Leisure hours among the gems

by Augustus C. Hamlin

The results of the Persian conquests largely increased the number, variety, and value of the art and gem collections at Constantinople. The Persian monarch, Chosroes, to arrange and preserve the treasures gathered by rapine or tribute, constructed an elegant palace at Dastagherd beyond the Tigris. In this stronghold, protected in a hundred vaults, were deposited most of the gold, silver, gems, silks, aromatics, and other objects collected from Persia and other countries of Asia. All these fell into the bold hands of the Roman Emperor Heraclius; but a part of them, during an unlucky tempest, were lost in the waves of the Euxine Sea. In the capture of Tauris, Heraclius obtained what were supposed to have been the spoils of Crœsus, which had been transported by Cyrus from the citadel of Sardes.

Once only, before the coming of the Turk, was Constantinople, during its many centuries of varied prosperity and adversity, subjected to serious pillage. Hostile armies had again and again surged up to its almost impregnable walls, only to retire in discomfiture; and it seemed as though the grand old city was protected by some invisible agency from external violence. Internal dissension, however, was the bane of the capital, and was the true cause of the success of the Latins, and finally that of the Turks. The successful attack by the combined forces of the Latins and Venetians was one of the results of the Crusades. It took place in the commencement of the thirteenth century.

The city, however, remained under the Latin power for only fifty-seven years, when it was recaptured by a bold stroke of the Greeks. Injured by the pillage of the Latins, and many of its beautiful edifices destroyed by fire during the siege or subsequent occupation, the Greek capital not only lost its prestige of divine protection, but it has never recovered its former splendor. How much of the spoils were removed by the captors is a matter of conjecture. The historians of the Greeks and Latins—the spoiled and spoiler—undoubtedly exaggerate the injury of the conquest and the quantity of booty obtained.

Two of the Emperors, succeeding by usurpation, fled from the city with much treasure before it was finally captured. Even then one quarter of the accepted plunder was reserved for the elected ruler of Constantinople. And as to the remainder, which is said to have been divided equally between the French and Venetians, and valued at 11,125,000 marks of silver, or $11,000,000, there is no record extant of the articles. We know that the bronze horses of the Hippodrome were transferred to Saint Mark’s Palace, and the crown of thorns to the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. We also learn that many gems-the adamas, emerald, jacinth, ruby, sapphire—were among the spoils; but if the sack was complete, why did Venice years afterwards offer ten thousand ducats for the seamless vesture of the Redeemer, which was then among the sacred reliquaries of Constantinople? If these spoils were divided between the conquerors, how explain the fact recorded in French history, that the sacred relics sent to Paris and placed in the church erected to receive them were purchased? It is a matter of history that the crown of thorns, with the piece of the true cross, the antique gems, and other relics that were deposited in Sainte Chapelle, together with the construction of the building, cost Saint Louis of Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, a sum of money equal to 2,800,000 francs. This fact, coupled with the offer of the Venetians for the holy vestment, renders the accounts of the sack of the city still more obscure. The historian Yriarte declares that the only monuments of art deemed by the Venetians as worthy of transporting to their capital were the famous bronze horses. If this statement is correct, the Venetians must have been sadly deficient in taste, or history has wrongfully accused the founders of Constantinople of spoliation.

According to the early accounts, Constantine, in the reconstruction of Byzantium, despoiled the cities of Asia and Greece of their most valuable ornaments, the trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times. The most celebrated works of the age of Pericles and Alexander were remorselessly seized by the Emperor and transferred to his capital to enhance its beauty and its renown. So many statues and architectural masterpieces had been transported to the Bosphorus that the historian Cedrenus ironically said, “Nothing in this great city was wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those admirable monuments were intended to represent.”

In the reign of Justinian the city was decorated by the best of living artists. In the construction of the public edifices, the richest materials were sought for and used with lavish hand. The bright hues, the primitive lustre, of many of the stones of which the buildings were composed were so remarkable as to form the theme of a poet. Distant countries were explored for choice materials. The costly marbles of Asia, Gaul, Greece, and Africa were transported to the Bosphorus. Among the rare stones used by the Greek architects, one may recognize in the ruins of the present day, the emerald-green marble of Laconia, the golden-hued of Mauritania, the black of Gaul, and the purple and red, with intersecting veins of sea-green, of Phrygia. The shrine which stood in the Mosque of Saint Sophia a thousand years ago or more must have been of marvellous beauty. The wealth and energy of the ancient world was expended upon it; and we can form some picture of it in our imagination from the fact that the Emperor Justinian, on beholding it after its completion, exclaimed, with outstretched arms, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.”

The magnificence displayed by the wealthy houses of Byzantium in their internal arrangements must have been of an extraordinary character if we can judge correctly from the invectives of Chrysostom; and the utensils of silver and gold were in massiveness far beyond the prodigality of modern times. Ramusio, the Venetian historian, dazzles the reader with his glittering descriptions of the acquisitions of his countrymen. He mentions with preciseness the vases whose forms were as grotesque and varied as the caprice of man,—the murrhines Pompey won in his triumphs over Mithridates and Tigranes; chalices decked with gems or formed of turquoise, jasper, and amethyst; crowns of gold, studded with pearls; unnumbered emeralds, sapphires, topazes, jacinths, and other gems; also the matchless carbuncles which afterwards adorned the altar at Saint Mark’s, and which were believed by the superstitious to have the power of dissipating the darkness by their refulgent beams of light.

Constantinople, with its remaining works of art, again fell into the power of the Greeks and was retained by them until captured by the Turks. To describe the treasures of the Greek capital before its capture, and correctly estimate the character and value of the objects removed, and those secreted and again brought to light, will be a difficult task for some restless antiquary. We are, however, inclined to believe the Greeks successfully secreted many of their choicest gems. All through the pages of early and mediæval history, the reader will observe that by a strange caprice of fortune many of the richest and rarest works of art and nature passed into the possession of the rulers of Byzantium, Constantinople, or Stamboul. These three names, distinct in their meaning, yet relate to one and the same city, which, during its existence of more than a thousand years, passed successively under the sway of the Roman, the Greek, and the Turk. Stamboul is still the Mecca of the antiquary.

CHAPTER VII.
RUSSIAN REGALIA.

The empire of Russia has the most splendid collection of diamonds of any country in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of Persia. In the Kremlin at Moscow, and the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, are preserved a multitude of gems of the highest perfection and beauty, and also many interesting ornaments formed or captured by the early rulers of Russia. Possessing many of the avenues of approach and trade with the countries of Central and Southern Asia, this country has long enjoyed excellent facilities for obtaining the gems from Upper India and Persia. The enormous quantity the treasury still possesses, added to the great number given away in past times by various sovereigns, naturally gives rise to the inquiry, whence this great abundance of precious stones came. We may say that this grand accumulation commenced in the earliest days of the Russian dynasty, and has been steadily increasing by direct intercourse with the gem-producing countries.