A and composed [a biography]. Among them are many Greek epigrams which are read in the Anthology of Maximus Planudes, as I have said in book 11, ch. 28 (32, p. 452, especially p. 487 seq., vol. IV), where you also have the poem *On the Pythian Baths*, concerning which it may now be added that the same was published at Venice with a Latin paraphrase by Claudius Ancantherus in the year 1586, and that in the Medici manuscript, shelf 55, num. 7, an apograph of which was among the Gudian books, the inscription of the poem suggests as author not our Paul, who lived in the reign of Justinian, but another, much younger, Paul the Silentiary, famous in the times of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (i). *Semi-iambi dimetri of Paul the Silentiary on the Pythian Baths, to Emperor Constantine the Porphyrogenitus.* It begins there: "Would you like to learn, Augustus Constantine most excellent, the artless stream of the baths," etc.
II. B (FABRIC., *Biblioth. Græc.*, ed. Harles. IV, 487.)
Paul (a) the Silentiary, contemporary of Agathias, see *Anthol.* p. 603, Wechel edit., and Suidas under *Agathias* (b), was famous under the Emperor Justinian, and many of his epigrams are cited. But also in the Appendix added by Aldus in the year 1529, there appear his same semi-iambic dimeters *On the Pythian Baths*, written in a manuscript codex of the sort I myself possess one, along with Greek scholia (different from those which Vulcanius published), and printed by Aldus in such a way that the pairs of lines C are to be read in order (c): but in later editions they were wrongly read consecutively from the top downward as one proceeded to the bottom of the page, and the whole poem was thus disturbed such that no sense could be extracted, for which reason it was even omitted by Grotius without translation. See Jo. Clericus (c) *Bibl. selecta*, tom. VII, p. 209 seq.; Huetius, *De vita sua*, p. 145. However, Federicus Morellus published the poem separately, restored to its genuine order, and rendered it in the same meter at Paris, 1598, 8vo, folio, as he was wont to do, *fugitivo* (with others, in the Leiden library, see *Catal. bibl.* p. 46, n. 113). Before Morellus, Bonaventura Vulcanius had submitted the same poem of the Silentiary, restored to its proper state, in Greek to the Encomium of the Sea by Gregory of Cyprus (d), Lugd. Batav. 1591, 8vo, and had inscribed it to Henricus Stephanus in these words: "I send to you, for your muse which counsels princes, a gift-in-return, the poem of Paul the Silentiary, which in the anthology of Greek epigrams was badly garbled by some typographer of yours (for so gross an error cannot be attributed to your religious diligence), which I have restored and illustrated with some brief Greek notes of Emanuel Chrysoloras, if I am not mistaken, and have dedicated to your name." (In the Askew library, p. 157, there is *Paul. Silentiar. in Therm. Pyth.* by Vulcanius, Lugd. Batav. 1593, 8vo). That Paul took the material for his poem on the Baths from the book of Aristotle *On Marvels*, was noted by Huetius in *Huetiana*, p. 304, whose erudite observations on this poem are read after his notes on the Anthology, p. 50-78, Trajecti, 1700, 12mo. FABRIC. — That Paul the Silentiary had Latin poets before his eyes, Imman. Gottlieb Huschke showed in *Epistola critica in Propertium*, Amstel. 1792, 8vo, p. 39 and 40. Regarding Paul’s epigram *On Homer*, see Iriart, *Catal. mss. gr. Matrit.* p. 96. — Above at § 6, not far from the beginning of the apograph once Gudian, now Guelferbytan, and of Lessing's dissertation on that codex and the poem of Paul the Silentiary, I made mention; but Fabricius has already set forth the necessary things to be known about the order of lines in the Aldine copy, and the confusion arising therefrom in later editions, and that they were corrected by Vulcanius. Wherefore I shall here first mention certain codices and editions. Having done this, I shall compress in a few words the things which Lessing wrote learnedly, acutely, and copiously. Bandinius, in the *Catalogue of Greek manuscripts in the Laurentian-Florentine library*, describes several codices of Paul. Tom. II, p. 256, in cod. 7, plut. 55, n. 13, are *Sentences and Epigrams of ancient sages* from those which were collected by Maximus Planudes. Among these epigrams, p. 255, are inserted those of Paul the Silentiary, that is, of the *primicerius* of the secretaries, *On the Pythian Baths*... D ...are set forth. "It seems to me that the things stated above regarding the new [baths] are laden with greater labor and knowledge, in proportion as the subject is more wonderful." Epigram of the same Agathias to Paul the Silentiary, together with another in which Paul replies to him, is read in the *Anthology of Greek epigrams*, lib. VII, p. 603, 604, Wechel edit., from which it is certain that they were friends and familiars among themselves. Suidas also mentions this Paul under *Agathias*: "He flourished also with Paul the Silentiary."
A semi-iambics addressed to the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, with marginal scholia and interlinear glosses (perhaps of Manuel Moschopoulos, as Bandini suspects in his index), and he proves current, uncertain, or false the opinion of Fabricius that this Paul is a younger man and very different from our Paul the Silentiary, who flourished under the emperor Justinian. The same semi-iambics, with interlinear glosses and scholia at the foot, are found in codex 34, plut. 57 (p. 390, n. 14); likewise in codex 28, plut. 58, n. 2 (p. 464). Finally, in codex 15, plut. 74, n. 45 (III, p. 110). In the Leiden codex, formerly of Bonav. Vulcanius, n. 2, with scholia, according to the Catalogue, page added, there are said to be scholia as yet unpublished (2759). In the Vienna library, with the Man. Moschopoulos scholia, according to Nessel.
Compare that poem with his Epigrams in the *Anthologia Planudea* edited by Aldus and others; many epigrams are in the *Anthologia Cephalae* published by Reiske, and likewise from the Anthology, in the Eastern Empire, edited by Banduri, part III, Venice edition, p. 117, 119, 122, 130. Brunck, *Anal.* I, p. 71-102, inserted 81 epigrams; among them, n. 74, the poem *εἰς τὰ ἐν Πυθίοις Θερμά* (On the Pythian Baths), with the verses restored to their proper order, and he treated it critically in *Lection.*, p. 245 seq. He thinks (p. 249) that the order of this poem was originally absurdly corrupted—so that all the verses were not distributed in twin columns on the same page, but were printed in a continuous series—in the Ascensian edition of 1531, which H. Stephanus and the heirs of Wechel imitated; and he says the Italian printers, who published the Anthology after Ascensius and Frobenius, did not seek a better guide than Aldus, whom they followed. B Accordingly, the matter proceeded easily for readers in the Niccolini Venetian edition of 1550, and in that which followed a year later by the sons of Aldus. Indeed, Lessing (l. c., p. 140) warns that that ridiculous confusion of lines came from the Juntina edition of 1519 into the Badiana, or Ascensiana, and others. He also points out that Claudius Ancantherus, in a Latin version titled *Pauli Silentiarii Hemiambia, Dimetra catalectica in Thermas Pythias*, rendered into Latin in epic verse (170 verses), Venice 1586, 8vo (see Pinelli *Catalog.*, tom. II, n. 4520), followed the Aldine copy and thus the correct order of the verses. Nevertheless, he collated a manuscript of which the fraternity of the Lateran Canons of St. John, surnamed Viridarius, had given him a copy (see Lessing, p. 160). Then he discourses on the carelessness of Stephanus, and what Ancantherus, Huet, Vulcanius, Fabricius, and Bandini had performed, or had annotated sometimes well, sometimes poorly. Thereafter: I. The Greek context, restored to its order and corrected from the Guelferbytanus codex and the sagacity of Lessing; II. Greek Scholia; III. Notes of Lessing. Following these is a learned investigation: where those *ἐν Πυθίοις Θερμά* were, and whether a certain younger Paul can be considered the author of the poem. Therefore, he shows from Procopius, *De Aedif. Justin.* lib. v, cap. 3, p. 98, Maltret edition, that these *ἐν Πυθίοις* baths in Bithynia had been enlarged in various ways and adorned by Justinian with a palace and other useful things; and therefore, that with better right the author of the poem on these baths is seen to be Paul the Silentiary, who lived under Justinian, rather than some younger man. Moreover, he acutely perceives and demonstrates at length that the inscription of the Florentine codex, *Πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα Κύριον Κωνσταντίνον τὸν Πορφυρογέννητον*, and the words at the beginning of the poem, *Αὔγουστε Κωνσταντῖνε κράτιστε*, are absent from the other codices and not free from the suspicion of fraud and forgery. C Finally, it seems probable and almost certain to him that the baths, with the ruins and remains of a spacious building at a certain place which today is called Eskicher (see Paul Lucas, *Voyage fait par l'ordre du Roi*, tom. I, p. 103, Amstel. 1714), are the baths which Paul the Silentiary celebrated in his poem. (Harl.)
PREFACE OF CHARLES DU FRESNE, LORD DU CANGE
When the edition of this volume was already in progress and brought to the tipping point, the *Ecphrasis* of the church of St. Sophia, written by Paul the Silentiary in heroic and very elegant verse, opportunely came into my hands. Although it might seem to pertain less to Comnenian history, I did not think it out of place to intersperse it with these short commentaries. For beyond the fact that Paul is counted among the writers who have illustrated Byzantine affairs, and is therefore from the class of those whom royal precedents await, I was convinced that I would be doing something as pleasant as it is useful for readers, especially if I joined this excellent poem to the description of Bondelmonti D concerning the city of Constantinople, whose Church of Sophia was once its chief ornament—as it is today. This *Ecphrasis* of the most celebrated temple, under the care of the most illustrious man Antonius de Vyon, Sieur d'Herouval, auditor at the Parisian Chamber of Accounts, was transmitted to me by the most distinguished Philibert de la Mare, senator of Dijon—a man most noted for his singular erudition as well as for the integrity of his life, and especially dear to all the learned to whom, not long before, the same Salmasius’s own library-drawn and by the great Salmasius's hand from the Palatine in the year 1607 transcribed copy [was made known].
A offered the hope of an edition of his posthumous works, having already published some excerpts of this elegant poem in his *Plinian Exertitations* and in his own notes on the *Augustan History*. And indeed, although the extent of Paul the Silentiary’s faculty in this genre of writing is sufficiently clear from other minor works that have already seen the light of day, yet the work that now appears in royal type seems to deserve special praise and commendation, because, beyond the elegance of the verses, it presents to us an accurate description of the most august temple, one that has hitherto been scarcely understood by those who have seen it (c). For the commentaries that the Greeks of a later age wrote about this house are of such shallow credibility, arranged with no order whatsoever, and even sprinkled with barbaric vocabulary, that they offer more room for guessing the reality than for perceiving it. Hence it ought not seem strange if those who have written about the temples of the Greeks, and indeed about the Sophian and its parts, differ so much among themselves, or at any rate do not agree at all, since they do not perceive the subject matter, nor indeed even the words themselves. But look, in such darkness Paul the Silentiary proffers a torch. Would that he were not disfigured by so many lacunae! His authority ought to be seen as so much greater and more excellent, the more accurately he describes with his pen the entire structure of the most celebrated temple, raised in his own time by Justinian. For he flourished under that emperor, not only as one far most illustrious in his age for poetic and oratorical praise, but also conspicuous for the splendor of his birth, his wealth, and his honors. The title of this poem teaches that Cyras was the father of Paul, and indeed he seems to me no other than he who served as a consul *codicillaris*, whose two epigrams are found in the *Greek Anthology* (Book 1, iv, ch. 23 and 27), the one regarding the house built in Constantinople by Maximinus, the other regarding the statue of Pindar; hence it is reasonable to believe that Paul drew his propensity for poetry from his father. Procopius, in Book II of his *Vandalic War*, also mentions a certain Cyrus who may perhaps have been the same person as the man of consular rank. But what Agathias adds when writing about Paul, regarding the verses of Paul the son of Cyrus the son of Florus, should be arranged in such a way that Paul was the son of Cyrus, and Cyrus was the son of Florus; and Agathias added this so that he might distinguish that Cyrus from others who flourished at the same time by the same name. Moreover, mention of a certain consul *codicillaris* named Florus occurs more than once under Justinian, as is evident from Novel 12, 22, 154, and from law 3 of the *Code*, *De Quadrienn. præscript*. It seems that Justin Martyr also used this formula of speech in his *Apology II*, where he calls himself "Justin the son of Priscus, son of Bacchius," that is, the son of Priscus, grandson of Bacchius, as Henri Valois also observed regarding Eusebius. However that may be, it is absolutely certain that Vulcan, the interpreter of Agathias, and Vossius (in Book II of *De veterum poetarum temporibus* and his book *De historicis Græcis*) were completely hallucinating when they gathered these three names into one man and called him Paul Cyrus Florus. Some of Paul’s epigrams in the *Greek Anthology* were already brought together by Maximus Planudes, their compiler, along with the very elegant ode that he wrote regarding the Pythian Baths, which exists furthermore in the library of the Most Christian King, with commentaries or *meta exegeōs*, codices 993, 1911, 1354, and 1441. But Claude Archanteras published this again and donated it in Latin numbers in 1586 in Venice, and Frédéric Morel in 1598 in Paris. B But Paul approached the description of the Sophian temple with such accuracy that whoever reads this will immediately comprehend its entire structure and single parts by eye, as it were, and by mind, or, to use the words of Agathias, *kathaper parōn kai theōmenos* [as if present and viewing it]. For such is the power and nature of an *ekphrasis* that it puts before the eyes and represents the very thing it describes; whence rightly in the *Greek-Latin Glossary* it is defined: *ekphrazō*, I express; *ekphrasis*, an expressing; for to "express" in Latin is to fashion a likeness to life. On account of this, *ekphrasis* is defined by Hesychius as "a clear narrative," and by Aphthonius as "a narrative account, bringing the thing revealed clearly before the eyes," of which kind is the description of the Alexandrian citadel by the same author. And in this, as is found with the scholiast of that writer, *ekphrasis* differs from narrative in that the latter has a simple exposition of the thing, but the former attempts to make those who hear it into spectators, and the one examines the whole, but the other the individual parts. But however accurate the *ekphrasis* of the Sophian temple by Paul the Silentiary now appearing may be, nevertheless the things it wraps in sufficiently obscure poetry and words not universally known are not so perspicuous as to stand in need of diligent examination or certainly exposition. For since he describes the very parts of the temple with poetic circumlocutions, though graphically, he has omitted the names of the parts themselves, just as Procopius also did, so that he has provided the reader more of a place for guessing the matter than for perceiving it in his mind. Wherefore I have persuaded myself that it will not be ungrateful to the reader if I approach the description of the Sophian temple, and by that occasion the other temples of the Greeks, and adorn it—especially from Byzantine writers, and even from some of our own more recent ones—acting as a Commentary on Paul the Silentiary, and appending it to that same author. Which indeed, in Paris, nearly destitute of books, I approached later than was fitting for the size of such a matter, since, as I have already touched upon, this elegant poem had reached me just as the edition of the volume was nearly complete. Therefore, I trust that learned men will not ungraciously forgive me if this little commentary of mine does not appear perfectly polished, since at present my main intention was that it should serve as a sort of note to the writer, not of altogether common and trite flavor, although I had to doubt whether I ought to arrogate this province to myself, since the great Claude Maltret, S.J., presbyter and rector of the College of Montauban—a man who in Greek as well as Latin letters possesses such erudition that he would have acquitted himself of this far more happily—had promised the hope of publishing this poem in his preface to Procopius; even if, as he informed me by letter, the copy of Paul the Silentiary which he possesses was transcribed just as it is from the Palatine manuscript, and therefore, like the Salmasian copy, is teeming with lacunae and deformed.
PAUL THE SILENTIARY DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH OF HOLY WISDOM
PROOEMIUM
Can a day greater than the present be found, in which God and the Emperor are honored? It is impossible to say. We acknowledge Christ to be our Lord, and we acknowledge Him in every way; for by your words you make Him known even to barbarian nations, O great-hearted prince. Hence, in your affairs, you have Him as an assistant close at hand, whether you are enacting laws, building cities, raising up churches, wielding weapons if need be, or establishing treaties and curbing conflicts. Hence, victory, as a mark of distinction, is naturally entwined with your labors. If we look toward the West, after crossing the land, the Ocean meets the boundary of your empire; and toward the East, have you not conquered all nations, partly by arms, and partly by receiving those who came to you of their own accord before you even arrived there? And have you not long since had the whole of Africa subject to you? From this also it comes to pass that you recover so easily from sicknesses, even against everyone's expectation. From this, lastly, you have always escaped, O most valiant prince, those more hidden dangers once they were discovered—protected and saved not by spears or shields, but by the very right hand of God. A I marvel at you, O most powerful potentate, at your magnanimity; I marvel at the excellence of your mind and faith. B Plots had been laid, and the sword was prepared and ready; the appointed day was at hand, and the conspirators had already penetrated the palace, and had already reached the inner gate, which, once overcome, they intended to use to invade your throne. Even though these [events]...
were known to you long ago, you have persevered and trusted in Him alone who defends you, I mean God, through whom you conquer all things. And you have not missed the mark in this. For what is the result of these things? The primary architect of these plots fell by his own hand; clearly, Justice did not wish to save him. For she knew well that if he had come into your hands alive, he would have immediately moved you to pity and compassion, as you are wont to do, transcending the nature of all men. A Thus, you have often groaned over our faults, most excellent prince; and you have often softened our transgressions with your tears, behaving with royal gentleness, while you turn your [even-tempered] eyes away from our moral excesses—which are all too common in life—and absolve everyone of their wicked debts, just as God does when you hasten to mercy. When you seek for yourself a pardon for other men's crimes, you give the full measure of your entreaties. For you never once allow yourself to be a master of others, since you have from God the grounds for receiving such great boldness.
A Is it not the case that God does not wish for this prince, who is so gentle, so sweet, and who treats friends and non-friends with equal kindness, to hold power over them? He preserves for you an empress B who makes your soul blessed—the most excellent, the beautiful, and the all-wise woman—who, while she lived, possessed great boldness before God on your behalf. But since she has departed to those who are subject to you, she left behind an oath as a helper, an unbreakable oath C which you have not transgressed, nor would you of your own accord ever bypass it.
And these things, then, are as they are. Now, come, grant courage to those of us who desire to process to your temple. Among so many miracles which you have manifested, let this one be the greatest, which our speech dares to relate, and which far surpasses the excellence of all other miracles. D For it is a clear example of your immeasurable wonders—how the whole city, O most excellent prince, tends to your church. For when you would celebrate the feast as is fitting, the entire populace, along with the senate, immediately seeks to follow the safer path of life. You have continued to extend the days of the feast; and when they ran [short], you granted them again. In doing so, you have often extended the feast quite lavishly.
A Having been recited in the palace, the audience was divided; and the rest was recited in the patriarchal house, after Eutychius the most holy patriarch, and the subjects of the iambics, had been set forth.
We have come to you, men, from the palace Of the emperor, to the palace of the emperor Of the greatest, of the intellectual ruler of all, Through whom the master grants victory. 85 There, the protector of the elders Lowered himself to a theater of words, Provided his mind graciously; here, it is present To see the protector of the sacred things. May he be well-disposed to these things. Let no one 90 Hearing this, find fault with empty words. For one might likely say: "You man, why such Useless babbling? You ask for a favorable Reception for words, of a house of good things, Clad in all favor; 95 One who might rightly suffer what one Should, if he were pressing with supplication, [Asking] for the sun to rise in the day, And for the light to shine, for words to be words." But I hold that this is the manner 100 Of one not deciding; but looking to the goal, As to the greatest, having no excess, I fear the contest. Yet being confident From what I feared, I begin again. If there were some hope of noble speech, 105 To be suited to the all-beautiful temple, It was a hazardous thing to be stripped for the games, In which to conquer is a risky matter. Since everyone knows that no Word could ever appear to keep pace with the deeds 110 Of the emperor, or with his actions, The all-greatest building of the temple of your god; One must not tremble at things already foreseen, But urge on the eagerness Of everyone, as each has the strength. 115 A good man has boldness. For if the master had not boldly and wisely-minded Built the temple, Exceeding all expectation of vision, The city would not have advanced to such 120 Euphrosyne and such happy luxury. B What then is absurd in bringing forth frankness Now, and words that are not deficient? For those things which, having grown weak, one might pass over, One may now take up with one's eyes. 125 He does not judge these in the Athenian, bean-eating fashion, But men who are pious and indulgent, To whom even God and the emperor are well-disposed, Men who set the cities in order, who hold the reins Of all things, both in words and in deeds. 130 Shall I then walk upon them with verses Carried into the light with frankness? I must do this; I myself shall speak in response, Just as the echo of my own words appearing. Therefore, I shall go back to the great emperor.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT CHURCH
A Today not the din of shields bears me along, nor am I driven to celebrate victories in the West or Libya, nor shall I weary my soul by singing of trophies brought back from slaughtered tyrants. Let the glory of victories won over the Medes go unpraised today. Blessed Peace, nourisher of cities, whom the prince prefers by far to the victory of the helmeted, come hither; let us proclaim the labors spent for the good of the city, and let us celebrate with sacred hymns a temple more excellent than any glorious contest, before which every other work considered sublime fades away.
But you, fostering Rome-that-wears-the-diadem, soul-bearing [Rome], crown the prince, your author of salvation, heaped high with sincere praises; not because he has imposed his yoke upon all the nations of the earth, nor because he has stretched the overweening limits of his throne to the uttermost lands along the Ocean shores, but because, by raising an immense temple in your retreat, he has made you far more illustrious than your mother, Tiberian Rome.
Yield to me, O Capitoline Muses of Rome, yield, O Rumors! My emperor has surpassed that wonder as much as the great God is superior to an idol. Therefore, I wish you, O vault refulgent with gold, to sing of your scepter-bearer in honey-voiced choral songs. For the emperor, not only brandishing his hand in the gears of war, has enslaved the infinite barbarian with his sharp spear, A in such a way that you bow your neck to his unconquered reins and quail before the yoke of his justice; but black Envy herself, gnashing her teeth, has crouched in her pride before the bow of the city-destroying king; and wounded by swift-flying arrows, she fell and, dying, deepened the dust.
And you too, venerable-born Latin Rome, arise. [Rome] singing a song in chorus with the newly-flourishing Rome, arise and exult, because you see your daughter rising above her mother, since such is the grace of parents.
Men to whom it is a care to honor divine laws, come hither; cast off your dark-shadowed grief and clothe yourselves in snow-white robes with joy. Wiping away the five-year-old tear from your eyes, let us sing the well-measured hymns with auspicious lips. The prince of the Ausonians has opened the bolts of the heavenly gates upon the earth, and has ordained widespread joy over all the festivals, and has dulled all distress of mind. For ever since the magnificent work of the emperors fell with a crash, a boundless lamentation had arisen throughout the B city. Grant pardon to my bold speech; grant pardon, most mighty prince of the earth: hear these words with an even mind, if for a little while I strike your ears. For the grace of these great works, coming upon us, has submerged all the goads of grief in the rivers of Lethe. Sweeter to travelers is the light of the sun after the wintry night, and a lovely calm...
A after tempests exhilarates the spirit. Grant pardon, most valiant prince, grant pardon to my daring speech.
Already that admirable dome of the hemisphere had fallen, leaning upon most firm foundations, and had shaken the entire floor of the patriarchal church; the lowest foundations were leaping throughout the whole city, and for a time the earth groaned: a dark dust, mixed with obscure clouds, had hidden the midday splendor of the heavenly light. But thou, good Christ, extending thy hand over the temple, didst not allow the earth consecrated to thee to be polluted by human slaughter at the hands of the wicked and the criminal. For thou canst not behold with thine immaculate eyes blood shed in temples where the bloodless sacrifice is performed. Nor did the entire amplitude of the glorious house tumble from its foundations, bound as it was by the bonds of excellent craft; but the eastern vertex of one arch collapsed, and one part of the sphere was mingled with the dust. Furthermore, one part lay on the ground, while another remained to this very day—a sight marvelous to behold—completely unsupported and, as it were, hanging in the air. B All were overcome with grief and lamented. But let no one be angry with our Muse for biting words, because she pours forth calamities that should be consigned to oblivion. More grateful is laughter after tears, and health after sickness. Not so did the lightning sent from the air strike men, when it repressed the immense courses of drying torrents; or when the burning heaven, opening wide over the fruitful earth, poured forth wide and harmful rains and mingled the dry fields with the waves of the sea.
