Chapter XVI
.—
The
Emperor Constantine having enlarged the Ancient Byzantium, calls it
Constantinople.
After
the Synod the emperor
spent some time in recreation, and after the public celebration of his
twentieth anniversary of his accession,
205
he immediately devoted himself to the reparation of the churches. This
he carried into effect in other cities as well as in the city named
after him, which being previously called Byzantium, he enlarged,
surrounded with massive walls,
206
and adorned with various edifices;
and having rendered it equal to imperial Rome,
he named it
Constantinople,
establishing by law that it should
be designated
New Rome.
This law was engraven on a pillar of
stone erected in public view in the Strategium,
207
near the emperor’s equestrian statue.
208
He built also in the same city two churches, one of which he named
Irene,
and the other
The Apostles.
209
Nor did he only improve the affairs of the Christians, as I have said,
but he also destroyed the superstition of the heathens; for he brought
forth their images into public view to ornament the city of
Constantinople, and set up the Delphic tripods publicly in the
Hippodrome. It may indeed seem now superfluous to mention these things,
since they are seen before they are heard of. But at that time the
Christian cause received its greatest augmentation; for Divine
Providence preserved very many other things during the times of the
emperor Constantine.
210
Eusebius Pamphilus has in magnificent terms recorded the praises of the
emperor;
211
and I considered it would not be ill-timed to advert thus to them as
concisely as possible.
205
The Vicennalia.
206
These walls were superseded by the great walls built
under Theodosius the Younger; see VII. 31.
207
‘Mansion house,’ the building in which
the two chief magistrates had their headquarters.
208
The city was formally dedicated as the capital of
the empire in 330
a.d.
209
Cf. II. 16, and I. 40.
210
The text seems somewhat doubtful here. Valesius
conjectures
῎ά τε
ἄλλα πλεῖστα
καὶ τοῦτο
μάλιστα
, idiomatically,
‘this among many other things’; but the
mss.
read more obscurely,
καὶ ἄλλα
πλεῖστα
.
211
Euseb.
Life of Const.
III. 33; cf. also
52–55.