[43] It may have been earlier. Petavius (in Ducange) fixes this date, Baronius makes it 325 (_c._ 95).
[44] Plutarch, De Defect. Orac. He explains it by the death of the daemons who managed them. These semi-divinities, though long-lived, were not immortal.
[46] Philostorgius, ii, 9. Copied or repeated with embellishment, but not corroborated, by later writers, as Nicephorus Cal., viii, 4; Anon. (Banduri), p. 15; Codinus, p. 75. Eusebius is silent where we should expect him to be explicit. The allusion in Cod. Theod., XIII, v, 7, seems to be merely a pious expression.
[47] The result of Diocletian’s persecution must have shown every penetrating spirit that Christianity had “come to stay”: the numerous converts of the better classes were nearly all fanatics compared with Pagans of the same class, who were languid and indifferent about religion. He indulged both parties from time to time.
[48] Zosimus, ii, 30, Anon. Patria (Banduri, p. 4), and indications in Notitia Utriusque Imperii, etc., in which the length of Constantine’s city is put down at 14,705 Roman feet. From Un Kapani on the Golden Horn (near old bridge) it swept round the mosque of Mohammed II, passed that of Exi Mermer, and turned south-east so as to strike the sea near Et Jemes, north-east of Sand-gate. I am describing the imaginary line drawn by Mordtmann (Esquisses topogr. de CP., 1891), who has given us a critical map without a scale to measure it by. It was not finished till after Constantine’s death, Julian, Orat., i, p. 41, 1696.
[49] Anon. (Banduri) and Codinus _passim_; Eusebius, Vit. Constant., iii, 54, etc.; Jerome, Chron., viii, p. 678 (Migne).
[51] Or Florentia (blooming). Jn. Malala, xiii, p. 320, etc. Everything was done in imitation of Rome, which, as John Lydus tells us (De Mens., iv, 50), had three names, mystic, sacerdotal, and political—Amor, Flora, Rome.
[52] Cedrenus, i, p. 495; Zonaras, xiii, 3. Eusebius knows nothing of it. See Ducange’s collection of authorities (CP. Christ., i, p. 24), all late, _e.g._, Phrantzes, iii, 6.
[53] Anon. (Banduri), p. 5; Codinus, p. 20. The stories of these writers do not deserve much credit. Glycas, however, accepts the tale and is a sounder authority, iv, p. 463. “It is well known that the flower of your nobility was translated to the royal city of the East,” said Frederic Barbarossa, addressing the Roman Senate in 1155 (Otto Frising. Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., vi, 721).