iv. leg. 1. This law
is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the praefect of Italy,
whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The commentary of Godefroy on
the whole title well deserves to be consulted.]

[Footnote 42: Constantinopolis dedicatur poene omnium urbium nuditate.
Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The author of the
Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud Banduri Imp. Orient. tom. i. p. 41)
enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens, and a long list of other
cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia Minor may be supposed to have
yielded the richest booty.]

[Footnote 43: Hist. Compend. p. 369. He describes the statue, or rather
bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly indicates that
Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate age.]

During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of
his success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
Forum; [44] which appears to have been of a circular, or rather
elliptical form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the
porticos, which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues;
and the centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which
a mutilated fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt
pillar. This column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty
feet high; and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of
which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in
circumference. [45] On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred and
twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of Apollo. It
was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town
of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had
represented the god of day, or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the
emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe
of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head.
[46] The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four
hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth. [47] The space
between the two metoe or goals were 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 consecrate