in beautiful order.
About a century after the death of the founder the new buildings,
extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad
summit of the seventh hill.

The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of
the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. From the eastern
promontory to the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
about three Roman miles; the circumference measured between ten and
eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand
acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations
of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European and even of
the Asiatic coast.[52] But the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though
situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as a part of the
city; and this addition may perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine
historian, who assigns sixteen Greek, about fourteen Roman, miles for
the circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem not
unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to
Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.

The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution of that
great work the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
by the allowance of about two million five hundred thousand pounds for
the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
convenience of a short water-carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
with incessant toil; but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered
that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces