Note 063
Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as not
less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to
Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76)
justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen,
flourished after the division of the empire between the two
sons of Theodosius, which established a perfect equality
between the old and the new capital.
Note to Chapter 17 of Decline and Fall by Gibbon