Valens, the next Emperor concerned with the growth of the city, gave special attention to the water-supply of Constantinople—always a serious question owing to the comparative scarcity of water in the immediate neighbourhood. The picturesque aqueduct which, with its double tier of arches garlanded with ivy, still transports water across the valley between the hills surmounted respectively by the Mosque of Sultan Mehemet and the War Office, was built in this reign. It was an addition to the system of water-supply provided by Constantine; a system which, probably, had previously served the town of Byzantium, and which he only extended and improved. Near the eastern end of the aqueduct a splendid public fountain was placed. The Cistern of the Prætorian Prefect, Modestius, now used as a Saddle-Market, near the Mosque of Sultan Mehemet, belongs to this period; and, as a result of the abundance of water thus introduced into the city, several public baths were erected. The Baths or Thermae of Roman Constantinople, we should remember, are the models of what we style the Turkish bath, and it is a curious fact that this mode of bathing has been continued as a habit of popular life only in countries comprised in the eastern division of the Empire.
But what, perhaps, makes the reign of Valens chiefly memorable in the history of the city is that in his time the citizens of Constantinople had their first experience of a usurpation of the throne, and of an attack upon their walls.
The former event was brought about by a certain Procopius, a cousin of the Emperor Julian.
Making the most of his relationship to the family of Constantine, he took advantage of the discontent which the administration of Valens had provoked, and having won the populace of the city and a body of troops by means of liberal donatives, seized the palace and installed himself as Emperor. A sharp war with Valens ensued, in which the usurper was at length captured and put to death, while his partizans, and even persons suspected of having favoured his cause, were put to the torture, and had their property confiscated. Thus Constantinople learned—not for the last time—the meaning of a reign of terror. A signal example also was made of Chalcedon (Kadi Keui), on the opposite Asiatic shore, because its inhabitants had sided with Procopius. The walls of the town were ruthlessly torn down, and it was with the material thus made available that the Aqueduct of Valens was built and that the Baths of Constantine were repaired. Yet more serious was the quarrel of Valens with the Goths, whom he had permitted to cross the Danube in their retreat before the Huns, and settle in the territory we know as Bulgaria. The officials entrusted with the control of the refugees, and with the duty of providing them with food, did their work with such stupidity and rapacity that the high-minded Goths flew to arms, and, at the close of a struggle extending for upwards of a year, inflicted in 378 an overwhelming defeat upon the imperial forces, outside the walls of Adrianople. The Emperor himself and two-thirds of his army lay dead upon the field. The Roman legions had not known such a disaster since they were defeated by Hannibal at Cannæ. Flushed with victory, the Goths marched upon Constantinople, assailed the walls, and nearly burst the gates open. The honours of the defence fell to the widow of Valens, the Empress Dominica, who, with the money found in the treasury, raised a body of troops among the citizens, arming them with what weapons could be found. A body of Arab soldiers, recently arrived in the city, also rendered valuable aid. Sallying forth, they closed with the Goths in a desperate struggle. Victory wavered between the two sets of barbarians; when, suddenly, a long-haired, almost naked Arab, uttering a loud, hoarse, and doleful cry, like a bird of evil omen, rushed upon the Goths, and drawing his dagger, cut the throat of an opponent, and then slaked his thirst at the flowing wound. What with the impression produced by this horrid incident, added to a growing sense of the impossibility of their taking a fortified place, the Goths gave up the contest and retired from the city. This was the first siege of Constantinople.
With the accession of Theodosius I., a brighter day dawned upon the Empire. He not only subdued the Goths, but converted them into allies, and persuaded them to put 40,000 of their brave troops at his service. He even induced their aged king, Athanaric, who had sworn never to set a friendly foot upon Roman soil, to visit Constantinople. The visitor was profoundly impressed by the appearance of the city. “Now,” said he, “I see what I often heard of, but never believed, the renown of this great city.” Then, surveying the city’s situation, the movement of ships coming and going, the splendid fortifications, the crowded population made up of various nationalities, like streams coming from different directions to gush from the same fountain, the well-ordered troops, he exclaimed, “Verily, the Emperor is a god upon earth; whoso lifts a hand against him is guilty of his own blood.” Upon the death of Athanaric, which occurred about a fortnight after he reached Constantinople, Theodosius buried the body of his guest with royal honours in the Church of the Holy Apostles, and, by this act of chivalrous courtesy, bound the Goths more firmly to his side.
STREET SCENE, CLAY WORKS
The barbarians, however, were by no means the only disturbers of the peace of the Empire with whom Theodosius found it necessary to deal. Society in the Roman world was distracted by the conflict between pagans and Christians on the one hand, and by the keener strife between Christian sects on the other, and it was the ambition of Theodosius to calm these troubled waters. For this laudable end he employed the questionable means of edicts for the violent suppression of heathenism and heresy. To destroy the old faith of the Empire was comparatively an easy task, although it involved him in a war with the pagan party in the West. But to uproot the tares of heresy was a more formidable undertaking; they were so numerous, vigorous, and difficult to distinguish from the true wheat. For the space of forty years, the views of Arius on the Person of Christ had prevailed in Constantinople, and the churches of the city were in the hands of that theological party. Only in one small chapel, the Church of Anastasia, was the Creed of Nicæa upheld there by Gregory of Nazianzus, and despite his eloquence he was a voice crying in the wilderness. But Theodosius, having been won over to the Nicene Creed, determined to make it the creed of the State. Accordingly, upon his arrival in Constantinople on the 20th of November 380, he sent for Demophilus, the Arian bishop of the city, and commanded him either to accept the orthodox views or leave Constantinople. Demophilus had the courage of his convictions, and, bidding his flock in S. Sophia farewell, left the capital in obedience, as he said, to the injunction, “When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.” All the churches of the city were now transferred to the orthodox party. The Arians, however, maintained religious services according to their own tenets outside the city walls, in the district known as the Exokionion (quarter of the outside column). The name was due to the presence there of a column surmounted by a statue of Constantine. Owing to their association with the district, Arians were sometimes designated Exokionitæ. The district lay immediately outside the gateway in the Constantinian walls already noted as the Ancient Gate of late Byzantine times, and as Isa Kapoussi since the Turkish Conquest. It can therefore be readily identified, and, curiously enough, under the disguise of a Turkish garb—Alti Mermer, the Six Marbles—the locality still retains its old name. For the Turkish designation is due to a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term Exakionion, a corrupt form of Exokionion frequently employed by Byzantine writers.