How did Constantinople look in its prime?

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The prime of Constantinople was surprisingly early, namely around 540 AD. About 200 years after Constantine had made Byzantium the new capital of the Roman empire and named it the New Rome, did this city already reach its zenith. In those days, Constantinople had around 500,000 inhabitants, and many incredibly impressive buildings, many of them going back to the days before Constantine. Many pagan temples were still standing in the city, many old classical statues and works of antiquity, many fountains and Nymphaea, and many imperial Fora were to be found throughout the new roman capital. A giant imperial palace complex, a large hippodrome second in size only to the Circus Maximus in Rome, many churches, and the impressive Theodosian land walls, which would time and again save the city. But many of the old buildings were destroyed in the Nika riots of 542, and even though rebuilt, Constantinople was after that not able to keep its old splendour for long. Already after 626 AD, the city started to decay visibly.