during the reign of Theodosius II. The area added to the city naturally offered a wide field for further construction. Much damage caused to the older portions of the city by frequent fires and repeated earthquakes in the course of the Emperor's reign, or shortly before it, had also to be made good. The Church of S. Sophia, and probably the adjoining Senate-House, now rose from the ashes to which they had been reduced when Chrysostom was exiled. The Baths of Achilles and the Public Granaries in the vicinity, destroyed in the fire which burnt down the quarter now marked by the Stamboul Custom House, were likewise rebuilt at this time. To the ornaments of the Hippodrome were now added the four gilt bronze horses of Lysippus, which to-day adorn the Church of S. Mark at Venice, whither they were carried as trophies of the capture of Constantinople, in 1204, by the fleet of the Doge Henrico Dandolo.

In this work of city improvement no one made himself so prominent as the Prefect Cyrus, already mentioned as concerned in the fortification of the shores of the city. He was a poet, a student of art and architecture, and, if not a pagan, strongly imbued with the spirit of the old faith. Moreover, he was distinguished for great integrity, a rare virtue among the officials of the day, and, in consequence, had been appointed simultaneously Prætorian Prefect of the East and Prefect of the city four times. It was doubtless with the view of checking corrupt practices that he restricted the powers of the Prefect of the city in the administration of the municipal revenues. Among the improvements he introduced, the proper lighting of shops in the evening is mentioned. His character and services made him immensely popular; but the fact did not make him happier. The dread of the fickleness of fortune ever cast its shadow over his mind, and he was often heard to say, "I do not like Fortune when she smiles much." At length, his worst fears were realised. Taking his seat one day in the Hippodrome, he received a great ovation from the vast crowds assembled to witness the races. "Constantine," they shouted, "founded the city; Cyrus has restored it." Never had the capricious goddess smiled so benignantly upon him, and never did she prove more treacherous. Such popularity offended Theodosius, and he decided to break the idol of the people to pieces. Cyrus was dismissed from office, deprived of his property, and reduced to a political nonentity, by being consecrated Bishop of Smyrna or of Cotæum in Phrygia. Such a proceeding appears very strange, but probably we are ignorant of facts which would explain this transformation of a pagan official into a Christian priest. One can hardly believe that a man like Cyrus was insincere in his new character.

The street dogs always select the busiest and most inconvenient places for resting.]

The post assigned to the ex-Prefect was not attractive. Four of his predecessors in the diocese had been murdered by brigands, and the people committed to his care doubted the soundness of his faith. But in a sermon preached on Christmas Day he conciliated his flock by orthodox statements, pointing out at the same time that the mystery before their minds was most honoured by silence. And he died unmolested by robbers. It is curious to observe, in passing, how punishment here assumes a religious form, and how men tried to hide their cruelty under the pretence of doing good to the souls of their victims. In the subsequent history of Constantinople, this species of penalty became common. It was a symptom at once of the mildness and the meanness of the times.

But the reign of Theodosius II. is not distinguished only for the material growth of Constantinople. It is not less memorable for the advance of the city in its intellectual character, as the nursery of learning and the seat of justice. In this reign the University of Constantinople was opened. It found a home in the building known as the Capitol, on the hill now occupied by the Turkish War Office. Judging from the descriptions we have of the building, it resembled in its arrangements a Turkish theological school, _medresseh_,--an open court, surrounded by class-rooms on the level of the court. Some of the rooms were spacious halls, richly decorated, and accommodating large audiences. The studies pursued were chiefly grammar, rhetoric, and literature, both in Latin and in Greek, there being thirteen professors for these studies in the former language and fifteen in the latter. To philosophy only one professor was assigned, while the department of law was in charge of two professors. In the charter, so to speak, of the University, particular stress is laid upon the need of a separate class-room for each teacher, lest the different classes should disturb one another by simultaneous talking and variety of languages, with the result that the ears and minds of the students would be diverted from their proper occupation. A candidate for a professor's chair was required to undergo an examination before the Senate both as to his learning and his character. After twenty years' service a professor was rewarded with the title of a Count of the Empire. Only the professors attached to the University were allowed to lecture in public, and they were not permitted to give private instruction. The foundation of the University had two objects mainly in view--to prepare young men for the civil service, and to supersede the pagan schools of learning. It had certainly a lofty ideal, for, in the language of an inscription that refers to the institution, it was to be "a glory to scholars, an ornament to the city, the hope of youth, weapons to virtue, and wealth to the good." Thus, while the shadows of ignorance were gathering to settle down upon western Europe, the light of knowledge was kept burning in the capital of the East until the darkness passed away. The study of Latin indeed was erelong abandoned in Constantinople, but Greek learning had always its friends there, who handed that treasure down from century to century, and bequeathed it at last to safer keeping and wider use.

