s, and pantomimes. The square was surrounded
by the hall of justice, the arsenal, and the various offices of
business and pleasure; and the purple chamber was named from the annual
distribution of robes of scarlet and purple by the hand of the empress
herself. The long series of the apartments was adapted to the seasons,
and decorated with marble and porphyry, with painting, sculpture, and
mosaics, with a profusion of gold, silver, and precious stones. His
fanciful magnificence employed the skill and patience of such artists
as the times could afford: but the taste of Athens would have despised
their frivolous and costly labors; a golden tree, with its leaves and
branches, which sheltered a multitude of birds warbling their artificial
notes, and two lions of massy gold, and of natural size, who looked and
roared like their brethren of the forest. The successors of Theophilus,
of the Basilian and Comnenian dynasties, were not less ambitious of
leaving some memorial of their residence; and the portion of the palace
most splendid and august was dignified with the title of the golden
triclinium. [35] With becoming modesty, the rich and noble Greeks
aspired to imitate their sovereign, and when they passed through the
streets on horseback, in their robes of silk and embroidery, they were
mistaken by the children for kings. [36] A matron of Peloponnesus,
[37] who had cherished the infant fortunes of Basil the Macedonian, was
excited by tenderness or vanity to visit the greatness of her adopted
son. In a journey of five hundred miles from Patras to Constantinople,
her age or indolence declined the fatigue of a horse or carriage: the
soft litter or bed of Danielis was transported on the shoulders of ten
robust slaves; and as they were relieved at easy distances, a band of
three hundred were selected for the performance of this service. She
was entertained in the Byzantine palace with filial reverence, and the
honors of a queen; and whatever might be the origin of her wealth, her
gifts were not unworthy of the regal dignity. I have already described
the fine and curious manufactures of Peloponnesus, of linen, silk, and
woollen; but the most acceptable of her presents consisted in three
hundred beautiful youths, of whom one hundred were eunuchs; [38] "for
she was not ignorant," says the historian, "that the air of the palace
is more congenial to such insects, than a shepherd's dairy to the flies
of the summer." During her lifetime,