Constantinople Painted by Warwick Goble

fled from the slings and arrows of their sarcasm without waiting to meet the Senate, or to be invested with the consular dignity. But after all, personal feelings go only a short way towards the explanation of an event so serious in the history of the Roman State as the establishment of another seat of imperial authority. The volume and force of a mighty river might as well be explained by the drops of a shower which fall into its current. Constantine was too great a statesman to be swayed by mere personal impulse. The foundation of Constantinople was the outward and visible sign of profound changes in the ideas and policy created and long embodied by the city enthroned beside the Tiber. It was the expression of the spirit of a new epoch; as much so as the foundation of Alexandria signified a change in the political conceptions of the Hellenic world, or the building of St. Petersburg marked the new aspirations heaving in the heart of Russia, or the erection, in more recent times, of Washington or Ottawa proclaimed the birth of new commonwealths, and the application of new principles. Old ideas and ancient institutions cannot be altered in one day, or at the caprice of one man. They are not the flimsy things which can be created or destroyed by the wave of a magician's wand.