the palace, he exhibited what is to us the was not supposed that any one could have strange conjunction of a court physician imbibed all the learning of Berytus till five and a high political functionary. But in more years had supervened.* The same the midst of his honors, and of an heretical Berytus, the Beyrout of Commodore Naor apostate court, the purity of his Chris- pier, and the metropolis of ancient law, tian profession remained unsullied. With was only a provincial town, and so far him Julian changed his tone of sarcasm and subordinate to Tyre, the capital of the disauthority, while vainly attempting to em-trict of Phoenice. It abounded not only barrass his faith by all the artifices of logic. in law, but also in merchandize, as innumeAt last, in an emotion of feeling to which rable traders were attracted thither by the his sardonic nature was rarely stirred, he fame and plenty of the Tyrian purple. exclaimed, in respect to the parentage and Still more ominously it had been the brotherhood of Cæsarius and Gregory, ' O favorite scene of gladiatorial shows. † happy father! Oh unhappy sons! After Strange-that incipient law should so early the death of Julian the fortunate doctor have steeled itself to cruelty and death, was nominated to the quaestorship of Bithy- and rehearsed its destined functions nia; and still higher stations might have amongst the pains and callousness of manbeen his, had his life been prolonged. On kind. Constantine desired to soften the the whole, it is clear that the medical pro- legal heart, even from its cradle, and hence fession had attained a far higher estimation his celebrated edict against such exhithan in the earlier periods of classical bitions was first promulgated at Berytus. history. Its position seems to have been That decree was not to be slighted, and nearly what it is at this day in England. henceforth the humanized Templars could The main difference consisted in its eligi- only solace their hours of leisure with the bility for civil offices, which we deem in- circus and the theatre. Under such nucompatible with the prosecution of so la- merous patronage, these resorts soon obborious a vocation. Yet methods of cure tained high celebrity in the Syrian world. were sometimes resorted to by the faculty But the students of Berytus minded other which we presume its modern representa- things as well as their Epsom and Taglitives would not desire to revive. Chrysos- oni. An old writer calls it a city 'valde tom tells us that such as had to deal with delitiosa,' and says that in its lecturerefractory patients beguiled them to their rooms all the causes célébres of the Roman nauseous drugs by frequent kisses!* What world were revived and elucidated with the is worse, incantations were muttered over happiest skill and effect. Hence learned the fever or the sore, and amulets affixed to practioners were despatched to act as asthe disordered member.† Absurd as we sessors to the rulers of provinces, and this deem such expedients, they were too grave was one of the main employments into a matter for ridicule in the fourth century, which the innumerable advocates were when sufferers were importunate, friends draughted: for these rulers, like some urged their efficacy, and eloquent preachers governors of our foreign settlements, were assailed them, not as child's play, but as the unlawful machinery of Satan. The same invalid, it appears, would request the prayers of the congregation on Sunday, as among ourselves, and during the week have recourse to the silliest tricks of the old superstition. taken indiscriminately from any preceding station, and being ignorant of the law which they were called to administer, would have been helpless but for the directing subordinate at their elbow. Natives of the province were incapable of the office, and Berytus was the copious source whence all these rills of law were derived. As the legal calling diverged into every office of government, and mingled in all the In A. D. 333 Constantine issued the foldealings of mankind, and it was even pro-lowing proclamation :-"We need a great vided that the academical training for it number of architects, and we have them not; should be consideraly longer than for other therefore, let your Sublimity (the Ruler of professions. Elsewhere, the ordinary the Province of Africa) excite to the study course, as we have seen, closed on a stu- youths about eighteen years of age, who dent's attaining his twentieth year, but it have tasted a liberal education." The date of this edict indicates the earnestness He must We with which Constantine watched over his despairs of marriage and virtue. rising capital, and provided for its equip-wait, you reply, till he has gained a standment with every professional advantage. ing in life, and becomes known! And so The inducement which it offers are, that you have no regard for his spiritual welfare, they and their parents shall be exempt but consign it to destruction in your pitiable from the burdens to which they are other- subjection to the tyranny of wealth.