But my emperor, when such a bitter calamity was discovered, did not long hide the keenness of his mind, nor could he be induced—however much oppressed by sadness—to be detained by the bonds of idle sloth and remain quiet: but he shook off the goad of brief sorrow, and girded himself for the labors of rebuilding the house. And warlike Rome, standing by, spoke to him thus: "Most powerful, fortunate one, seat of Justice, pillar of cities, I know not what indignation comes over me (and indignation has its own kind of pleasure) that, while thou livest, while thy present aid is here, Rome should have lost her beauty, and a broken wound breaks forth everywhere in our breast. But thou, O fortunate one (for thou canst apply a remedy to the wound), stretch forth thy hand, the nurse of overflowing happiness. I have subjected all things, governing under thy auspices, to thy glorious triumphs. The clamor of the King of the Medes and of the Gauls is quieted. The Indian himself has brought to thy throne of his own accord the sword and the pearls of the sea, with his elephants. Carthage has bent its servile knees to my trophies. All the cargo ships, looking to the course of the twins bears, stretch toward me as to the goal of their hope, a hope that brings advantages, so that the overflowing
A of my wealth might be poured out for my children; and the winds themselves blow to bring in the goods. These attend your labors. But, O Emperor, do not allow so divine a work, with all the treasury of its beauty, to fall under the currents of Lethe. For even if, O prince, the nations of the boundless earth, who submit their necks to Roman laws, stand in awe of you, even if you had built an entire city for me, you would never find a more illustrious monument of your throne. Having said this, she made as if to press grateful kisses upon the feet of the master. But he stretched out his right hand to the familiar Rome, raising her up as she bowed low. And smiling gently, in order to drive away her infinite grief, he spoke these words full of sincere joy: "Cast off your sorrow, royal city, and do not stir up your spirit. Just as no spear has conquered your shield, nor has any other barbarian point ever shaken your unwavering mind, so too do not be bowed down by heavy-bearing cares. Bear up, queen of cities, and do not lacerate your spirit; for through my labors I shall make you more glorious, raising up again the well-arched summit of the temple." B Having said this, he hurried toward the temple, and with a speed that matched the wind, he suddenly came to the path of the well-sailing dark-bordered course. Suddenly from here and there, others flowed together from everywhere, as the emperor hastened ahead. The ox-hide shields of the men crowding together clattered, and a mingled echo resounded. But when he entered the temple and recognized the unshakable foundation of the building, he turned all his mind toward the circular peak, and he applauded the skill and the intellect of Anthemius, adorned with wise counsel. That man first set the foundations of the temple, serving the purposes of the hard-working emperors; a man skilled both in calculating the center and in tracing the design, who had placed into the walls such strength that they could contend with the intolerable impetuosity of the opposing demon. For it had not collapsed when the lofty head had been torn away; but he fixed the foundation with a firm footing, and upon the previous walls C he again bestowed the grace of the blameless virgin, ruler of the great land of the Ausonians. But who could sing of how he brought the temple back to life in such high-necked splendor? Who is sufficient to describe the most noble purpose of the multi-sceptred emperor? Those matters, O sceptre-bearer, we shall leave to the builder's art, but I shall come to the end of your hard-working labors, looking upon the newly completed marvel, upon which divine love has struck the rays of all eyes. Every mortal, stretching the glance of his eyes toward the bright-formed heaven, cannot bear, with neck bent back, to look at it without D trembling.
The speed of the construction
His neighbor's work was faster; for setting out, as is proper, he did not wait for his shield-bearing companion, one who had taken up the golden necklace upon his unbending neck, nor for any golden rod that always precedes kings, nor for an army adorned with the prowess of nimble youth.The Description of the Church of Hagia Sophia
A Having raised his eyes, he can no longer look upon the circular meadow of the dance, starred and distinct, but straightway deflects his gaze to the verdant hill; he desires to see the waters of the flowering torrent, and the ripening ear of corn, and the shade of the forest planted with trees, and the leaping flocks, and the twisting olive-tree, and the vine leaning upon its lush branches, and the blue calm of the sea, beaten by the wet oars of the sailor. But if anyone should set foot within these god-fearing precincts, he does not wish to turn his step backward; but with delighted eyes he lifts his head and gazes this way and that. Every satiety is cast out from this magnificently gabled temple. So it is, indeed, that by the counsel of the immortal God, the Emperor raises this illustrious temple. For it is to be ascribed to your labors, O Prince, that the glorious Christ is propitious in all things. For you did not attempt to set the high-greaved Ossa upon the peaks of Olympus, nor to drag Pelion above the neck of Ossa, making the air climbable by human feet; but having completed the work through your holy toils—a work which exceeds every hope conceived of it—you have no need of mountains, as if they were steps by which to ascend to heaven; rather, you are borne upward to that divine dwelling on the wings of piety, tending straight toward it. But why do we delay to celebrate the joyful day of the festival? Why do we stray from the temple with our speech? Let us go; praise God in the temple, O mystics, calling upon the Suppliant, the helper of my words.
A 315 Recently, the sickle, its edge dulled after the grapes, awaited the summer work of the future sheaf, and the sun, shaking its reins beside the wing of the southern goat, drove towards the fishy parts of the degrees, having recently left behind the Archer, steeped in gloom. 320 Then appeared the venerable Dawn, and the immortal gate of the newly-built temple, opening, groaned, calling the people within and the gathering, just as black night wanes and the light of day increases for all; so does it truly wane when the great temple appears. 325 The night of woes is gone, and the radiance of joy ran over all. It was fitting for you, O mighty scepter-bearer, it was fitting for Rome, it was fitting that the door of the temple should be opened for your people before the festival of the immortal God. It was fitting that after that wondrous day, 330 the birthday of the life-giving Christ should arrive. And indeed, the night which was the forerunner of the fair-footed dawn was completed, summoning joy, and the herald of God awaited the ringing choir of the wakeful people 335 in the new, divine precincts, where men, with mystic voice, gladly shouted the all-night hymns of the life-sustaining Christ with unceasing songs. But when the rosy-armed goddess, having drawn back the shadowing veil, ran under the heavenly arches, 340 then all the people arose, and every leader of the people, serving the behests of the mighty Emperor and bringing thank-offerings to Christ the King, chanted divine hymns with supplicant mouths, lighting the white wax with industrious hands.
The priest followed, and led the holy choir, the priest rich in hymns, whom the ruler of the Ausonians found worthy of the temple: the broad-streeted path of all Rome was thronged. Coming to the divine courts, the whole populace offered up a tribute of gratitude, and thought they were setting foot upon heavenly, undefiled arches. Open the bolt for me, you who fear God, open to me, O initiates, open the holy halls to my words, and bring a prayer in your speech; for it is necessary for those who touch the threshold to cast their eyes upon you.
Threefold to the east are displayed the interior areas of the circles, half-cut; and high above the upright neck of the walls rises the fourth part of a sphere, as if above the three-crested head, high upon the backs, it raises a shape like a peacock with multi-eyed wings. Wise men in their artful discourse have called these crowns "shells" [conchae]; but whether the experts gave them that name from the shape of a sea-shell, or learned it from the craft itself, they themselves perhaps know. The middle shell encompasses the priestly seats and circular benches; and some of these, gathering under the extreme edge, contract near the center upon the ground. Whatever rises above gradually extends its space as far as the silver seats, and as the circles grow, they ever wrap around the crowning dome. This is received by the vaulting, resting upon strong foundations, which in its lowest part is drawn in straight lines, but above is composed into a circle—not indeed the figure of a circle entirely, but of a cylinder divided in two. And it extends two other shells towards the columns, moving out to the west, as if stretching out its arms to embrace the chanting people in its halls. And these are supported by columns variegated with golden capitals and shining with purple flowers, standing around the half-dome, supporting the immense weight of the arches, which the high mountains of Niliac Thebes once brought forth. On both sides, therefore, the base of each arch is raised upon two columns; and the skilled craftsmen have curved two lesser half-arches under the footprints and the lowest part of the shell; beneath the lowest edge of these, columns lift their summits, bound with gilded brass, with such elegance that at their sight all cares are dispelled. Upon these porphyry columns rest others, the splendid flowers of the green Thessalian stone. Here one may behold the superior porticos of the women, which bear the form of a dome, which indeed one may view from below. They shine under six Thessalian columns, not under two. Here one may admire the genius of the craftsman, who set two other columns upon two, and did not fear to fix their base in the empty air. And whatever lies between the Thessalian columns, the artisan has enclosed with stone partition-walls, upon which the women, leaning, rest their weary elbows.
DESCRIPTION OF SAINT SOPHIA
A The base is rectilinear, but above is a circular arch. It is not like the shape of a sphere, but of a cylinder cut in two. It puts forth two other shells on both sides, to move toward the west, as if stretching out bent arms, so that it may embrace the hymn-singing people in its halls. And these they lighten with golden peaks; columns, standing around the half-cut arch, glistening with purple flowers, supporting the excessive weight of the circle, which the well-greaved quarries of Niliac Thebes once brought forth. With two columns is raised on either side the foundation of each arch; and skilled men have wound three-fold half-arches, smaller, into the footprints of the shell, under the base of which columns fixed their summits bound with bronze, carved and gold-wrought, diverting cares. And upon the purple columns are other columns, the splendid flowers of the green-eyed Thessalian stone. There you will discern the beautiful upper galleries of the women; they wear a shape... which is to be seen from below. Six columns shine here under the Thessalian ones, and not two. It is for a man to be amazed in his mind, who once boldly fixed two columns upon two, and did not fear to fix the base in the empty air. And the man has enclosed all the spaces between the Thessalian columns with stone buttresses, where the women, leaning, rested their laborious elbows. B
A Thus, as you lift your eyes toward the eastern arches, you shall behold a lasting miracle. But rising above all these, there emerges a vault fixed upon many arches, like another, loftier vault, which unfolds and extends its airy vertex. And this vertex rises to the head of that immense arch, at the back of which it has fixed the foundations of the middle of the temple. Therefore, a vast shell is raised into the air, springing forth as one from above, but resting below upon three recesses, while separated and divided into five parts along the backs, it opens receptacles of light, covered with light glass, through the midst of which the dawn enters, beautifully shimmering.
B When the gathering of the audience had again been dispersed, the following iambics were recited by way of preface.
If I were often to attempt to summon you to another theater, someone might fairly consider it a trifle. But now, as you are gathered again for the great church, I do not doubt that this is a welcome and desired spectacle. Therefore, I shall proceed to pay the remainder of what is owed.
Whatever of the sacred temple lies to the west has the same form as the eastern part, if you except a few things. For in the western part, the curved vault does not occupy the center as in the eastern spaces, where the learned priests have placed their silver-gleaming seats; but the west opens a huge vestibule capable of holding many men, and it is not single or unique: for it is triple beneath the extremity of the temple. Besides these vestibules, there is a long and straight space, receiving those who approach under the ample doors, having as much length as the sacred temple is wide. This place is called "narthex" by the Greek people. Here, a sweet concert rising perpetually through the night soothes the ears of the beneficent Christ, where the hymns of the holy prophet David are sung in alternating chants by the priests—of David, I say, the meek, whom the divine voice praised, that illustrious man whose most celebrated descendant received Christ, the Son of God, in her womb without a father, and brought Him forth in a birth beyond the experience of marriage, and subjected the Son, who was born without seed, to maternal laws. This place spreads and opens seven sacred gates, inviting the people inside in crowds. Of these, one at the front of the narrow narthex turns toward the south, another toward the northern wing; but as for the others, which stand at the western wall—which is the rearmost part of the temple—the sacristan opens their resounding hinge with his hand.
But whither am I carried? What storm has snatched away my straying and wandering speech, as if in the midst of the sea, having passed into the vault beyond the noble middle space of the temple? Return, my song.
A A wonder to behold, a wonder to hear! For there are eastern and western circles, semi-circles, after the twin columns of the foundation. Four solid walls, naked to look upon in front, but on the flanks and about the back, being B bound by supports, and divided fourfold upon the foundations, rest fastened with stony rocks; in the midst of which, having poured the dust of fire-burned stone tempered with water, the builder joined the structure with architectonic art. Upon these walls, an immense circle is bent, like the multi-colored arch of a round rainbow; one is turned toward the west; another toward the north; another toward the south; another stands upright toward the burning east. Each one unites its immovable base with the adjoining arches on both sides at a common terminal; and rising little by little into the air, it separates from that to which it was previously joined. But that which lies between the arches themselves is adorned with beautiful works. For where by the industry of art they are turned away from one another and show the bare air, there the wall rises, inclined in the shape of a triangle, until it connects the curvatures among themselves by the other curvature of the quadruple circle. It rises, supporting the mass, until by its own flexure the round backs of the building are seen to go around. Those in the middle, which make a rounded vault, the architectonic art has bound together with baked bricks, but it fastened the highest vertices of the building with stones. Into these very joints, it inserted sheets of softer lead, lest the stones, connected with one another and adding valid weights upon valid weights, might crush the backs. The lead in the middle, being poured in, gradually moistened the base of the stone and softened it. A stone cornice, round on all sides, encompasses the whole back, to which both the base of the hemisphere and the curvatures of the arches pertain, through the conversion of the end of the circle, which the craftsmen have placed around the top of the vaults. Under the prominent ornament, suspended stones make a narrow and defined path, where he who brings the lights, going around fearlessly, lights the holy lamps. The dome, raised up on high into the infinite air, is everywhere rolled in the form of a circle, and embraces the roof of the house like a beautiful heaven; and above the highest vertex, art has inscribed the city-delivering cross. It is certain that one may see a marvelous thing, as it proceeds little by little, being wider at the bottom, and extending less at the top. And above the masterfully fashioned back...
A of the luminous windows they constructed arches, through which the golden-haired light of the dawn is admitted. Relying on his boldness, the emperor devised a B plan useful for the immense temple, as to how the craftsmen who gave their labor to the building of the ingenious house might construct, with baked bricks, the bound curvatures of the arches and the roof of the ample house, and the roof of the vaults and of the ample temple.
But when he undertook the roof of the sublime temple, no Assyrian woodcutter or Gaul, driving the goads of oxen in dense forests, was sent to the Phoenician mountain of Libanus, nor to the shady groves of the Alpine cliffs. He deemed no pitch-pine or fir tree suitable for covering the house; nor did the cypress of the saltus of Orontides at Daphne, nor did the mountain of Patara, abundant in trees, produce what might cover the summit of the immense temple. For the famous emperor covered with great circles of stones that which nature refused to cover with trees. Thus, above four arches, a high and ample dome is erected, such that when the wandering eye reaches it, you would say it is fixed upon the celestial spheres.
But towards the east and the west, under the arches, all the air lies open: towards the south, however, a wall rises, strong and facing the north, as far as the "chin" or the lower part of the immense arch. It glitters with eight columns. C But below, this wall is supported by stone bases. For six columns, similar to green emerald, have raised up the joints of untiring nerves, where the dwellings of the matronal halls appear. Four golden-haired columns, fixed to the ground, hold up these halls with their capitals, the light-reflections of the excellent Thessalian stone; but they distinguish and separate the middle dwellings of the circular temple from the seat of the huge portico that is adjacent. No one ever hewed such columns—so high, lovely, and distinguished by variegated flowers—in the forests within the borders of Molossia or Epirus. D But also around the middle of that very portico, Anthemius, the industrious architect, set up columns (and with him was Isidorus, gifted with knowledge as well as prudence: for both, obeying the commands of the emperors, the parents of noble works, constructed the admirable temple), but they are indeed smaller in their mode and measure of length: yet they have the same origin, so that they shine with green flowers. For indeed, they did not fix their firmest bases upon the ground in one and the same alignment in a row, but they rest upon the earth
A opposite each other, two by two. Upon their summits, a beam bound fast by four-fold cords supports the southern side for the women’s quarters. Nearby is a gate toward the declivity of the northern breeze, guiding the people to the immaculate laver, the purgation of human life, by which the ruinous and harmful blight of sins is driven away.
Next, upon four columns in succession, here and there, Thessalian ones, toward the twilight and the dawn, the works of cylinders revolve along the length of the portico, B equal to semi-circles—works of divine architecture diffused over the walls. These are carved and open; toward the gale of the North, they slacken the fastenings of the two-hinged doors, and toward the southern wing, facing the gates, they represent well-wrought voids like some chamber. Toward the light and the night, again two other Thessalian columns, and two from the illustrious Proconnesus, high-crested, stand fixed closest to the gates. But there is one gate toward the non-shining [side]; toward the abode of dark Night, the people walk through a double folding-door. You will find the southern vestibule just like the northern one, and it has something more: for it keeps a space set apart by a wall for the Emperor of the Ausonians during God-crowned festivals, where my sovereign, sitting in his accustomed throne, offers his attention to the Holy Books, A ordering that they be read in the books of the mysteries.
Think that all things above are identical to those below, for anyone who has gone up to either of the women’s vestibules. For that which rises toward the west is no longer equal to the other two, going above the narthex. B But also toward the western foot of the temple, you will see a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, of which one is joined to the narthex, while the others are opened by multi-branched paths. In the distinguished center of the long courtyard stands a certain ample phial, carved from elegant jasper, where a murmuring fountain delights to send its spray into the air, leaping forth by a certain force from a brazen pipe—a stream that drives out all diseases—when the people, clothed in gold-embroidered vesture, on the mystical festival of God, draw up the immaculate water by night in vessels, proclaiming the power of God in the waves; for never has rot or mold invaded these waters, even if they remain for many years outside the fountain, kept at home in the hollows of a bucket. On the stone wall, the works of art of maritime Proconnesus glitter on every side: for Proconnesus brought forth these things. And the joinery of the stones, cut into many parts, equals the strokes of the painter’s brush; for in it you may see veins joined with beauty at the same time in four-fold or eight-fold tesserae. And the connected stones imitate the beauty of expressed animals.
A You will see, scattered here and there around the sides and the extremities, poured out as chance would have it, D the outlines of the ambrosial temple’s exterior without a roof; for it was finished with skillful adornment around the holy palace, so that it might appear bathed in the bright rays of the early dawn. And as many as the stone’s edge brought forth in the gleaming metal, rare stones of Atrax B—how many the earth has brought forth in level plains and not in high-necked ravines—here fully green and not far from [the color of] the emerald, there of a deep-green, blue-eyed appearance. One, too, was like the snows, near a dark radiance, and a shared grace was aroused from the stone.
Before the end of the finely-cut mosaic was reached, the stone-cutter, weaving fine marble pebbles A with his hand, depicted on the boards in the middle of the walls a horn bound with garlands, heavy with the fruits of autumn, and baskets and leaves, and on the branches he carves a bird sitting. And after the well-branched paths, a vine creeps, running around with golden-haired shoots, B or a winding bond entwining with crooked clusters; and it hangs down gently, so far as to shade the neighboring rock a little with the winding lattice of its foliage. All these things go around the beautiful halls.
And who, opening his mouth to the sonorous Homer, will sing of the marble meadows that have slipped about the high-rising island’s strongly-fixed walls and the broad-based floor? For the steel has also engraved with its tooth the green backs of Carystus, and has cut through the neck of the artfully-wrought Phrygian stone, A identifying the one as looking rose-colored, mixed with white about it, and the other as flashing delicately at once with purple and silvery flowers. And many porphyritic stones, which have pressed down the river-borne cargos of the vast Nile with their weight—lifting up the stones—shine, sprinkled with fine stars. And you might see the green sparkle of the Laconian pebble, and marbles flashing with wandering coils, B which the deep-bosomed chasm of the Jassian hill found, showing crooked paths in bloody white and livid [hues], and as much as the Lydian bend, rolling a pale flower mixed with red; as much as the Libyan sun, warming with a golden gleam, produces C golden-yellow flashes of stones around the deep-cut ridge of the Maurusian promontory; and as much as the Celtish deep-crystal cliff held, casting a great deal of white [color] about the black-shining skin. But also upon the high-crested columns, inside the stone base, a projecting vine-tendril of acanthus, multicolored, crept along, a wandering bond, golden, desirable, twisting its rough point; and it encircles the bossed marbles D with purple-hued little branches, shining with the charm of a mind-alluring stone. And the Proconnesian hill, having spread over the whole floor, gladly placed its back beneath the queenly power.
A And the sparkling radiance of the Bosporus, slightly shuddering, shone upon the dark-tinted metal. The roof secures golden-fitted tesserae, from which flows a radiant, gold-streaming beam, unbearable to human eyes. One might say that he sees the noonday sun in the season of spring, when it has gilded every mountain. For my emperor, having gathered from the whole world the diverse wealth of barbarians and Latins, did not judge that an ornamental stone covering was sufficient for the temple of God, at-rest, in which Rome had placed the entirety of its highest hope and joy; but he did not spare providing an abundance of silver ornament. Here the cliffs of Pangaeum and the promontory of Sunium opened up all their silver veins; here many of the treasuries of our lords were opened. For as much as they set apart the space toward the eastern arch of the great temple for bloodless sacrifices, this is marked off not by ivory or split stone or bronze, but they have completely edged it with silver B metals. Nor indeed did he place mere silver plates only upon the walls, which separate men adorned with priestly dignity from the wordy gathering (of cantors), but he also covered the columns themselves entirely with silver metals, flashing with long-darting beams; upon which, with the artificial proportion of laborious hands, iron excavated sharper circular orbs. In the midst of these, [the artist] depicted the image of the immaculate God, who assumed the shape of a human form without seed; elsewhere he carved an army of winged angels bowing down their necks and inclined heads (for it is not possible to gaze upon the glory of God, even when covered by a human veil, since He is God equally, having donned flesh that redeems sins). C Elsewhere, the iron stylus fashioned the heralds of God, those who were before, before God assumed flesh, from whose mouth the divine song of the coming Christ flew forth. Nor did art leave aside those whose craft was the dragnet and the fishing net, and who, having left behind the tasks of life and their sinful cares, followed the command of the heavenly King, fishing for men; and by the fishing art, they spread the beautiful dragnet of immortal life. Elsewhere, art depicted the Mother of Christ, the vessel of eternal splendor, whose womb once nourished the Craftsman of the womb in her holy bosom.
D In the middle of the tablets of the sacred enclosure, which surround the priests and separate them, the carving depicts a single letter, but one which comprises many words; for it gathers the names of the empress and the emperor. He carved a figure equal to a round shield in the middle spaces, expressing a cross therein. And through three doorways
the whole enclosure lies open to the priests; for on every side, the hand of the craftsman has opened small gates.
Above the immaculate table, a vast tower rises into the air, resting upon four-fold silver arches and raised upon silver columns; upon their summit the quadruple arch sets its silver feet. A Above the arches it extends into a shape like a cone, yet not entirely similar; for it does not turn around the rounded curve of a circular margin from the bottom, but a base consisting of eight sides rises up, which from a wider circumference gradually stretches itself upward to a sharp point. It expands eight silver plates; and where they cling to one another, a longer ridge arises: these paths, similar to eight-sided triangles, mingle and come together into the mark of the summit, where art has also drawn the figure of a crater; furthermore, the curved lips of the crater have formed the appearance of leaves. In the middle space, he set a silver image of the sky, shining; and above it, a cross appears, rising high—may it be propitious. B Above the arches, a multi-flowered winding of acanthus crawls to the furthest base of the cone, and it shines on high, radiating straight beams, equal to the fragrant fruit of the beautiful-foliaged wild pear, and they shine, glittering with light, above the floor.
Where the ends of the base, joined to one another, meet, they set up silver-compacted craters; and upon each crater they set torch-bearers, shining appearances of wax, announcing ornament and not light; for everywhere, turned on silver metals, they shine, brightly smoothed and polished; and without fire, the wax emits a silver ray, not a flame. The backs of the sacred table are supported by golden columns, entirely fashioned of gold, and it rests upon golden foundations, and is variegated with the gleaming of precious stones.
