when Ravenna became the capital of Italy, churches and edifices were raised to suit the splendor of a court, which in pride if not in vigour, laid claim to equal rank with that of Byzantium. A baptistery and many churches of fine architecture were built in the early part of the fifth century and the mosaics which adorn them are the most beautiful in Italy. When Constantine laid the foundation of the city which bears his name, he had reason to lament the decline of the arts in the whole extent of the empire. Schools of architecture were created by his orders in various pro vinces. For the embellishment of his favorite residence the cities of Greece and Asia and perhaps those of Italy were despoiled of the noblest monuments of art; and Con stantinople might boast of possessing the finest statues of Phidias, Lysippus and Praxiteles. Perfect art had had one great epoch,— the ancient Greek, in which the highest ideal of the pagans had been attained. W T hat the Roman republic in the full enjoyment of power and wealth failed to preserve, it was vain to expect of a Roman Emperor. Constantine could not revive the splendor of Greece. In the attempt to arrest the decline, he had not only to struggle with the flood of rising bar barism but to deal with a new religious element, which in its turn was, after the lapse of centuries, to produce its ideal. The art of Greece was now no longer suitable to the decline of the Roman empire or to the develop ment of the Christian faith. The want of a new language was felt, but with this want and the necessity of satis fying it the fall of the old and the birth of the new went hand in hand. The efforts of Constantine therefore only served to prolong the agony of the classical antique. Yet this antique in its dying moments maintained its grandeur and its majesty; and in the mosaics of Ravenna the in terested spectator may watch the last expression of its power. To affirm that these mosaics are of the same class as those which were produced at Rome during the fifth cen- 2*