good deal that cannot be so explained. Paganism must still have been an operative belief with the man who, down almost to the close of his life, retained so many pagan superstitions. He was at best only half heathen, half Christian, who could seek to combine the worship of Christ with the worship of Apollo, having the name of the one and the figure of the other impressed upon his coins, and ordaining the observance of Sunday under the name Dies Solis in his celebrated decree of March 321, though such a combination was far from uncommon in the first Christian centuries. Perhaps the most significant illustration of the ambiguity of his religious position is furnished by the fact that in the same year in which he issued the Sunday decree he gave orders that, if lightning struck the imperial palace or any other public building, "the haruspices, according to ancient usage, should be consulted as to what it might signify, and a careful report of the answer should be drawn up for his use." From the time of the Council of Nicea there are fewer signs of halting between two opinions, but the interest of the emperor in Christianity was still primarily political and official rather than personal. He summoned the council, presided over its first meeting, and took a prominent part in its proceedings both before and behind the scenes. The year before it met he had, iu a noteworthy letter to the Alexandrian bishops, urged such a scheme of comprehension as might include Arians and orthodox in the one church; and on this ground he has been claimed as the earliest of broad churchmen. When the result of its deliberations was the adoption, for the first time in the history of the church, of a written creed, he cordially approved of the pro posal, and was thus the earliest to enforce uniformity by means of subscription. The two plans were incompatible, but the conduct of Constantine in supporting first the one and then the other was perfectly consistent. Throughout he acted in the interest of the state. The splitting up of the church into a number of bitterly contending factions would be a constant source of danger to the unity of the empire, while on the other hand the empire might gain fresh strength from the growing Power of Christianity if that power were embodied in a ompact and united organization. It was by this conideration, probably, that Constantine was guided in dealing with the Arian controversy; there are no traces of any engrossing personal interest on his part in the cardinal There are not wanting, question of the homoousion. indeed, several facts that show a real concern in the truths of Christianity as distinct from its social and political influence. Eusebius has recorded one of his sermons, and he seems to have preached frequently in refutation of the errors of paganism and in illustration and defence of the doctrines of the new faith. The same historian speaks of his taking part in the ceremonies of worship, and of his long vigils at the season of Easter. His delaying to receive baptism until he was on his deathbed does not imply that ho delayed till then the full acceptance of Christianity, though it has frequently been so interpreted by those who were unaware that the doctrine that all sin committed before baptism was washed away by the simple observance of the rite not unnaturally made such procrastination very common. There is no historical foundation for the assertion of Baronius and other Catholic writers that the emperor received baptism from Pope Sylvester at Rome in 326. Equally baseless is the story of the so-called donation of Constantine, according to which the emperor after his baptism endowed the Pope with temporal dominicn. It is to this that Dante alludes in his Inferno :—

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was cause, Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy Pope received of thee.

It has been remarked by Stanley that Constantine was entitled to be called Great in virtue rather of what he did than of what he was. Tested by character, indeed, he stands among the lowest of all those to whom the epithet has in ancient or modern times been applied. Fearlessness, decision, political sagacity, and religious tolerance he possessed from first to last; but the generous clemency of which there are traces in his earlier years cannot have any longer worked effectually in him when he sanctioned the treacherous treatment of Licinius and the atrocities that connected themselves with the murder of Crispus. Tried by achievement, however, he stands among the very first of those who have ever won the title. In fact, there are two grounds at least on which as important a place may be claimed for him as for any sovereign who has reigned during the Christian era. What he did as the founder of the complex political system which exists among all civilized nations down to the present day, and what he did as the first Christian emperor, had results of the most enduring and far reaching kind. and far reaching kind. It belongs to the historian of the empire to give a detailed account of the elaborate scheme he devised by which the civil functions of the state were separated from the military, and both from the spiritual,the very idea of such distinctions having been previously unknown. The empire he by such means revived, though in the East it lasted a thousand years, was never again so strong as it was in bis own hands; but the importance of his scheme consisted in this that it gave to empire itself, regarded as a system of government, a new structure and a new power which still survive in the political constitutions of the various nations of Europe. As to Christianity the historically significant fact is not his personal acceptance of it.. It is rather that by his policy as a statesman he endowed the new religion for the first time with that instrument of worldly power which has made it—whether for good or for evil or for both is a subject of much discus sion-the strongest social and political agent that affects the destinies of the human race.