Whither am I carried? Whither does my speech, bridled by no reins, hasten? Stay your pace, rash voice, and press your lips together, nor reveal what it is not lawful for human eyes to gaze upon. And you, mystagogues, whose hands the laws allow this, spreading out a veil dyed with the flower of the Sidonian Phoenician shell, cover the backs of the table; and by unfolding the coverings directly upon the four silver sides, show to the numerous people the wealth of gold and the works of exquisite, clever art; one of which decorated an image of the face of Christ. This, the hands of laborious art did not produce with the graver, nor did a needle driven through veils, but the bobbin, changing in turn the threads of many colors—threads of varied form, which the barbarian ant has embroidered. But at the rays of the rose-fingered dawn, the lighter garment, which covers the divine limbs, flashes in return with a golden gleam, and the Tyrian tunic.
A of sea-purple murex, wraps the right shoulder with well-wrought threads. For there the cover of the mantle has slipped away, and beautifully creeping up by the side over the shoulder, it is spread out to the left; the elbow and the tip of the hand are bared of their covering. He seems to extend the fingers of his right hand, B as if proclaiming an immortal discourse, holding in his left a book reporting sacred stories, a book proclaiming whatever the King Himself (Christ) accomplished with helpful counsel, while He walked upon the earth. The whole garment flashes with gold; for in it, finely wrought and drawn out into thin threads, the gold is twisted around the threads, similar in shape to the form of a pipe or of some flute, C bound and resting above the lovely robe, fastened with sharper needles and threads of the Seres. Standing on either side are two heralds of God: Paul, a man full of all God-taught wisdom, and the stout key-bearer of the heavenly gates, ruling over celestial and earthly bonds. The one lightens the book pregnant with pure discourse, the other the form of a cross upon a golden staff. Both are covered D by a woof of silvery varied work under the garments. Above the divine heads the figure of an aureate temple is curved, stirring up the sinuous beauty of the arch: it stands resting upon four golden columns. Upon the extreme lips of the gold-woven robe, art has described the vast and salutary works of the city-protecting, well-doing emperors. Here one shall see the healing-houses for the sick, there holy dwellings; elsewhere wonders shine forth.
Of the heavenly Christ; and grace pours down upon the works.
In other veils [one finds] emperors joined together; elsewhere you might find the hands of Mary, who bore God, elsewhere the very hand of Christ God: and all things are varied with the brightness of threads of woven gold. All things are indeed cloaked in splendor, all things you will perceive bringing wonder to the eyes. For describing the evening lights, no speech is sufficient. You would surely say that a nocturnal sun illuminates the venerable house. For the sagacious prudence of my emperors, with contrary and opposing volumes, stretched out woven, long bronze chains from the prominent stone crown, upon the back of which the high temple founded the lowest parts of the roof. These, flowing down along a long path, are carried in a mass toward the earth, but before they have arrived at the floor, they measure back the journey and form a harmonious chorus. From the chain [the artisan] suspended silver discs in the manner of a crown, where the extreme parts of the middle of the temple run forward. These, creeping down from the high path, hang in a circle above human heads. A man of great knowledge perforated these entirely with iron, so that they might receive the points fashioned from glass worked in the fire, and a vessel of nocturnal light might hang above the men. Nor does the nocturnal light shine in these discs alone; but in the same circle you will perceive the form of a great cross, placed neighbor to the disc, with many-holed backs, an instrument lightening the light-bearing [discs].
A circle of lights stands. Or perhaps you would say that you see the shining stars of the Bear, or the dragon’s chin, or the heavenly crown, near at hand. Thus the evening flame winds through the temple, flashing brilliantly; in the middle you will find the shining rim of a secondary, smaller crown. And another disk, springing from the air, casts its light towards the center, and the darkness is driven away. A Near the portico, by the columns, here and there they have hung lamps, one by one, equipped with a single light, which run throughout the whole length of the vast temple. To each of these they have placed an argent vessel, altogether like a dish; in the middle of this, craters of burning oil are seated. Yet the order of them all does not proceed in a uniform and equal way: for many can be seen swaying gracefully up and down with ornament and beauty, which, entangled in many knots, shine forth gradually along the paths in the air. Thus it shows a twin light, like the Hyades depicted on the forehead of the half-bull. You may also see argent ships which carry light instead of a cargo of merchandise; and the hanging lamps float in the bright air as if in the sea, where they fear neither the south wind nor the late-setting Bootes. B And in the deep base of the foundation you will notice delicate beams, crossing the middle of the two-horned iron, upon which the rank of the temple-servants is distributed with light, or bound to straight-ruled rods made red. But these are about the base, where columns have established their foundations, while others run from the high parts of the walls along long paths. Indeed, not even the neglected parts of the high vault were left in vain. But about the projecting stones of the cornice, a man skilled in the mysteries has fastened lamps, hanging them with bronze pins in the rounded vault. Just as when someone, adorning his royal maiden, fits an elegant necklace about her neck, which, bound in gold, sparkles like the brilliance of fiery little lamps, so my emperor has brought out lights fixed in circles, running along the whole margin of the vault. There is, moreover, above the argent columns, above the top, a narrow path, along which men carrying wax tapers walk, full of lights and shining with graceful clusters. For one might call these trees similar to mountain pines or tender cypresses. They end, indeed, in a sharp point: but circles run around them, becoming gradually wider, until you come to the final circuit, which winds around the stem, whence a flower emerges scattering fire everywhere; but in place of roots, you may see argent craters placed under the light-bearing trees. In the middle of this beautiful forest, the figure of the immortal cross, bearing light, kindles a radiance for mortals, distinguished by the beautiful knots of its nails. The temple contains within itself infinite other lights, adorned in various ways, in high, woven…
A chains suspended; of which some provide light kindled in the porticoes, others in the middle of the temple, others towards the east and west, and others finally pour out flame of fire on the summits, precisely so that the bright night, laughing like the day, might itself be rosy. One man, beholding the burning crowns and the tree-like structures of this dancing-ring, cheers his mourning spirit; another is soothed while observing the net spread with fire; another, looking at the candelabrum shining with a single light, or the sign of the heavenly Christ, delights his mind. As when travelers in a cloudless air, seeing stars leaping up one from another—one observes the sweet Hesperus, another lets his mind wander toward Taurus, another is charmed by Bootes, another directs his eyes 900 toward Orion and the dry path of the Wain—and the sky, sprinkled with many stars, reveals its paths and persuades the night to laugh: so within the dwellings of the most excellent temple, all are not only soothed by the rays of light shining everywhere, but are also filled with joy by their appearance, the mist of the mind being driven away. The sacred light shines upon all; B since even the sailor himself, who rules the rudders on the sea, whether leaving behind the frantic waves of the angry Pontus he winds through the wandering anfracts of the mutually colliding cliffs amidst nocturnal tremors, while steering his ship through winding paths C toward the light of evening and morning—for to you, O highly-praised one, indeed both dawn and evening know how to rest their cares. For you, the harbors hold back the sea-blue serenity for all the cities of the maritime land; D and enveloping the swelling, foaming surge of Nereus under their sheltered bosoms, they soften its roar. And the water of the rivers, roaring with its currents, has also yielded, nor does it any longer stain its rapacious course with harm to travelers; for whoever sees the Mygdonian Sangarius in the borders of Bithynia, previously haughty with its unconquerable currents, now bound by a bridge of stone-cut work, will not reproach the measure of our songs for being unseemly. These things, O fortunate and blessed prince, increase the long-lived stride of the life-bearing year for you; these things honor your power with western, Libyan, and eastern triumphs, the power of tyrants, who
A often have bowed their necks with the miserable audacity of a self-slaughtering hand, before you could grasp your weapons. 940 They shattered their own heads before they could even hear of a rumor reporting that which is not fated. For if ever Justice, pausing a little, brings some enemy of yours to your feet, you immediately calm the storms of necessary wrath, and immediately you bring back a manageable serenity; and the brazen bond, which had previously bound the man in a penal chain, you loosen at once. You, opening your gracious eye, exalt him who was previously your enemy with honors and gird him with a belt, breaking the bonds with which the neck of a man destined for 950 death was tied. You gain as much as the implacable tomb should have covered of the limbs of God's servant; and having been conquered by your serenity, O thrice-august one, much more than by iron, the prisoner draws his whole mind, turned toward you. And out of fear, having rushed toward your love and faith, 955 he surrenders his neck to your desired yokes. For you know how much love is more powerful than necessity; and you know too how often a bull, obeying the reed-pipe of a shepherd in the flowering fields, avoids the sound. Thenceforth Christ the King always stands as the precursor of your labors, and He directs your strong-minded councils with a guiding rein, whether it is necessary to unsheathe swords for battle or to sheath them; He who gave you the power to choose a God-fearing priest, who B easily traverses the hard path of fourfold virtue. 965 Turning from the mention of your own trophy-bearing and warlike deeds, let us now transfer our song to the venerable priest; for he himself, O King, is a kind of hymn; for victory, turn by turn, from one side and another, 970 has placed a rich crown upon your head, O wielder of the scepter, for your warlike labors and for your toils endured for the city. For when, by the counsel of the life-giver, you appointed a great initiate to your sacred precincts, 975 immediately the harsh impulse of the wicked demon collapsed; immediately you turned the harsh battle of all sufferings into joy; immediately you tied on a victory over the toils undergone for the city. But grant me, O father, greatly hymned leader of the God-fearing temple, also your desired attention. 980 Under your seal the glory of sovereigns is preserved, and under your prayers, winged victory has placed the nations under the yokes of the imperial authority. And some of those who had grown insolent with clashing shields are brought under the feet of the emperor by the force of arms; but other numberless barbarian nations of the earth come to Rome to hear of the splendor of your serenity, O glorious priest. I recently saw the sacred house laboring under the narrowness of the place because of the darkened men. But they, enticed by the sight of your divine house, inclined their souls and necks, in submission, to the heavenly and earthly 990 throne, poor wretches that they were, who did not accept your hand upon their heads.
A hand that drives away irresistible transgressions, a hand that provides for those destitute of life, a hand that nurses the orphan, that lulls every necessity to rest. A For from the very cradle, moderation and temperance have joined you to the holy paths of heavenly hope. Simple for you are your meals and your divine mind: simple are the flashes of your eyes, simple the footsteps of your feet, and simple the speech that flows from your mouth. You never affect a grim cloud upon your brow; rather, you increase the joy conceived in Christ, offering a gentle and accessible radiance; a sweet smile in your countenance marks your venerable cheeks. These are the proofs you offer of a placid mind: for you are impervious to the perceptible traces of anger, and you stand unshaken in a tranquil serenity. You have cast away all the troubles of earthly labors: for, unfolding your gentle mind as a conduit of piety, you reach out with a sympathetic soul toward human sorrows. Nor does any mortal, whom you have once looked upon, remain poor: for immediately, with the treasury of your sincere mind opened, you surpass the Lydian riches of the golden stream, dispensing wealth like a river poured forth from your hands. You have indeed learned all the glory of the labors of the ancients and the moderns, and whatever path you tread, you walk it with pure feet in the divine meadow. Your thoughts are examined by the sacred rule of a just law. Hence, soothing your mind with pure meditations, you have not endured to see venal honor, nor have you applied commerce to sacred heads, nor have you shown an inaccessible path to profane men. But if anyone should think that by flattery he could win your favor with gifts, you immediately check him with a threatening bridle, until you have driven away the cloud of his mind, and shown that you despise gold, and have taught the madman that he ought to frequent pure temples with a pure and immaculate heart. B But live, and by your prayers, O blessed one, increase the scepter of my emperor; live for maritime Rome, cleansing away all the stains of a sinful life.
CAROLUS DU FRESNE, LORD DU CANGE: DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT SOPHIA IN CONSTANTINOPLE, AND CONSEQUENTLY OF OTHER SACRED EDIFICES, FROM VARIOUS WRITERS; OR, A MORE SUBSTANTIAL COMMENTARY ON PAUL THE SILENTIARY
SYLLABUS OF THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH OF SOPHIA
[For brevity, the list of 89 terms is omitted in the printed text here, though present in the apparatus.]A In his twentieth year, he built a temple to Almighty God, to whom he had commended his whole self, and dedicated it to `Hagia Sophia`, that is, to Divine Wisdom, which is to say, to Christ: for the Son of God, as Rupert says in *De divin. offic.* X, 13, we call the true and unchangeable wisdom, through whom He created the entire universe. The Byzantines, however, dropping the word *Hagias*, later called this temple simply *Sophia*. Theophanes, Cedrenus, Glycas, Paul the Deacon (II), Nicephorus Callistus (VII, 49), and almost all the writers who touched upon the affairs of Constantine recognize him as its founder. Yet Codinus wrote incorrectly that the Great Church was not built anew, but was a pagan temple previously existing, cleaned of idols and statues of the gods, and adapted for the use of the Christian Church; whereas Cedrenus states in distinct terms that he built the Sophianic temple from the foundations, and entrusted the care of its construction to a certain Euphrates. The form of Constantine's church was *dromic*, that is, square, but rather oblong. B For most of the learned believe that *dromikon* should be understood in this way, even if Allatius disagrees; whence Theodosius Zygomalas (in Crusius, p. 201) correctly said that *dromikon*, which is in the manner of a narthex, was called "all-dromic narthex." The figure of such a narthex or rod is as we shall show below. Finally, *dromikon* seems to be so named from the running tracks (*stadia cursoriis*), which are extended to a greater length than breadth. Therefore, Codinus in his *Description of St. Sophia* testifies that the form of the Great Church of Constantine was dromic. An anonymous author of a description of the same building, C edited by Combefis, adds that it was "similar to that of Saint Andronicus and Saint Acacius"—at which place Combefis aptly suggests reading *Agathonikou* instead of *Andronikou*: for there is no church of Saint Andronicus found built in Constantinople, whereas one of Agathonicus is read to have been built by Constantine in Cedrenus, Nicephorus (VII, 49), Suidas under the word *Brein*, and Codinus in *Origines Lambecii*, pp. 37–38, who write that it was likewise *dromikon*, and which, finally, Procopius reports was raised into a more august form.
A But since the Constantinian edifice seemed too narrow, or because, as others maintain, it had collapsed—perhaps from earthquakes—Constantius, the son of Constantine, brought it to the amplitude in which it was later seen. Socrates, II, 16: *At this time, the Emperor also built the Great Church, which is called Sophia; it is joined to the one named Eirene, which the father of the Emperor had increased in beauty and size, having previously been small, and now both are seen in one enclosure, and possess a single name.* The church that had been dedicated was spherical, built over six years; founded by Constantine the Great, but completed and dedicated by Constantius. This Eudoxius dedicated the church of Hagia Sophia a second time, because after its first completion and the dedication performed by Eusebius, it had fallen again and was rebuilt by the same Constantius. B There were Xylocercetae—that I may note this in passing—who were followers of John, and who favored his side intensely against certain bishops who had abrogated his Constantinopolitan episcopate in a convened synod. But when, after John was thrust out of his church, they first began to hold assemblies separately in the Baths of Constantine, and later outside the city in the *Xylocercos* or in the wooden Circus (which Constantine had cleared, fencing it with wood, for the spectacle of the hippodrome—a place, as Sozomen says, where they gathered), the sect of the Xylocercetae, or Joannites (as they are called, moreover, by Socrates VI and VII, 25), persisted until the times of Proclus the bishop of Constantinople, who finally brought them back to concord in the consulship of Theodosius (the sixteenth), as the same Socrates (VII, 44), Theodoret (V, 34), and Theophanes (in his 16th year of Theodosius the Younger) report. C But there are not wanting those who record that the fire was sent not by human hand but divinely, which Marcellinus seems to wish to say, as does the history of the conventicle excited against John Chrysostom. Nevertheless, the Great Church did not burn down in its entirety in that fire, but especially that part which encompasses the *bema*. Cedrenus says: *On the day that the sun of the faithful set, being exiled from them, a divine fire was kindled from the midst of the throne—in which, while sitting, he inflamed his hearers with holy discourses—from no human cause, and creeping in the manner of a serpent through the chains to a height, it burst forth on the back, consuming the material of the bishop's residence.* Thence, an east wind blowing fiercely carried the fire from the church to the royal house of the senate, lying to the south, and utterly consumed it. Thus, in three hours of the day, the construction of many years and an ineffable beauty vanished. D *And during his exile, the people of the city burned the church; but as others say, fire having come forth from the sanctuary burned all things.* The fire, having been kindled from the sanctuary of the church, consumed many of the surrounding things of the *ambon*. The anonymous author of Combefis adds that the roof of the church similarly burned; but he errs, for he adds that this happened under Theodosius the Great, in the sixth year, when the second synod was held at Constantinople, and upon the resignation of Gregory, Nectarius was substituted as patriarch. Finally, the Great Church burned again during the reign of Honorius, in the consulship of Aetius and Symmachus, as the author is Marcellinus Comes: *The temple of the royal city was burned by fire.* Which fire Honorius himself mentions in a Rescript, which exists after the epistle of Innocent of Rome. It was restored later by Theodosius the Younger, and dedicated by Atticus, patriarch of Constantinople, in the 7th year of the same Theodosius, indiction 13, in the consulship of Honorius (the tenth) and...
Theodosius (the sixth). A *Chronicon Alexandrinum*: That there is an error in both the year of the world and the indiction, we have sufficiently proven in our notes on Bondelmontius, p. 185, where we also showed that the entire work of the church of Sophia was completed within five years, eleven months, and ten days, as Theophanes and the same Cedrenus maintain. Indeed, the Great Church burned down on the first day of the sedition, which lasted until the fifth; from that point to the dedication, which took place on December 26 in the year of Christ 537, after the consulship of Belisarius (the second) and Justinian (the eleventh), indiction 15, there are as many years and days as are computed by Theophanes and Cedrenus. Whence it is evidently clear that the Greeks and certain writers of a later age, who claimed the temple of Sophia was completed within [seventeen] years, were utterly hallucinating, as we have likewise taught in that place.
The Great Church stood, furthermore, until the year 530, when in the sedition which they call that of the Victoriatores, a large part of the city was consumed by fire; and among other buildings which were destroyed by it, the Great Church, with its stupendous and admirable columns (which Codinus writes, I know not if truly, were to have existed until 437), collapsed in the 5th year of Justinian, indiction 10, after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes (the second), on the 15th of January, as it is in the *Chronicon Alexandrinum*; and the author Cedrenus states that its records and the charters of privileges and revenues perished together with it. Gyllius (*Descript. CP.* II, 3) asks if the Constantinian Great Church was in the same place where Justinian later built the church of Sophia. The author of the *Description of the City* gives cause for doubt, as he locates the Great Church and the church of Antiqua in one region, but the Augustaeum—the forum which was in a way the propylaeum of the church of Sophia—in another region. But Gyllius replies to these by saying that Zonaras and others relate that Justinian built a much larger church from the foundations, and bought adjacent houses to enlarge it, as well as the Augustaeum forum, although they are placed in different regions. Finally, he considers that the temple of Antiqua, which today is included within the royal enclosure and which they call "Little Sophia," is the same church that the *Description* of the city calls "Antiqua"; and some among the Greeks of Constantinople are persuaded that it is the church of St. Irene, which Constantine had built next to Sophia.
4. Therefore, the greater Constantinian church, or Constantiana, having been seized in the sedition of the Victoriatores, the Emperor Justinian, once the city was composed and the authors of the sedition punished, began in the same year to build a new and far more extensive one. Marcellinus Comes: *The major church of Constantinople, built by the Emperor Justinian in a way unique in the world, was dedicated on the 6th day before the Kalends of January.* Theophanes: *In this same year, in the month of December, the 21st, in the first indiction, occurred the first dedication of the Great Church; and the litany issued forth from the Holy Anastasia, with Patriarch Menas sitting in the imperial carriage, accompanied by the emperor and the people.* Codinus seems to need correction here, for he reports the work finished on the 22nd of the same month, unless he intended four days to have elapsed between the completion of the temple and its dedication. The preparations and celebration of the dedication are commemorated at greater length by the same Codinus and the Anonymous, who recount that Justinian, in a solemn procession from the palace through the Augustaeum, arrived together with the patriarch into the newly built church, and broke out into these words: “I have conquered thee, O Solomon.”
5. But when not long after the work of the church of Sophia was completed, the dome collapsed, a new dedication was made. The eastern part of the dome collapsed, broken by continuous earthquakes, in the 32nd year of Justinian, and it crushed both the holy table and the ciborium and the ambo. But when Justinian had immediately restored it anew, and had raised the dome higher than before, he took care for the church to be dedicated again by the patriarch Eutychius, as Zonaras says, and as the Greeks say, *and it was dedicated the second time by the patriarch Eutychius.* These dedications, however, took place in the fifth year after the collapse of the dome: for to this refer the verses of Paul the Silentiary (Part 1, v. 37):
*Wiping away the tears of five years from our eyes,* *We utter with our lips sweet-sounding hymns.*
The *Chronicon Alexandrinum* notes the day and year more distinctly, namely in the 36th year of Justinian, indiction 12, December 24: *In this same year, the 36th of the reign of Justinian, in the month of Apellaeus (according to the Romans, December), on the 21st day, in the 12th indiction, the festival of the second dedication of the holy Great Church of God was completed.* That this day also precedes the Nativity of Christ, the same Silentiary implies (Part 1, v. 196).
A From these sources, the edited codex of Theophanes must be corrected, which records the dedication as having taken place on the 20th of December. The same Theophanes describes the ceremony of these [events] as follows: The all-night vigil of these dedications took place in the Great Church, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, went out from there with the procession, accompanied by the Emperor, who was seated in the chariot and wearing the apostolic vestment, and holding the holy Gospel, while all the people chanted, "Lift up the gates, your princes." Now, regarding what the Anonymous writer, or Codinus, adds—namely, that the celebration of the dedications extended even to the festival of the Theophany, since he speaks of these as second dedications—the Silentiary seems to have said the same in the Proemium, v. 74:
Since, as it was fitting, the festive day Had passed, the entire populace, and straightway the senate, They who pursue a life secure in the middle, Brought the festive days of the dedication again; That is, they extended them. Having run out, that is again, Again they brought them back. Seeing this many times, I stretched out the festival abundantly.
7. Two architects, in particular, are remembered for such an elegant and stupendous temple, among the many whom Justinian had gathered from almost the entire world: Anthemius of Tralles, to be sure, and Isidore of Miletus, both of them most skilled in the mechanical art. Regarding Anthemius, Paul the Silentiary says thus, Part 1, v. 134:
And he praised the art And the mind of Anthemius, [skilled] with prudent counsel. That man, who first set the foundations of the temple, At the command of the emperor, [a man of] noble works.
To which Procopius, *De Aedif.* i, 1, joins in: "He summoned artists from every land. And Anthemius of Tralles, most renowned in the wisdom called mechanical—not only of those of his own time, but [surpassing] by far even those who had existed before—served the Emperor's zeal, regulating the works being built, and preparing in advance the phantasms of what was to be." Agathias also speaks more at length about Anthemius, Book v, and [notes] that he was not only preeminent in the building of the church, but also excelled in the art they call mechanical, such that he could imitate the natural tremors of the earth and the lightning bolts themselves by art. Whence, perhaps, by the same Silentiary, Part 2, v. 255, he is called "Anthemius the man of many counsels." Nor is he other than the one whom Codinus calls "master mechanic." Regarding Isidore, indeed, the same Procopius says thus: "And with him [was] another mechanic, Isidore by name, Milesian by race, of sound mind and suitable for serving the Emperor Justinian." And Paul the Silentiary, Part 2, v. 136:
And with him was The all-wise Isidore, possessing a mind, etc.
Moreover, the same Procopius, *De Aedif.* ii, 3, makes mention of both, as does Codinus of a certain Ignatius, among the many master architects whom Justinian used in building the church, the number of whom the same [Codinus] reports to have reached a hundred—about which he prates much.
8. In the building of it, however, without any A regard for expense, *aphrontistes chrematon apanton*, says Procopius, he expended such a vast quantity of money that when he was subsequently in need of it, he did not merely vex his subjects with tributes and taxes, but, as Zonaras is the author, even abolished the stipends established for public professors on the advice of the Prefect of the City; from which, in the schools of the cities, ignorance and rusticity ensued in their stead. I do not know if the person whom Zonaras calls "Prefect" in this place is the same *Strategius* whom Codinus and the Anonymous [writer] call the "Guardian of the Imperial Moneys" and the adoptive brother of Justinian, *adelphopoietes*, and who is said to have paid the costs for the temple. Furthermore, as to the structure of his atria and the surrounding buildings, besides the sacred vessels and remaining ornaments, and what were liberally contributed from the whole world, they report that expenses reached eight thousand, or as other editions have it, thirty-two thousand pounds.
