precious things, gold, silver plate, silks, and everything that was costly; then when he cried, How many cities and kingdoms might I not conquer with this wealth!' the Emperor bestowed all these treasures upon Bohemond." From this palace in 1203 the usurper Alexios III Angelos, trembling, watched the first attack of the Fourth Crusade; in one of its dark subterranean chambers his successor, the boy Alexios IV, was murdered.

The Latin emperors revelled in its halls more than half a century, and when at last expelled, they left the palace in so foul a state that "its cleansing was a mighty work." It was the scene and centre of the unnatural rivalry of the aged Andronikos II and his grandson Andronikos III; when the latter won and the septuagenarian sovereign. was driven out, herds of horses, asses, and oxen, and flocks of poultry were chased in derision through the spacious rooms, and washerwomen plied their craft in the Imperial Fountain in the palace court. Here were held in 1351 sessions of that supplementary Council which wrangled over the heresy of Balaam and the uncreated light of Tabor, thereby in a later age affording point for the sharpened satire of Gibbon. Here overmastering association of all—were the headquarters of the ill-fated Constantine all through the final siege.

Numerous disconnected masses of stone and mortar, half buried in Ottoman gardens, or built into the foundations of Ottoman houses, enable one with partial accuracy to trace the general outline and extent of the palace fortifications. We know that the Grand Gate, which afforded access through the outer wall, stood not far from the still cherished Ayasma of the Blachernai. The neighboring uncouth stone structure, now surmounted by a dilapidated dome, may, as is commonly believed, have had some

connection with the Blachern public bath. The venerable plane-tree, to this day vigorous and majestic, outside the gate of Aïvaz Effendi Djami, must, four hundred and fifty years ago, have shaded some portion of the palace with its widespreading arms. The time-swept site is now difficult of access, so suspicious of every stranger are the present fanatical inhabitants of the region. But of that imperial dwelling, whose splendor dazzled the Crusaders and swelled the pride of the Byzantines, a single undoubted relic is left, -the sinuous, repulsive shape of one of its larger drains.

THE CHURCHES

CONSTANTINOPLE was pre-eminently a city of churches. With pious faith the modern Greek consecrates in every house a chamber or an alcove for devotion. In like manner his Byzantine ancestors set up a sanctuary in every spot, beautiful for situation, wherever there were worshippers to come. Paspatis gives the names of three hundred and ninety-two; Du Cange enumerates four hundred and twenty-eight, and Gedeon four hundred and sixty-three. Twenty-four were dedicated to some attribute of the Deity; sixty-four to the Holy Virgin; twenty-two to archangels; eighteen to Saint John the Baptist; nine to prophets; thirty-five to apostles; one hundred and fiftyfive to other saints and martyrs; ninety-five were connected with monasteries.

Without peer or rival in material grandeur or varied association was Sancta Sophia, whose hallowed pile is preserved to this day.

Second in rank, size, and magnificence, was the Church of the Holy Apostles, which Manasses quaintly calls "the

silver-lighted moon among the churches, second only to the lustrous sun of Sancta Sophia." It was the creation of Constantine, dedicated by him to the Holy Trinity. When, thirty years later, remains regarded as those of Saints Timothy, Andrew, and Luke, were enshrined under its altar, it was henceforth called Church of the Holy Apostles. Superstitious reverence believed that among its opulence of relics were the body of Saint Matthias, some garments of the Apostles, the head of James the Lord's brother, the hand of Saint Euphemia; later still were added the undoubted remains of the patriarchs Saint John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian, Flavian, and Methodios the Confessor. It was rich no less in diamonds, gems, and imperial crowns; its sacred vessels of gold and silver were almost countless, and only the rarest and most costly materials were employed in its construction.

The earthquake, the medieval scourge of Constantinople, threw it down. Its restoration in the form of a cross was at once begun by Theodora, who did not live, however, to witness its re-consecration. In its prodigious dome, vast but windowless, it somewhat resembled Sancta Sophia. Its roof, rising high in form of a pyramid, was sheathed in glittering plates of brass. Justin II and Basil I sought to enrich and embellish it still more, and it was again magnificently restored by Andronikos II. When the Conqueror devoted Sancta Sophia to Islam, he granted the Holy Apostles to the Christians as their Patriarchal Church. In 1456 the corpse of a murdered Ottoman was found lying across the threshold. In terror the Christians sought and obtained permission to transfer the Patriarchal See to the humble monastic Church of Pammakaristos. When Mohammed II determined upon the erection of his Mosque, he demolished the abandoned

church. Not the slightest remains of it now exist, while on its site rise the austere minarets of the Conqueror.

Its old-time prominence must be sought neither in its sacred character as a sanctuary, nor in its architectural grandeur. From its origin it was the imperial mausoleum. By special enactments the Emperors Valentinian, Gratian, and Theodosius I forbade that any save Patriarchs and members of the imperial household should be buried in its jealous precincts. The later rulers respected these early edicts; for almost nine hundred years its sepulchral chambers were reserved to the sovereign and the pontiff. In less than two centuries the mortuary chapel or Heroon of Constantine near the entrance was so crowded with the exalted dead that another was required. This was erected by Justinian, and called by his name.

The careful historian, who in the eleventh century wrote under the name of Anonymos, has handed down with minute particularity a list of the imperial dead who up to his day had been gathered within its walls; he has moreover given a brief description of the sarcophagus of each sceptred tenant. These sarcophagi were placed on stands a little distance above the floor. The Byzantine citizen was free to enter these Heroons and to wander among his sleeping sovereigns, separated from one another and from him only by the thin walls of their marble coffins. It may be doubted whether so many crowned corpses, representing so long duration and so much influence on human destiny, have ever elsewhere been grouped in the intimacy of any other mausoleum in Europe. As the visitor trod the pavement he might reconstitute his national Byzantine history from its imperial origin. Some with a right to sleep in that high company were absent; but they who had most shaped their Empire's erratic course, Christian,

apostate, iconoclast, image worshipper, devotee or debauchee, alike were there. Robed and crowned, Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Heraklios, Basil; the imperial

consorts and saints, Helena. Pulcheria, Theophano; and other imperial wives though unsaintly, Theodora, Sophia, Eudoxia, were shut only by the narrow coffin-rim from the gaze of the visitor and of the world. Yet even in the democracy of death creed was not forgotten. Close together, but a space apart from the orthodox sleepers, were grouped, as if eternally abhorred; the coffins of Julian and of the four Arian emperors. Time cannot hush the voice of religious rancor. Even the historian Anonymos, elsewhere so dignified and calm, when describing the sarcophagus wherein lay the last kinsman of Constantine and the pupil of the Academy, exclaims, "In this was placed the execrable carcass of Julian the Apostate."

BASIL II BULGAROKTONOS

The successive emperors generally preserved the ashes of their predecessors from profanation. The infamous Michael III, however, burned in the Hippodrome the bones of Constantine V Kopronymos, and converted his sarcopha