THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA
CHAPTER I
CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY[1]
The Byzantine peninsula has been regarded from a very
early date as an ideal situation for a capital city. Placed
at the junction of two great seas which wash the shores of
three continents, and possessed of a safe and extensive
anchorage for shipping, it might become the centre of
empire and commerce for the whole Eastern hemisphere.
Yet, owing to an adverse fate, the full realization of this
splendid conception remains a problem of the future.
Byzantium as an independent city was little more than an
outpost of civilization; as a provincial town of the Roman
Empire its political position allowed it no scope for development;
as the metropolis of the same Empire in its age of
decadence its fitful splendour is an unsubstantial pageant
- ↑ In presenting this history to the modern reader I shall not imitate the example of those mediaeval stage-managers, who, in order to indicate the scenery of the play, were content to exhibit a placard such as "This is a street," "This is a wood," etc. On the contrary, on each occasion that the scene shifts in this drama of real life, I shall describe the locality of the events at a length proportionate to their importance.