Another act that does honour to the reign of Theodosius II. is the codification of the laws enacted since the time of Constantine the Great. The compilation took nine years to be made, and is known as the Theodosian Code. How great a need it supplied is quaintly set forth in the preamble to the Code. "The chaos presented by the state in which the laws were found was such that few persons had an adequate knowledge of the subject, even though their faces have grown pale from late lucubrations." "When we consider," to quote Professor Bury's translation, "the enormous multitude of books, the divers modes of process, and the difficulty of legal cases, and further the hugeness of imperial constitutions, which, hidden as it were under a veil of gross mist and darkness, precludes men's intellects from gaining a knowledge of them, we feel that we have met a real need of our age, and, dispelling the darkness, have given light to the laws by a short compendium."

The interior of an old Khan now used as a show-room for antique rugs and carpets.]

On 23rd December of the year 438, the Code compiled at Constantinople was presented to the Senate of Rome and recognised by that body. It was a curious reversal of the part which the elder city had acted in the world. The teacher had become the pupil. Or is it truer to say, the pupil then did homage to the teacher? The Theodosian Code was superseded by the Code of Justinian the Great, but the earlier compilation retains the honour of being the first great legal instrument to confer upon New Rome the distinction of becoming the tribunal which has guided the most civilised nations of the world into the paths of righteousness and justice in the dealings between man and man. Into the religious controversies which agitated Constantinople while Theodosius II. was upon the throne, this is not the place to enter. But Constantinople would not have been itself without a hard theological problem to discuss, if not to solve, and we do not know the soul, so to speak, of Constantinople unless we recognise what may be termed the religious temperament of the city. At a period, indeed, when a great religious revolution in the faith of men had taken place, and men were called to make clear to themselves what exactly they believed, and how their beliefs were to be harmonised with their philosophy and the general principles of reason, religious questions could not fail to be prominent everywhere. They were as naturally prominent in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, when Christianity became the religion of the State, as they were at the time of the Reformation. But Constantinople made these questions peculiarly its own. It could not well be otherwise where the seat of the chief bishop of the Church in the East was found, and in the capital of a Government which concerned itself in these debates as matters of political importance. Nor can it be denied that in the discussion of the subjects before the public mind we often witness great intellectual acumen, and a profound religious spirit. Able and pious men anxiously sought to reconcile faith in the unity of the Divine, with faith in the intimate oneness between the Divine and the human manifested in the life of Christ. No age is dishonoured by keen interest in that theme.

His business plant consists of an awning propped up against the wall of a fountain and a few broken-down old stools.]

On the other hand, these discussions sometimes degenerated into idle debate, and displayed some of the most odious feelings of human nature. And Constantinople laid itself open to the well-known satirical description of its theological bias by Gregory of Nyssa. "The city is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of money for you, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son was made out of nothing."

Under Theodosius II., the interest taken by the citizens of Constantinople in theological controversy was all the greater, inasmuch as the points at issue were raised by religious teachers in the capital itself; one of the heretics being no less a personage than Nestorius, the patriarch of the city. He denied the propriety of the epithet, Theotokos, Mother of God, commonly bestowed upon the Mother of our Lord. A great controversy followed, in which all classes of society, from the Emperor and his family to the monks and populace, took part, and displayed, as usual in such cases, a spirit unworthy of the Christian name. So great was the commotion caused by the questions in dispute, that two General Councils of the Church--that of Ephesus in 431, and that of Chalcedon in 451--were convened to affirm the orthodox faith, if not to restore peace. And thus for some twenty years people in Constantinople had all the theology they could wish to discuss. One result of these religious troubles was to evoke the latent antagonism between the different races which composed the population of the Empire. Under the guise of religious differences, national diversities asserted themselves. Rome and Constantinople, the West and the East, did not learn to love each other better in the heat of such debates. While from the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenian Church and the Coptic Church date, respectively, their separation from the main body of Christendom. The extent to which religious and political aspirations are associated in the minds of the populations of the modern East casts much light upon the formation of different Churches along national lines in the earlier days of the Christian world, and also enables us to understand why religious conflicts caused so much anxiety to the imperial Government of New Rome.

Another feature in the religious life of Constantinople that became very distinct in the time of Theodosius II., was the veneration cherished for relics, and the growing desire to consecrate and enrich the city by their presence. The body of Chrysostom was taken from its grave in Pityus and entombed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as an act of reparation for the wrongs he had suffered, and as an atonement for the sins of his persecutors. The supposed relics of Joseph and of Zacharias, on their arrival in the city, were received with great pomp by the Emperor, the Senate, and great officials, as though the saints were being welcomed in person. Pulcheria brought the relics of the Forty Saints martyred at Sivas, and enshrined them in a church she erected on the Xerolophus. To her also is ascribed the foundation of the three principal churches dedicated to the Mother of the Lord, S. Mary of Blachernæ, S. Mary Chalcoprateia and S. Mary Hodegetria, to become treasuries rich in relics of the Theotokos. The Empress Eudocia, on her return to Constantinople from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, brought with her, besides other relics, the portrait of Christ ascribed to S. Luke. In this way, Constantinople grew to be a sacred city, a sanctuary to which pilgrims came to acquire merit and receive benefits, almost as great as those obtained by a pilgrimage to the land over whose acres walked the blessed feet of the Saviour.