** wise liable, and a competent salary shall will not touch on the moral suggestions of be given to their teachers."* This was fol- the saint, but the fact is, that early marlowed by enactments, from himself and riages and redundant population were not Constantius, granting personal immunities among the anxieties with which the econoto every class of engineers, surveyors, mists of those days had to contend. So builders, and mechanics. As the works of far from a numerous family being dreaded, the city were in progress for many years, it was still encouraged by the favor of the and must have employed a very numerous old Roman laws. Constantine had given population, important effects could not fail them his sanction by a decree, A. D. 324,† to result on the morals and habits of the by which a father of five children was explace. empted from all personal service to the The classes on whom we have made these state, provided he would give one of his sons cursory notes constituted a large proportion in its behalf. Next came Julian with a of the middle ranks of the lay community. wonderful law, which will defy the MalthuIt would be interesting if we could dis-sians of all generations. Let a man be criminate the varieties of character which father to thirteen, and then farewell to distinguished them from those born to trouble. "No more shall he be summoned wealth and high rank; but it is rather to to the Curia: let him henceforth enjoy the be feared that they were ever aiming at an most honorable repose (honoratissima assimilation not worthy of attainment, quiete donetur)." This law throws Gothseldom attained, and implying a miserable ofredus into violent indignation: Why fret of temper the standing curse of mean should the begetting of thirteen children ambition. There have been days when the secure to any man this halcyon tranquillity?' great middle class of England lived within Constantine had been most anxious to have the simplicity for which Providence de- his capital frequented. He summoned signed it," et propria pelle quievit ;" but senators from Rome, and if we may attach may we not apprehend among ourselves a specific sense to Eusebius's vague expreswhat occurred at Constantinople, the ar- sion, he drained other cities in its behalf, rival of a period when such acquiescence will be exchanged for an universal mimicry of wealth and nobility? -Fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru Non minus ignotos generosis.' But we must consider for a moment the case of a young citizen just returned from his university education, and starting in life in that great metropolis. What shall he do first?" Marry," says St Chrysostom. "Heaven forbid !" ejaculate the fathers and mothers of England. But the saint, in the state of that age, had many weighty arguments to urge for his advice. "As soon as your son has grown up, before he enters the army or any other profession, take measures for his marriage. If he sees that you mean speedily to provide him with a wife, he may remain within the bounds of morality; but if he finds you bent on waiting till he can maintain a handsome establishment, he *Codex Theodos., lib. xiii., tit. iv., i., ii., iii., with Gothofred's notes. dedicatur poene omnium urbium nuditate.' And yet its population never became considerable when compared with the old Rome, or London, or even Paris. By far the larger part of the inhabitants were Christians and these were not estimated by St. Chrysostom at more than one hundred thousand. § No wonder then that even the emperors who patronized the rising system of monastic seclusion, perceived the prudence of encouraging those who remained in the active world, to attend to the cares of marriage and offspring. But let us hear the great preacher on parents who were willing that their sons should marry. "You are not anxious," says Chrysostom, "for the virtue of your son, but for his wealth. Yet beware! Even without a dowry, women abound with pride, and are prone to vain glory; but With these and many other Archiepiscopal precepts for his guidance, a young man might think of marrying. The next difficulty to be got over respects a house. residence fit for a gentleman must not stand It must be a rus in urbe-fur in a row. A * Quales ducendæ sint Uxores, iii., tom. iii., 261. + Idem, in Epist. ad Ephes., cap. homil. xx., tom. xi., 175. nished with a peristyle or cloister, with a I tell Though their rooms were crammed with objects of show and virtu, the gentry were not addicted to much private gaiety. Their passion was for the circus and the hippodrome, and a showy ride through the agora. Indeed, company at home must have been a very dull affair