CONSTANTINOPLE. 
35 
There is nothing either grand or beautiful in the remains of 
the brazen column, consisting of the bodies of three serpents 
twisted spirally together. It is about twelve feet in height; 
and being hollow, the Turks have filled it with broken tiles, 
stone?, and other rubbish. But in the circumstances of its 
history, no relique of ancient times can be more interesting. 
It once supported the golden tripod at Delphi, which the 
Greeks, after the battle of Platssa, found in the camp of Mar- 
donius. This fact has been so well ascertained, that it will 
probably never be disputed. “ The guardians of die most holy 
relics,” says Gibbon,* “ would rejoice, if they were able to pro¬ 
duce such a chain of evidence as may be alleged upon this 
occasion.” Its original consecration in the temple of Delphi 
is proved from Herodotus and Pausanias; and its removal to 
Constantinople, by Zosimus, Eusebius, Socrates Eccle'siastic-us, 
and Sozomen. Thevenot, whose work is known only as a 
literary imposture, relates the story of the injury it had sus¬ 
tained from the battle ax of Mahomet. The real history, 
however, of the loss of the serpent’s heads is simply and 
plainly related by< ChisbuH.f “The second pillar,” says 
he, “is of wreathed brass, not above twelve feet high; lately 
terminated at the top with figures of three serpents rising from 
the pillar , and with necks and heads forming a he ant fid tri¬ 
angle . But this monument was rudely broken, from the top 
of the pillar, by some attendants of the late Polish ambassador, 
| whose lodgings were appointed in the circiue, opposite to the 
said pillar.” 
* VqL ii. g. 17. not,: f Travels in Turkey, p. 40, Lead- 1747. 
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f 
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