The chief early sources for the life of Constantine are Eusebius, De Vita Constantini, which is strongly partial from the Christian standpoint of its author, and Zosimus, Historia, lib. ii., which is tinged by Pagan prejudice. Of secondary importance are Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, Lactantius De Mortibus Persecutorum, and the Panegyrici Veleres, vi.-x. The most valuable modern sources are

Manso's Leben Constantins des Grossen (1817), Burckhardt's Dic
Zeit Constantins des Grossex (1853), and Broglie's L'Église et l'empirc
Tomain du IV siècle.
(W. B. S.)

CONSTANTINE, a Roman soldier who, in the time of Honorius, in the 5th century A.D., rose to the dignity of emperor of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, but was finally conquered and out to death by Honorius. See ROMAN HISTORY.

CONSTANTINE VII., FLAVIUS PORPHYROGENITUS (905-959), emperor of the East,. author, and patron of literature, born in 905 A.D., was the only son of Leo VI. The Eastern Church sanctioned no marriage beyond the second, and when Leo, being childless by three wives, son by his concubine Zoe, his attempt to had a legitimize his wife and his son was inflexibly resisted by the Patriarch Nicholas, and his will was only carried out at the expense of excommunication. These circumstances were probably the reason why the name Porphyrogenitus, "born in the purple," i.e., in the purple chamber in which the empresses were confined, was, while applicable to all the emperors, emphatically applied to Constantine VII. When Constantine was only six years old Leo died, leaving him under the guardianship of his uncle Alexander, but Alexander also died in the next year; and Romanus Lecapenus, the chief admiral, supported by Zoe, was appointed colleague to Constantine, and held all real power till 944, when he was forced by his sons to entera monastery.

Meanwhile Constantine, though powerless, had been well treated, and had married Helena, the daughter of Romanus. On the deposition of his colleague, the people gave willing aid to Constantine's cause; and having banished his brothers-in-law, he became emperor in reality. Though wanting in strength of will, Constantine had intelligence and many other good qualities, and his reign on the whole was not unsatisfactory. (See GREEK EMPIRE.) He was poisoned by his son Romanus in 959.. Constantine was painter and a patron of art, a literary man and a patron of literature; and herein consists his real importanco. Unable as he was to sift out the really important from the unimportant, and the credible from the incredible, it is yet from his pages that we gain the only knowledge of any extent which we possess of his time. He is the author of several works of considerable size :-1. Iepì TV JeμáTwv, an account of the provinces (themata) of the empire; 2. De Administrando Imperio, an account of the condition of the empire, and an exposition of the author's view of government, written for the use of his son Romanus; it also contains most valuable information as to the condition and history of various foreign nations with which the Eastern empire had been brought into connection,-as the Arabs, Iberians, Armenians; and the tribes north of the Danube-the Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Chazars, and Patzinacitæ ; 3. "Exbeσis Tŷs Baoiλelov rážews, which describes the customs of the Eastern Church and court; 4. A life of Basilius I., his grandfather; 5. Two treatises on warfare, of which his father Leo was perhaps part or sole author. The FewTovikά, a treatise on agriculture with which his name is connected, is generally supposed to have been executed at his command by Bassus Cassianus; and under his patronage many other worksincluding collections of the ancient historians (of which fragments are extant), lives of saints, and treatises on medicine were compiled. Several Latin translations of the works of Constantine have been made, and his complete works were published at Leyden, 1617, and Paris, 1711.

CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH (1779-1831), second son of the Czar Paul L. of Russia, was born at St Petersburg on the 8th May 1779. His name was chosen by his grandmother, the Empress Catherine, on account, it was believed, of the tradition according to which an emperor Constantine was to reign at Constantinople. At the age of seventeen the prince was married to the Princess Juliana of Saxe-Coburg, but after four years a separation took place. In all affairs connected with the army Constantine took the intensest interest. In 1799 he served in Italy, and he gained distinction at the battle of Austerlitz (1805) by the admirable order in which he retreated. He also served throughout the rest of the war with France, but never held supreme command. In the end of 1815 he was appointed generalissimo of the army of Poland. His rule was marked by an unreasonable severity, which produced deep and general discontent; but he introduced the strictest discipline. Though not nominally head of the Government, Constantine's influence was very considerable; and it was all employed in support of arbitrary principles. He abolished the liberty of the press, and any literary man or student who expressed any opinion obnoxious to him was immediately thrown into prison. On the other hand he did much to carry out many material improvements. In 1820, having fallen in love with a Polish lady, he obtained through the influence of the emperor; his brother, a decree of the Holy Synod permitting him to marry the lady; and in return he signed a paper resigning all claim to the succession to the throne. On the death of the Czar Alexander in December 1825, Nicholas, Constantine's younger brother, and after him heir to the throne, refused

to allow himself to be crowned; but Constantine remained
true to his promised and, though a conspiracy of the
officers of the army in favour of a constitution took place,
and the conspirators proclaimed Constantine czar,
he per-
sisted in supporting his brother, at whose coronation he
appeared to take the oath of homage. After this Con-
stantine's power in Poland became greater than before; his
system of espionage and arbitrary government was more
harshly put in force, and arrests without any specified
charge became more common. At length in 1830, that
year of revolutions, the general hatred of Russia burst into
a rebellion. Some of the conspirators entered the prince's
palace at Warsaw; but, the Polish guard remaining
faithful, he escaped. He was, however, forced to release
all Polish political prisoners, and to declare his intention
of not calling in the Russian army to attack Poland. His
Polish guard now requested liberty to rejoin the rest of the
army. After granting permission, he withdrew it, and the
guard deserted him. He was, nevertheless, allowed to
reach the frontier in safety. In the consequent war
Constantine took no important part, and after a time even
the inferior command which he held was taken from him.
The czar refused to allow him to live near St Petersburg,
and the place of his residence was fixed at the little town
of Bialystok, on the border line of Poland and Lithuania,
He died on the 27th June of the following year (1831).
CONSTANTINOPLE, the capital of Turkey and of the
Ottoman empire, is situated at the junction of the Bosphorus
and the Sea of Marmora, in 41° 0′ 16′′ N. lat. and 28° 59′
14" E. long. It may be said to stand upon two promon-
tories rather than upon two continents, since the quarter now
called Galata was reckoned in the time of Arcadius the
13th Region, whereas Kadikeui (Chalcedon) and Iskudar
or Scutari (Chrysopolis); situated on the opposite coast of
Asia Minor, have been always distinct cities. The
promontories on which the capital lies are divided the one
from the other by the last and largest of those inlets which
cut the western shore of the channel known as the
Bosphorus. This inlet is a large and important harbour,
running from east to north west, capable of floating 1200
ships. It curls up in a course of little more than four
miles.to the foot of the hills which, joining the heights on
either side, seem to form a vast amphitheatre, till it meets
the united volume of two streams-the Cydaris and Bar-
bysus of the ancients-the two whelps of the oracle,-

"Bless'd they who make that sacred town their home,
By Pontus' mouth upon the shore of Thrace,
There where two whelps lap up the ocean foam,
Where hind and fish find pasture at one place."