when the younger branches were wholly excluded from it, and the elder had few of those ac A long list of statues at Constantinople has been collected by Heyne in the eleventh volume of the "Commentationes Gottingenses," p. 3, but it gives little more than the names. t Chrysost. in Epist. ad Coloss., cap. iii., homil. vii., tom. xi., 435. Chrysost. in Joannem, homil. xxxii., tom. viii., p. 216. complishments that sweeten modern society; the ladies neither sang nor played, and the days had long passed away since music was indispensable in the education of a Grecian gentleman. It is doubtless on this account that we hear little of private entertainments, except in the shape of dinners -and here, no doubt, was an ample field, on which, with unbroken leisure, long purses, and inventive genius, they expatiated without restraint. The Byzantines of an elder day had fed like gluttons; all that they ate was steeped in wormwood, or smelled of salt water and garlic. According to Diphilus,* they devoured such quantities of young tunnies, that their whole frame well nigh became glutinous, and it was thought that they would have been absorbed in mucilage. In the same days of barbarity they had been given to tipple at taverns, and had even corrupted their neighbors, the blind but temperate Chalcedonians, till they were transformed into a city of drunkards. But intellect at length marched to the East; and though the Constantinopolitans might have retained to the last a secret fondness for the tavern and its hostess, it was but the Veteris vestigia flammæ,' smouldering among the very embers of the populace. The upper classes were luxurious,-shamefully so, but not so much from grossness of appetite as from a passion for display. We have not room at present for particulars of their deipnosophism but the Editors of Athenæus, and of the Roman Satirists, have not drawn on the fathers of the Greek Church as they ought to have done. Was there any resemblance between the Amphitryon who took his fashionable promenade in the porticoes of the baths of Zeuxippus, and him who is listless at Cheltenham or earnest in Pall Mall? Our readers will reply in the negative if they look only on the outer man. The fashion as well as the material of his clothing defies comparison with ours. When the weather was hot, he would not venture out but in silks; if wet and dirty, he did not appear at all, except in his carriage, in which he sat rather in the style of a newly elected Lord Mayor than like a private gentleman. They did not like the word—and yet very much exemplified the thing which their forefathers called—βαναυσία. "The mo neyed man," says Chrysostom, "knits his A brow, and sits forward in the carriage, and seems to touch the clouds in his transported fancy. When mounted on horseback, troops of lictors clear his way through the agora, as though he would put all the street to flight. No wolf or lion is so unsociable: he will haunt with his kind, but the rich disciple makes a desert before him.” master could no more appear in public without his slaves than a lady without her mules." If he put his head out of doors he would be jeered back again, unless his retinue supported him. A gilded bridlet hung on his horse's neck, a gilded livery bedizzened the servants; his own attire was all golden, even to the girdle and the shoes. This matter of shoes must not be too cursorily despatched; of all matters of display it was what an ancient beau could least readily surrender; indeed, it was a taste indigenous in the Grecian character, and such as philosophers and archbishops assailed with equal impotency. It had captivated the subtlest of politicians§ and the profoundest of savants. Aristotle was not less studious of his shoes than his wig; and why should a fine gentleman of the fourth century be trucculently criticised? No, Chrysostom should have spared the shoes, but forbearance was not his attribute. Imagine our venerated Diocesan thus haranguing from the Chapel Royal. We say it not to raise merriment at one so eminent as Chrysostom, but to draw attention to the altered forms of the world. "Come, then, let us sift the matter and see its enormity. When you sew on your shoes those silken threads which you ought not even to weave into your mantles, what ridicule does it not deserve? Ships are built, rowers and steersmen collected, sails unfurled, and ocean furrowed; wife, children, country are abandoned, and the soul of the merchant hazarded to the wavesand all that you may get these silken threads and beautify that upper leather! How can he have heavenly ideas who is nice about the texture of silk, the delicacy of its color, the ivy tint which results from the due disposition of the threads? No, his soul is for ever in the mire, while he goes on tiptoe through the agora. He begets to himself sorrow and despair, lest in winter * Chrysost. in Joannem, lxxx., tom. viii., 544, 545. † Idem in Psalmum, xlviii., tom. v., 627. See Plato's Phædo, cap. ix., cum notis Stall Apud Athenæum, lib. iv., cap. ix., tom. ii., p. 21, baum. Schweighaeuser. § See Athenæus, lib. xii., cap. xlvii. he slip into the mud, and in summer shuffle honors and dimensions of the Carpentum. in the dust. Oh! my friend, how canst This was a distinction with which all exthou be so troubled about thy shoes?