The great city was the arena for the sports of the pleasure-loving Greeks; sometimes in the race of wild beasts with each other, and again in the more terrible contests of the gladiators.
The Bosphorus was alive with human freight, youths and maidens, wooed by its blue and sparkling waves, delighted to dream of love as they glided over the gently-heaving waters.
The shores were gay and gladsome, as the enamored throng tripped through the mazes of their fantastic Romaica to the tinkling music. But the Grecian prince is hurled from his throne, and the grave and sombre Moslem sits there, the despot and bloody conqueror. The great temple, which rivalled even that of Solomon, is suddenly divested of the symbols of a Christian faith. Its mosaics of the saints which adorn the walls are obliterated, its cherubim are torn down, its altar demolished, and nothing left of all the gorgeous decorations. The bare, unadorned niche--the mihrab or index to the temple of Mohammed, is instituted, and "Allah-il-Allah," is henceforth the cry of the Faithful.
Yet, they say, the distant chant of the last officiating priest of the Greek religion still lingers within the walls, from whence he will issue when the edifice is restored to its original worship.
Sports are over--maidens and youths are coy of their charms, for a change has come over the spirit of their dreams.
The liberty of woman is shackled, and the dominion of seclusion established. Certain quarters of the city are assigned to the Greek subjects--and externally their very dwellings assume the dusky tints of bondage and ruin.
Truly their glory has departed, and their name as a nation is only sustained by the shades of their ancient heroes, who even after their last degenerate descendant has mouldered into dust, will continue to flit around the civilized world, scattering the scintillations of early genius amid earth's darkness. Yet, as it is their nature to boast, they point into the past, and even one day hope to sit on the throne of their ancestors eis tin polin of yore.
There are no less than a million and a half of Greeks in the Turkish dominions, of whom 150,000 live in the capital. At the time of their conquest, the Turks allowed them the same municipal immunities and privileges as they had done to the Armenians.