Constantine had laid out his new city on an imposing scale
and adorned it with the choicest treasures of art from Greece, Italy, and the
Orient. Fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, eight public baths, and several
triumphal arches are assigned to the founder of the city. His most stately
building was the Hippodrome, an immense structure devoted to chariot races and
all sorts of popular gatherings. There new emperors, after their consecration
in Sancta Sophia, were greeted by their subjects; there civic festivals were
held; and there the last Roman triumphs were celebrated. Theodosius the Great
built the principal gate of Constantinople, the "Golden Gate," as it
was called, by which the emperors made their solemn entry into the city. But it
was Justinian who, after Constantine, did most to adorn the new capital by the
Bosporus. He is said to have erected more than twenty-five churches in
Constantinople and its suburbs. Of these, the most beautiful is the world-famed
cathedral dedicated by Justinian to "Holy Wisdom." On its completion
the emperor declared that he had surpassed Solomon's Temple. Though nearly
fourteen hundred years old and now defaced by vandal hands, it remains perhaps
the supreme achievement of Christian architecture.
HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE
Excepting Athens and Rome, no other European city can lay
claim to so long and so important a history as Constantinople. Her day came
after theirs was done. Throughout the Middle Ages Constantinople remained the
most important city in Europe. When London, Paris, and Vienna were small and
mean towns, Constantinople was a large and flourishing metropolis. The renown
of the city penetrated even into barbarian lands. The Scandinavians called it
Micklegarth, the "Great City"; the Russians knew of it as Tsarigrad,
the "City of the Caesars." But its own people best described it as
the "City guarded by God." Here, for more than eleven centuries, was
the capital of the Roman Empire and the center of Eastern Christendom.
