CONSTANTINK 



CONSTANTINOPLE 



433 



government, under the name of Constantinople or 

 City tit Con-ianiiiic. In .TJti In- committed a deed 

 llui't lias tin-own a dink shade over liis memory. 

 Mi- eide-t son (l>y hi* tint wife), Cii-pus, a gallant 

 ami accomplished prince, who \\a- MM y popular, he 

 put to death on a charge of treason ; and next 

 year hi^ '\\n second wife, Kausta, mother of the 

 (In.-'' -i. M- amongst whom he divided his empire. 

 In :(_'.' was held tin* great Council of Nicu-a, in 

 which lie opposed the Arians on |Mlilical -louud-, 

 as tlie weaker party ; Imt not Ix-ing theologi- 

 cally inteivMed in the dimensions, refrained from 

 active persecution of tliem. In 3'24 Christianity 

 liecame the slate religion, the pagan temples were 

 rlo.-ed, and sacrifices forbidden. Yet it was only 

 a short time before Constan tine's death, which 

 occurred 2'_'d July 337, that he would allow himself 

 to be baptised l>y the Arian bishop, Eusebius of 

 Ni'-omcdia. The story of liis baptism at Rome by 

 I 'ope Sylvester in .'{'Jfi, and of the so-called Dona- 

 (inn of Conttantint thereafter, alluded to in Dante's 

 J tifr nut, and often in the past gravely argued as 

 giving an historical basis for the temporal power of 

 the papacy, may safely l>e dismissed (see CANON 

 LAW). For other Constantines, see BYZANTINE 

 EMPIKK. 



Cqnstantine Nikolaevitoh, Grand-duke of 



Russia, the second son of the emperor Nicholas I., 

 and the brother of Alexander II., was born 21st 

 September 1827. During the Crimean war he 

 commanded the Russian fleet in the Baltic, and 

 directed the defensive preparations which held the 

 English and French armaments in check before 

 Cronstadt. The leader of the Muscovite or 

 national party, he strenuously opposed the con- 

 cessions made to the western powers, but through- 

 out gave, although contrary to expectation, steady 

 allegiance to his elder brother from his accession 

 to his unhappy death. On the outbreak of the 

 Polish insurrection in 1862, he held the office of 

 viceroy of Poland for three months, was appointed 

 in January 1865 and reappointed in 1878 president 

 of the council of the empire. In 1882 he was dis- 

 missed from this dignity, as well as the command 

 of the fleet, on the suspicion of having intrigued 

 with the revolutionary party, while his eldest son, 

 Nicholas, was banished. Died January 25, 1892. 



Constantinople, 49 N. lat., 28 59' E. long., 

 the capital of the Ottoman empire, was founded in 

 330 A.I), by Constantino the Great, from whom it 

 derives its name, on a site partly occupied by the 

 ancient l!\ /antium. The Turks call it Istambol 

 or Stamhol, which they pretend is a corruption of 

 Islamliol ('Islam abounding'), a name which was 

 formerly engraved upon the coinage in lien of Kus- 

 tantiniya, the Arabic form of Constan tinopol is. 

 European writers have fancifully derived Istam)M>l 

 from the Greek expression fjj rV iroXLv, 'up to town,' 

 but a more probable derivation makes it simply 

 a Turkish mispronunciation of Con*<Mtino/>o/is. 

 The original Byzantium was a colony (alntut 658 

 B.C.) from Megani, with an Argive mixture, how- 

 ever, to which the worship of Hera, and the 

 introduction of the myth of lo, represented upon 

 the earliest coins, may nrohably l>e ascrilied. It 

 was built on tin- apex of the triangular peninsula 

 M'hich juts out towards Asia on the southern 

 of the Col. 'en Horn, where the present Eski 

 Serai or 'Old Seraglio' stands, and its command- 

 ing position made it an object of strife among 

 tin- nations Persians, Gauls, and Greeks. In 

 tin- middle of the 4th century B.C., the Athenians 

 under Demosthenes, coming to the assistance of 

 the Byzantines, repelled the siege of Philip of 

 Macedon, aided, according to the legend, by the 

 supernatural appearance of a crescent in the sky, 

 "which revealed the presence of the invaders, and 

 132 



wan forthwith adopted an the badge or <-n-t of the 

 city, as it is to this day. After it* suhmbwion, the 

 I Ionian emperors long recognised its virtual inde- 

 pendence, and in 330 \.i>. , impressed by it* mag- 

 nilicent site, Constantine the (.real abandoned the 

 old capital on the Tiber, and founded in the place 

 of liy/antium a new drapottl on the JUmporus, 

 wliicli he called Constantinople. It- walls and 

 public buildings were enlarged and beautified by 

 .lu-iinian in -VJ7 H">. Since then it has undergone 

 many sieges by Sassanians, Persians, Avars, Sara- 

 cens (six times), liussiaiis (in !ith to llth century), 

 Latins, and Turks ; and of its twenty-six sieges 

 and eight captures, that of the Latins under Bald- 

 win and Dandolo in 1204 was by far the most 

 disastrous, barbarous, and spoliating. The chief 

 adornments of the city, the treasures of the churches, 

 and even the bodies of the great dead, were not re- 

 spected by these vandal ' crusaders.' In comparison, 

 the Turkish sieges were humane ami chivalrous : 

 the first took place in 1356 ; Murad II. made the 



attempt again in 1422; and Mohammed II. carried 

 the city against the resolute resistance of Constan- 

 tine Palivologiis and Giustiniani in 1453. Since 

 then, such has IH-CU the renown of the Turks or 

 the jealousy of the Powers, that the imperial city- 

 has witnessed no fresh siege (see TriiKKY ). 



< 'onstAiitinople consists of two di-tinct jart*, 

 besides more distant suburbs Constantinople 

 proper or Staml>ol, and what may l>e termed 

 Christian Constantinople (Pera, Galata. Top-hana), 

 because it is there that the Christian colonies 

 chiefly congregate. The two are separated by the 

 Golden Horn, a creek about five miles long and 

 half a mile wide at the entrance, so called probably 

 from ite famous fisheries, a veritable horn of plenty 



