May viii.
I walked almost thro the extent of the whole city to visit the famous pillar of Arcadius, a lofty and aspiring fabric, of the Doric order, built with a wonderful regularity and exactness of architecture, bearing on the basis, and on the whole shaft from top to bottom, various warlike figures of men in arms, chariots, galleys, and other ornaments, which in a spiral manner encircle the whole pillar; every figure being so well proportioned to the distance, from whence it is seen, that those at the top, the middle, and the bottom, appear to the eye exactly of the same size. Returning from this pillar I passed by the old pillar of Aurátbasar, defaced by the several conflagrations of the city, and bound in several places with rings of iron by the care and charge of the emperor Manuel, as is witnessed by this inscription on the top.
ΤΟ ΘΕΙΟΝ ΕΡΓΟΝ ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΦΘΑΡΕΝ ΧΡΟΝΩ
ΚΑΙΝΟΙ ΜΑΝΟΥΗΛ ΕΥϹΕΒΗϹ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ
From this pillar I was desirous of passing thro Atmeidan, that is the hippodromus, or cirque above mentioned, to review the mosque of Sultan Achmét, and make a stricter observation on the three pillars there erected. Here I was informed, that the brass serpentine pillar was erected by the emperor Leo, as a charm against the noisom number of serpents, which in his time infested the city; the same person superstitiously affirming, that since the late defacement of this pillar, by the breaking of the serpents heads, the city was again molested by innumerable noxious serpents. At the foot of the old pillar, formerly covered with brass, I read the remains of that inscription once taken by Sir George Sandys, but since his time part of it buried with earth, and part broken away; which is very erroneously printed in his Travels[84]. On the basis of the hieroglyphical pillar I observed the carved representation of the pillar it self, together with the figures of men labouring to erect it.