All rights reserved Interior of S. Sophia. Showing the Sultan's pew and the stairs to the pulpit. Constantinople The Story of the old Capital of the Empire by William Holden Hutton , Fellow of S. John Baptist College, Oxford. Illustrated by Sydney Cooper London: J. M. Dent & Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden, W.C.  ·  ·  1900 This superb successor Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest, Stands 'midst these ages as, on the wide ocean, The last spared fragm

A word of introduction is necessary to explain the nature of this sketch of the history of Constantinople. It is the holiday-task, very pleasant to him, of a College don, to whom there is no city in the world so impressive and so fascinating as the ancient home of the Cæsars of the East. It is not intended to supersede the indispensable Murray. For a city so great, in which there is so much to see, a guide-book full of practical details is absolutely necessary. For this I can refer the reader, w

Constantinople...

1. Byzantium Before Constantine. It is impossible to approach Constantinople without seeing the beauty and the wonder of its site. Whether you pass rapidly down the Bosphorus, between banks crowned with towers and houses and mosques, that stretch away hither and thither to distant hills, now bleak, now crowned with dark cypress groves; or up from the Sea of Marmora, watching the dome of S. Sophia that glitters above the closely packed houses, till you turn the point which brings you to the Golde

Constantinople soon became Stambûl in the mouth of the Turks, a corruption it may be of the εἰς τὴν πόλιν which they had often heard in the mouth of the Greeks. The crescent of Byzantium became the symbol of the Ottoman power. A new city began to be raised on the ruins of the old. IN THE CEMETERY AT SCUTARI Some privileges were left to the Christians. Galata and Pera were from the first confirmed in their independence and freedom of trade; yet step by step the Turkish sway was established over t

Though as it has already been said there is but one church which has survived the Turkish conquest without ever ceasing to be used for its divine purpose, there are very many buildings in Constantinople still remaining, with more or less change, that were once hallowed to the worship of the Church of Christ. Very many have perished, the most notable among them that Church of the Holy Apostles, which was destroyed by Mohammed the Conqueror to build the great mosque which bears his name. But those

The history of Constantinople—it is proclaimed at every epoch in her life—has ever its two abiding interests, the Church and the military spirit. The one is represented for all time in S. Sophia. The other finds its memorial in the walls. For centuries, whose heroic story we have so baldly told, the city of the Cæsars preserved for Europe the justice of Rome, the learning of Greece. She taught to the barbarians the meaning of civilitas , she led many of the nations into the truest brotherhood of

The mosques of Constantinople, as has already been shown, are very largely buildings which had been churches in past days. The inspiration felt so overpoweringly in the Church of the Divine Wisdom still abides in the buildings erected by the Emperors of past days. More open and evident still is the fact that the architects of the mosques, built for Mohammedan worship since the Turks have ruled in the city of the Cæsars, have done little more than copy the people whom they have conquered. In most

No features in the Sultan's city are more prominent than the cloud-capped towers and the gorgeous palaces. The two towers of Galata and of the Seraskerat have a very practical meaning. Perpetual watch is kept in them, and warning sent when the fires which have so often devastated both Pera and Stambûl are seen to have begun. The great tower of the Seraskerat, built by Mohammed II., standing in the large open space in front of the War Office, gives the best detailed view of Stambûl, and one sees

Needless to say, the antiquities of Constantinople would take for their description not one but many books. Archæologists will read as well as see for themselves. Let me merely call attention to some of the prominent archæological remains which no one will wish to miss. They are the living memorials of the great past. And first the Hippodrome. So much has already been said of it that here I shall only give the barest description of what we see to-day. And first be it noted that the space now ope