9. The walls and vaults of the church were constructed of baked bricks, says Gyllius. Thus also Paul the Silentiary, Part 2, v. 58:
In the middle, [he fashioned] as much as the curve covers, With fired bricks he fashioned the well-fitted art. The same, v. 97:
....with the toil of the builder Men, having constructed with excellent skill, Raised up with fired bricks the bound [arches], etc.
And Agathias, Book v: "He raised it (the nave) from fired brick and lime, binding it in many places with iron." The inner part of the walls, the same Gyllius adds, clothed with excellent and varied marble slabs, flashes, and confuses the viewers' minds as much as it does the highest powers of nature.
10. Furthermore, the church is sustained and adorned everywhere by huge marble columns, stupendous in their mass, and by others of lesser height and bulk, with such an elegant and pleasing variety of colors that Procopius breaks out into these words: "Who could recount the beauty of the columns and the stones with which the holy place is adorned? One might think one had encountered a meadow; one might admire the bloom of the field; for one might rightly admire of some the purple, of others the green, and those upon which the crimson blossoms, and those from which the white flashes brightly; and yet also those which it [nature] variegates with the most contrasting hues, as if some painter, that is, nature." This variety of marbles is also commended in several and various places by Paul the Silentiary, and he lists the kinds and colors of the marbles themselves, Part 2, v. 200 et seqq. And in particular, he praises the Egyptian or Thebaic purple, flecked with stars, Part 1, v. 246; Part 2, v. 208; of which, besides Pliny xxxvi, 7 and 8, Statius [speaks] in *Epithalamium of Stella and Violantilla*:
...and the cliffs shine, where often the purple In orbs, and the moderator of the Tyrian bronze glows:
and in *Balneum Etrusci*:
Alone shines the purple cut with the yellow metals of the Nomads...
This Egyptian marble is called "Roman" by writers of that age, as [we see] from Cedrenus in *Constantinus*
Porphyrogennetus in *Basilio* n. 55, and other writers on the temple of St. Sophia immediately at the beginning A gather. He lists the Phrygian, variegated in color and rose-colored, mixed with white and blue, part II, v. 205, of which the same Statius speaks, as also of the Libyan, in *Epithalam. Stella et Violantilla*: *This Libyan and Phrygian flint;* and in the *Balneo Etrusci*: *...alone in the hollow cavern of Phrygia which Attis stained with shining spots.* The Laconian green, v. 211, of which Procopius also makes mention, *De Aedif.*, 1, 10, and the same Statius: *...Here the hard Laconian stones are green...* The Carian, distinct with oblique stripes of bloody and white and leaden colors, v. 213. The Lydian, mixed with a greenish and pale color, v. 215. The Proconnesian, v. 247; of which the Anonymus also makes mention near the end. The Libyan, of blue and saffron color, v. 217. The Celtic, black, interspersed with white veins, v. 220. The Bosporian, white, blackish at the extreme edges, v. 249. The Thessalian part I, v. 255; part II, Molossian, part II, v. 152, etc. B There exist, therefore, infinite species of marble which support and adorn the Sophian temple, columns among which are especially commended by writers: eight of porphyry, or Egyptian, of equal height and mass, which the author Codinus says were transmitted from Rome by a widow named Marcia, and were taken from the temple of the Sun once constructed by Aurelian; this is reported by Plutarch, protosecretary to Justinian. These, we shall show in their place, stand at the four conches, inside the *bematis cancellos*. Furthermore, eight of *prasini* or green color, of like stupendous size and excellent beauty, were transmitted by the praetor Constantine from Ephesus, and others were brought partly from Cyzicus and partly from Troas or from the Cyclades and even from Athens, the same Codinus relates. Theuetus, *Cosmogr.*, XIX, 1, concerning the columns of the Sophian temple: *The inside is beautiful, and there one sees a great number of long and massive columns and pillars, of marble stone, jasper and porphyry, very well variegated, and this is along the choir, which is still standing. On each of these pillars one sees a large and great stone of marble, red or serpentine. As for the upper story, its columns are lesser in proportion, but more richly adorned.* Dom. de Saligniaco in *Itiner.*: *It is adorned with many high and thick columns, very rare, namely eight of porphyry, sixteen of serpentine, and four of white marble: and above, a beautiful gallery paved with transparent marble, and several small columns of marble and serpentine.* And the capitals of these columns C are indeed adorned with silver and gold. Silentiarius, part I, v. 252: *...Below the cornice* *The columns have set their heads bound with bronze,* *Sweet works wrought in gold, setting aside anxieties.* Which ornaments indeed, by the injury of time and antiquity, were restored by Romanus Argyrus. Scylitzes: *He adorned the capitals of the Great Church and of the most holy Theotokos of Blachernae with silver and gold.* 11. Beside this pleasing variety of marble, it is everywhere almost adorned with mosaic. For the vaults, says Gyllius, shine with glass stones and tesserae gilded, even to the eyes of barbarians, in which are seen expressed various images and figures, so that they take the place of panels. Paulus Silentiarius, part II, D v. 230: *Before the light of the manifold cut stone arrives,* *Weaving the thin pebbles, the stonemason's hand* *Wrote on the marble slabs, in the midst of the walls,* *A horn bound with fruitful harvest* *And baskets and leaves, etc.* And where he describes the porticoes surrounding the atrium, v. 190: *...The harmony of manifold metals is equated with paintings; for in it* *Four-part and eight-part stones [join] thoughts* *Joined in order, veins together; and the brightness* *The living stones imitated when bound.* Manuel Chrysoloras: *We could not accurately enumerate the columns, nor the stone pieces, nor the marble revetments of the walls, nor the glass, nor the bronze in it, nor the lead, nor the iron, nor the sapphire, nor the gold, nor the glass again that is in the stone pieces, nor any other part.* The Anonymus also expressed the material of the mosaic, while he says that Justinian gilded the vaults both of the temple and of the porticoes; such gilded mosaic is called by Anastasius in *Gregorio*, IV, p. 160, and by the *Anonymus de locis SS.*, p. 81, *chrysaugeis* (gold-shining) stone pieces; *chrysas* (golden) stone pieces by Sophronius in the *Encomio SS. Cyri et Joannis*; *vitreous stones super-covered with tawny gold* in the *Vita S. Laurentii episcopi Sipontini*, n. 11. But what the cement was, by which the whole structure of the temple or rather the stones or bricks are held together, and of which species it consisted, the same Anonymus Combesianus describes, p. 249, although in most places it connects and binds the stones to one another. Which Silentiarius also touches upon; who furthermore adds that Justinian in assembling or covering the temple by no means wished to use wood, but covered the whole with longer marble slabs, v. 110 et seqq., lest, says Agathias, it should be exposed again to fires: being uninflammable. 12. The immense amplitude of the Justinianic temple is not once commended by writers, and primarily by John Cantacuzenus, III, 1: *The temple of the wisdom of God is the greatest in size of all that are under the sun.* And IV, 4: *For it surpasses in beauty and size all others of the wisdom of God everywhere.* Manuel Chrysoloras: *For what height of speech or size will be equal to that appearance or magnitude?* Guillelmus de Balden-
Baldenzeel in his *Itinerary*: "I believe that under heaven, after the world was created, there was no such complete building that could be compared to this in nobility and magnitude." But although in its magnitude and mass it exceeds other sacred houses of the whole world, it is nonetheless so apt in its concinnity and proportion that it is not immoderate in length or breadth. Procopius: "But it is so fashioned that it is not entirely square, and the length exceeds the breadth a little": which the same Procopius said of the church of St. Michael of Constantinople, I, 3, or rather as he wrote of the church of St. Anthimus, c. 6, "the length exceeds the breadth as much as the *bema* extends on the eastern side"; whence it is gathered that this was the form and figure of temples among the Greeks.
15. Evagrius, IV, 30, concerning its length from the conch where the unbloody sacrifice is offered, writes that to the opposite door it is 108 feet. Gyllius differs slightly from Evagrius. The length, he says, from east to west I myself did not dare to measure, but I had it measured by a Turk, who reported to me that the length of the temple is 240 feet. Bondelmontius, treating of the length of the temple, says that through the church from corner to corner it is 120 *brachia*, because, he says, it is round above and quadrangular on the floor. By which words he implies that the length was measured not from the base of the conch, but where it joins the building.
14. The breadth from south to north is 115 feet, says the same Evagrius. But Gyllius, from a Turk's report, writes that it is 213 feet.
15. The height, however, Procopius declares to be such that it not only surpasses other buildings of the city, but from the highest vertex of the temple the whole city is looked down upon: "For it is raised to a heavenly height, as if standing apart from other buildings, overlooking the rest of the city, adorning it because it belongs to it, and being adorned because it is its own and stands above it, and rises so high that from thence the city is viewed as from a watchtower." But the height from the highest curvature of the arches to the pavement the same Gyllius says is 142 feet: for Evagrius is silent about this, who reports the height only from the center of the hemisphere, of which we shall treat below. Bondelmontius, however, says the height from the vault of the building to the pavement is 140 *brachia*.
16. The structure of the building is surrounded by outer porticoes B sustained by marble columns and adorned with mosaic work, of which I do not know whether these words of Procopius are to be understood, or rather of the inner porticoes: for to the south and north it had outer porticoes, as also to the west, of which we shall soon treat. But to the east I would scarcely believe they existed, whatever Gyllius may say, who says it is probable that this one fell due to some earthquake, and in its place was raised that mass which stands today constructed of square stone, like a sloping foundation placed to support the building's oriental part. Indeed, although greater sacred buildings were wont to be surrounded by porticoes, to the east none were raised, perhaps on account of the reverence for the *bema* and the most holy altar, which was always at the eastern part of the temple, lest the attention of the priests celebrating the sacred rites be disturbed by the tumult of those gathering and the chatter of the talking crowd. For Procopius sufficiently reveals this, *De Aedif.* I, 8, where he says the temple of St. Michael at Anaplus is surrounded on all sides by outer porticoes except to the east. Similar things he reports about the church of the Mother of God in Jerusalem, V, 6.
17. To the west of the temple, says Gyllius, the valves have two porticoes in the place of a vestibule, an inferior one, by which the temple is approached on flat ground, and a superior one, by which the women’s halls are reached, both as long as the temple is wide, and twenty-eight feet broad. Paulus Silentiarius, part II, v. 9, says they are constructed of great marble: (Greek text omitted) Concerning these two western porticoes, Evagrius furthermore says: Gyllius then adds that the superior portico situated above the inferior portico is between the pillars sustaining the fourth part of the western sphere and the windows. For on the inner part C eight pillars, and on the outer as many, sustain it; between which, both lower and upper windows shine, surrounded by square columns. Between this portico and the women's halls there is nothing except the pillars sustaining the portico of the inner chamber: for the pavement of the portico is equal to the pavement of the halls. Which description of the superior portico agrees with the Procopian, in which one can observe columns raised in the form of a hemicycle: "the inferior portico, moreover," the same Gyllius adds, "is double: the inner is closed D
on both sides with walls of most delightful variety of marbles, and covered with vaulted ceilings decorated with gilded tessellated stones." And thus the vestibule of the church of Sophia is adorned with three porticos, two inferior and one superior; to which Silentiarius refers, part II, v. 7, when he says the western porticos are triple: « Αλλά δύσις πυλεῶνα μέγαν ...... χει, Οὐχ ἵνα· τριχθαδίους γὰρ ἔχει κατὰ τέλσα μελάθρου. » But the first of the inferior porticos that one encounters seems to have belonged to the porticos of the atrium, concerning which we speak below, which it is certain was a tetrastylon; from which it is necessary that one of these was attached to the vestibule of the temple. Regarding the doors or entrances of those porticos, the same Gyllius continues thus: "On the eastern side of this portico a passage is opened into the temple by nine doors: on the western side, an exit is opened from the inner portico into the outer portico by five double bronze doors, from which one proceeds into the courtyard, where perennial waters flow." Of the nine doors by which the temple is entered, we shall speak below; but those by which one proceeds from the inner portico into the outer, Silentiarius also touched upon, II part., v. 22, and he enumerates not only five, but seven, including in them those two entrances into the portico which open to the south and to the north. « Ἑπτὰ δ' ἀνευρύνας ἱεροὺς πυλεῶνας ἀνοίγει, Λαὸν ἔσω καλέοντας ὁμιλαδόν. Ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν αὐτῶν Ἐντρέφεται νάρθηκος ἐπὶ στεινοῖο μετώπων Ἐς νότον, ὃς δὲ βορῆος ἐπὶ πτερά. » [18.] The western porticos, which provide the place of an elegant and magnificent vestibule for the church of Sophia, B are presented by the same Silentiarius with the name of *narthex* or rod, part II, v. 13: « Χώρος ὅδε Γραικοῖσι φατίζεται ἀνδράσι νάρθηξ. » And no other appellation is given to such porticos constructed in the vestibules of sacred buildings by Procopius, *De Aedif.* 1, 4, where he says of the temple of SS. Sergius and Bacchus: "There is for them one stoa situated at the entrance, named *epi tou narthekos* because it is very long." And v, 6, about the temple of the Mother of God at Jerusalem: "Another stoa follows from there, named *epi tou narthekos*, I think, because it does not widen." Where Procopius insinuates the reason for the term or appellation, and thus [he explains why] such porticos before the vestibules of temples were so called, because they were stretched out in greater length than width, and thus in some way resembled a rod, which is longer than it is wide, as we briefly touched upon in the notes to the *Alexiad*; for indeed, "every running space," says Zygomalas, "is called a narthex." Whence it is evident that those who wrote that the narthex was the portico of the church did not hallucinate at all, as Allatius would have it, C hinting at Goar, since Silentiarius and Procopius state this in explicit words; whom Codinus favors, in the *Origines Lambecianae*, p. 45: "And of that same Hippodrome, they slipped down before the narthex of the temple," and Theorianus in his legation, "narthex, in which the penitents stood, standing outside the church," where he was listening to the divine Scriptures, he says, which were either recited or chanted in the holy building; whence those who were "listening" are everywhere said to have stood in the narthex outside the church, according to Gregory Thaumaturgus can. 2, Zonaras ad can. 1 of the first Council of Nicaea, Balsamon ad can. 14 of the same council: "In the royal portals," or in the kingly and principal porticos or doors, according to Alexius Aristenus, just as they are named by Anastasius, not *narthecem*, as we indicate below. Nor perhaps for any other reason did Silentiarius say, v. 43, that the sonorous voices of the priests chanting the psalms of David (in the nave, of course) could be heard in the narthex and enchanted the ears of God: « Ἐνθάδε τις κατὰ νύκτα διάμπερες ἦχος ἀνέρπων Εὐκέλαδος Χριστοῖο βιαρκέος οὔατα θέλγει » where by *kata nykta* he seems to have hinted at vesper prayers, of which Paulinus, *Nat.* 7: D "...tunc ergo solutis Coetibus a templo Domini, postquam data fessis Corporibus requies, sumpta dape, coepimus hymnis Exsultare Deo et psalmis producere noctem." But why Silentiarius calls the portico nude and simply *narthex*, while Procopius calls it *epi tou narthekos*, no different conjecture arises in me, than that he expressed the familiar manner of speaking of the Byzantine citizens, who would refer to what should have been called the *narthex* simply, as *ad narthecem* or *in narthece*, perhaps hinting at those "listening" who stood in it or who were relegated to it; just as the later Greeks called the city of Constantinople not *polis* but *sten polis*, as has been observed elsewhere. Nor does the opinion of those who think *epi* was mistakenly substituted for *apo* please me at all. Furthermore, Codinus establishes four nartheces in the church of Sophia: "From the sanctuary to the four nartheces," as also the Anonymous: "And of the four nartheces he gilded the ceilings with glass, most brightly of gold." But it can rightly be doubted whether in this place he hinted at some four exterior porticos, namely two to the west and two others to the north and south. Which indeed the same Anonymous seems to indicate, writing that Justinian had established (and truly, others may have seen) that whoever was to be kept away from sacred things on account of his sins, should stand in these four nartheces; in which place he calls them *phias nartheces*, for a reason unknown to me, unless perhaps because these exterior porticos were held to be at the borders of the temple. Certainly a third narthex of the same church of Sophia is to be observed in the sixth synod, act. 43, where the *dikymbalon* "in the third narthex of the great church" is established, with no other indication; which third narthex might perhaps have been the first of the three porticos which Paul Silentiarius writes stood at the west of the church of Sophia, and which seems to be named *exotatos narthex* by the same Anonymous, p. 248. For Goar is the author that even now the Greeks call the exterior porticos *exonarthekas*, just as the interior ones are called *esonarthekas*. Furthermore, the *dikymbalon*, if I am not mistaken, is a constant place
A with two domes, *kymbalikos*, that is, in the manner of a cymbal, just as the major dome of the church was constructed. Thus, Codinus mentions the *trikymbalon* of the *tzukanisterion* in his *Originibus*. Allatius rightly introduces these words regarding the narthex: "Whether the narthex was perhaps outside the church in ancient times, I do not dispute. For just as the nartheces, as is sufficiently clear from what has been said, were once outside the church, or rather outside the precincts of the church, even if perhaps, like the pronaos, they were considered sacred, so conversely it ought to be held for certain that in later centuries the narthex was that part of the sacred edifice which we call the nave today, as is clear from the Euchologion and other Greek ritual books and some writers of a later age, whom the same Allatius praises in his *Dissert. de recentiorum Græcorum templis*, p. 110 and following." A manuscript Lexicon from the Royal library, cod. 2062, seems to favor this, as does the author of the *Etymologicum*: *Narthex*. From this it is inferred that the narthex existed in the church, if indeed it existed below the ambo; and I think that [this change] happened because, when in most temples and sacred buildings there were lacking more capacious porticos and nartheces for their vestibules, those who were bound by the rule of the canons to stand in them were subsequently admitted within the precincts of the church itself, yet in such a way that they were separated from the rest of the body of the faithful, and they performed the same duties which they once performed in the narthex, at the first entry of the sacred buildings and thus of the pronaos or nave. Whence Symeon of Thessalonica rightly called the nartheces in his *Opusculum contra hæreses*, in his own age, the *archai* of the churches. See Theophanes, p. 203.
19. Moreover, to the east there exist pyramids at the outer corners of the building; Andronicus Palaeologus the elder had them built, to shore up the eastern and northern portions of the temple that were threatening ruin and collapse. Nicephorus Gregoras recounts this at greater length in *Historia*, book VII: "For he heard from the experts that because the building had settled, laboring within a short time, its two parts, that is to say, the one facing the north and the one turned towards the east, were suffering, and they threatened a rapid fall if no one should lend support; whence the Emperor, having given to the builders not a few thousands of coins from the Queen’s funds, raised these pyramids which are seen from the deep foundations, by which he most effectively halted the threatened danger."
20. Before the temple lies the Sophian vestibule, and therefore before the western porticos, there lies a huge square area: for it pleases me to execute its description in this place, before we enter the temple itself, since it is the principal ornament of the vestibule. S. Silentiarius calls this area or atrium, surrounded by four porticos, by the name *aule*, part II, v. 174: "To an area of four-fold size: a promenade B or atrium, Which is joined on one side to the narthex, but the others Lie open to widely-branching paths."
Description of St. Sophia
where it is to be observed that the exterior portico of the vestibule D belonged to the atrium, if there was not even a third, to which we have already warned: otherwise the Sophian atrium would have consisted of only three porticos, and not four, and consequently it would not have been a *tetrastylon* or quadriportico, but a triportico, just as such atria are called by Anastasius in *S. Hilaro PP*: "a nymphaeum and triportico before the oratory of the Holy Cross, etc." Eusebius, *De vita Constantini*, III, 34, regarding the atrium of the Jerusalem temple: "surrounded by a triple-sided promenade of porticos." And Sidonius, *epist.* 2, 10: "A triple portico is attached to this, Proud with Aquitanian buttresses, By the pattern of which the more remote Second porticos close the atria."
Furthermore, such areas or *impluvia* before sacred buildings are given the name *aule* by Procopius, *De ædif.* I, 7 et 8; V, 6. They are called *athria* by Eusebius, *De vita Constant.* III, 34 et 38, et *Hist.* X, 4, because they provide "a bright area, opened to the rays of light to the view of the sky," as the same writer says. Paulinus, *Nat.* X, calls them *atria*: "Here, widely surrounded by long porticos, The vestibules are laid open with a roofed area to the open sky, And at the same time they open the stars to the eyes, and the atria to those entering."
But these multiple passages, of which Silentiarius speaks, were closed by elegant doors, which the same Procopius calls *thyras* in more than one place, and *mesaulous thyras* [by] Eusebius, *De vita Const.* III, 38. The atrium of the great church is called *mesaunion* by Theophanes and Cedrenus, which is *aule* for other writers. *Gloss. Lat. Gr.*: "atrium, *mesaunion*." Paulinus, *Nat.* X, regarding various entrances of atria of this kind: "This area lies open, joined to all three basilicas, And opens diverse entrances to all from one, And likewise receives into one bosom those departing From the gates, a spacious level floor in the middle."
Procopius, therefore, I, 4, regarding the temple of SS. Sergius and Bacchus: and V, 6, regarding the Jerusalem temple: adds: *thyras mesaulous*, etc. From which it is clear that one thing is the atrium or *impluvium* surrounded by porticos, but the *propylaeum* was the facade and vestibule of the temple, which Zonaras calls *protemenisma*, in *can.* 66, Trullanum, as does Agathias, lib. V, and Photius in his description of the new church constructed by Basil the Macedonian in the palace, where he describes the elegance of the *propylaeum* of that temple, as Eusebius [does] regarding the Tyrian temple, X, 4. *Gloss. Gr. ms. ex bibl. Reg.* Or perhaps the *propylaeum* was that arch or high vault, of which Procopius [speaks] in the place recently cited, which Leo Ostiensis also calls by the name of arch, III, 27: "But he made the vestibule of the church above indeed..."
or rather, most beautifully decorated with arches"; and below: "He also covers the arch of the same vestibule from the outside with mosaic." Anastasius does this not just once. Thus, furthermore, Zonaras explains A *apsis* in Canon 46 of the Council of Carthage: "For that which is before the *apsis* is before the vestibule." Whence, since in Canon 23 of the Council of Carthage it is cautioned that for those whose crimes are public, hands should be laid upon them before the *apsis*, this seems to be understood as the *apsis* of the narthex, where the penitents used to stand, and not the *apsis* or the shell of the altar, of which we shall treat subsequently; which canon is indeed praised by the *Capitularia* of Charlemagne, lib. v, c. 53, and Hincmar of Reims, *De gestis habitis pro divortio Thietbergae*; to which must be added what Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, has in his *Regula canonum*, c. 30. But what is called an *apsis* by these writers, Paulinus calls an arch, in epistle 12:
The nourishing house lies open to those entering by a triple arch; And below: The twin arches of the hall stood open in threefold manner.
Finally, Silentiarius writes that the Sophian atrium was surrounded by four porticoes, just as Eusebius writes of the atrium of the church at Tyre, *Hist.* x, 4: "He decorated the things of the first entrances around with four transverse porticoes, having enclosed the place into a square with columns rising from all sides." Among the Latins, as mentioned shortly before, such impluvia, surrounded by four porticoes, are called *atria*. *Gloss. Gr. Lat.*: "τετράστῳον, an atrium." The Greeks, however, call them *tetrastoa*, a quadriporticus. Anastasius the Librarian on St. Symmachus PP: "And he adorned the *cantharus* of St. Peter with a quadriporticus of marble." The same in *Dono*: "He paved the upper atrium of St. Peter the Apostle, which is before the church, into a quadriporticus with great marbles." He occurs in the same work under Leo III, p. 121, 139, 142, and in the *Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum*. But the intercolumniations of these porticoes were for the most part protected by railings and screens, by which it was permitted to lean and look into the atrium. Paulinus:
But with the porticoes surrounding, a wide abundance Lies beneath, and with columns placed between, The weary may lean upon the railings and view from there the flowing Pleasures, and with dry feet behold And not tread upon the floor, and in pleasant strife Wonder at the fountains leaping with soft murmur.