This peculiar harbour has always, by reason both of its form and its fulness, been called the Golden Horn. It is "like a stag's horn," Strabo says, "for it is broken into wavy creeks like so many branches, into which the fish pelamys (λaμús) running is easily snared." In former times this fish was, and at the present day might be, a source of rich revenue-ever from time immemorial rushing down from the Sea of Azoff and the Black Sea, and when it approaches the white rock, on which stands the Maiden's (miscalled Leander's) Tower, glancing off it, and shooting straight into the Horn, but never enriching the rival city on the coast of Asia-Chalcedon, "the City of the Blind." If the figure of a stag's horn resembles the harbour, that of an ancient drinking-horn would represent the general form of Constantinople proper-the Seraglio point being turned inward like the sculptured mouth-piece. On this knot the Megarian city stood gathered about its Acropolis, and occupying the easternmost hill on the verge of Europe. Constantine aimed at building his new capital, after the old, on seven hills; his wish was fulfilled-not at first. however, but a century after its dedication.—and he wished

Extension

stantino.

it to be in .name, as in foundation, a counterpart of the ancient city. But it is the founder, not the model, that is commemorated in the name Constantinople, while its designation as "New Rome" lingers nowhere but in the official language of the Orthodox Eastern Church. Its Turkish name of Istamboul, or Stamboul, is said to be a corruption of the Greek words eis tηv wóλw. About the end of the 18th century it was corrupted by a fanatical fancy into Islambol, or the city of Islam. Like the name, the emblem also of the city was adopted from the Greeks by the Ottomans. The crescent and star formed its device from the earliest times, and is found on Byzantine coins and on the statues of Hecate. So the body-guard of the Sultan retain insignia of the Varangian Guard of the Greek empire, of which traces seem to have been discovered in the Crimea. The sign manual of the sultans, rudely representing a left hand, originated with the action of a sultan who is said to have signed with a bloody hand a treaty with the republic of Ragusa.

Under Constantine, who founded it on the site of under BYZANTIUM (q.v.), the city was more than doubled. His forum was fixed on the second hill; the walls were extended till a new inclosure was made, which spanned the peninsula from about the end of the old bridge to the mouth of the River Lycus in Vlanga Bostan; the line of his walls was not direct, but made a compass round the Polyandrion, or Heroon. It is said that 40,000 Goths were employed in first raising and afterwards manning these works; the seven gates separated the eight cohorts, each of 5000 men. Being Arians, the Goths were allowed no room within the city which they made safe for the Orthodox, but had assigned to them a quarter outside, which was called, either from several columns or from the one of Constantine that stood thereabout, Exokionion (the region without the columns), and the Gothic inhabitants of the quarter were styled Exokionitæ. So noble was this body or guild accounted among their countrymen, that many illustrious Goths were enrolled in it,-with others, the kings of Italy. In the course of time, after Anastasius had drawn a longer line of defences higher up, from the neighbourhood of Lake Dercon on the Euxine to Selymbria on the Propontis, and many of the Gothic cohorts were called away to defend these fortifications, the meaning of the name was by degrees forgotten, until it was changed into Hexe-Kionia, or Hexe-Marmora (six marble columns); and at last this corrupt form was rendered literally by the new occupants in their tongue AltiMermer (six columns), which name remains to the present day. As this is a landmark showing the limit of Constantine's walls on the south, another sign is extant bearing witness to their extent on the north. This is a mosque, once a church, which is visible from the Golden Horn. Its Turkish name, Kahireh, or Kahrieh, is thought to have been formed into a resemblance of that of the capital of Egypt from the Greek xúpa. The monastery to which this church of the Saviour belonged was Mový rys xwpas, or, as we say, "in the fields." This was an ancient establishment, and its church, the oldest church in the city, dates from the 3d century. Hither were brought, and entombed in sarcophagi, the remains of St Babylas and two other martyrs who suffered under Decius' in the persecution of 250 A.D. At the beginning of the 5th century the Goths, being pressed by Attila and his Huns out of their settlements below the Balkan, flocked towards Constantinople to join their countrymen there and find refuge in its suburbs. It then became necessary to entrench this extra-mural camp. Accordingly in 412, Theodosian under Theodosius II., the first Theodosian wall was raised by the prefect Anthemius; and in 447 a second was added by the prefect Cyrus Constantinus, who advanced

walls.

