Afterward Nero, Domitian and Trajan, successfully transferred them to
arches of their own.

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