It was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of Phidias.

The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head.
[46] The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in breadth.

[47] The space between the two metoe or goals were filled with statues and obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass.

Their triple heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks.

[48] The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; [48a] but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses.