Neither under Roman, Greek, or Ot- | ment seat of history the lesson of the toman, has the empire been, except at past lies in the unfolding of genius inintervals, the abyss of corruption, ser- government and in war, in organizing vility, and vice that Western prejudice nations, and in moulding their des has too long imagined. Horrors, fol- tinies; and where these great capaci lies, meanness, and pedantry abound; ties exist, there is no room to indulge but there is still a record rich in hero- the prejudices of a partisan. The two ism, intellectual energy, courage, skill, centuries of Stamboul which follow the and perseverance, which are as memo- conquest of Mohammed the Second ir rable as any in the world. Neither the 1453, are greatly superior in interest intellect, nor the art, nor the religion, and in teaching to the two centuries o are those of western Europe; nor have Byzantine empire which precede it we there the story of a great people, or and the miserable tale of the Latit a purifying church, of a profound phi- usurpation. Nor has the whole Otto losophy, or a progressive civilization. man rule of four centuries and a hal Constantinople is, and always has been, been less brilliant, less rich in grea as much Eastern as Western-yet intellects and great characters, that with much that is neither of the East the Byzantine empire from the time o nor of the West-but special to itself. the Crusades till its fall- - perhaps no It is a type of conservatism, of per- even more oppressive to its subjects sistency and constancy unparalleled, nor any more antagonistic to moral an amidst change, decay, and defeat. social progress. The marvellous city This miraculous longevity and recuperative power seem to go counter to all the lessons of western Europe; or in the West they are to be matched only by the recuperative power of the Catli-tain, of such civilization as they coul olic Church. The city and the Church, which date from Constantine, have both in these fifteen centuries shown a strange power of recovery from mortal maladies and hopeless difficulties. But the recovery of temporal dominion is always more rare than the revival of spiritual ideas. And in recuperative energy and tenacity of life, the empire of the Bosphorus, from Constantine to Abdul Hamid, is one long paradox.

The continuity of empire in Constantinople suffered, it is true, a tremendous breach in dynasty, in race, and in religion, by the conquest of the Turks; and, if it were a Christian, and Roman, or Latin, or Greek empire for eleven | hundred and twenty-three years, it has been a Moslem and Ottoman empire for four hundred and forty-one years.

that Constantine created in 330 A.D has been ever since that day the effec tive seat of such government as th Eastern regions around it could main

evolve, and of such religious union a they were able to receive. That em pire, that type of society, seem prepar ing to-day for an ultimate withdrawa into Asia. But with such a record o persistence and revival, such tenacity o hold on a sacred and imperial centre few can forecast the issue with confi dence. And that future is assuredl amongst the most fascinating enigma: which can engage the meditations o thinking men.

It is an acute remark of the late Pro fessor Freeman that the history of th empire is the history of the capital The imperial, religious, legal, and com mercial energy of the Eastern Empir has always centred in Constantinople by whomsoever held, in a way that cari hardly be paralleled in European his To many historians these four hundred tory. The Italian successors of Juliu and forty-one years have been a period and Augustus for the most part spen of Babylonish captivity for the Chosen their lives and carried on their govern People. But those who are not espe- ment very largely, and at last almost cially Philhellen or Philorthodox, in wholly, away from Rome. Neither ha any absolute sense, will view this great the Western emperors, nor the chief problem without race or sectarian ani- of the Holy Roman Empire, any permɛ mosities. Before the impartial judg-nent and continuous seat. The histor

of England and that of France are resort thither from all parts of the
associated with many historic towns world." From about the eleventh cen-
and many royal residences far from tury the downfall of the city began. It
London and from Paris. Nor do the was ruined by the political jealousy of
histories of Spain, Italy, or Germany, the Western empire, by the religious

offer us any constant capital or any sin-
gle centre of government, religion, law,
commerce, and art. But of the nearly
one hundred sovereigns of the Eastern
Empire, and of the twenty-eight caliphs
who have succeeded them in Byzan-
tium, during that long epoch of fifteen
hundred and sixty-four years, from the
day of its foundation, Constantinople
has been the uniform residence of the
Sovereign, except when on actual cam-
paign in time of war or on some impe-
rial progress; and in peace and in war
under all dynasties, races, and creeds,
it has never ceased to be the seat of
official government, the supreme tribu-
nal, and the metropolis of the religious
system.

hostility of the Roman Church, and by the commercial rivalry of the Italian republics. Placed between these irreconcilable enemies on the west, the incessant attacks of the Slavonic races on the north, and the aspiring fanaticism of Musulman races from the east and the south, the Byzantine empire slowly bled to death, and its capital. became, for some three centuries, little more than a besieged fortress - filled with a helpless population and vast treasures and relics it could no longer protect.

