A Memory Called Empire

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe; it gives life back to those who no longer exist.

—Guy de Maupassant, “Suicides”

I would not have chosen life with Calypso rather than the smoke from Constantinople. I am absolutely possessed by the thought of the many sources of pleasure which are there on all sides: the size and beauty of the churches, the length of its colonnades and the extent of its walks, its houses and all the other things which enrich our image of Constantinople; gatherings of friends and conversation, and indeed the greatest of all—my gold-pourer, which is to say, your mouth and its flowers—

—Nikephoros Ouranos, doux of Antioch, Epistle 38