The Romans, however, called such atria *paradisi*, as Leo Ost. II, 27 is author: "He also made an atrium before the church, which by Roman custom we call a *paradisus*." Anastasius on St. Paul PP: "He made a gateway in the atrium before the tower of St. Mary at the steps, which is called a *paradisus*." Paulus Warnefridus, *de Gest. Langob.* v, 31: "Donus the Pope paved the place of the Roman Church, which is called a *paradisus*, before the basilica of St. Peter the Apostle with bright and great marbles." Thus, writers use this word throughout, taken from the Greek *παράδεισος*, which Hesychius says is a "place in which there are walks," that is, a place with porticoes, in which there are ambulatories, enclosed, or indeed any other place fit for walking. But the porticoes which are before palaces or the houses of nobles B were also said to have been called by this name, as Theophanes is the author, p. 203, and from him Cedrenus, p. 387: "And the *mesaulion* of the great church, which is called the *garsonostasion*, was burned." But the Greeks seem to have drawn this naming of *garsonostasion* from the Latin-barbarous word *garcio*, our *garçon*: we would say *la place des garçons*, because in that atrium or impluvium, either the servants of magnates or footmen, or boys from the common people, used to linger, while either the former waited for the lords about to leave, or the latter lingered there intent on play rather than sacred things. Who are properly called *garciones* among us, the grammarians of the later age teach. Guillelmus Brito in his *Vocabularium* ms.: "*Lixa*, a hireling, a *garcio*, who follows the court, and carries water in the camps of the army." Papias: "*Garcio*, who walks about the kitchens eating." In this sense, Saint Bernard uses this word, *De vita et moribus relig.* c. 10: "Now therefore, why do we not carry with us the necessities for so great a multitude of *garciones* and beasts of burden?" But it is found variously written: for *garcio* is rendered in the *Chronicon Reicherspergense* a. 1105, *gjarcio* by Peter of Blois, ep. 102, *guarsio* in the *Vita Garnerii* provost of St. Stephen of Dijon, p. 130, finally *garzo* by Pilichdorff against the Waldensians, c. 13. Ludovicus d'Orléans trifles concerning the etymology of the word at II *Annal. Taciti*, who wrote that they were called *gjarçones* as if *warçones*, because, he says, youth, which thrives on mobility, overturns everything with sudden eruptions. Nor, I think, did Justus Lipsius reach the origin of the word more happily, who wishes them to be called *garciones* as if *garriones* from *garritus* (chattering); as also Christophorus Besoldus in his *Discursus de natura populorum*, who deduces it from the Greek *γάσσων*, a fool, by the metathesis of one letter. But those who are called *garciones* among our people, are called *garciferi* in the *LL. Burgorum Scotic.* c. 66 and by Lambert of Ardres and several other writers.
22. In the middle of this area or Sophian atrium, Justinian placed a *phiala*. Thus they called the basin or fountain, where perennial waters leaped, from which the people were washed; because, says Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.* x, 4, it was not permitted C for the unwashed and with unholy feet to enter the holy things inside. But this fountain is called the *phiala* of the *mesaulion* of the church, sometimes the *louter* of the *mesaulion* in the *Euchologion*, p. 449 and 465. So it is furthermore described by Paulus Silentiarius, part II, v. 177:
A tall... stands in the precious center of the courtyard, A very wide *phiala*, of jasper, cut at the edge, Where the roaring stream leaps up and sends into the air A whole trail, a healer of sufferings, etc.
The Sophian *phiala* was therefore made of jasper: so adorned indeed that it was surrounded by porticoes, in which there were other fountains or wells, which supplied water for washing to the people about to enter the house. Anonymous: "And he made around the *phiala* twelve cistern-porticoes, and stone lions pouring..."
water for the cleansing of the common people." A That water was indeed let out through the mouths of marble lions, the place seems to be called *Leontarium* from things which the same writer has. That crosses were inscribed on the marbles everywhere in the Sophian *phiala* is shown by a booklet of accusation against Arsenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in Pachymeres, book 5; for it was accused that [the Sultan was allowed] to approach the Sultan favorably, so that even the washings in the church were permitted, with precious characters of the cross engraved there on the marbles, not even [being] a secret to the Hagarenes. Basil the Macedonian likewise built two *phialæ* of this kind in the atrium of the New Church out of Egyptian, Roman, and Sangarian marble, which Constantine, nephew by the son, describes elegantly in his Life, ch. 55. Furthermore, that baths and public lavatories were placed before the vestibules of sacred buildings, Eusebius teaches primarily in the place cited, in the description of the Tyrian building, and Paulinus in epistles 12 and 31, as well as Natali 9 and 10; by whom it is called a *cantharus*, and is described as being covered by a solid bronze dome, as also in Anastasius the Librarian in *Anastasius P.P.* and in *Saint Symmachus*. For *canthari* among Ulpian (law 41, § 2, D. *de legat. 1*) are containers of water, from which waters spout. Therefore, the Greeks called a *phiala* by the same notion, which Anastasius in *Saint Hilarus P.P.* calls a *nymphæum*, and the same Paulinus, *Nat. x*:
"The area smiles, adorned with various things, Joyous above, and beneath open, serene Fronts, and girdled below by snow-white columns; In the midst stands the shining *cantharus*, Which a tower covers with a lattice dome of bronze. The other vessels stand under the open sky in order, With small fountains, in which by pleasing order fixed The work of art is set apart, the vein of metal agrees, And from every side flows the water into the deep basin."
The same Constantine mentions in ch. 59 the *phiala* or bath of the Venetian faction, and another *phiala* of the Green faction, and in the book *De admin. imp.*, ch. 51, a place called of the *phialæ*, in which judgments were exercised among the rowers; whence its judge was called the Prefect of the *phiala*, of that one perhaps which Theophanes, p. 307, and Cedrenus, p. 442, write was erected by Rhinotmetus *to the performing of the axodeximon there*. Mentions of this are also in Leo Grammaticus in *Theophilus*, and Gregory in *Life of Saint Basil the Younger*, n. 38. B But *phiala* properly is called that whole edifice by which the *cantharus* itself, or water container, was surrounded and covered, which the same Constantine calls *the foundation and the bottom of the phiala*, and Theophanes and the Euchologion call it an *embaten*, in which it is also called a *kolymbeion*. In a similar basin was written once this retrograde verse, which is had in the *Anthology*, in Gruter and others, they say, *nizon anomemata, me monan opsin*. Indeed, the faithful, before they would enter the sacred house, washed their faces and hands with these waters, which were blessed by the priest. Hence Paulinus to Severus:
"The holy atrium shines, playing with gentle waters, A *cantharus*, and the hands are washed by every minister."
And these waters of the fountains, annually in the vigil of the holy Theophany, sometimes on the feast day itself, were consecrated and blessed; the order of whose blessing is had in the *Euchologion*: whence they are called *diseases-driving* and *demons-putting to flight* in Clement in *Constit. apost.*, and *healing of souls and bodies*, and elsewhere *the cleansing of sins*, etc., in the same *Euchologion*. In their place succeeded, especially among the Latins, the lustral waters which are wont to be exposed at the doors of temples, as those who have written of ecclesiastical rites have taught long ago. C Truly what Silentiarius adds about the perpetual miracle of the waters of the Sophian *phiala*, and that in the vigil of the sacred feast, in the month which he calls *chryso-chiton*, they were drawn from the vessels and carried home by the Christian plebs were not corrupted by any mold or rottenness, is referred most clearly by Saint John Chrysostom, *Orat. de baptism. Christi*, who proves that this sacred feast of the Epiphany, and consequently the month of January, was *chryso-chiton*. Perhaps Silentiarius attributes that epithet to this month because of the *rogæ* of the magistrates, or the *xenia* and gifts with which they were presented, and the princes themselves; or certainly because in that month the consuls took office, and *chryso-chitone* proceeded in public. For January is called *mēn hypaton*, month of the consuls, in *Anthol. l. 1, p. 124*. Of whose processions treat the Novella of Justinian 105, Claudianus, Marcellinus Comes, Corippus, *Chronicon Alexand.*, and others. Thus, however, Chrysostom: "For on this day, on which He was baptized, He also sanctified the nature of the waters. On account of this, all persons, having drawn water at this feast, store these streams at home and keep them for a whole year, as the waters have been sanctified today. And the sign becomes manifest, of the nature of those waters not being corrupted by the length of time, but for a whole year, and twice and three times often remaining intact and fresh as of today's drawing, and after such a long time competing with the waters just drawn from the springs." D There exists, moreover, even today that Sophian *phiala*, where, as Gyllius says, perennial waters leap, to which one descends from the area by many steps.
The buildings themselves and the atria had their vestibules. But above all the atrium of the Sophian building, turned toward more extended and ample forum, surrounded by porticoes and adorned with magnificent buildings, which is called promiscuously by writers *Augusteon*, *Augusteon*, or *Augusteon*. It was, however, as I hinted, the greater forum, to which Zonaras sometimes attributes the appellation of *proaulion*, as also Nicephorus Gregoras. Ordericus Vitalis called it *Procula*, l. ii, p. 412. *Gloss. Saxon. Alfrici*: *Proaula*, that is, a house before the hall, a seat. Procopius, *De ædif.* 1, 2, where it is described, calls it *Agora* not once. Many palaces and distinguished houses and several sacred buildings were built onto this; and primarily Procopius testifies that the great palace was adjacent,
A whose triclinium, which faced the Augusteum, is called the *triclinion of the Augusteum* (τρίκλινον τοῦ Αὐγουστεῶνος) in various places in Theophanes; in which he reports that some empresses were crowned, as does also Theophylact Simocatta, 1, 1. It is uncertain, moreover, whether the *Chronicon Alexandrinum* understands this triclinium or the Augusteum forum itself, when it says that in the 2nd year of Leo the Great, the Augusteum was built, or certainly restored, by Theodosius the prefect of the city *from the sides of the great church* (ἐκ πλαγίων τῆς μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας). It had been built against the Augusteum, as Nicetas is the author in *Alexius, son of Manuel*, [specifically] Alexius’ temple or monastery, that one, I suppose, which derived its name from the patriarch Alexius of Constantinople, who lived while Monomachus was reigning, as Zonaras and Scylitzes record; it is distinct from the church of St. Alexius, in whose catechumens’ hall we read that several synods were held in Allatius, 1, *De concord. utr. eccl.*, c. 11 and 12.
Furthermore, the patriarch’s triclinia looked out onto the Augusteum, which they called *Thomaites* (Θωμαΐτην) and *Macrona* (Μάκρωνα), as Codinus has it, *De Offic.*, c. 17, n. 8, and the same Nicetas in *Alexius, son of Manuel*. Scylitzes writes in *Theophilus* that the patriarch’s library existed in the Thomaites. But especially, as I have said, the Augusteum was turned toward the church of St. Sophia, or certainly its atrium, to such a degree that it was considered and called the principal atrium of the temple. For Zonaras, writing about the statue of Justinian which stood in the Augusteum, says that it stood *in the forecourt of the great temple* (ἐν τῷ προαυλίῳ τοῦ μεγάλου ναοῦ). Hence, by the term *aula* (halls), or rather *aulaia* (curtains/forecourts), which signifies the same as atrium, it is often referred to by Byzantine writers, especially by Nicetas in C *Alexius, son of Manuel*, n. 6; and Pachymeres, lib. ix. Suidas in *Justinian* expressly calls it an *auleen* (αὐλήν), where the interpreter and Gyllius himself wrongly translate it as house or palace, since it was an atrium and a place *peristylos* (surrounded by columns), or enclosed on all sides by porticoes and gates, as the same Nicetas attests in the cited place, writing that *the gates of the Augusteum* (πύλας τοῦ Αὐγουστεῶνος) were broken in a certain sedition; just as Codinus in his *Originibus* says when he states that Justinian, with the church of St. Sophia finished, proceeded by chariot *from the palace to the gate of the Augusteum* (ἕως τῆς πύλης τοῦ Αὐγουστεῶνος); where Meursius wrongly substitutes *stules* (στύλης). Finally, the same Codinus reports (*De off.*, c. 17, n. 10) that the vestibules of the Great Church existed in the Augusteum.
Now, writers maintain that the Augusteum was first built and so named by Constantine the Great on account of his mother Helena, to whom he had granted the title *Augusta* and whose statue he placed in that forum: thus Hesychius the Milesian and the *Chronicon Alexandrinum*. Suidas, in the relevant place, reports that that statue stood in the place called *Daphne*, and that the place was named the *Augusteum* from that. From which it is perceived that it stood in that part of the Augusteum which faced the third region. For the church of St. Stephen, which Theophanes places at Daphne, the same writer and the *Chronicon Alexandrinum* (p. 878) place in the palace, while others want it built in the Sigma, as Gyllius has it, I, 15; from which it is evident that Daphne and the Sigma were near each other. In this, moreover, the writers agree, that the Augusteum was so named on account of his mother Helena, whom, as Euse- D bius, 10, 46, Sozomenus, II, 1, Sulpicius Severus, *Hist.* I, 11, and ancient coins and inscriptions testify, he called Augusta. Nor should Suidas, Codinus, and other writers of doubtful authority be heeded, who relate that this forum was so named as if from *Augusteion* (αὐγουστεῖον), that is, *a gustation* (αὐτόπωλιον), because perhaps they had heard that *gustum* (a delicacy) is called *cupedias* in Latin, which word occurs in Apicius, *De re culinaria*, IV, 5.
Furthermore, in the Augusteum stood a silver statue of Theodosius the Great, placed upon a column, as Marcellinus Comes is the author: *The column is established not far from the church, which bears the silver statue of Theodosius the Great, which I have contemplated until now*; namely, in the place where afterward Justinian, having torn it down, erected his own, as Zonaras reports, who declares that this silver statue weighed seven thousand pounds and was erected by his son Arcadius.
24. Justinian therefore, having torn down the Theodosian statue, placed his own equestrian [statue] in its place, cast from gilded bronze tiles [stripped] from the burnt *Chalkê*, in the 17th year of his reign. Theophanes: *In the same year the great bronze column was completed near the palace, which is called the Augusteum, and the statue of the Emperor Justinian on horseback was raised up* (Τῷ αὐτῷ ἔτει ἐπληρώθη ὁ χαλκοῦς κίων ὁ μέγας πλησίον τοῦ παλατίου, ὁ λεγόμενος Αὐγουστεὺς, καὶ ἀνηνέχθη ἡ στήλη τοῦ βασιλέως Ἰουστινιανοῦ ἔφιππος). Now the *Chalkê* (χαλκή) was the vestibule of the great palace and the triclinium, through which one went into it, so called because it was covered with bronze tiles. This, the Emperor Anastasius, having used Aetherius, a most skilled architect, had raised from the foundations and brought to an admirable height, as the epigram teaches, which is contained in the *Anthologia Gr.* IV, 23. Cedrenus confirms the reason for the name, writing that it was so called *because it was covered with bronze tiles gilded with gold* (διὰ τὸ ἐκ χαλκῶν κεράμων κεχρυσωμένων ἐστεγάσθαι). When, moreover, during the sedition of the Nika [rioters], as it is in the *Chr. Alexandrino*, it had burned down, Justinian restored it again and raised it to its former height, just as Procopius reports, by whom this new triclinium is described, *De ædif.* 1, 10. The Justinianic statue, however, which existed of immense bulk and height, is described by several: the same Procopius, I, 2, and from him Pachymeres in his *Ekphrasis of the Augusteum*, which I read in the Royal Library manuscript; Nicephorus Gregoras, 1. VI, who inscribed its dimensions; Nicephorus Callistus in his *Prooemium Hist.* p. 16; Joannes Tzetzes, *chil.* 8, n. 184; Codinus; William of Boldensele in his *Hodoeporicon*, p. 103; Bondelmontius in *Descript. CP.*; and Gyllius, 1, 17. Moreover, from the aforesaid Greek writers it is clear that the name *Augusteum* (Αὐγουστεῶνος) was given to the statue itself, just as to the forum.
25. So many therefore are the distinguished vestibules and atria, so many the notable and marble porticoes, partly facing the temple itself and partly attached to it, [that they] sufficiently declare how much elegance and beauty the temple itself contains within, and, to use the words of Procopius writing about the Jerusalem temple of the Mother of God, *they signal to those going inside what sort of sight they are about to encounter* (μηνύουσι τοῖς ἔσω ἰοῦσιν ὁποίῳ θεάματι ἐντυχεῖν μέλλουσι), or truly [in the words] of Eusebius, *De vita Const.* III, 58, *they provided a stunning view of the things inside to those making the journey outside* (τοῖς τὴν ἐκτὸς πορείαν ποιουμένοις καταπληκτικὴν παρεῖχον τὴν τῶν ἔνδον ἐρευνωμένην θέαν), with which some things correspond that he has
A noted below in verse 161:
Toward the dark of night, The people enter by the double-folding gate. But observe that there are no gates to the south, but he implies that there were sinuses elegantly constructed along the northern region, similar to halls, v. 156:
Toward the side of the south, facing the portals, Constructed well, resembling empty spaces for some bed-chamber.
28. As one enters the very temple, there first appear to the view four larger pillars, slightly beyond the middle part of the temple, towards the east, upon which the entire weight of that mass, or at any rate that of the immense hemisphere, rests. Such supports, erected on high from a mass of stones, are called thus, and Paulinus says:
That which once stood on pillars, now supported by columns, Has spurned the vile cement as the metal has been changed.
The same author in another place: For formerly they stood with shapeless heaps of vast pillars: Now, with better ones given, these same, supported by columns, Have received both an increase of space and of light.
These pillars are called *pessoi* (πεσσοὺς) by Procopius and Eusebius (*De vita Constantini*, III, 36); as *pessoi* (πεσσοὺς) indeed by Theophanes, Cedrenus, and Codinus regarding St. Sophia. The manuscript *Lexicon Graecum* of the Royal Library, sign 2062: *pessos* of the wall, that is, a support. By Suidas they are called *pezai* (πεζαί), by Harmenopulus (I, II, tit. 4, § 56), and by Nicephorus Callistus in the *Prooemium*, p. 18. By these terms are indicated larger and stronger pillars, which support and bear the heavier burdens of buildings; whence the word *parapessia* (παραπείσσια) is derived, of which later. But little is certain about the origin of the word, unless it be derived from the Greek *pessos*, which means the same as *kybos* (cube). For these pillars rise with a square shape everywhere, and in the manner of a cube, or at least constructed from square stones. Therefore, since they consist of wide and very large stones and form a certain heap of stones, they are called *lofoi* (λόφοι) or hillocks by Procopius, who describes these pillars thus: "In the middle of the temple stand four piles constructed by hand, which they call *pessoi*, two toward the north and two toward the south-wind; they are opposite and equal to each other, with four columns between each of them." They are constructed of large stones, chosen and gathered together, fitted skillfully into each other by stone-cutters, and they reach to a great height; one might guess them to be rugged mountain peaksB. And those which I just mentioned are not constructed in the same way as other buildings, but in the following manner. A layering of stones has been worked out in a square, of a hard nature, smooth in workmanship, and in their cutting, if the projecting parts of the sides of the hillock are to be intended, they are composed of angles; but if they are fixed in the space between, they are made into a four-sided shape. Thus, moreover, these pillars are described by Silentiarius, part II, v. 53:
Now, as for the others, C The sacristan opens the bolt closed by his hands, Around the western wall, which is the last of the mansion. But there is one gate towards the sun. Remembers this eastern gate— And towards the gusty north, they unfold the fastenings of the double-folding doors. And in the middle of the temple, four hill-like structures stand, raised up, which they call *pessoi*.
The author also notes in the *History of Miracles* published in the sacred well of the church, regarding this eastern gate. Finally, they say the Turkish Sultan enters the temple through this gate, from which he withdraws into a neighboring hall standing at the southern side of the bema, where he remains when he attends the sacred and profane rites.
27. Finally, regarding the double gate to the north, Silentiarius has established, part II, v. 154:
They unfold the fastenings of the double-folding doors toward the gusty north.
(Regarding the note in the margin: "He does not express the number of these; but when he said the western vestibule or portico has seven gates, one of which faces south, another north, he adds that he opens the closed hinges of the others which are adjacent to the eastern wall, which is the last part of the house; because perhaps those were the gates which were the duty of the sacristans or doorkeepers. For as it is in Isidorus the Younger, in the *Epistle to Luitfredus*, the keys of the church pertain to the doorkeeper, so that he may close and open the temple of God, and guard everything that is inside and outside, receive the faithful, and reject the excommunicated infidels. Whence they are called *pyloroi* in the epistle which is attributed to St. Ignatius, and another of St. Cornelius the Pope, which exists in Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.* VI, 55; *thyroroi* in the Council of Laodicea, canon 34; and in Epiphanius in *Expositio fidei catholicae*; unless by the word *neokoros* we understand a subdeacon, to whom it belonged to bring catechumens and penitents into the church and lead them out of it, from the same Council of Laodicea, as Zonaras and Balsamon interpret canons 22 and 23, just as deacons presided over the sacred doors by the authority of Dionysius, *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, c. 5. Thus, therefore, Silentiarius, part II, v. 161.)
Moreover, that the entrances of sacred buildings were open through several gates is also hinted at by Paulinus, *Nat.* IX: The sacred assembly rejoices that its walls are opened, And the densus breaks through the ample halls for the people with numerous openings.
Gyllius adds that the greatest entrance of the Sophian temple is from the west on level ground; for it does not, like the Roman Pantheon, have steps to be ascended as once was, or descended as now is. Gyllius says that the descent into the temple lies open by five steps.
For there are, toward the east and west, A semicircular arches, with paired pillars of the structure, strong walls, bare to the sight in front, but on the sides covered with strong masonry—for they are bound together by buttresses, arranged in a four-fold division—resting on foundations, and joined by unbroken stones; but lead poured into the hollows and diffusing itself everywhere, melted into the harmony of the stones and binding them to one another. B As Procopius says, it is not lime, which they call quick and unslaked, nor bitumen, but lead poured into the hollows. This is also touched upon by Silentiarius, part II, v. 60. And v. 39 seems to hint that lime mixed with sand was put into the pillars: "As if through the midst, having mixed the dust of fire-consumed stone with poured currents, he forged a harmony with a builder’s art," and the Anonymus concurs, writing that it was made with oil and lime, and adds that the stones were furthermore connected to one another with iron bars, so that they would not be pulled apart or come asunder. What Procopius reports, that the individual pillars have two columns in their midst, is described thus by Gyllius: "To the lower curvature of these (arches), the extremities project beyond the pillars, receding into a quarter-part of a sphere, which rest upon four arches, which are supported by two smaller pillars and two larger ones. For the four larger pillars not only support the four larger arches, but each of them also supports two smaller arches, one extending in length, the other in breadth, by which the temple is stretched long and widened far." C Accordingly, four larger pillars support the four larger arches extended in height, which, connected in a square, form an intermediate work in the shape of a triangle on four sides, whose lowest part, tightly intercepted by the junction of the arches, forms an acute angle at the bottom, and the upper part, unfolding itself, terminates in a hemisphere, and forms the other angles there. Thus Procopius; which Silentiarius also touched upon, part II, v. 53: "In these triangles are even now to be seen the four evangelists depicted in mosaic work." The four larger pillars arranged in a square lean upon these, supporting the hemisphere. Procopius: "So that their tops unite in pairs and rest upon the summits of the pillars, but the curvatures are led up to an immense height: and those two arches, which extend to the east and to the west, stand erected in the empty air." D Silentiarius, part II, Evagrius: "Since therefore they have nothing substantiated beneath them, but are open and vacant on both sides, the temple is made much more capacious," says the same writer. "For thus from the east and west a fourth part of a sphere is applied to the hemisphere, so that inside it appears to be one and the same vaulted ceiling; but outside it appears separate, forming an ornament to the hemisphere above the two fourth-parts of the sphere." Of these arches, one—the western, to wit—which was miserably torn and threatening imminent ruin, was renovated by Basil the Macedonian, and in it he caused images of the Theotokos and of the apostles Peter and Paul to be painted, as Constantine is the author in his life, ch. 51. The other two, the northern to wit and the southern, have a wall placed beneath them with little columns. Procopius: "The leaves—that is, of the arches—contain a certain masonry and very small columns within." Silentiarius, part II, v. 118, of the same arches: "And toward the sounding south and to the slope of the rainless arch, the strong-walled structure stretches up to the chin of the frame." This wall Gyllius describes thus: "Of which (arches) two, the northern and the southern, have their lower curvature supported by a thin wall full of glass windows, sustained by a double order of columns, a lower and an upper. The lower has eight columns resting on the ground, the upper has six, supporting the thin wall and the curvature of the arch placed beneath it." This double order and number of columns Silentiarius described likewise, and first the lower, part II, v. 120, and soon after (for in this place the manuscript codex is wanting in gaps) concerning the upper order of columns: "And the pillars... in the green emerald... they erected the junctions of untiring tendons, where the inner sitting-places of the women appear." Not otherwise Evagrius: "On the right and on the left, columns are arranged for them, made of Thessalian stone; and others, with similar columns, lift up the upper stories, allowing those who wish to reach out into what is being celebrated." Thessalian stone’s glitterings. And into this, which even now remains, after the manner of...
long porticoes that curve inward within the four pillars and encompass it from the south and the north, he seems to have understood; the figure of such an atrium or choir of the Blachernae church was, as Procopius is the author, *De Aedif.* i, 3, where he speaks of the columns of the church: But of the halls we shall treat below.