But whether the empire was in glory or in decay, into whatever race it passed, and whatever were the official creed, Constantinople never failed to attract to itself whatever of genius and ambition the Eastern empire contained, nor did it ever cease, nor has it ceased, to be a great mart of commerce, and clearing house of all that the East and the West desired to ex

From the age of Theodosius down to the opening of the Crusades- a period of seven centuries- whilst Rome itself and every ancient city in Europe was stormed, sacked, burnt, more or less abandoned, and almost blotted out by a succession of invaders, Constantino- change. It is still to the Greek priest, ple remained untouched, impregnable, as it is to the Musulman imâm, what never decayed, never abandoned-al- Rome is to the Catholic. And to the ways the most populous, the most Greek from Alexandria to New York it wealthy, the most cultivated, the most is still what Rome is to the Italian, and artistic city in Europe. always the what Paris is to the Frenchman. In a seat of a great empire, the refuge of sense, it is almost still the traditional those who sought peace and protection metropolis of the Orthodox Greek, of for their culture or their wealth, a busy the Armenian, and almost of the Lecentre of a vast commerce, the one vantine Jew, as well as of the Moslem. home of ancient art, the one school of Its history is the history of the Balkan ancient law and learning left unde- peninsula, for its twenty famous sieges spoiled and undeserted. From the have been the turning-points in the eighth century to the thirteenth a suc- rise and fall of the empire. The inner cession of travellers have described its history of the thrones of the East has size, wealth, and magnificence.1 In been uniformly transacted within those the middle of the twelfth century, the walls, and upon the buried stones and Jew Benjamin of Tudela, coming from fragments whereon we may still stand Spain to Palestine, declares that "these to-day and ponder on the vicissitudes riches and buildings are equalled no- of fifteen centuries and a half. where in the world; "" that merchants

1 Early Travels in Palestine, ed. T. Wright, 1868; Krause, Die Byzantiner des Mittelalters, 1869; Heyd, Levantehandel, 1879; French ed. 1885; Riant,

Exuvia sacræ Constant.. 1877; Hopf, Chroniques

Greco-Romanes inédites, 1873.

II.

A LARGE part of this strange radiation of Eastern history from the new Eternal City is unquestionably due to its unique local conditions. From He

rodotus and Polybius down to Gibbon | defensive position in Europe, if not in and Freeman, historians, ancient and the world. For by sea she could bar modern, have expatiated on the unri- all approach from east, north, or south; valled situation of Byzantium on the whilst on the west, the only landward Bosphorus. There is no other so apt approach, she was protected by a to become the seat of a great city on double rampart, placed upon a double the habitable globe. Standing on the peninsula, to say nothing of the natural extreme easternmost point of the Bal- bulwark of the Balkan mountains. kan peninsula, it is within easy voyage To this incomparable position of seof the entire coast line of Asia Minor curity we must add that, whilst one on its northern, western, and southern side of the city faces an inland sea of faces. As an early traveller pointed wonderful beauty, which is rather a out, Constantinople "is a city which lake than a sea, another side of the city nature herself has designed to be the looks across the Bosphorus to Asia; mistress of the world. It stands in on the third side of the city is her own Europe, looks upon Asia, and is within secure port of the Golden Horn, about reach by sea of Egypt and the Levant four miles long and a thousand yards on the south-and of the Black Sea wide. Here a thousand ships can ride and its European and Asiatic shores on in safety, and the channel is so deep the north." Something of the kind that in places the biggest vessels can might be said for such cities as Corinth, lie beside the quays. The country or Thessalonica, Smyrna, or Athens; round is diversified with hills, valleys, but the extraordinary feature of Byzan- and tableland, broken by bays and tium, which confers on it so peculiar a gulfs, and crowned with distant mounpower of defence and attack is this-tains. The Propontis and its shores that whilst having ample and secure roadsteads and ports all round it, it has both on the north and the south, a long, narrow, but navigable sea channel, of such a kind that, in ancient or in modern warfare, it can be made impregnable against any invading fleet.

teem with fish, fruits, vines, woods, and marbles, whilst in the far horizon the snowy folds of the Bithynian Olympus float as a dim but radiant vision in the distance.

