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• The Works of Edward Gibbon
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter Xvi
• Chapter Xvii
• Chapter Xviii
• Chapter Xix
• Chapter Xx
• Chapter Xxi
• Appendix Additional Notes By the Editor
• 1.: The Rescript of Antoninus Concerning the Christians — ( P. 30 )
• 2.: Exile of Marcellus and Eusebius, Bishops of Rome — ( P. 77 )
• 3.: Persecutions of the Christians In the First and Second Centuries, — ( C. Xvi .)
• 4.: Augusteum and Forum of Constantine — ( P. 104-106 ) 1
• 5.: The New Monarchy — ( C. Xvii .)
• 6.: Dioceses and Provinces — ( P. 126 Sqq. )
• 7.: The Organisation of the Army Under the New System — ( P. 136 Sqq. )
• 8.: Protectores and Domestici — ( P. 150 )
• 9.: The Tragedy of Fausta and Crispus — ( P. 175 Sqq. )
• 10.: Divisions of the Empire, 293 to 378 — ( P. 183 , 196 )
• 11.: The Sarmatians — ( P. 186 )
• 12.: Battle of Singara — ( P. 200 )
• 13.: Sources and Chronology of Armenian History Under Trdat and His Successors — ( C. Xix .)
• 14.: Constantine and Christianity — ( C. Xx .)
• 15.: Ecclesiastical Geography — ( P. 314 )

4.

AUGUSTEUM AND FORUM OF CONSTANTINE — (P. 104-106)1

The chief thoroughfare in the new city of Constantine led from the Golden Gate (in the wall of Constantine, not to be confused with the later Golden Gate in the wall of Theodosius ii.) eastward (passing through the Forum Bovis, the Forum Amastrianorum, and the Forum Tauri) to the Golden Milestone in the Augusteum. Before it reached the Augusteum it passed through the Forum of Constantine in which stood the Pillar of Constantine (and the Churches of S. Constantine and S. Mary of the Forum). In the Augusteum (which we might translate Place Impériale) it came to an end, in front of the Senate house (Σενάτον) and west wall of the Palace. The Augusteum was bounded on the north by St. Sophia; on the east, by Senate house and palace buildings; on the south, by the Palace (the great entrance gate, known as the Chalkê, was here) and the north side of the Hippodrome, beside which were the Baths of Zeuxippus. There was no public way between the east side of the Hippodrome and the Palace. According to Labarte, the Augusteum was enclosed by a wall, with gates, on the west side, running from south-west of St. Sophia to a point between the Palace and the Hippodrome; so that the entrance to the Hippodrome and the Zeuxippus would have been outside the Augusteum. The street connecting the Augusteum with the Forum of Constantine was called Middle St., — Μέση. The Chalkoprateia, and the Church of the Theotokos (Mother of God) in Chalkoprateia, were not in the Augusteum where Labarte places them, but west of St. Sophia, to the right of the Mese (as Mordtmann has shown, Esquisse Top. § 6, p. 4, and also Bieliaiev, cp. Byz. Zeitsch. ii. p. 138; but probably close to the Mese, cp. Krasnoseljcev, in the Annual Hist.-Phil. Publication of the Odessa University, iv. (Byz. section, 2) p. 309 sqq.). A plan of the Augusteum and adjoining buildings will appear in vol. vii., to illustrate the Nika riots under Justinian.

The chief guides to the topography of Constantinople used by Gibbon were Ducange’s folio, Constantinopolis Christiana, and the little 32mo of Petrus Gyllius, de Constantinopoleos topographia, libri iv., 1632; both still of great value. The prolix work in 2 vols. of Skarlatos D. Byzantios (ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολος, Athens, 1851) is unscientific and must be used with great caution. The reconstruction of the Imperial Palace, involving a theory of the topography of the Augusteum and adjacent buildings, was undertaken by Jules Labarte (Le Palais impérial de Constantinople et ses abords, 1861) whose scholarly book marked a new departure and is of permanent value. The diligent Greek antiquarian A. G. Paspatês succeeded in establishing several valuable identifications in his Βυζαντεναὶ Μελέται (Constantinople, 1877), but his τὰ Βυζαντινὰ ἀνάκτορα (1885; in English: The Great Palace of Constantinople, translated by Mr. Metcalfe, 1893) is a retrorgession compared with Labarte (see above, vol. i. Introd. p. lxviii.-lxix.). The problems of the Palace have been critically and thoroughly dealt with by D. Th. Bieliaiev in his Obzor glavnych chastei bolshago dvortsa Vizantiiskich tsarei (Part 1 of Byzantina), 1891, where it is shown that we must retain the main line of Labarte’s reconstruction, but that in most of the details we must be content for the present to confess our ignorance.

In 1892 Dr. Mordtmann’s Esquisse topographique de Constantinople appeared. It is not well arranged, but it is an important contribution to the subject; and his map has been an indispensable guide in the preparation of the plan in this volume. He clearly recognises the true position of the Hebdomon on the Propontis; and I may observe that I had already pointed out (in 1889) that the received view which placed it near Blachernae must be wrong (Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 556). The most recent work on Constantinople is: Constantinople, 2 vols., by E. A. Grosvenor, Professor of History at Robert College, Constantinople.

It is impossible to notice all the smaller contributions to the subject, but I must specially refer to some valuable articles of the late G. S. Destunis in the Zhurnal Min. Narodnago Prosviescheniia in 1882-1883.

[1 ]A new work on the topography of Constantinople, by A. van Millingen (Byzantine Constantinople, the walls of the city and adjoining historical sites, 1899), has reached me in time to be mentioned here. It supersedes all previous works on the walls and gates.