"Constantine," they shouted, "founded the city; Cyrus has restored it." Never had the capricious goddess smiled so benignantly upon him, and never did she prove more treacherous. Such popularity offended Theodosius, and he decided to break the idol of the people to pieces. Cyrus was dismissed from office, deprived of his property, and reduced to a political nonentity, by being consecrated Bishop of Smyrna or of Cotaeum in Phrygia. Such a proceeding appears very strange, but probably we are ignorant of facts which would explain this transformation of a pagan official into a Christian priest. One can hardly believe that a man like Cyrus was insincere in his new character.

The post assigned to the ex-Prefect was not attractive. Four of his predecessors in the diocese had been murdered by brigands, and the people committed to his care doubted the soundness of his faith. But in a sermon preached on Christmas Day he conciliated his flock by orthodox statements, pointing out at the same time that the mystery before their minds was most honoured by silence. And he died unmolested by robbers. It is curious to observe, in passing, how punishment here assumes a religious form, and how men tried to hide their cruelty under the pretence of doing good to the souls of their victims. In the subsequent history of Constantinople, this species of penalty became common. It was a symptom at once of the mildness and the meanness of the times.

But the reign of Theodosius II. is not distinguished only for the material growth of Constantinople. It is not less memorable for the advance of the city in its intellectual character, as the nursery of learning and the seat of justice. In this reign the University of Constantinople was opened. It found a home in the building known as the Capitol, on the hill now occupied by the Turkish War Office. Judging from the descrip-tions we have of the building, it resembled in its arrangements a Turkish theological school,—medresseh,—an open court, surrounded by class-rooms on the level of the court Some of the rooms were spacious halls, richly decorated, and accommodating large audiences. The studies pursued were chiefly grammar, rhetoric, and literature, both in Latin and in Greek, there being thirteen professors for these studies in the former language and fifteen in the latter. To philosophy only one professor was assigned, while the department of law was in charge of two professors.

In the charter, so to speak, of the University, particular stress is laid upon the need of a separate class-room for each teacher, lest the different classes should disturb one another by simultaneous talking and variety of languages, with the result that the ears and minds of the students would be diverted from their proper occupation mihrimah mosque. A candidate for a professor's chair was required to undergo an examination before the Senate both as to his learning and his character. After twenty years' service a professor was rewarded with the title of a Count of the Empire. Only the professors attached to the University were allowed to lecture in public, and they were not permitted to give private instruction.

The foundation of the University had two objects mainly in view—to prepare young men for the civil service, and to supersede the pagan schools of learning. It had certainly a lofty ideal, for, in the language of an inscription that refers to the institution, it was to be "a glory to scholars, an ornament to the city, the hope of youth, weapons to virtue, and wealth to the good." Thus, while the shadows of ignorance were gathering to settle down upon western Europe, the light of knowledge was kept burning in the capital of the East until the darkness passed away. The study of Latin indeed was erelong abandoned in Constantinople, but Greek learning had always its friends there, who handed that treasure down from century to century, and bequeathed it at last to safer keeping and wider use.

Honour to the reign of Theodosius II

Another act that does honour to the reign of Theodosius II. is the codification of the laws enacted since the time of Constantine the Great The compilation took nine years to be made, and is known as the Theodosian Code. How great a need it supplied is quaintly set forth in the preamble to the Code. " The chaos presented by the state in which the laws were found was such that few persons had an adequate knowledge of the subject even though their faces have grown pale from late lucubrations." "When we consider," to quote Professor Bury's translation, " the enormous multitude of books, the divers modes of process, and the difficulty of legal cases, and further the hugeness of imperial constitutions, which, hidden as it were under a veil of gross mist and darkness, precludes men's intellects from gaining a knowledge of them, we feel that we have met a real need of our age, and, dispelling the darkness, have given light to the laws by a short compendium."

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