B 32. Upon the four major arches, which rest on the four major pillars—which Ulpianus calls *structiles* (built-up) columns—there rests a huge hemisphere (they commonly call it *trullum* or *trulla*) or a round and solid edifice, which is carried up to an immense height. Procopius says: Its wall, which is carried in a circle and supports the orbicular vaulting, is made of thin, porous, and white bricks, which Justinian had caused to be brought from the island of Rhodes, Codinus says, and which are so light that the weight of five of them would equal that of one brick of others; from which, he says, a rumor spread among the common people that the *trulla* of the Sophian temple is ivy-like. At this point, Allatius thinks one should read "cypress-like" (κυπάρισσινος), as if the hemisphere had been made of wood that never rots: for the author Leo Ost. i, 20, is certain that sacred buildings were accustomed to be covered with cypress planks. But others, such as Lambecius and Combefisius, read *pumicea* (pumice-stone) *trulla*. But those brick walls are decorated inside everywhere with mosaic work. Anonymus says: By forty windows, according to Gyllius, the same wall admits light, Procopius says. Whence, since that part of the hemisphere shines in its entirety with lights or rather with windows, it is said in Evagrius, who writes that its width or diameter is 75 feet: But where the hemisphere rests on four arches, or at the bottom of its part, a larger cornice circles and surrounds its entire inner circumference. Silentarius, part ii, v. 67:
Where the root also extends Of the bisected sphere, and there are arches, in the winding Of the topmost circle, which over the back of the arches Men have crowned.
Mox adds that the prominent stones of the same cornice offer a narrow path, fortified, as is fitting to believe, by iron railings, along which the one who lights the lamps hanging in the hemisphere is accustomed to walk:
Beneath the projected ornament, They have girded the path, hanging stones, Narrow, finished-off, where an undaunted man, A light-bearer, walking around, lights the holy lamps.
C 33. On the wall of the hemisphere, the orbicular vault rests, compacted in the manner of a sphere. This the Greek writers commonly call *tholos*. It is, however, as it is with Hesychius, or as it is...
A with Isidore and Papias, an eminent rotundity and the highest point of a temple. With Ugution, properly, a *tholus* is like a short shield, which is in the middle of a roof, where the beams meet. Vitruvius, iv, 7, makes mention of this word, although its interpreters differ among themselves concerning its meaning. Paulinus called it a *tholus* that is peaked, and an old epigram on Asclepiodotus in the *Greek Anthology* iv, 28, elegantly called the walls led around in a circle on the inside, which support the spherical vault or *tholus*, a *koilon ereisma*. From such *tholoi*, the triclinium of the great palace, constructed by Anastasius Dicorus, was named, as Zonaras reports; it is known to be the same as the *trullus* in which the Sixth Synod was held, as the Acts of that same synod maintain; this triclinium is said by Macarius of Ancyra to have been—it is called a Basilica by Anastasius the Librarian in *Agathon PP.* p. 54, and a palace in *Leo II*, p. 56. Thus, Leo the Grammarian, p. 453, writes that a certain house in the city's view was given the name *trullus* from that same shape.
Procopius hands down that the vault of the hemisphere was intentionally made thinner and smaller as it went upward, so that light might enter through its apertures: "It is a wonderful thing," says Silentiarius, "to behold, B how it widens at the bottom and gradually diminishes, and the vault revolves into a circle as if it were the heavens," part ii, v. 78:
"It is a great wonder to see how, starting from below, Expanding at the base, it rises upward in a lesser span, As a pole moving independently."
Thus also Agathias, when speaking of the hemisphere: "And from this it has naturally resulted that it is more upright and easily turned and in every way equalized by the line, but narrower and pointed, and such that it does not so much astonish the viewers as of old, though it has stood much more securely." In this way it is gradually thinned and the vault diminishes, so that it forms a cymbal; and it is circled *kymbalikos*, as is found in the anonymous writer: thus it proves to be rebuilt a second time, so that it might not fall quickly again. C This was also the shape of other *trullae* or *tholoi*, in that they were wider at the bottom and gradually ended in a sphere, and thus they referred to the shape of an egg; whence such buildings were called *ōta* or *ōa*, as that which he calls *ōon*, p. 172, or as the Royal edition prefers, and narrates that it existed in the palace; which is the same as that which they formerly called *thōlōton* and *troullon*. Therefore, since it exhibited the appearance of a sphere in a certain way, it is for that reason given the name by Zonaras not once, and by others: for Silentiarius also said that the *trulla* was curved everywhere like a sphere, v. 74:
"Found overhead toward the boundless air, a helmet Moving spherically, even as the bright Heaven has wrapped itself as a covering for the house." And at the very top D craft wrote a city-protecting cross over the peak.
34. Evagrius proclaims the immense and stupendous height of the hemisphere in these words: "The vault is the temple of the palace, raised up on four arches, being elevated to such a height that to those below who stare fixedly, the completion of the hemisphere is unreachable, and those above, even if one were very daring, would in no way attempt to lean down and cast their eyes to the bottom." The same writer reports that the depth from the center of the hemisphere to the floor is 180 feet. Nor does John Greaves the Englishman dissent, himself writing in the Preface to the Geographic Tables of the Persian Nasir al-Din that he had received from the Turks that Ulugh Beg, besides other most exact mathematical instruments which he had prepared, had constructed a quadrant of stupendous size, the radius of which would equal the height of the highest arch of the temple of Saint Sophia: "Which, although," he says, "the statements are incredible (for the spherical vault exceeds one hundred and eighty Roman feet), yet they maintained that they had often heard Persians worthy of belief narrating these same things." Moreover, the *tholus* was brought to that height especially when it was restored anew after its collapse.
35. For in the 32nd year of Justinian, when the hemisphere, shaken by frequent earthquakes, developed cracks, at last a part of its eastern side fell, and it crushed the ciborium and the holy table together with the ambo. Theophanes describes the year, month, and day of the *trulla*'s collapse: "In this year, in the month of May, on the 7th day, the 3rd of the week, at the fifth hour, as the *trulla* of the Great Church was being beautified (for it had been cracked from the earthquakes that had occurred, while the Isaurians were working), the eastern part of the *propostolē* of the holy sanctuary fell, and crushed the ciborium and the holy table and the ambo." Adjoining this hemisphere
A are two superior vaults of the same number of halls, the sides of which rest partly on the arches, partly on the walls, and partly on the columns. For since the four larger piers were laboring under the weight of the hemisphere or because of the frequent earthquakes, four long walls were built, more than twenty feet long and more than eight feet wide, rising to the height of the larger piers, by which each side of the temple reaching to the north and the south is propped up and fortified as if by way of supports. Supports of this sort, whether called *pessoi* or *pissoroi*, are cited in the books of the *Basilica* (leg. 14, cod. *De operib. publ.*) as being joined to the walls themselves for their reinforcement—a passage where Cujacius in his *Paratitla* wrongly believes it should read *parapēssia*. These supports, as well as the four spiral stairs (*cochleas*) that rest upon them, Cedrenus attributes to Justinian: "He also fashioned four spiral stairs outside the temple, opposite those within, which he planted from the ground and raised up to the dome, having fashioned these as a support for the arches." B Therefore, Justinian restored the collapsed or at least shaken hemisphere not only anew, but also raised it to a greater height, using as architect Isidorus the Younger of Miletus, the nephew of that Isidorus who had first built the Sophian church, of whom Procopius makes mention (*De aedif.* II, 2); for Anthemius had died. Agathias: all writers report that this greater height was twenty-five feet. Theophanes: Zonaras: from whom it is apparent what credence should be given to the trifles and the ignorant Greeks of the late period, who write that the hemisphere was rebuilt having been raised only fifteen *ulnae* from the previous height, among whom is Glycas. The Anonymus and Codinus have the same. Since, therefore, Evagrius reports the height of the hemisphere from the pavement to its center as 180 feet, while Gyllius reports the height from the highest curvature of the arches to the pavement as 142 feet, it seems to follow that the height of the hemisphere itself is 38 feet. For the Turk, through whom Gyllius had the Sophian church measured, did not measure the hemisphere; and had he measured its height correctly, he would have found it to differ but little from the height reported by Evagrius, as Gyllius indeed thinks; although it is reasonable to believe this to be much higher, if the altitude corresponds to the latitude. When, finally, in the year of the world according to the Greeks 6494, in the 15th indiction, in the month of October, most of the city’s temples and buildings had collapsed due to an earthquake, and a part of the Sophian hemisphere itself, the emperor Basil Bulgaroctonus restored this again. So Scylitzes and Glycas.
36. Furthermore, for each of the piers, as we have shown above, double arches originate stretching into the breadth of the temple, in such a way that the horn of one of them rests on the wall that outwardly supports the larger piers, from which four arches are sent out into either side of the wall, two of the lower ones supporting the vaulting of the three halls. C In the same church to the south and the north run two double porticoes, lower and upper, according to its length, sustained by very large marble columns, which do not interfere at all with the breadth of the temple. Procopius: "They are vaulted and decorated with gold, and the one is assigned to men at prayer—the lower one, that is—while the other, which is the upper one, is set apart for women; they have nothing disparate or different," etc. The pluteus of those lower porticoes (for so Vitruvius, V, 1, calls the screens of the upper ones separated from the lower by columns) sustains not only the marble columns which are arranged in a straight line, but also four other stronger ones of a green color, though lower in height than those near them, and the gynaeconitides or upper porticoes, and indeed they prop up the vaults of the lower ones in the very middle of their extent. Paulus Silentiarius, Part II, v. 135: D "In the middle of the hall he placed... thousands Of columns—Anthemius, of many arts— But in proportions Smaller, and from the breast Of the same mother-earth they glisten in green blooms. But for these do not stand in one row properly Rooted in their bases, but they sit opposite To one another, two by two, upon whose heads A curved beam, wrapped about with four-fold cables, Has supported the back [roof] for the women’s quarters." Columns of this sort, larger by their mass than the others—which are excited not so much for ornament as for supporting the upper porticoes—Eusebius also seems to call *pessoi* (*De Vita Constantini*, III, 36).
A 38. The upper porticoes, assigned to women at prayer, are for the most part called by writers by the name of *catechumenia* or *catechumena*, not that catechumens ever stood in them, but because women heard the divine hymns sung there by priests and cantors; whence learned men correctly interpret them as places constructed above for hearing the word of God and ecclesiastical offices. Leo, *Novella* LIII: "Hence to ascend into the *catechumena*," in Constantine Porphyrogenitus, *De adm. imp.*, in the last chapter. Anastasius the Librarian, in his *Collectanea*: "And they ascended to him into the *catechumenium* of the church of the monastery itself." Cantacuzenus, I, 41, and from him Codinus, *De officiis*, c. 17, n. 45: "Anesis [the relaxation] of the things called *catechumena*." Nicetas in *Alexias*, bk. I, n. 2: "From those who stand above the *catechumenion*," where Wolf erroneously translates it as the place where catechumens are instructed; in which error Meursius also lingers. For even if Simeon of Thessalonica, in his work *Against Heresies*, interprets "the house of the catechumens," this must be understood of the station of the catechumens in the church or certainly in the narthex. The term *hyperōa* is more than once used alone for these upper porticoes of Sophia. Evagrius: "The porticoes of the aforementioned *hyperōa* are finished with columns and small vaults below and to such an extent." The *hyperōa* of the great temple are called *hyperōa* of the gyneceum by Nicetas Paphlagon in the *Life of Ignatius*, Patriarch of Constantinople; and by Procopius and Codinus, the *emboloi* of the women's quarters. Paulus Silentiarius on the same, part I, v. 256:
There of the women you shall perceive beautiful *hyperōa*.
And part II, v. 125:
Where the abode of women's seats is revealed.
Moreover, Ignatius the Deacon mentions the Sophian catechumens in the *Life of Nicephorus*, Patriarch of Constantinople, n. 69, and calls it that. But later Greek usage applied the name *catechumena* to both the lower and upper porticoes, as is to be observed from the Anonymous writer, *De locis Hierosolymitanis*, c. 1, and Codinus in *Descriptio S. Sophiae*, who calls the lower ones "first *catechumena*" and the upper ones "second," as we observed above. Both, the lower namely and the upper, as it is in the Itinerary of D. Saligniaco. The upper ones, however, are vaulted in the manner of a dome. Silentiarius, part I, v. 257:
B The lacuna must be restored as follows from Procopius, where he treats of the upper porticoes: "He has them vaulted in the manner of a cup [or bowl]." The Anonymous writer has it: "Valet ac scyphi aut cymbali instar" (it is worth the likeness of a cup or a cymbal). The intercolumniations of these upper porticoes are protected by marble *plutei* (parapets), four feet high, leaning upon which they see the interior part of the temple, as much the lower as the upper. Paulus Silentiarius, part I, v. […]. Agreeing with these is Evagrius, writing of the southern and northern sides: "And the *hyperōa* of the temple are raised by other similar columns, giving those who wish to do so the opportunity to look out at what is being performed." Regarding similar interposing *plutei*, Paulinus says, while dealing with the porticoes of the atrium:
But wide abundance is underneath in the surrounding porticoes, with columns interposed, [for] the weary to lean upon the railings.
But what Evagrius says, that women were allowed to view the divine sacrifices leaning upon the *plutei*, is to be understood of the place of sacrifice and the *bema* (sanctuary): for while that was being performed, a veil was immediately drawn across the intercolumniations, nor was it permitted for them to offer their heads or eyes to look at those things under pain of anathema. This is entirely to be gathered from the *Life of St. Basil*, which is attributed to Amphilochius, who seems to have been the author of that rite. For when he had noticed a small woman signaling impudently to a deacon serving her, while she was looking from the *catechumena* into the altar, he ordered veils to be hung in the *catechumena*: C "He ordered veils to be hung immediately, separating from the women [saying] that if any woman be seen leaning out from beyond the veils while the divine liturgy is being held, she should be thrust out of the church and remain uncommuned." We read more than once of synods assembled in the *catechumena*, and in the right parts especially of the *catechumena* of the renowned temple of the Wisdom of God. The author Nicetas Paphlagon in the *Life of Ignatius*, Patriarch of Constantinople, testifies that the eighth synod was celebrated: the decree of the synod exists in Leunclavius in *Synopsis Basil.*, with the most holy Patriarch John presiding in the right parts of the *catechumenia*, with the most holy metropolitans sitting in council with him. The same inscription is borne by the decree of the Patriarch Michael Cerularius concerning a projected *pittacion* (document), in Allatius, *Dissert. 2, De lib. eccl. Graec.* Finally, Paulus Diaconus, in *Historia misc.*, bk. XXI, narrates that the people were sometimes assembled in the Sophian *catechumena*, and it is no wonder, since they were quite ample in both breadth and length, as can be gathered presently from the description of the halls existing at the wings. Furthermore, the great portico, which together with the *bema* and part of the roof had collapsed from an earthquake, the Empress Anna, widow of Andronicus Palaeologus, first restored a year before John Cantacuzenus had taken Byzantium; which work afterwards the emperors Cantacuzenus himself and finally John Palaeologus D [remainder of page missing]
A applied the finishing touch. The same Cantacuzenus recounts the matter in more detail, book iv, 4.
39. Yet they do not proceed in a straight line within the porticoes. For between the four larger piers on each side, to the south and to the north, there are three lower halls and as many upper ones, as it were suspended like wings, so that from the floor level that part of the interior and middle of the building proceeds squarely up to the curvature of the upper halls, and then within the eight piers it is drawn into an oval form, up to the curvature of the four arches supporting the hemisphere. For this reason, if that part held within the piers and columns is considered, the shape is oval; but if one views it both inside and outside the piers, it is square. Writers call these halls *cubicula* (chambers), the use of which Paulinus describes in *Epist.* 12, where he speaks of the temple of St. Felix at Nola: "Four *cubicula* inserted within the long sides of the porticoes of the basilica offer places accommodated for the secrets of those praying or meditating in the law of the Lord, and furthermore for the memorials of religious persons and relatives, for the rest of eternal peace." Anastasius, in the life of Pope Sergius, says: "He studiously renovated and repaired the roof and all the *cubicula* in the circuit of the basilica of the Apostle Paul." He mentions such *cubicula* elsewhere more than once, from which the origin of our chapels, as they are now called, seems to be taken. In *Description of the temple*, they are called *oikiskoi* by St. Nilus, built by the same Olympiodorus the prefect: "In the common house, divided into many various *oikiskoi*, it suffices that each *oikiskos* be fixed with precious stone," etc. The form of the halls or cells, which I have said (I use Gyllius's words) border on either side, is as follows. On three sides the halls are square; on the fourth side, which looks toward the inner part of the building, it follows the shape of the temple, which the arrangement of the piers and columns makes rounded. The vaulting of the halls is sustained by arches and columns, of which I shall describe just three; once these are known, all the rest will be understood to be of similar form. I shall begin with the three upper ones situated on the north side of the temple, of which the first is in the corner looking toward the north and east. Its two outer sides rise from the wall and end in an arch. In the middle of the sides there are three square columns instead of a wall—that is, window pilasters—whose shaft has a perimeter of five feet and one span. Above them stand three other square ones; all these are of marble, tending in some places toward a bluish color. The side pertaining to the inner part of the building has six green columns, placed under the arch supporting the fourth part of the eastern sphere, whose lowest shaft has a circumference of seven feet and eight inches. Their intercolumniations, distinguished by a *diastyle* arrangement, are seven feet and eleven inches wide and are fortified by marble *plutei* (screens), four feet high, upon which those leaning over can see the inner part of the building, both below and above. The area lying between the first hall and the B second from the outer wall turning toward the north, as far as the great pier supporting the arch of the hemisphere, is forty-four feet wide; part of this is occupied by the piers, and part by the arch rising from the back of the pier supporting the hemisphere. With all this open, thirty feet wide by the floor, one passes from the first hall to the second. The remaining part of the side between the first and second hall, twenty-four feet wide, is occupied by the piers, arches, and a wall rising like a wing up to the vaulting of the hemisphere. The extreme vaulting of the second hall is supported by arches and walls, but the middle part rests on four white columns approaching a bluish color, whose shaft measures seven feet in circumference. The second or middle hall is square, whose two sides are supported partly by walls and partly by arches, one corner of which springs from the back of the two large piers supporting the great hemisphere, while the other is supported by piers rising from the inner part of the wing walls that bolster the larger piers. The outer side of this second or middle hall has eight square columns instead of a wall, the perimeter of which is six feet. In their middle is a large pier; windows occur between those columns which serve as pilasters. Moreover, above these same columns, there exist piers serving as pilasters for the upper windows, which, sixteen in number, illuminate this middle hall, both upper and lower; its side turning toward the inner side is adorned with six green columns. Their intercolumniations have screens similar to the screens of the first hall. The middle chamber is supported by columns having a color midway between white and bluish, arranged in a square order, two of which stand not far from the outer side, while the remaining two are not far from the inner side adorned with the six columns. From this middle hall, an exit lies open into the third, through an arch as wide as the other, through which there is access from the first hall into the second. The third hall is similar to the first in length, windows, pilasters, and columns; by these four its chamber is supported, and its inner side by six green ones. Now indeed, between the two piers by which the fourth part of the western sphere is supported, there stand four green columns, and these, being joined in pairs, have between them six small green Ionic columns. So far Gyllius.
40. An empress used to stand in the upper halls when she was present for divine services. Evagrius states this clearly where he speaks of the Thessalian columns, which toward the north and south support both the northern and meridional arches: "To the right and to the left, columns made of Thessalian stone are arranged for them; and they sustain the upper stories with other similar columns, giving those who wish a view of what is being celebrated, whence also the empress, being present at the festivals, is stationed at the celebration of the mysteries."
A 41. In this upper part of the edifice, the ascent consists of four spiral staircases, which, as I have said, were erected by Justinian to support the four larger pillars, at the time when he restored the collapsed hemispherical dome. Cedrenus calls the place a *cochlea* in the passage described above, n. 36, but Gyllius says this is not entirely accurate, since the steps rise more in the manner of regular winding passages than of spiral stairs: for one ascends from the passages from the very bottom, not by steps cut into the stone, but by a gentle slope constructed of large marble slabs. Each of these five passages is nineteen and a half feet high and five feet wide; from which it is clear that the pavement of the upper porticoes, or *gynaeconitis*, is raised from the floor of the building to a height of ninety-seven and a half feet, and consequently the remaining height of the building up to the top of the curvature of the arches was forty-five and a half feet, since, as Gyllius observes, the total height of the temple from the pavement to that curvature is 142 feet. These passages are succeeded by others right up to the roof of the temple, not softened into a slope, but divided into steps. Therefore, through these passages and spiral stairs, one reaches the upper halls and porticoes and the highest parts of the temple. Scylitzes (p. 804) calls this entire series of steps a B "labyrinth leading to the upper chambers of the Church." Furthermore, Paul the Deacon, in Book IV of his *Historia Miscella*, mentions the ascent into the chambers through the "Brazen Gate": "The Empress Eirene also processed, when the emperors had already gone before, with the scepters of the attendants carried in front; and as they ascended via the ascent of the Brazen Gate into the church's chambers, not exiting into the square of the Embolus," etc. Where the square of the Embolus seems to be the lower portico.
42. In the lower southern portico, there existed a small chamber or hall, in which the emperor, when he was listening to the reading of the sacred books, used to station himself. For Silentiarius says that a marble portico stands to the south, completely similar to the northern one: "but that one possesses something more: for it saves a place set apart by a wall, where the emperors listen to the reading of the sacred books." Thus he says, Part II, v. 464:
"But it possesses something more: For it protects a space separated by a wall For the emperor of the Ausonians, at divinely crowned feasts, Where my scepter-bearer, sitting in this seat, Ordered his hearing for the mystic books."
