516 History of the City of Constantinople [April 4^ 



the most beautiful landscape of any city in the world. Its founda- 

 tion in 658 by a colony of Greeks led to its connection with most of 

 the great events and most famous men of Greek history. The 

 transfer of the capital of the Eoman Empire from the Tiber to the 

 Golden Horn, effected by Constantine the Great in 330 a.d., was one 

 of the master-strokes in the history of civilization. 



The New Rome of Constantine was a splendid city extending 

 three miles inland. Theodosius II. raised a still vaster wall from 

 the Marmora to the Golden Horn four miles from the headland, the 

 circuit we see to-day. Anastasius built a farther wall some fifty 

 miles long from the Marmora to the Black Sea. This tremendous 

 fortification protected Christian and Gr^eco- Roman civilization from 

 the barbarians of the North and the infidels of the East for a 

 thousand years. The walls of Constantinople are the most instruc- 

 tive remains of the military system of the ancient world. It with- 

 stood some twenty sieges, and was never pierced until Mahomet 11. 

 in 1453 overwhelmed the city by his new cannon. The ruins are 

 still one of the most impressive sights on earth. With the Hippo- 

 drome, and its obelisk, its Colossus, and its Delphic column, these are 

 the most venerable reHcs of antiquity. The glory of Constantinople 

 is the great Church of S. Sophia, built by Justinian in 537 a.d., which 

 with its marbles and mosaics has a radiant majesty entirely its own. 



More than twenty ancient churches still remain converted into 

 mosques, as well as the same number of mosques built since the 

 Conquest, some of them almost equal to S. Sophia in size and splen- 

 dour. Then comes the old Serai, the palaces of the Sultans, rich 

 with endless memorials of glory, art, and crime. The antiquities of 

 Stambul are inexhaustible, and the two modern museums contain 

 treasures, especially in Greek sarcophagi, in bronzes, porcelains, and 

 tapestries that are hardly to be matched in Europe. 



The material marvel of Constantinople is its position between 

 Europe and Asia, dominating the w^hole eastern side of one continent, 

 and also the seas and islands of the Levant. This is as true to-day 

 as in that of Constantine. The moral marvel of the city is the power 

 of revival it has shown since Roman times. What will be its future 

 remains the fateful secret of the League of Nations, to which it 

 Ijresents a problem so complex and so full of great possibilities. 



[F. H.] 