-ministers must dispense. It was confined Learn their true utility. Shoes were de- to the emperor and a few of the highest signed for trampling on the filth and un- actual dignitaries of office. That of Conseemliness of the pavement; if this will stantine was covered with gold and radiant not suffice thee, take them up and hang with gems, and inferior ones were inlaid them round thy neck, or stick them on thy head." cent." with gold and silver. Being of very grand and towering aspect, it was considered too elating for women; no head but that of the empress was strong enough to bear it, and she was equal to four horses along with it -a privilege inadmissible for any other class of carriage in the streets of Constantinople. They were as superstitious as Dr. Johnson about setting the right foot foremost, and also the right shoe. "That wretch of a slave when he put on my shoes gave me the left one first-Heaven avert mischiefand when I came out of doors I put the left foot first! Here is misfortune brewing; And for what all this limitless profusion and when I got into the street, my right of display? The emperors had already eye winked-I shall pay for it with my learned to seclude themselves for the most tears-besides, a donkey brayed, a cock part in more than Asiatic pomp, nor did crew, somebody sneezed, and the first per- they offer the attractions and emulation of son I saw had only one eye and was lame. what moderns call a court. The opulent But, worst of all, I met one of the religious were extravagant for the mere sake of sisterhood (παρθενος) there is nothing show; and it was one of the unfortunate coming in to-day. I wish I had met a attendants on despotic governments that frailer sister (nógvn); then, indeed, would the wealth of their nobility is not applied gain betide me, and I should make cent. per as an instrument of power or influence, but "I see," cries the preacher, "how absorbed in mere ostentation. Where you crouch for shame, and beat your fore- there is no subdivision of power this beheads, and creep into the earth; but be ye comes the only channel that great wealth not ashamed at my words, but at your own finds for its disbursement or if the dispodeeds. To avert these dangers of the road, sition prompt to more exciting pursuits, you bind your head and feet with charms a resource is found at the race-course or the and amulets, and the names of rivers, and gaming-table. To the latter it does not the great Alexander's brazen coins! Ye appear that the Constantinopolitans were who are the disciples of the Cross seek your particularly addicted. Dice and drafts preservation from the likeness of a Gentile might be found in most houses, but rather king!"'+ to beguile the time than from the genuine The construction of the carriage was an love of gambling. They preferred sitting indication of the rank of its possessor. in the agora, that paradise of ancient Theodosius adopted this matter among his Greeks, in the tranquil enjoyment of their imperial cares. He directs that the Ho- delicious climate, and in such conversation norati, i. e., functionaries, on the expiration as the day afforded. The duties of the of their office, whether civil or military, bath, to be sure, cost some time; those shall in general continue to use the car- vulgar persons who had none of their own riage proper to their station-the two-were obliged to go out in search of it—but horsed Carruca-within the city-sacra- they hastened home immediately aftertissimi nominis-the name of Constantine. wards and enjoyed its full effects by some It was probably one with four wheels, and hours of tranquil repose. Indeed, the purcovered a modern improvement on the suit must have consumed a good part of the ancient Rheda. Those who were ostenta- day, for all persons, not in the station of a tiously disposed made it as conspicuous as possible by its height; yet it was but an ineffectual attempt to distend it to the * bishop, reckoned two baths per diem an allowable gratification. Even Sisinius, the Novatian or Puritan bishop, rebuked the cavil that he indulged in it too much by stating that he limited himself to twice only.†, t Chrysost. ad Illuminandos Catechesis, iii., tom. ii.,287; and in Epist. ad Ephes., cap. iv., homil. xii., tom. xi., 108. p. 217. # Codex Theod., lib. xiv., tit. xii., lex. i. VOL. X. No. I. 2 * Chrysost. in Joannem, homil. xxxii., tom. viii., ↑ Sozomen, lib. viii., cap. i. |