The extension of modern artillery has reduced, and almost destroyed, the Constantinople was thus protected defensive capacities of the city on the by two marine gates which could be landward. But from the time of absolutely closed to any hostile ship, Xerxes until the present century, its whether coming from the Black Sea or power of defence was almost perfect so from the Egan, but which can be long as Byzantium could command the instantly opened to its own or auy sea. She possessed nearly all the adfriendly ship coming or going over the vantages of an island; but of an island whole area of the Euxine or the Med-placed in a sheltered inland sea, an iterranean. Whilst thus impregnably island from which rich districts both of defended by sea, she could bar inva- Asia and Europe could be instantly sion by land by her vast rampart run- reached in open boats, or by a few ning from sea to sea, and not more hours' sail in any kind of ship. A city, than four miles in length. And at a having magnificent harbors and roaddistance of some thirty miles further steads and abundant waterways in west, a second wall, twenty feet wide every direction, had all the peculiar and about forty miles long, shut off features which have gone to create the from north and west the main penin-power of Syracuse, Alexandria, Venice, sula and ran from the Propontis to the Genoa, London, or New York. But Euxine. Constantinople in ancient Byzantium had this additional security times thus held what, with an adequate sea and land force, was the strongest 1 Busbecq's Letters, translated by Forster and Daniel, 1881, vol. i., p. 123.

that, with all the facilities of an island, she could close her marine gates against any hostile fleet and forbid their approach within sight.

Tyre,

the shores of the Crimea, or else east-
wards to the foot of the Caucasus, or to
any point on the north coast of Asia
Minor. If it issued south, through the
Propontis and the Hellespont, a few

Carthage, Athens, Syracuse, Alexan- | days armies and munitions could be
dria- we may say all famous seaports carried to the mouths either of the
throughout the Mediterranean (except Danube, the Dnieper, or the Don, to
Venice, which lay safe in her lagoons),
were exposed to a hostile fleet; and all
of them have been more than once in-
vested by invaders from the sea. But
so long as Byzantium had forces enough
at sea to close the gate of the Bospho-days would carry its armies to the
rus and also that of the Hellespont, she
was unassailable by any hostile fleet.
And so long as she had forces enough
on land to man the long wall across the
great peninsula, and also to defend her
great inner fortifications across the
smaller peninsula, she was impregnable
to any invading army.

teeming shores of Bithynia, or to the
rich coasts and islands of the Egæan
Sea, or to Greece, or to any point on
the western or the southern coast of
Asia Minor. And a few days more
would bring its fleets to the coast of
Syria, or of Egypt, or to Italy, Spain,
Africa, and the western Mediterra-
nean. Thus, the largest army could be
safely transported in a few days, so as
to descend at will upon the vast plains
of southern Russia, or into the heart
of central Asia, within a short march of
the head waters of the Euphrates - or
they might descend southwards to the
gates of Syria, near Issus, or else to
the mouths of the Nile, or to the
islands and bays of Greece or Italy.

It would be unwise in a civilian to
express any opinion of his own on the
very important problem of the degree
in which modern appliances of war
have deprived Constantinople of her
peculiar powers of defence. We are
told that, so far as the closing of the
Bosphorus and the Hellespont extend,
the resources of the artillerist and the
submarine engineer have greatly in-
creased their defensive capacity. Con- And these wide alternatives in objec-
stantinople is, of course, no longer safe tive point could be kept for ultimate
from an enemy posted on the heights, decision unknown to an enemy up to
either above Pera, Scutari, or Eyub; the last moment. When the great
and obviously her ancient lines of for- Heraclius, in 622, opened his memo-
tification are useless. But with first- rable war with Chosroes, which ended
class forts to protect both Scutari and in the ruin of the Persian dynasty, no
Pera, and also the heights to the west man in either host knew till the hour of
of the city
- which together might his sailing whether the Byzantine hero
require some four complete corps intended to descend upon Armenia by
d'armées-and with a first-class fleet the Euxine, or upon Syria by the Gulf
in the Marmora, Constantinople would, of Issus. And until they issued from
even to-day, be far stronger for defence the Hellespout into the Egan, the
than any existing capital in Europe, emperor's army and fleet were abso-
perhaps stronger than any great city in lutely protected not only from molesta-
the world.
tion, but even from observation. To a
power which commanded the sea and
had ample supplies of troopships, Con-
stantinople combined the maximum
power of defence with the maximum
range of attack. And this extraordi-
nary combination she will retain in the
future in competent hands.