From which it seems possible to conclude that this chamber or hall, enclosed by walls, is the one that still stands on the southern side of the bema, in which the supreme Sultan of the Turks stands while sacred and profane things are performed in the temple that was once sacred, and to which one enters through an eastern gate from the Seraglio. And from there we are instructed as to what Codinus means, *De Officiis*, c. 15, n. 4, when he says that the emperor proceeds into the church of Sophia, and there listens to the prayers of Saint Basil or the reading of his books, according to the diaconicum. "He goes up to Saint Sophia, the emperor," C and he hears from him the prayers of the great Emperor, near the diaconicum. For here "diaconicum" is taken for the *conchula* (little shell/apse) of the bema, which was on the left or southern side of the major apse, as we prove below, and thus it was close to this place enclosed by a wall, in which the emperor used to stand when he gave his attention to the reading of the sacred books. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether another place in the church was assigned to him while he was attending the holy liturgy, and consequently whether a seat in the church had long ago been assigned to the Emperor Theodosius by Saint Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. For when Theodosius once, in Milan, according to the accepted custom, had entered the sanctuary and sat down in it after the offering of the gifts, Ambrose took it ill; and considering that custom to have been born either of conceit or of ignorance of the order, he assigned to the emperor a place in the church before the chancel screens of the sanctuary, in such a way that the emperor would precede the people, and the priests would precede the emperor in the order of seating: "He laid down that the place of the emperor in the church should be before the screens of the sanctuary, so that the emperor who holds the lead would have the precedence of the people, but the priests would stand before him." These are the words of Sozomen, VII. 24, with which those of Theodoret, V. 17, are consistent. Theophanes adds that from that time this custom prevailed, so that thereafter the emperors stood outside the bema with the rest of the common people: "Whence also until now the custom has well prevailed for the emperors to stand outside the sanctuary with the people." And Nicephorus Callistus, XII. 41, where he recounts the same matter, writes that in his own age this still obtained, namely that the emperor sits at the chancel screens of the bema. But if, according to Sozomen, D the seat of the emperor was assigned *pro tōn druphaktōn tou hierateiou*, before the screens of the bema, he could not stand *meta tou laou* (with the people), since the people stood in the *pronaos*, and between the screens of the bema and the *pronaos* or *nartheca* (narthex), the choir assigned to the clerics and singers intervened, as is abundantly clear from Silentiarius himself and others. But if he stood before the chancel screens of the bema, that seat must have been in the *solea*, and thus the emperor must have preceded not only the people but also the clerics and singers, whom Silentiarius calls the "singing people." And perhaps from there some have thought the name "solea" was given, because the emperor had his throne in that place in the church. Be that as it may, the emperors received this Constitution of Saint Ambrose with such devotion and submission of soul that Theodosius Junior and Valentinian, in that decree which exists after the Council of Ephesus, burst forth in these words: "We approach the holy altars only for the sake of offering gifts; and when we have entered the fenced-off area of the sacred sanctuaries, we depart immediately, and we claim for ourselves nothing of the neighboring divinity." For even if in the Council of Laodicea, can. 19, it was permitted only to the priests, *tois hieratikois*, to enter into the sanctuary and to receive communion, nevertheless the custom had prevailed that it was permitted to enter the sanctuaries to offer [alt-version omitted]
gifts to the emperor, as is gathered from the Trullan synod, canon 69, "according to a certain ancient tradition," says Balsamon, which it is reasonable to believe had obtained from the age of St. Ambrose. A
45. But as for what the Silentiarius says, that the emperor would sit B *theosteptois en heortais* (in god-crowned feasts), this is to be understood as referring to the more solemn festivals, in which he would proceed to the greater church, which Codinus, in *Orig.*, p. 91, ed. Meursianae, seems to imply were twelve in number, whereas on other occasions he was accustomed to attend divine services in the sacred chapels of the palace. He called these greater feasts *theosteptous heortas* (god-crowned feasts), because on them the emperor would attend the divine services wearing his crown. Theophanes, concerning the Emperor Justin, says: "Learning these things, he was greatly pained in soul, so that even when he went out to the festival in the Church, he did not deign to wear the crown or the chlamys." And similar information is found regarding Justinian, ch. 51: "But the emperor did not wear the crown for forty days, and even on the holy day of Christ's nativity, he went out to the church without it." Among our own Franks, the custom once obtained such that kings, crowned during the greater festivals of the year, would attend divine services in the church, as we have proven at greater length in *Dissertation 5 on Joinville*; and for this reason those festivals were called crowned courts or days of the crown, or *heortai theosteptoi*. For just as among the Latins, namely the Franks, Germans, English, and others, on such occasions during the actual solemnities of the Mass the crown was placed upon the heads of kings by archbishops or bishops, as may be gathered from Anselm the bishop in his epistle to Prior Ernulph (Eadmer, *Hist. Novorum*, I. IV, p. 105), Ivo of Chartres, epist. 66, 67, and 84; and Baldric, *Chron. Camerac.* III, 55, so too among the Byzantines, by the patriarch in the Church of Sophia, "when a public and great Despotic feast occurred," the emperors were crowned with one of those crowns that hung above the sacred table, C which, once the solemnity was completed, was returned to its place, as Constantine Porphyrogenitus recounts at greater length in his book *De admin. imper.*, c. 13; the origin of which rite he ascribes to Constantine the Great. Nor, outside of these ceremonies, was it lawful by his edict for the emperor to place the crown upon himself or certainly to take it away, so much so that the same Porphyrogenitus, Theophanes, Cedrenus, Glycas, Sigebert, and others report that Leo, the son of Copronymus, suffered a miserable end for the transgression of such a statute. Now among these crowns which hung over the sacred table, there was one, distinguished above the rest both by the elegance of its workmanship and the value of its gems, which, besides Porphyrogenitus, Nicetas reports in *Andronicus Comnenus*, l. II, n. 11, to have been dedicated by Constantine the Great, although I see this is disputed. Indeed, many of the Byzantine writers narrate that Sophia, widow of Justin Augustus, and Constantina, daughter of Tiberius and spouse of Maurice Augustus, offered to the same Maurice a crown of great value, which he, having brought it into the Church, consecrated to God. Thus Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Anastasius, and Paul the Deacon, D and Heraclius, which is valued at seventy pounds, brought into the Sophian church by his son Heracleona, where other crowns were also hung besides, as the same Nicetas relates in *Alexius*, l. III, n. 6, from which examples it becomes clear that crowns once offered to churches by princes and nobles were hung above the sacred table; which custom the Latins adopted, as did Anastasius, Domnizo in *De Vita Mathildis comitissæ*, I, 2, the author of the *Relation concerning the treasure of the Canusian church*, Leo Ostiensis in *Chron. Casin.* III, c. ult., Peter the Deacon of the same Chronicle, IV, 90, and epistle 345 from those which are contained in vol. IV of *Historia Francorum*. For the most part, these crowns used to hang from the ciboria; whence we read everywhere that they hung above the sacred table. Anastasius, regarding Pope Leo IV: "For he also offered upon the ciborium four crowns and sixteen chalices of the purest gold." Hariulf, *Chron. Centul.* III: "Above those three altars there are three ciboria prepared from silver and gold, in which three crowns depend, each one fashioned from gold and gems, with golden crosses and other diverse ornaments." And *Chronicon Trudon.* l. I: "In the middle ciborium a bronze crown hung, decorated with silver." Anastasius, p. 132, 133, 134, 146, 150, 174, calls such crowns, looming over the altar, *spanoclistas* or *epanokleistous* and *regna* (kingdoms) not once. Furthermore, Paulinus, in his epistle to Severus describing the arrangement of the conch, sets crowns in it likewise: A cross the crown encompasses with a lucent globe, To which crowns are the crown of the apostles, Whose figure is in the choir of doves.
Truly, whether earlier emperors crowned in the temple attended the sacred services, the following words of Theodosius and Valentinian in the Constitution which we have just praised seem to call into doubt: "About to enter the temple of God, we leave our weapons outside, and we lay down the diadem itself; and by how much more we show the appearance of a humble empire, by so much more is the majesty of empire promised to us." Indeed, although later Augusti entered the sacred building crowned, yet when they had approached the royal doors, they would lay down their crowns. Leo Grammaticus, in *Michael*: "Having come as far as the royal doors, the emperor did not lay down the crown, as is the custom for emperors, but entered with it as far as the holy doors." It was important to note these things concerning the crowns, since they also pertained in some way to the Sophian building; now let us proceed with the rest of the description.
The pavement is seen to be covered with precious and diverse types of marbles, both with greenish porphyry and with others variegated in a rose color and highly polished. Anonymous: "He adorned the floor of the temple with precious and multicolored marbles, and with Roman *peganesia* and the rest of the rose-variegated ones, and he polished them." With this, Silentiarius agrees, part II, v. 248. It is adorned everywhere with mosaic work, as the same Silentiarius says, part II, v. 251: With gold-bound tesserae he works...
A and pure gold, as Procopius wishes: "For the gold... or rather with gilded glass tesserae," as the Anonymous says: "He gilded the ceilings," v. 108: in covering the church, Justinian by no means used wood, but covered the whole with long marble slabs, regarding which Agathias writes that Justinian by no means employed wood, lest the building be exposed to fires as it was before:
"Let the carved ceiling laugh, the panelled roof Feigns ivory in wood, and from the top Hanging lamps swing with bronze coils, And in the empty space between, stray lights sway on Cables; the light breeze wearies the undulating flames."
For from the laquearia hung orbicular lamp-holders, and many circles fashioned like a crown, placed gradually upon themselves, so that the lowest was greater than the middle, and the middle than the highest, and each was adorned with glass lamps, of which kind they are elegantly described by Paulinus, *Natalitium* VII. These luminous circles, under which silver discs were placed, the same Silentiarius described elegantly, v. 406:
"And now from the cord Of silver, crown-like, he grasped towards the ceiling discs Hanging around the ends of the middle of the roof, etc."
B And these circles are sometimes called *coronae* by the Latin writers of the middle age, such as the author of the *Life of Saint Desiderius* in the place cited just above, Anastasius the Librarian in *Saint Silvester* and *Sixtus III PP*, Flodoardus in his *History of Rheims*, I and IV, 15; Ratbertus, *On the Deeds of Saint Gall*, c. 9; Iso the master *On the Miracles of Saint Gall*, c. 8; Udalricus, in his *Cluniac Customs*, I, 11; Peter the Venerable in the *Cluniac Statutes*, c. 53; Aegidius of Golden Valley, c. 53, *Life of Blessed John, Abbot of Gorze*, c. 10, n. 90, etc. Saint Bernard deemed them rather to be called *rotas* (wheels), in his book *On the Life and Morals of the Clergy*, c. 1: "They are placed in the church, and they are jeweled—not crowns, but wheels, surrounded by lamps, but no less shining with inserted stones." But especially others call crowns furnished with such lamps *phara*. Leo of Ostia, *Chronicle of Monte Cassino*, III, 31: "He also made a *pharus*, that is to say, a very large silver crown with thirty-six lamps hanging from it." Thus it is used interchangeably in Walafrid Strabo, *On the Miracles of Saint Gall*, II, 35; Bede, *On the Reckoning of Time*, c. 24; in the *Translated History of Saint Sebastian*, n. 94; in the *Life of Saint Gudila the Virgin*, n. 48. Furthermore, not once in Anastasius, in whom in *Saint Silvester* *phara* are called *canthara*, especially those crowns which were equipped with lamps and discs, which Ducas, c. 29, calls *phōtodoxa angeia*. Finally, Justinian appended other lamps fashioned in the form of a cross. Silentiarius, v. 417:
"And you would think of a type of the great cross, A neighbor to the discs, its back with many perforations A light-bearing vessel lightening."
C ...surpassing in bright light due to the multitude of lights. The highest wall, which is carried in a circle between the four highest arches and the hemisphere, admits light through forty windows; the small walls subject to the arches are illuminated by twenty-six windows, the middle halls by thirty-two: in each of the extreme eastern halls there shine more than twenty. I pass over the two western ones and the four lower ones, and the two parts of the sphere, and the sacred part of the church once accessible to priests alone. I am silent about the upper portico, also emitting clear light into the middle of the temple; I have omitted counting the lights of all these because of the multitude. And those things from Procopius point to this: "The light of the sun-like sparkles..." You would say that the space is not lit from outside, but that the radiance is born within it: such is the abundance of light poured into this holy place. D ...suspended, they wash in a way instead of the sea. Dense lamps, as if vying with one another, light the temple with wakeful lamp-burning, illuminating the nights equal to the days. Paulinus, *Nat.* 9:
"Behold, you see how great the splendor, as in a reborn temple..."
Furthermore, this ritual of adorning crosses with lights in the age of Saint Chrysostom, whose author he is said to be, was held, as Socrates and Nicephorus Callistus relate, and in public ecclesiastical processions they were carried: "Silver crosses with wax candles attached to them going before." Nor are there wanting those who observe from Codinus that a cross standing above the ambo shone just as brightly with lanterns, lamps, and lights. But that this rite also prevailed among the Latins, Anastasius teaches in *Saint Adrian PP*: "He also made a greater *pharus* in the same Church of Blessed Peter in the likeness of a cross, which hangs..."
before the presbytery, having 1370 candles, and ordained that this same *pharus* be lit four times in the year. In the deeds of Leo III: "He made an anaglyph cross, versatile, of purest gold, hanging in the *pergula* before the altar with twelve candles hanging from it." (Lib. 13). Silentiarius, v. 481, understood such luminous crosses of this sort while he says that one refreshes the mind by contemplating the "circle of the heavenly Christ." For those lamps are what Anastasius calls the "signs of Christ" in the deeds of Leo III: "He made in the basilica of Blessed Peter the Apostle basins founded as 'signochrists,' which hang in the quadriporticus, in the bronze *pharus* in the middle of the basilica, numbering 48." And in the deeds of Gregory IV: "A sign of Christ hanging on three chains." The sign of Christ has a history in the manner of a lion, hairless, with diverse works of purest gold, hanging on four chains and one hook. The *Chronicon Alexandrinum* relates (p. 716) that under the Emperor Arcadius the *signochriston* of the Capitol fell in an earthquake; in which passage the "sign of Christ" is nothing other than the sign of the cross, which was erected on the peak of the roof of the Constantinopolitan Capitol, indeed the *semeion* (sign) which is spoken of in Matthew as the "sign of the Son of man," as Saint Chrysostom (Hom. 77 on Matthew XXIV), Theophylactus, Euthymius, Origen, Ephrem, *On the Second Coming of the Lord*, and others interpret this passage. In the *Life of Saint Tillo the Monk*, ch. 20 (Vol. II of the *Acta SS.* of the Order of Saint Benedict): "When he pressed the sign of Christ upon a wound full of worms, the worms suddenly died." But A the "sign of God" is also called the "sign of the Lord" in the *Life of Saint Waleric*, ch. 21, and by Paulinus, epist. 12: "See this concerning the sign of the Lord painted over the entrance, in this form which the verse indicates: See the cross, crowned, standing over the atria of the Lord."
Finally, Silentiarius (v. 480) observes other lamps hung in the manner of a net: "He is charmed by the fire-bright net, another, by the single-lamp lampstand." Those are of the kind described by Anastasius in the deeds of Leo III: "He also made, as above, before the entrance of the manger, a *pharus* in the likeness of a net with a basket, and also another greater *pharus* in the likeness of a net with twenty baskets, hanging under the greater beam." In the deeds of Leo IV: "Moreover, for the illumination of the basilica itself, he made a bronze net with seventeen silver baskets." And in the deeds of Benedict III: "In the basilica of Blessed Paul the Apostle, the same prelate ordered a net of most beautiful decoration to be hung, made with wonderful work, entirely of gems and golden bullae." And these lampstands were hung from the arches and walls: but from the floor rose up, as it were, certain beams— "And from the base of the foundation, thick beams of oak rise up, a two-pronged iron of a connecting bar, in which a chasm of light is distributed, bound by straightly-guided rules." Silentiarius further B speaks of the joining of such trees to the cohort, tied together by straight, rubricating rules; by which words he designated the clergy, who are subject to ecclesiastical canons and rules; whence
to kanoni
(*in canon*) orek tou kanonos
(*from the canon*) and "constituted under the ecclesiastical canon" is said of whosoever is from the clergy, in the councils, in the places indicated in the notes to the *Alexiad*, p. 420. Moreover, they are calledkanones ereuthomenoi
(*canons rubricated*), because their headings and titles were for the most part written in red lead (*minium*). Whence among the Latins "rubric" is taken generally for any rule: for there is a "rubric" in the *Greco-Latin Glossary*:Dia miltou epigraphi
(*An inscription by means of red soil*). *Medical Glossary* from the Royal Library, cod. 1486: "Rubric, a title made in red." Prudentius, I, *Contra Symmachum*: "Let them say why the law was founded, On twelve tablets, or why the rubric threatens, Which prohibits the guilty from sinning." *Life of Saint Deicolus, Abbot of Lure*, n. 29: "But the Lord gave, through the merits of his servant, such progress to that same place, that many of the nobility chose monastic discipline and enriched the monastery sufficiently, and they themselves were also subject to the sacred rubric." *History of the Invention of the Body of Saint Celsus*: "Having indeed discussed there many things which the synodal rubric requires." Thus Sidonius calls them "rubric laws" in Book VIII, epistle 6. Truly, lest I hide anything, I do not know if Silentiarius intended something else by these verses, and understood those beams which were furnished with candelabra and lamps in sacred buildings, such as are beautifully described by Leo Ost., I, 51: "He also made a beam as well, cast from bronze with 50 candelabra, on which likewise an equal number of candles would be placed during major festivals, with 36 lamps hanging underneath on aris hooks from the same beam." Which bronze beams, C indeed, sustained by bronze branches and hands, were committed to wooden beams, which Desiderius had caused to be most beautifully sculpted and adorned with gold and the dyes of colors. For besides the fact that the Greeks and Latins alike call the rounded stavesphalangas
(*rollers/poles*), there also seem to be bronze branches there which Silentiarius calls a "two-pronged iron." But since it is not entirely clear from his verses what the form of thispolykandela
was, since he spoke of a candelabrum, we leave them to be examined more accurately by those with keener eyes. But indeed Silentiarius, v. 462, depicts these "trees" as being so adorned, that he says they support, at the bottom, circles that are broader, ending gradually in points, like a pine or cypress. Such candelabra, furnished with many lights and rising from the ground, as well as the crowns hanging in the air, which Symeon of Thessalonica (in his book *On the Temple*) callskyklous
(*circles*), or "trees" (for so they are called by Silentiarius, v. 463, 464, 479), full of lights, by which the lower part of the temple was illuminated (v. 443), are calledpolykandela
(*many-lighters*) by Scylitzes in *Michael Calaphates*, p. 557, by Theophanes and from him Anastasius in *Hist. Eccl.*, and Paulus Diaconus (Book XVIII, *Hist. Miscella* in *Heraclius*), Leo Grammaticus (p. 449 and 481), the same Anastasius in the deeds of Leo III, p. 433, and finally Codinus and the Anonymus in the *Description of the Sophian Church*. Since, therefore, that temple was everywhere D with so many lamps and lights...and shone even before Justinian, their expense was provided for by the emperors—at least as gathered from Law 19, *Codex de operibus publicis*—but above all by Basil the Macedonian. "By a lack of oil, the sacred lamps having already been nearly extinguished, by the gift of a most great estate, which is called Mantea, he previously contrived that for them this light should remain unquenchable"—these are the words of Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the life of his grandfather, c. 64, with which Cedrenus, p. 587, is in accord. Finally, Benjamin of Tudela in his *Itinerary* also observes this whole series and multitude of lights shining everywhere in the Sophian church, with these words: "In the middle, however, of the temple there are golden and silver columns, most great candelabra and lanterns, lamps, and other things of gold and silver, more than anyone could number."
49. A Since the Sophian fabric has been described and its interior parts set out one by one, it remains for us to clarify them using the same method as before. Among both the Greeks and the Latins, the temple is divided into three parts for the most part: namely, the *bema*, the *naos*, and that in which the faithful stand. Symeon of Thessalonica says of the temple: "The whole divine temple is regarded as trinitarian, in [the parts] before the temple: the *bema*, the *naos*, and the [part before the] *bema*." The most holy place of the temple, in which the holy mysteries are performed, is that "most holy area and separated from the ineffable," as it is called by Agathias, book V. The Greeks themselves call it by various names: sometimes *adyta*, sometimes *hierateion* or *thysiasterion*, but by common and more received usage among them, they call it *bema*—that is, the whole place which is separated from the *naos* by cancelli. And since in the *bema* there was the right for priests only to enter or to sit, those who served there are derived from the *bema*—as recorded by Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 19—and their order is termed the same in his oration on St. Basil. This should also be understood regarding the principal deacons, those whom Dionysius calls "chosen ministers," who stood near the one performing the sacred rites. And just as it is called *hierateion* by the Greeks, so it is called *presbyterium* by the Latins because only priests stand in it. For the *presbyterium*, according to St. Cyprian (epist. 35, 46, and 49) and in the letter of Pope Boniface—which is had in Holstenius’s *Collectio Romana*—is the gathering and assembly of priests, which is called *synedrion tou presbyteriou* by Basil in epist. 319 to Innocent. Regarding the *presbyterium*, the Roman synod under Pope Eugenius II, c. 33, says: "It is fitting that the honors of the priests and other clerics serving the churches appear as distinct from those of the laity. Wherefore, let it be permitted to no layman to stand in that place where the priests or the remaining clerics stand, which is called the *presbyterium*, when the Mass is celebrated, so that they may freely and honorably perform the sacred offices." The Roman synod under Pope Leo IV, c. 53, adds to these: "And let no laymen attempt to enter among the sacred cancelli assigned to the orders, unless the bishop permits it." Where it clearly appears that *presbyterium* and sacred *cancelli* are interchangeably used, B and Anastasius has similar things in the *Life* of the same Leo, p. 177, and Pope Gelasius I, epist. 9; and Anastasius in the *Lives of the Popes*, the *Ordo Romanus*, Caesarius of Heisterbach, and others whom we will refer to in their own place, use *presbyterium* in this sense everywhere. But it also seems to be called *senatorium* in the same *Ordo Romanus*, using a Latin word which means the same as *presbyterium*: where it is said that the pontiff descends to the *senatorium* to receive the offerings of the princes or to communicate those who are in the *senatorium*. He descends, namely, from the altar, where he performs the sacred rites, into the *presbyterium*, to receive the offerings of the princes and the faithful, or to communicate those who are in the *presbyterium*—namely, the priests, the clerics, and indeed the people themselves—which is explicitly said there. For although from the Council of Toledo IV, canon 18, it is the case that the priest and the levite communicate *ante altare*, the clergy in the *chorus*, and the people *extra chorum*, it is certain that in this matter there were various rites of the churches; for formerly it was permitted to the laity and to women to communicate in the holy of holies, as is in the Council of Tours II and the Capitularies of Charlemagne, VII, 203. But to tell the truth, I do not know if in these places, in the *Ordo Romanus*, the *senatorium* is exactly the same as the *presbyterium*. The cause for doubt is that it is said the place of the princes was in it: "The pontiff, however, supported here and there on the right and left by the primicerius of the notaries, descends to the *senatorium*, which is the place of the princes, to receive their offerings." And below: "The pontiff descends to the *senatorium* and receives the offerings of the princes through the rows of arches." For if the *senatorium* was the place in which the princes or magnates stood while they were present at the sacred liturgy, C that same place may perhaps have been the same as the *solea*, of which we shall speak, or the raised pavement before the cancelli of the *bema*, so called because the senators or princes stood there. For it was observed above that a seat had been assigned to the emperors in the church by Ambrose. That senators were called magnates among the ancient Christian writers is well known. Therefore, in the *senatorium*, the pontiff not only received the offerings of the princes but also communicated the people there. The same *Ordo Romanus*: "As soon as the pontiff began to communicate the people in the *senatorium*, etc." In which certain place, namely before the cancelli of the altar, the faithful even now receive the holy Eucharist in sacred buildings. Finally, *presbyterium* is used elsewhere for the place in which the priests stand: "The priests in the *presbyterium* all remain inclined." Let the reader therefore see which of these conjectures he approves. D The ancients called this part of the sacred building *bema* from the altar itself, to which they gave that name because, as Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, says, it is a "throne, above which the King Christ sits with His apostles." For learned men have observed that *bema* is also used for a tribunal more than once. Others think it is named from the steps by which one ascends to it, others finally from the altar steps—which we will show below to have been higher up. For *bema*, as St. Augustine is the author, *Contra Epistolam Manichaei*, c. 8, and *Con-
Contra Faustum*, xviii, 4, they call the feast day of the Manichaeans on which Manes was killed, during which they celebrated him by means of a tribunal built with five steps and adorned with precious linens; which feast, indeed, was called *Malisola* by the Cathars of his time, as Ekbert of Schönau writes in *Serm. 1 contra Catharos*. Since, therefore, this sacred part of the edifice was to be cultivated with special veneration, Justinian did not spare expenses in adorning it: for he covered it entirely with silver. The Anonymous says: *He put so great an amount of silver into the whole bema, that Procopius reports he spent up to forty thousand pounds of silver.*
50. What strictly *is* the *concha* of the *bema*—that is, what it consisted of most of all—is not at all certain among the learned. Salmasius, in his notes on Pliny, is extensive in his investigation of it; and although he says things that are probable, he nevertheless has not explained the matter so accurately that it is clear. Goar, in his *Euchologion*, wrongly confuses the *concha* with the *ciborium*, whereas the *ciborium* was within the *concha*, not the *concha* itself. But it will not be very difficult for anyone who has observed the arrangement of Greek temples with more attentive eyes to find the *concha*, a few of whose ground plans the same Goar has exhibited to us on pages 13, 26, and 27. For it is possible to see in that part where the altar stands, or is placed, a few recesses in the manner of a semi-cylinder, closed at the top, as it is reasonable to believe, in the shape of a shell. I said a few recesses: for sometimes a single one is seen, sometimes B three, as we shall presently indicate. It is therefore the *concha* of the altar (*toû thysiasteríou*): whence in the *Ecclesiastical History* of Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, it is called the *niche of the altar*, that is, the *concha* of the *bema*, or of that part of the temple in which the sacred rites are performed. Procopius has elegantly and graphically described the *concha* of the Sophian edifice. *From the ground,* he says, *the building rises, not produced in a straight line, but flexed with a gradual, open curvature, and recedes in the middle, and in a semi-circular figure—which the skilled in these arts call a semi-cylinder—it rises perpendicularly; but the top of this work ends in a fourth part of a sphere.* But it is better to hear the Greek speaking:
1. Three rows of eastern, concave circles spread out, And from high above, after the upright neck of the walls, The fourth part of a four-part sphere rises up. These shells, wise men with skillful fable, Have called—but the truth is, whether from a sea shell, As the learned claim, or from craft, They themselves know.