To omit all reference, however brief, to the influence of ladies in the public life of Constantinople while Theodosius II. occupied the throne, would be to omit an important feature of the time; a feature which often reappeared in the subsequent life of the Empire, and profoundly affected the course of its history. Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius II., was the power behind her brother's throne. She directed his education, arranged his marriage, and was, with brief interruptions, the presiding genius of his career. The vow of virginity which she had taken, and which she persuaded her sisters to take, her charities, her activity in building churches, her orthodoxy, all rendered her popular in devout circles and with the dominant ecclesiastical party. To her was due the strong religious tone of the Court, and in the theological disputes that agitated the Church and the State in her day she took an active interest, and helped materially to determine the particular form of their settlement. Her opposition to Nestorius and Eutychius had much to do with the condemnation of their views. And notwithstanding the occasional loss of her influence over a brother who was too weak to adhere steadily to a single course, she triumphed at last over all her rivals, and upon his death mounted the throne as the consort of Marcian.

Roumeli Hissar is the most interesting of the many Turkish villages on the shores of the Bosporus.]

The story of Athenaïs, and her marriage to Theodosius II., is well known, but it will always retain the attraction which belongs to a life in which romance and tragedy acted their opposite parts. A beautiful and talented girl, brought up as a pagan by her father Leontius, who cultivated philosophy in the schools of Athens, she came to Constantinople to seek redress for what she deemed a great wrong. Her father, at his death, had divided his fortune between his sons, and left her to struggle with the world almost penniless. This arrangement was a philosopher's eccentric way of indicating his appreciation of his daughter's loveliness and genius, and his confidence that they would win greater success for their possessor than any prosperity his money could ever secure. But either because of her modesty or her practical sense, Athenaïs differed from her father on that point, and wished his decision reversed. We can readily imagine how her story would circulate in the society of the capital, and make its heroine a topic of general conversation and interest. It raised so many questions to discuss, it appealed to the sympathy of so many feelings. Naturally, the charming girl was introduced to Pulcheria. She soon won the affection and admiration of the princess, under whose austerities a woman's heart still beat, and it was not long before Pulcheria thought she could do more for Athenaïs than obtain for her a share in the fortune of Leontius. In fact she considered no one so fit to become the Emperor's wife. The interest of Theodosius was readily excited by a description of the maiden's charms: large eyes, the nose of Aphrodite, a fair complexion, golden hair, a slender figure, graceful manners, clever, accomplished, and "of wondrous virtues." Accompanied by his friend Paulinus, he went to his sister's apartments, and standing concealed behind a curtain, saw the fair form and was conquered. So Athenaïs received baptism, and under the name of Eudocia became the bride of the Emperor of the East. Like Portia, her father had scanted her and hedged her by his wit that she might reach the pinnacle of human joys. And with the spirit of Joseph in Egypt, she forgave the brothers who had injured her, summoned them to Constantinople, and secured for them high positions. Her talents appeared in her writings, and in her friendship with the most intelligent men of the day. But erelong clouds began to gather on this sunny sky. First came the natural rivalry between herself and Pulcheria as to whether a wife's influence or a sister's would be stronger over the mind of the Emperor; then estrangement, due to their different temperaments and education; then diversity of theological opinion, Eudocia taking the side opposite to Pulcheria in the controversy raised by Nestorius. But perhaps these clouds might have passed away, and the heavens grown radiant again, had not the friendship between the Empress and Paulinus aroused the jealousy of Theodosius, and excited his worst suspicions. According to a discredited tale the crisis was brought about under the following circumstances--"One day the Emperor was met by a peasant who presented him with a Phrygian apple of enormous size, so that the whole Court marvelled at it. And he gave the man a hundred and fifty gold pieces in reward, and sent the apple to the Empress Eudocia. But she sent it, as a present to Paulinus, the Master of the Offices, because he was a friend of the Emperor. But Paulinus, not knowing the history of the apple, took it and gave it to the Emperor as he reëntered the palace. And Theodosius having received it, recognised it and concealed it, and calling his wife asked her, "Where is the apple that I sent you?" She replied, "I have eaten it." Then he bade her swear by his salvation the truth, whether she had eaten it or sent it to some one. And Eudocia swore that she had sent it to no man, but had herself eaten it. Then the Emperor showed her the apple, and was exceedingly angry, suspecting that she was enamoured of Paulinus, and had sent it to him as a love-gift; for he was a very handsome man." But however idle this tale may be, the fact is that Paulinus was put to death, and the Empress was banished to Jerusalem. She spent the last sixteen years of her life there in retirement and abounding charities, and died protesting her innocence.