The peculiar position of Byzantium was alike fitted for offence or for defence. It was essentially a maritime position, the full resources of which could only be used by a power strong at sea. If it issued northwards, through its gate on the Bosphorus, it could send a fleet to any point of the Black Sea

That wonderfully rapid and mobile a vast expanse of one hundred and force, which an eminent American exseventy-two thousand square miles, pert has named the "sea power," the having one of the greatest drainage power discovered by Cromwell and areas in the world. Thus, in a few Blake, of which England is still the

great example and mistress, was placed and the Hellespont, just as Herodotus and Polybius tell us that she did two thousand years ago. Nor can any man who has studied that marvellous peninsula fail to see that, so soon as Constantinople again falls into the hands of a great naval power, she must recover her paramount control over the whole shore of south-eastern Europe and north-western Asia.

by the founders of Byzantium in that spot of earth which, at any rate, in its anciently peopled districts, combined the greatest resources. Byzantium, from the days of the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, had always been a prize to be coveted by a naval power. From the time of Constantine down to the Crusades, or for nearly eight centuries, the rulers of Constantinople Herodotus tells us how Darius's gencould usually command large and well-eral, in the sixth century B.C., judged manned fleets. And this was enough its position, in the well-known saying to account for her imperial place in his-that Chalcedon, the city on the Asiatic tory. As an imperial city, she must shore opposite, must have been founded rise, decline, or fall, by her naval by blind men, for they overlooked the strength. She fell before the Crusad- superior situation on which Byzantium ers in a naval attack; and she was crip- was soon after placed. Thucydides repled to a great extent by the naval cords the part played by the city in attack of Mohammed the Conqueror. the Peloponnesian war; and Polybius, During the zenith of the Moslem Con- the scientific historian of the second quest, she was great by sea. Her de- century B.C., describes it with sincline in this century has been far gular insight. "Of all cities in the greater on sea than on land. When world," he says, "it is the most happy her fleet was shattered at Sinope, in in its position on the sea; being not 1853, the end was not far off. And when to-day we see in the Golden Horn the hulls of her ironclads moored motionless, and, they say, unable to move, men knew that Stamboul is no longer the queen of the Levant.

only secure on that side from all enemies, but possessed of the means of obtaining every kind of necessaries in the greatest plenty." And he enlarges on its extraordinary command of the commercial route from the Euxine to the Mediterranean. He explains the disadvantages of its position on the land side, and the reasons which hindered Byzantium from becoming a commanding city in Greece. The main reason was the proximity of the barbarous and irrepressible Thracians; for the old Byzantium was never strong enough to wall in and defend the whole peninsula by the wall of Anastasius, nor was it rich enough to maintain such an army as would overawe the tribes of the Balkan.

As a maritime city, also, Constantinople presents this striking problem. For fifteen centuries, with moderate intervals, this city of the Bosphorus and the Propontis has held imperial rule. No other sea-port city, either in the ancient or in the modern world, has ever maintained an empire for a period approaching to this in length. Tyre, Carthage, Athens, Alexandria, Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam have held proud dependencies by their fleets for a space, but for rarely more than a few generations or centuries. The mighty No doubt the founders of Chalcedon supremacy of the seas, of which En- on the Asian side were not blind, glishmen boast, can hardly be said to but they feared the Thracians of the have had more than two centuries of European side, and were not able to trial. The city of the Bosphorus has dispossess the tribe settled on the peninbeen tried by fifteen centuries of fierce sula. But a problem arises. Why, if rivalry and obstinate war; and for long the situation of Byzantium were so periods together she saw powerful en- predominant, did it remain for a thouemies permanently encamped almost sand years a second-class commercial within sight of her towers. Yet she city of Greece? and then, why, in the still commands the gates of the Euxine fourth century, did it become the nat