Byzantine Churches in Constantinople

placed the Forum known by his name, so that from the Forum one entered the porticoes in question, and passed beyond the limits of Byzantium. 1 Now, the site of the Forum of Constantine is one of the points in the topography of the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire concerning which there can be no difference of opinion. The porphyry column (Burnt Column) which surmounts the Second Hill was the principal ornament of that public place. Therefore the gate of Byzantium must have stood at a short distance from that column. According to the clearest statements on the subject, the gate was to the east of the column, the Forum standing immediately beyond the boundary of the old city. 2

The language of Zosimus, taken alone, suggests, indeed, the idea that the gate of Byzantium had occupied a site to the west of the Forum; in other words, that the Forum was constructed to the east of the gate, within the line of the wall of Severus. For, according to the historian, one entered the porticoes of Severus and left the old town, after passing through the arches (δι' ὧν) which stood, respectively, at the eastern and western extremities of the Forum of Constantine. This was possible, however, only if these various structures, in proceeding from east to west, came in the following order: Forum of Constantine; porticoes of Severus; gate of Byzantium. On this view, the statement that the Forum was "at the place where the gate had stood" would be held to imply that the porticoes between the Forum and the gate were too short to be taken

1 Zosimus, p. 96: Having built the Forum in the place where the gate of the old city stood, . . . he fashioned two immense arches of Proconnesian marble, facing one another, through which it is possible to enter into the porticoes of Severus, and to depart from the old city.

2 Theophanes, p. 42, speaking of the column, says it was set up from the place where he began to build the city, to the western part of the gate leading out to Rome.