英语听力：Byzantium-The Lost Empire 拜占庭：失落的帝国-8

 This was once a marble square on a highway at the middle of Constantinople. I didn’t suppose the Turks on modern Istanbul think much about ancient Byzantine victories. Yet, there’re still some fragments here of that great memorial column that made it all the way from Marmara, the ghosts of the imperial armies, still lining¹ the routes of their processions through the city.

 

Just as all the ancient roads and sea lanes ran through the empire to Constantinople, so did the rivers of the region. Channeled into great aqueducts, bringing treasured water to a thirsty city. Underneath² the town, cut deep into its hilltop, an eerie³ underworld, some 15 centuries’ old. Fresh water systems, so that the Byzantines could bathe just like the Romans do in marble halls, and every thing made with the dazzling technology of ancient Rome, father of Byzantium. Marble columns, high brick vaults⁴, the dark forests of Byzantium, beneath modern Istanbul. Those Greek letters, hammered into the column with a chisel⁵ point, the marks of one of Marmara’s quarrymen.

 

Food, too, flooded into the enlarging city. What a vast logistic exercise, and an earthly miracle, supporting Constantinople’s half a million people, Europe’s biggest city, and every thing cause, by hand. There was no food industry. Everything was carried here in boats and carts. The finest fish, the Byzantines believed, were caught beside the emperor’s palace, between the rising of the Pleiades and the settings of a blood red star of Arcturus. Colors, smells and textures⁶ of the ancient everyday, the raw ingredients of Byzantine experience, the world of the ancient Mediterranean⁷.

1 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

2 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

3 eerie   

adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的

参考例句：

• It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
• I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。

4 vaults   

n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴

参考例句：

• It was deposited in the vaults of a bank. 它存在一家银行的保险库里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 chisel   

n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿

参考例句：

• This chisel is useful for getting into awkward spaces.这凿子在要伸入到犄角儿里时十分有用。
• Camille used a hammer and chisel to carve out a figure from the marble.卡米尔用锤子和凿子将大理石雕刻出一个人像。

6 textures   

n.手感( texture的名词复数 )；质感；口感；（音乐或文学的）谐和统一感

参考例句：

• I'm crazy about fabrics textures and colors and designs. 我喜欢各式各样的纺织物--对它的质地，色彩到花纹图案--简直是入了迷。 来自辞典例句
• Let me clear up the point about the textures. 让我明确了一点有关的纹理。 来自互联网

7 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。