DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61894#0080
70
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. HL
quities are so embroiled in fable and legend,
that one receives but little satisfaction from
searching- into them.” The portion of satisfac-
tion to be derived from such researches, depends
upon the taste and views of the person who
makes them; for as to fable and leg-end, I fancy
there is a sufficient stock in heathen as well as in
Christian antiquity, to puzzle and embroil an
ordinary inquirer. However, notwithstanding
the obscurity which ag-es and revolutions, igno-
rance or folly, may have thrown over both these
species of antiquity, the traveller as he wanders
over the venerable regions of this wonderful city
so long the seat of Empire and Religion, will
find a sufficient number of monuments, both
sacred and profane, to edify as well as to delight
an unprejudiced mind. Among the former the
churches without doubt occupy the first rank, as
some few of them were erected in the tera of
Constantine, and many may ascribe their origin
to the zeal of that Emperor himself, or to that
of his sons and their immediate successors.
In these edifices the constituent and essential
parts remain the same as they were at the period
of erection, and even the more solid and per-
manent ornaments still stand unaltered in their
respective places. From them therefore we may
learn with some certainty, the form of Christian
1
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. HL
quities are so embroiled in fable and legend,
that one receives but little satisfaction from
searching- into them.” The portion of satisfac-
tion to be derived from such researches, depends
upon the taste and views of the person who
makes them; for as to fable and leg-end, I fancy
there is a sufficient stock in heathen as well as in
Christian antiquity, to puzzle and embroil an
ordinary inquirer. However, notwithstanding
the obscurity which ag-es and revolutions, igno-
rance or folly, may have thrown over both these
species of antiquity, the traveller as he wanders
over the venerable regions of this wonderful city
so long the seat of Empire and Religion, will
find a sufficient number of monuments, both
sacred and profane, to edify as well as to delight
an unprejudiced mind. Among the former the
churches without doubt occupy the first rank, as
some few of them were erected in the tera of
Constantine, and many may ascribe their origin
to the zeal of that Emperor himself, or to that
of his sons and their immediate successors.
In these edifices the constituent and essential
parts remain the same as they were at the period
of erection, and even the more solid and per-
manent ornaments still stand unaltered in their
respective places. From them therefore we may
learn with some certainty, the form of Christian
1