the fosse, and of the earth dug out of it formed an artificial terrace between two lines of defence. The Goths were long subjected to exclusion from the city; Justinian exempted the Exocionites, indeed, from the penalties which he exacted from all other Arians in the empire, but required them still to meet for public worship outside the walls. Some monuments to members of the body of Foderati, found outside the fifth gate, and perhaps the name Cerco-porta, a memento of their round church, or one of their circular forts, may mark the residence, as they intimate the heresy, of the noble guards of the Greek emperor. Arianism had died out when this body was reinforced by the Varangians--Anglo-Danes--in the 11th century; accordingly, it is not surprising to recognize in a Byzantine church in a quarter called Bogdan-Serai, within the walls on the fifth hill, the church of St Nicholas and Augustine, founded by an Anglo-Saxon who fled from the Normans to take service under the Greek emperor. It is maintained that most of the numbers distinguishing the cohorts attached to the several regions and walls remain to this day, as Deuteron, Triton, Pempton, and Hebdomon. Upon the completion of these Theodosian Gates. walls there ensued a double arrangement of gates; towngates, communicating with the public roads, alternated with military gates.which opened upon the terraces only. These town-gates, to the number of seven, communicated with the seven gates of Constantine's wall each by a broad street, which separated the cohorts and their quarters. These gates were opened in peace but shut in time of war, and then the bridges connecting them with the country roads and crossing the fosse, in front were taken down at the approach of the enemy. The military gates had no such bridges leading from them; they served only to give egress to that part of the garrison which was required to work the engines of war planted upon the terraces outside and below. The city gates in the Theodosian walls had for the most part the same names as the gates in the wall of Constantine which corresponded to them-with this difference, that they were styled "New." Thus the gate "Roussion," so named from the "demus" of the "Reds," in the latter, answered to the "New" Roussion in the former. It is on this accouut that the existing gate is to this day called Yeni Kapu (New gate) as well as Mevlaneh Kapusi (gate of the Dervishes). The gate of Adrianople (Edreneh Kapusi) was formerly that of Polyandrion, and took its title from the corresponding gate in the wall of Constantine, called so because it stood near the Polyandrion or Heroon adjoining it, which was attached to the church of the Holy Apostles; the site is now occupied by the mosque of Mahomet the Conqueror (Mehmedieh).

The landward walls of Constantinople bear marks of the labour of many hands, and represent different and distant epochs.1 Their construction is unique. If the

1 At several points these walls have been repaired and restored, and display the names of "rois constructeurs" from Theodosius to John Palæologus. They may be described roughly as four lines drawn across the promontory which they inclose for the distance of about four English miles, and knotted at each end into a citadel. The work at each extremity is more recent than what intervenes-that near the Sea of Marmora is to this day almost perfect; and the Golden Gate remains with its flanking towers of marble, much as it appeared in the 5th century, and fronted by the smaller arch which has generally appropriated the name. Of the five towers at the other end near the Golden Horn some remains exist, viz., the tower of Anema and that of Isaac Angelus. On the north side the wall of Theodosius breaks off at the palace of the Hebdomon, and the continuous fosse ceases where a later line has been thrown out with massive towers-this is the wall of Heraclius, supposed to have been raised to protect the imperial quarter of Blachernæ, containing the palace of that name and the church of St. Mary. Similarly a second wall was constructed to cover the church of St Nicolas, in the time of Leo the Armenian, whence it is called the Leontine wall. This line of defence, long impregnable. withstood siege after siege till the new artillery made