One of its many vault-like passages in which the merchants are displaying their goods.]

Before concluding this account of the making of Constantinople, we must note another of the characteristics which the city gradually manifested in the development of its life--the tendency to cease to be Roman and to become Greek. It is true, that in one sense Constantinople always remained Roman, and this character of the city should never be ignored. The people preferred to be known as Romans rather than by any other name. No title of the Eastern Emperors was so glorious in their view as to be styled the Great Emperor of the Romans. Roman law ruled in the Empire of which Constantinople was the head. The autocratic power inherited from strictly Roman days was maintained there to the last. Names of offices, epithets of officials, the denomination of taxes, legends upon the coinage of the realm, the terms in which Emperors were acclaimed by the army or the Factions were long preserved in their old Latin forms, but slightly, if at all, altered, and showed clearly the family connection that bound Rome upon the Bosporus to Rome upon the Tiber. Nevertheless, the daughter-city, though proud of her lineage, was also eager to declare her independence and to assert her individuality.

It could not be otherwise. A city exalted to be the capital of the part of the Empire under the sway of Greek traditions, and employing the Greek language as a vernacular speech, would inevitably consider itself called upon to embody and champion the peculiar properties of the society of which it was the constituted head. Nor could a community whose religious life was under the direction of a Church that worshipped in the Greek tongue, and was stirred by the eloquence of the Chrysostoms, the Gregories, and the Basils of the East retain a Roman complexion and character without serious modifications. So long, indeed, as the western division of the Empire existed, the political union between Rome and Constantinople proved a check upon the Greek bias of the latter city, owing to the necessity of using Latin, as the language whose writ could run equally in both parts of the Roman world. The Popes of Rome, with characteristic insight, recognised the value of a common official language as a bond of unity, and an instrument of maintaining universal rule. The use of the Latin in the services and administration of the Roman Church is a master-stroke of political genius. But when partly by the estrangement of the two portions of the Empire, and partly by the Fall of the Empire in the West, the need of a common speech ceased to exist, the stream of tendency in the East was left free to follow its natural bent.

Within the period under review we see, of course, only the early symptoms of the Greek bias to gain ascendency, but though these symptoms are comparatively slight, they are the proverbial straws that indicate the direction of the wind. While Latin alone glitters in the inscriptions upon the Golden Gate, Greek also is allowed a place in the legends which celebrate the elevation of the obelisk upon its pedestal in the Hippodrome. The pedestal adorned by the statue of the Empress Eudoxia likewise bore a bilingual inscription. The extraordinary energy displayed by the Prefect Constantine in the erection of the outer Theodosian Wall is lauded, on the Gate of Rhegium, in both languages. Probably the same was the case in the record of that splendid achievement put upon another gate of the fortifications--the Gate Xylokerkou--although the historian, owing doubtless to his ignorance of Latin, has preserved only the Greek version. But the balance inclines in favour of Greek, when, at the University of Constantinople, there are more professors attached to the studies in that language than to the studies in the tongue of the elder Rome. At the same time also, the Prefect Cyrus introduced the custom of publishing decrees in Greek instead of in Latin. And along with this preference for Greek in speech, there is a marked growth of what was Greek in spirit. Thus in the relations between the Empire and Persia, as well as in the relations between the Empire and the barbarians, the Government of Constantinople depends now for success rather upon the devices of diplomacy than upon the force of arms. The negotiations between the Court of Theodosius II. and Attila are a remarkable chapter in the history of the diplomatic art--not of the noblest character. When Marcian replied to the demand of Attila for an increase of the tribute paid to the chief of the Huns by the Government of Constantinople, in the haughty terms, "We give gold to our friends, and steel to our enemies," words were spoken that had become somewhat unfamiliar, while the first Greek Emperor, as Theodosius II. has been styled, sat upon the throne.

Furthermore, it is the Greek spirit, not the Roman, that appears in the theological speculations of the Eastern Church, in the stress laid on correct thinking, and in the philosophical development of Christian dogma. After making every allowance for the vast difference between the splendid genius of Ancient Greece and the mental life that flourished in New Rome, it does not seem too much to say, that the old intellectual temperament of Hellas survived and prevailed in the capital of the East. There was undoubtedly, at all times, enough and to spare of ignorance, superstition, and narrow-mindedness in Constantinople, but no period in the history of the Byzantine world quite corresponds to the Dark Ages in Western Europe. As in the Parthenon on the Acropolis of the city with the violet crown, so, under the dome of S. Sophia, beside the blue waters of the Bosporus, men agreed that the highest attribute of the Divine, and the ideal of human attainment, is Wisdom.