ian. From the edge of the sea-shore,
through the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied every
practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants, a garrison
of two thousand soldiers was stationed along the rampart; granaries
of corn and reservoirs of water were provided for their use; and by
a precaution that inspired the cowardice which it foresaw, convenient
fortresses were erected for their retreat. The walls of Corinth,
overthrown by an earthquake, and the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and
Plataea, were carefully restored; the Barbarians were discouraged by
the prospect of successive and painful sieges: and the naked cities
of Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of
Corinth. At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the Thracian
Chersonesus, runs three days' journey into the sea, to form, with the
adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of the Hellespont. The intervals
between eleven populous towns were filled by lofty woods, fair pastures,
and arable lands; and the isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs,
had been fortified by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the
reign of Justinian. [117] In an age of freedom and valor, the slightest
rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible of the
superiority of ancient times, while he praises the solid construction
and double parapet of a wall, whose long arms stretched on either side
into the sea; but whose strength was deemed insufficient to guard the
Chersonesus, if each city, and particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had
not been secured by their peculiar fortifications. The long wall, as it
was emphatically styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as
it was respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse
themselves over the neighboring country, and the territory of
Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the luxurious
gardens and villas of the senators and opulent citizens. But their
wealth served only to attract the bold and rapacious Barbarians; the
noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of peaceful indolence, were led away
into Scythian captivity, and their sovereign might view from his palace
the hostile flames which were insolently spread to the gates of the
Imperial city. At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was
constrained to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty mi