Severus in 196 A.D. She waited then for a century till her real founder came. Byzantine coins go back as far as the fifth century B.C., and there were in the early Middle Ages many surviving memorials of pre-Christian times; of these there are now left only the striking Corinthian column standing on a high granite base in the garden of the old Seraglio, which almost certainly commemorates a victory of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus, some parts of the foundations of the Hippodrome, an inscription in the Doric dialect which formerly stood in the Stadium, and that wonderful serpent column, which only came, it is true, to the city after Constantine rebuilt it, but which was centuries before in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

2. From Constantine to Justinian.

The true history of the city begins with Constantine the Great. It is said that he hesitated at first, like the men of Megara, between Byzantium and Chalcedon, when he came to choose a spot from which to rule the East. But when he chose aright he founded a city which has endured to this day, and which it is inconceivable should ever be deserted again. The site on which he built is about four miles long, broadening from less than a mile where it fronts the Bosphorus to four miles from where the Marble Tower now stands to the Golden Horn. Seven hills and six valleys diversify the ground. The seven hills as we see them now stretch thus from east to west. First is that irregular elevation ending at Seraglio Point, on which stand the buildings of the old Seraglio, S. Irene, S. Sophia, the great mosque of Sultan Ahmed, and the Hippodrome. Second, and north-west of it, is the hill on which stands the column of Constantine himself, now burned and broken. On the third stands the great tower by the War Office (Seraskierat), the mosques of Bayezid and Suleiman. A valley descends northwards to the Golden Horn; and across it runs the Aqueduct of Valens, and on the other side is the hill marked by the mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror. The fifth hill stretches from the fourth almost to the Golden Horn, and on it stands the mosque of Selim. The sixth hill, divided from the fifth by a valley ascending from the Golden Horn, has now the ruins of the palace called by the people "the House of Belisarius," and the seventh extends from the south of the Adrianople Gate to the Sea of Marmora. As the old foundation, so the new planning of Constantine has its legend. It is said that he traced the boundary of his city himself, walking spear in hand and marking the line of the walls; and when his courtiers asked him how far he could go he answered, as though he saw a sacred vision, "Until He tarries Who now goes before." He ascribed in his laws the founding to the command of God.

He did not cover the whole ground of the Seven Hills. It is difficult to trace with certainty the line of the walls, but it would seem probable that they extended from what is now the inner bridge across the Golden Horn to a point on the Sea of Marmora about midway between the gate of Daoud Pasha and the Psamatia Gate. This would exclude part of the fifth, sixth, and seventh hills; but it is improbable that they were left entirely unprotected or completely excluded from the city of Constantine. By the sixth at any rate already stood the Blachernae, later to be the famous palace of the Byzantine emperors. Sycae, across the Golden Horn, was the name of what is now Galata. It was at one time the quarter where the Galatian mercenaries dwelt, and quite early in history it had another division named Pera, or "across the water." The seaward walls remained as they had been in old Byzantium, and they were repaired, and brought forward to the point whence the new land walls started. Of the remains of Constantine's time there are none that are not half destroyed or wholly altered, but the Church of S. Irene still recalls the days of its first founder, and the serpent column from Delphi still stands in the Hippodrome where he placed it.

The divisions of Constantine's city are not easy to recover. For municipal government it had, like Rome, fourteen regions, two of which were outside the walls, those (xiii.) of Sycae and (xiv.) of Blachernae. From the Golden gate, which was not far from the Marmora end of the land walls (the name Isa Kapou Mesjidi still recalls the Holy Name of Jesus which it bore), a road led to the Augusteum. The Forum of Constantine stood outside where the old Byzantine walls had been, and west of the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome extended south-west from the Forum of the Augusteum. North-east at some distance stood the Church of S. Irene. The Augusteum which, as Mr Bury says, we may translate place impériale, had the Church of S. Sophia, begun probably by Constantius, on the north; on the east the Senate house, and some buildings of the Palace; on the south the great Palace itself, built eastwards of the Hippodrome and commanding the magnificent view over the Marmora islands to the shores of Asia and the snows of Olympus.