venience of a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. [40]
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 were therefore
directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study and practice of
architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received
a liberal education. [41] The buildings of the new city were executed by
such artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his commands the cities
of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable ornaments. [42]
The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the
most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets,
of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople;
and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, [43] who
observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except
the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable monuments were
intended to represent. But it is not in the city of Constantine, nor in
the declining period of an empire, when the human mind was depressed by
civil and religious slavery, that we should seek for the souls of Homer
and of Demosthenes.

[Footnote 39: Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds' weight
of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const. p. 11; but
unless that contemptible author had derived his information from some
purer sources, he would probably have been unacquainted with so obsolete
a mode of reckoning.]

[Footnote 40: For the forests of the Black Sea, consult Tournefort,
Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus, see Strabo, l.
xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had already furnished the
materials of the stately buildings of Cyzicus.]

[Footnote 41: See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit.