When Constantine removed the capital of the Roman empire to the ancient Byzantium, he sought to beautify it by all means in his power, and for this purpose he removed a great number of works of art from Rome to Constantinople, and among them these bronze horses of Lysippus.

In the early part of the thirteenth century the nobles of France and Germany, who were going on the fourth crusade, arrived at Venice and stipulated with the Venetians for means of transport to the Holy Land.  But instead of proceeding to Jerusalem they were diverted from their original intention, and, under the leadership of the blind old doge, Dandolo, they captured the city of Constantinople.  The fall of the city was followed by an almost total destruction of the works of art by which it had been adorned; for the Latins disgraced themselves by a more ruthless vandalism than that of the Vandals themselves.

But out of the wreck the four bronze horses were saved and carried in triumph to Venice, where they were placed over the central porch of St. Mark’s Cathedral.  There they stood until Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 removed them with other trophies to Paris; but after his downfall they were restored, and, as Byron says in “Childe Harold”: 

     “Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
        Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
      But is not Doria’s menace come to pass? 
        Are they not bridled?”—­

Apropos of the last two lines I have quoted, I must tell you an incident of history.

During the middle ages, when so many of the Italian cities existed as independent republics, there was a great deal of rivalry between Genoa and Venice, the most important of them.  Both were wealthy commercial cities; both strove for the supremacy of the sea, upon which much of their prosperity depended, and each strove to gain the advantage over the other.  This led to many wars between them, when sometimes one would gain the upper hand, and sometimes the other.  At length, in the year 1379, the Genoese defeated the Venetians in the battle of Pola, and then took Chiozza, which commanded, as one might say, the entrance to Venice.  The Venetians, alarmed beyond measure, sent an embassy to the Genoese commander, Pietro Doria, agreeing to any terms whatever, imploring only that he would spare the city.  They also sent the chief of the prisoners they had taken in the war in order to appease the fierce anger of the general.  “Take back your captives, ye gentlemen of Venice,” was the too confident reply of the haughty Doria; “we will release them and their companions.  On God’s faith, ye shall have no peace till we put a curb into the mouths of those wild horses of St. Mark’s.  Place but the reins once in our hands, and we shall know how to bridle them for the future.”