he gods
and heroes, of the sages and poets of ancient times,
contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople.

"... The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building of
about four hundred paces in length and one hundred in
breadth. The space between the two _metae_, or goals, was
filled with statues and obelisks, and we may still remark a
very singular fragment of antiquity--the bodies of three
serpents twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been
long since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish
conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan,
it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses.
From the throne whence the emperor viewed the Circensian
games a winding staircase descended to the palace, a
magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence
of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
courts, gardens, and porticoes, covered a considerable
extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the
Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. We might likewise
celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched by the magnificence
of Constantine with lofty columns, various marbles, and
above three score statues of bronze. But we should deviate
from the design of this history if we attempted minutely to
describe the different buildings or quarters of the city....
A particular description, composed about a century after its
foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a
circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred and
fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticoes, five
granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four
spacious halls for the meeting of the senate or courts of
justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four
thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which for
their size or beauty deserved to be distinguished from the
multitude of plebeian habitations."

Gibbon's conception of history was that of a spacious panorama, in
which a series of tableaux pass in succession before the reader's eye.
He adverts but little,