英语听力：Byzantium-The Lost Empire 拜占庭：失落的帝国-3

 A lonely ancient relic¹ in a modern city.

 

In the year of our Lord 330, on a lovely May morning, A great procession came down this road which’s the highway of an ancient city called Byzantium, and the procession was led by the great Roman Emperor Constantine. He brought with him a bunch of priests, pagan and Christian² ones, and they were all holding an incredible collection of relics³. There were twelve baskets filled with crumbs⁴, the residue⁵, it was said: “of our Lord’s miracle of the loves and fishes".

 

There was the very axe⁶ that now we've made the art with. There was a statue that the emperor himself had brought secretly from Rome, a statue of the Greek God Palace. And at the exact moment prescribed by astrologists, they buried their relics, just over there, at the foot of the column, seven drums of pottery⁷, brought from the Egyptian deserts, and Constantine renamed the city Constantinople, and claimed it as the capital of his grand new empire. And over the years, the column itself became to be seen as a relic, the Byzantines, that’s the people who lived in the city, called it Christ’s Nail, because the thought the great golden statue of Constantine upon the top had something of one of the nails in Christ Crucifixion built into it.

 

And every year on the New Year’s Day, that’s the first of September, the Byzantines turned up at the bottom of this column, and sang him as the saint Constantine, the founder⁸ of their city and the mighty⁹ empire called Byzantium.

 

Constantinople was designed to be the center of the Christian world, the center of Christ’s government on Earth. These great cups were made to hold the mystery of Christ’s blood inside the city’s churches, church’s glowing with Roman gold and ancient holy images. Images that for a thousand years flooded right though Europe and the East.

 

This saint is Byzantium’s first story, the story of how in two short centuries a dream was made. The dream that was Byzantium. Constantine, the Christian emperor, the man who took the faith of Jesus and the God of Abraham, and created the beginning of the governments and churches in which the West still trusts. He was crowned they say at York in England in 306. For 40 years he’d killed foes¹⁰ and family alike and when he died, people were so frightened of him that no one touched his body for a week.

1 relic   

n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物

参考例句：

• This stone axe is a relic of ancient times.这石斧是古代的遗物。
• He found himself thinking of the man as a relic from the past.他把这个男人看成是过去时代的人物。

2 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

3 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

4 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

5 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。

6 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

7 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

8 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

9 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

10 foes   

敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They steadily pushed their foes before them. 他们不停地追击敌人。
• She had fought many battles, vanquished many foes. 她身经百战，挫败过很多对手。