was
observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured
to observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a
great city. "I shall still advance," replied Constantine, "till He,
the invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop."
[29] Without presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this
extraordinary conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more humble
task of describing the extent and limits of Constantinople. [30]

[Footnote 25: Datur haec venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis,
primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in prooem.]

[Footnote 26: He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis quam
aeteras nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. tit. v.
leg. 7.]

[Footnote 27: The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and general
expressions. For a more particular account of the vision, we are obliged
to have recourse to such Latin writers as William of Malmesbury. See
Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 28: See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan. Among
other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that purpose,
was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the settlers brought
from the place of his birth, and thus adopted his new country.]

[Footnote 29: Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though borrowed
from a suspected writer, is characteristic and probable.]

[Footnote 30: See in the Memoires de l'Academie, tom. xxxv p. 747-758,
a dissertation of M. d'Anville on the extent of Constantinople. He
takes the plan inserted in the Imperium Orientale of Banduri as the most
complete; but, by a series of very nice observations, he reduced the
extravagant proportion of the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the
circumference of the city as consisting of about 7800 French toises.]

In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the Seraglio
occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations
on that side beyond the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of
Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the e