The provinces of Greece and Asia Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.] [Footnote 43: Hist.Compend.p.369.He describes the statue, or rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate age.] During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the commanding eminence of the second hill.

To perpetuate the memory of his success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal Forum; [44] which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical form.

The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar.

This column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference.

[45] On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of Apollo.