[56] But these encouragements and obligations soon became superfluous, and were gradually abolished.
Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue will be expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace.

The most wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity.

A third and more numerous class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or luxury of the superior ranks.

In less than a century, Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of riches and numbers.

New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages.