216 COST OF BYZANTIUM. CHAP. ix. 



may be admitted with hesitation, appropriated 

 sixty thousand pounds' weight of gold, or two 

 millions five hundred thousand pounds of our 

 money, to the construction of the walls, the por- 

 ticos, and the aquecructs of his new imperial 

 capital, and drew to it some of the patrician 

 families of Rome by extensive grants of land in 

 the Asiatic provinces, on the easy condition of 

 maintaining in the city the splendid palaces 

 which he constructed for their residence. By 

 such and correspondent measures the new city 

 became rich and populous, and the surrounding 

 district cultivated and productive, but it was 

 at the expense of Rome and of Italy. Mon- 

 tesquieu remarks, " Although Rome itself was 

 not nearly so large as it is at the present day, 

 its suburbs were prodigiously extended. Italy, 

 full of houses of enjoyment, was, properly 

 speaking, the garden only of the city : the 

 labourers of Rome were in Sicily, in Egypt, in 

 Africa, and her gardeners in Italy. The lands 

 were cultivated not by the Roman citizens but 

 by their slaves; but when the seat of empire was 

 established in the east, Rome may be said to 

 have been transplanted to Byzantium. The 

 grandees carried with them their slaves, or in 

 other words, almost the whole population, and 

 Italy was thus left destitute of inhabitants. In 

 order that the new city might be inferior in no 

 point to the ancient capital, the wheat of Egypt 



