Identifier: constantinegreat00firt (find matches)
Title: Constantine the Great; the reorganisation of the empire and the triumph of the church
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Firth, John B. (John Benjamin), 1868-1943
Subjects: Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, d. 337 Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
Publisher: New York, London, G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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he building, and on either side the long arms of theHippodrome terminated in blank walls. The firsttier of seats, known as the Bouleutikon or Podium,was raised thirteen feet above the arena. This wasthe place of distinction. At the back rose tier upontier, broken half-way by a wide passage, while at thevery top of all was a broad promenade running rightround the building from pole to pole of the rragnet.This was forty feet above the ground, aid thebenches and promenades were composed of gleam-ing marble raised upon arches of brick. There wasroom here for eighty thousand spectators to as-semble in comfort, and one seems to hear ringingdown the ages the frenzied shouts of the multitudeswhich for centuries continued to throng this mightybuilding, of which now scarce one stone stands uponanother. Mr. Grosvenor very justly says that no theatre, no palace, no public building has to-day apromenade so magnificent. . . . Within was all thepomp and pageantry of all possible imperial and popular
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SdLE.-JCentinielre. io SONelres or98yiFeei. PLAN OF THE HIPPODROME. FROM GROSVENORS CONSTANTINOPLE, The Foundation of Constantinople 279 contest and display ; without, piled high around, werethe countless imposing structures of that city which formore than half a thousand years was the most elegant,the most civilised, almost the only civilised and polishedcity in the world. Beyond was the Golden Horn,crowded with shipping ; the Bosphorus in its windingbeauty ; the Marmora, studded with islands and fringingthe Asiatic coast, the long line of the ArganthoniusMountains and the peaks of the Bithynian Olympus,glittering with eternal snow—all combining in a pano-rama which even now no other city of mankind canrival. In the middle of the arena stood the spina, a mar-ble wall, four feet high and six hundred feet long,with the Goal of the Blues at the northern endfacing the throne, and that of the Greens facing thesphendone. The spina was decorated with thechoicest statuary, including the th

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