Praetorian prefect

The church of the Holy Apostles, which Constantine destined as the burying place of his family, was the second among the ecclesiastical edifices of the town.

Of the outlying civil buildings, the public granaries along the quays, the Golden Gate, by which the great road from the west entered the walls, and the palace of the Praetorian Prefect, who acted as governor of the city, must all have been well worthy of notice.

A statue of Constantine on horseback, which stood by the last named edifice, was one of the chief shows of Constantinople down to the end of the Middle Ages, and some curious legends gathered around it.

It was in AD 328 or 329, the exact date is not easily to be fixed, that Constantine had definitely chosen Byzantium for his capital and drawn out the plan for its development.

An ambitious relative or a disloyal general had habitually supplanted the helpless heir.

But the ministers of Arcadius were exceptionally virtuous or exceptionally destitute of ambition.

The little emperor was duly crowned, and the administration of the East undertaken in his name by the able Anthemius, who held the office of Praetorian Prefect.

History relates nothing but good of this minister.