B The Sophian *concha* was thus fashioned in such a way that, even if it appeared as a single [shell] from above, it nevertheless covered three recesses, and thus created a triple *concha*. Silentiarius, part 1, v. 272:
3. The one with deep folds is extended around in a shell, Rising from on high, one, but with so many folds Descending below. Three rows of eastern, concave walls spread out, etc.
—in which he shows sufficiently that below, or beneath the arching of the *concha*, three *conchae* are contained, which are held and covered by a single fourth part of a sphere. Paulinus has described these three recesses beautifully (*Nat. x*):
It is also in the inner fold of the greater hall, An embedded cell far off, as if the daughter of its dome, Spacious in its starry fold; and in a triple recess Winding in its arranged places.
And in *Epist. 12 ad Severum*: *The view of the basilica, however, is not as the usual custom is, but pertains to the basilica of my blessed master Felix, looking toward his memorial; yet when the sinus is opened, curved in an apse within the spacious ambit of its perimeter with two small shells on the left and right, one of them lies open to the priest offering the hosts of jubilation, the other receives the rejoicing ones in its capacious sinus after the priest.* Therefore, the *concha* had a triple recess under the same vaulting—the larger and middle one, in which was the sacred table and the seat of the priests, or *synthronus*; and besides these, two others, smaller, one on the right or north, which they called the *prothesis*, and the other on the left or south, called the *diaconicon*, as we shall presently show. How and why the triple *concha* was fashioned, the Greeks of the latest age relate thus: They say, indeed, that the architects, about to build the sacred *bema*, or rather *to hagion thysiastérion*—that is, that part of the *bema* where the altar is wont to be set—deliberated among themselves about letting light into it; and at first, indeed, they had decided to construct a single *concha*, which they call *monokalamon*, or of one tenor, through which light might be admitted; but the emperor (so Codinus relates) had given orders for a double one to be built: but the architects resisted, because that place would be supported by no external walls or stone buttresses, and because…
it would be unequal to bearing the weight lying upon it. And when, uncertain what they should do, they were agitated in their minds—especially since the Emperor was not consistent with himself, saying that sometimes a single arch, sometimes two (μίαν ἀψῖδα, ἄλλοτε δὲ δύο) ought to be made—at length an angel in the guise of the Emperor appeared to the master of the architects and commanded that a triple shell (τρίφωτος μύαξ) or triple A conch be made, and that the sacred bema, or the altar itself, should be illuminated by means of a triple portico (for thus the Greeks of that time seem to call the upper vaulting of the conch), in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and that thus the triple conch was completed. As though, in truth, before the architects had laid hand to the work, the form and shape of the entire building had not been delineated; which Procopius explicitly relates concerning the Sophian temple, where he writes of the architect Anthemius: that he had delineated and designed the figure for the building of the temple: "The images of the things about to be." Thus do triflers and more recent Greeks scatter their nonsense among the ignorant.
For indeed, on the strength of this triple conch, Salmasius wishes to call it a "trichoran apse" in his comments on Paulinus: "With the relics of the apostles and martyrs consecrated within the trichoran apse under the altar." For he contends that "sub altaria" (under the altars) should be read as "pro trichora" (for the trichora), to which I readily subscribe, since there was only one altar in the apse or apsis, and indeed in the whole sacred building, which he himself sufficiently indicates below. For it is agreed that "trichora" was the name given to those triclinia which consisted of three chambers, conches, or parts, such as that one of which Spartianus speaks in the life of Pescennius: "His house is visited today in the Field of Jove, which is called the Pescennian, in which his statue is set up in a trichoron." Nor does the conjecture of the same Salmasius please me, who interpreted "trichorum" as the roof of a house. For in this place, "trichorum" is the triclinium of that house, consisting, as I have said, of three chambers, such as the refectories in ancient monasteries, which are therefore called *trichora* and *trichoria*. The Saxon Glossary of Aelfric says: *Tricorum* or *Triclinium*, *Gereordhus*, i.e., a house of refreshment; in which sense Ordericus Vitalis uses *tricorium* or *trichorium*, and says that a *chorium* is a house arranged for the triple seating of those dining, just as monks are accustomed to sit in their refectories; but with Uguccione C it is called a "trichorium," a place near the fire for the sake of dining, having chambers or three apses. An "octachorum" occurs in an inscription at the font of S. Thecla, Milan, carved by Saint Ambrose, in Gruter, 1666, 8.
Thus, furthermore, the Sophian conch is fashioned in such a way that beyond the pillars, and where the walls end at the sides of the bema, it begins to curve into the form of a hemicylinder, or where the porticoes cease to extend in the interior of the building; which Paulinus, dealing with the temple of Saint Felix, described thus: "But the whole space of the basilica outside the conch is dilated by double porticoes on either side, with a high and paneled roof." Procopius adds that there hangs over the Sophian conch a certain structure, I know not what, shaped like a crescent moon, which at once inspires wonder and at the same time fear of a doubtful construction, as if it did not seem to hang securely, and although it rests most firmly, it nevertheless shows danger to those moving about there. "And above, another crescent-shaped form is raised for those approaching the building, wonderful in its splendor, but in the insecurity of its composition, it seems altogether something to be feared. For it seems in some way not to have been settled on a firm base, but to be suspended dangerously for those who are there, although it is supported with extraordinary stability." Gyllius also touched upon this, writing that the extremities of the temple exist, extending beyond the eight pillars, receding into the fourth part of a sphere, bearing before them from the upper part something similar to a moon curved into horns. Finally, above this crescent-shaped structure rises another vault, higher still, up to the head of that immense vault, on the back of which rests the vertex of the middle of the temple, as Silentiarius has it, v. 266.
Within the recess of the conch on either side, says the same Procopius, columns rise from the pavement, not indeed in a straight row, but arranged inside in a semicircular form, so that they stand beneath the crescent-shaped building as if in a choir: "And on either side of these are columns on the floor, not standing in a straight line, but arranged inwards in the form of a semicircle, as if in a space, rising up one behind another; and above them a crescent-shaped building hangs down." Pachymeres seems to call this part of the conches, adorned with columns, the "kionodes," 1, 19. C Furthermore, writers not once bestow the name of "conch" upon the baptistery of the Lateran church, which Joannes Hocsemius in the *Life of Engelbert, Bishop of Liège*, c. 35, calls the "paragonic conch," sometimes the "porphyry conch of Constantine." The *Great Belgian Chronicle*, p. 160, calls it the "porphyry conch," in which, the same Hocsemius says, Constantine the pagan entered and was washed there; concerning which baptistery of Constantine, Theophanes, in the 18th year of Constantine, and Anastasius, in *Vit. PP.*, p. 14, 23, 28, also treat; from the form of such a structure, in like manner, was named the *trikonchon*, the triclinium in the Constantinopolitan palace, of which there is mention in the *Alexandrian Chronicle*, p. 734, and in Leo Grammaticus, p. 455 and 497; as also another triclinium in the same palace was called the *eptakonchon* from the seven conches of which it consisted, in which it is read that the conference of the Catholics with the Severians was held, during the reign of Justinian, which is found in the code of councils; which seems to be the same as that which is simply called the "Hepta" in Liberatus the deacon, c. 9.
Finally, it is to be observed that the bema itself, closed by its cancelli, is called the "holy conch" by Evagrius. For he says the length of the Sophian building from the door of the temple opposite the conch to the conch itself, "where the things of the bloodless sacrifice are presented," is 170 feet, and the length of the entire temple is 260 feet. Whence it seems to be concluded that the length of the bema was 70 feet, and the remainder was in the *naos* and *pronaos*, or, if you prefer, the narthex.
A Writers of the later age frequently termed it the *absis*. For Paulinus, in Epistle 12, explicitly confuses the *absis* with the *concha*. Walahfrid Strabo does not differ from this, in his book *De rebus ecclesiasticis*, c. 6, when he says the *absis* is an *exedra* separated from the temple and is called *cyclon* in Greek: for we are taught by the Anonymous that the *concha* was called *cyclon* or certainly *kyklion* by the Greeks: "Rising to go into the *lyma* (i.e., *eilēma*), which is called the *kyklion*, which is underneath the steps, he called this the Holy of Holies." Nor did Gregory of Caesarea donate the *concha* of the Nicene church of Saint Sophia to any appellation other than *apsis*, in his *Oration on the Nicene Fathers*, just as Photius, in his description of the New Church in the palace built by Basil the Macedonian, denotes the *concha* in these words: B "The vault (*apsis*) rising from the sanctuary shines forth with the shape of the Virgin." Indeed, the *conchae* of sacred buildings are fashioned above into the appearance of a vault (*fornix*) or arch (*arcus*), or *apsis*. For *apsis* in the Greek-Latin Glossary is *forfex*, *arcus*, *fornix*. And in the Saxon Glossary of Aelfric, the *absida* is said to be a *sinewealt cleofa*, that is, a round arched chamber or portico. Hence Saint Jerome, bk. II, in his *Epistle to the Ephesians*, said: "In the high vault of heaven," and to use his very word, "in the *apsis*." But if the matter is taken strictly, the *concha* was one thing, and the *absida* another. For the *absida* strictly is the semicircle itself, *hemikyklios*, which rises on high from the lower part of the *thysiasterion* and is curved into an *apsis* or arch or semicircle; the *concha*, however, is the interior part of the *apsis* itself, vaulted, curved, and sinuous in the shape of a seashell. Whence Paulinus rightly distinguishes the *apsis* from the chamber—the inner part, of course: "The chamber clarifies the *apsis*, [which is] marble-adorned with floor and walls, [while the chamber is] illuminated with mosaic." And Cassian, *Collationes* XXIV, c. 6: "As if one wishing to conclude the chamber of an *apsis* on high." Furthermore, the same Paulinus notes that *apsis* and *absis* are commonly spoken of [interchangeably]. C However, whenever there were many altars in a temple or sacred building, each one had its own *absis*. Leo Ostiensis, III, 28: "To each altar its own *absis*." But the chief, middle, and greater one is called such by the same writer in the same chapter, as also in I, 19: "In the basilica is the middle *absis*, to which one ascends by eight steps." Where it must be observed that this part of the temple is sacred, more elevated, and one arrives at it by several steps: whence learned men not unreasonably opine that the name *bematos* was bestowed upon it, whatever others may claim. Which opinion can be further confirmed by Evodius of Uzalis, *De miraculis S. Stephani*, II, 1: "And it itself also standing by the steps of the *absis* as one goes up, [it] was to be seen by everyone from afar." It must be confessed, however, that in most of the places in authors where mention is made of *absides*, the term is used for the entire *bema*, that is, that part of the temple where the *Hagia ton Hagion* were performed; just as the Greeks use *konchen*. *Panegyricus Berengarii*, bk. V: "By such deeds they approach the sacred *apsis*, the lights of the world." D Likewise in the pages of Gregory of Tours, *De miraculis* S. Martini, II, 47; Anastasius in *Vit. PP.*, p. 15, 17, 32, 130, 160, 166 (ed. Reg.); Walter of Orleans, bishop, in *Capitula*, c. 4; Saint Aldhelm, *De laude virginitatis* (apud Canisium, p. 86); Peter the Deacon, *Chronicon Casinense* IV, 5; Peter Damian, bk. II, epist. 8; Candidus the Monk (apud Browerum in *Annales Fuldenses*, p. 116); the author of the *Chronicon Fontanellense*, c. 14 and 16, and some others. But it is certain that *absis* is most often called by writers the *concha* itself or the sacred table or altar itself: for example, when they write that the relics of the saints are stored in the *absis*, which it is known were accustomed to be hidden under the altars and within the altars, as Saint Augustine, *Sermon* 32, *De diversis*, c. 3; Gregory of Tours, *Hist.* X, 31, *De miraculis* I, 63; Anastasius in *Gregory IV PP.*, p. 166; Paulinus, epist. 12, to Severus; Evodius from Uzalis, *De miraculis S. Stephani* I, 3; Rodulf the presbyter in *Vita Rabani Mauri*, n. 27; the author of the *Chronicon Fontanellense*, c. 2; Andr. Silvius, in *Chronicon Marcian.*, etc. Since, therefore, an *absis* is nothing other than a vault or arch, it is not a wonder if writers use this term in other buildings, even profane ones, as Anastasius, in *Vitis Pontificum Rom.*, p. 127, 129, 162; Leo Ostiensis I, 11, and Peter the Deacon, *De viris illustribus Casin.*, c. 18. Finally, Walahfrid Strabo (in the place cited above) calls the *exedra* an *absis* or *concha* because, as Eusebius is the authority, in *Historia ecclesiastica*, they called buildings adjacent to temples and in some way separated from them *exedras*: for such were the *conchae*, which, although they were not only a part of the sacred buildings but also the most sacred, nevertheless projected outside them and were in some way secluded from them: "An *exedra*," he says, "is a certain *absis* separated a little from the temple or palace, and named from the fact that it hangs outside: as if the etymon of this word were not to be fetched from the Greeks." Through *exedra*, therefore, an *absis* or *concha* seems to be understood in Saint Augustine in his *Acts with Emeritus*, the Donatist bishop: "When Deuterius, the metropolitan bishop of Caesarea, had gone into the *exedra* together with the bishops, namely [that] of the greater church of Caesarea, etc." 52. But Isidore (Orig. V, 8) writes clearly that *absis* is so called because it shines with light received through the arch; from which the same Walahfrid Strabo drew what he has in the same sense: "*Absida*," he says, "is called *lucida* in Latin, because it admits light received through the arch." Nor does the *absis* have anything in common with light; unless perhaps they deemed that upper part of the *concha*, through which light is admitted, to be called *absis* by a proper name, whereby the *apsis* of the *concha* itself is rounded and inwardly curved and fashioned into the shape of a *concha*. For Silentiarius observes that the upper part of the *concha*, divided into backs, contains five-fold separated and divided receptacles for light, covered with lighter glass. Thus he, part I, v. 274, where [he speaks] of the *concha*: "Divided into backs, it opens fivefold-portioned receptacles for light."
A Anastasius, in his life of Leo III, deals with the windows of the apses: "He likewise enclosed and decorated the windows of the apse with glass of diverse colors." And Paulinus, *Nat.* 9: ..... And laid open by the arches, A shining face would bathe the inner parts in abundant Light; directed toward the face of the sepulcher, Which covers, with the body laid at rest, the Martyr.
Furthermore, learned men have long since noted that Jerome made mention of glass windows, which were covered with glass cast into thin sheets. Leo of Ostia, *Chronicle*, book 1, ch. 29 and 32: "He enclosed the windows with plates joined together by lead and glass simultaneously, and connected by iron." The Venerable Bede, in book 1 of *The Monastery of Wearmouth*, or rather, in the *Life of St. Benedict Biscop*, ch. 5, reports that the use of these reached the Britons later. B Regarding the altar at this table, the same author makes mention in his *Enarrations on the Psalms* (38 and 80) and in a *Sermon on the Times*. Sozomen (*HE* IX, 1) and Nicephorus Callistus following him narrate that Pulcheria Augusta, sister of Theodosius the Younger, offered a sacred table to the greater church of Constantinople, or the Constantinian Church of Sophia, which was distinguished and enriched with gold and precious stones, and that she placed an inscription there in remembrance of the matter: "An object of wonder made of gold and precious stones, a most beautiful sight, she dedicated the table in the church of Constantinople for the sake of her own virginity and her brother's reign; and on the front of the table, so that it might be manifest to all, she inscribed these things: 'The brilliance of abundant stones is variegated.'" Neque minori magnificentia aut parciori sumptu sacram aliam mensam in nova æde Sophiana erexit Justinianus, ut quæ tota auro et lapidum pretiosorum fulgore coruscabat. Silentiarius, p. 11, v. 557: "The brilliance is variegated with opulent stones."
But it was fashioned with marvelous and unusual work and with material hitherto unheard of. For it consisted, if the Greek writers are to be believed, of gold, silver, crystal, and other more precious metals; furthermore, pearls and all kinds of small stones were mixed together, melted, and liquefied. Codinus: "Having called for craftsmen, he determined to cast gold and silver, and precious stones from everywhere, pearls, copper, iron, C lead, glass, and every pulverized material, and having mixed both and melted them, they poured out a slab." The same author, the Anonymous, has these things in almost the same words, and adds: "For who would look upon the form of the holy table and not be struck with wonder? Or who would be able to grasp it, because it shifts many colors and lusters, so that the form of it is seen at one time golden, in another place silvery, and in yet another part radiating sapphire, and in a word to send forth seventy-two colors according to the natures of the stones and pearls and all the metals."
Regarding the holy table, Epiphanius the Hagiopolite, in *De locis SS*: "Toward the east of the columns, at a short distance, is a niche, and the table stands there, where the patriarch officiates." The Greeks called this the principal altar, upon which the holy things or the body of Christ were prepared; the Latins call it the holy table. Pope Nicholas I, *Epist.* 2: "The holy altar, where we fulfill vows of sacrifices to God Almighty, is a stone of common nature; but because it is consecrated by the help of God and has received a blessing, it becomes a table." Amalarius Fortunatus, *De eccles. offic.* III, 21, reckons it to be called so because it is the Lord's table, at which He feasted with the disciples. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, agrees with this: D "The holy table is in place of the table of Christ with the initiates." He says, furthermore, that the holy table represents the tomb of Christ: "The holy table is in place of the tomb in which Christ was laid, in which the true and heavenly bread is set forth, the mystical and unbloody sacrifice." And indeed, that the ancients called the table a sepulcher, or what later ones called a tomb, an old inscription proves, which exists at Milan in the monastery of St. Ambrose: "To Minicia Rufina, who lived 22 years, one month, 24 days, Minicia Domicia set up a table to her sister in accordance with her vow." Another at Brescia to St. Faustinus: "To Attius Proculus the Lector, sweetest son, who lived 8 years, Fabia set up a table against her vow for his good memory." Finally, in the name of the table, for the early Christians, it seems to have been called the place where the holy martyrs were in a way sacrificed, while they poured out their lives for Christ, just as Christ Himself is sacrificed daily on the holy table by the priests in the most holy liturgies of the masses. In which meaning precisely, at Carthage, the place where St. Cyprian finished his martyrdom, and where afterwards a table was erected in his memory, was called Cyprian's table, not, says St. Augustine (*Serm.* 113 *De diversis*, c. 2), because Cyprian ever feasted there, but because he was immolated there. There exist also some sermons of the same Augustine—
A Justinian and Theodora, whom do thou kindly receive, O Son and Word of God who wast incarnate and crucified for us, and keep us in thy orthodox faith, and preserve the state which thou hast entrusted to us, for the increase of thy own glory, through the intercessions of the holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
*Electrum* is pure copper or an alloy of gold mixed with glass and stones, of the sort of construction the table of Holy Sophia was.
And these holy tables have their frame and structure all covered with silver, with gold mixed in, and with precious stones adorned with pearls.
He calls the holy table a configuration more wonderful than gold.
The ancient table indeed was cut to pieces and divided among the pillagers, just as the entirety of that holy wealth, so great in quantity and endless in splendor, [was].
Justinian made one all of gold, and the steps in a circle where the priests stand to kiss the holy table.
And the most bright [altar], as the throne of God.
By golden columns the holy, all-golden table Its back resteth, and upon golden foundations It stands, and is dappled with the gleam of wealthy stones.
Underneath this he set columns, also all-golden, with precious stones.
And he has made the ‘sea’ of the holy table of priceless stones and gilded it.
In the evening the garments of him who is about to receive the holy habit are brought in to the holy altar, and are deposited in the ‘sea’ of the holy table.
56. Finally, the Anonymous writer, as well as Codinus, mentions that the holy table of Sophia was adorned with pebbles and much gold: *He has made the sea of the holy table of priceless stones and has gilded it.* The Euchologium Gr. p. 499 also mentions this holy table, where [it treats] of the office of the great and angelic habit: *‘From the evening the garments of him who is about to receive the holy habit are brought into the holy altar, and are deposited in the sea of the holy table.’* Goar interprets *thalassion* and the concave recess of the table, and appositely observes that it is so named in the manner of [a basin] or receptaculum of waters, which used to be built around altars among the Jews for the washing of victims, as is [noted in] 3 Kings XVIII and 2 Paralip. IV; concerning which [see] Villalpandus, vol. II, part II, c. 34. Paulinus, *Nat.* IX:
*For thou also possessest the great sea in the temple of Solomon,* *What a decoration the dry sea was, which the wise king* *Cast in solid [metal] and suspended upon bronze bulls.*
That part of the holy table seems to be designated by the term ‘foundations’ by Silentiarius, which he writes were in like manner golden: *..... [Resting] upon golden foundations* *It stands.*
57. A *ciborium* loomed over the holy table: and thus they used to call a certain canopy raised higher up, by which the whole holy table was covered. The reason for the name is not entirely certain. It is known from Athenaeus and Hesychius that *ciborion* among the Egyptians is a kind of cup. Porphyrio on that passage of Horace, book I, ode 7: *Fill up the smooth ciboria with oblivious Massic [wine],* says that a *ciborium* is a kind of cup, in the shape of leaves D that appear in the shape of a cup. Of which it seems the *ciborium* [takes its name]. From which it appears that the canopy...
for it was so named because it was closed at the top in the manner of those cups whose lids end in a sharper form: for that was the shape of *ciboria*. Others derive it from *kibos* or *kibōtos*, which words mean "chest" in Greek; and thus Germanus calls the *ciborium* by that name more than once. But others for the most part use the word *kibōrion*. The *Chronicon Alexandrinum*, p. 892: "They took away the *kibōria* and other treasures." Theophanes also has *kibōrion* in the 32nd year of Justinian. The entire work of the *ciborium* rested primarily on four columns, which rose from the pavement at the corners of the sacred table, as they call them; so that, says Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, the sacred space which is enclosed within that circuit is covered and roofed over by the *ciborium* above like a heaven, and it is that of which the prophet spoke: "God has worked salvation in the midst of the earth." The holy Fathers establish that the canopy above the holy table is as a heaven, while all the earth is defined as the sacred ground enclosed or described by the four columns of the aforementioned *ciborium*, in which also is fulfilled the prophetic word which says: "God has worked salvation in the midst of the earth." But the Sophian *ciborium* is beautifully and elegantly described by Silentiarius, part II, v. 303:
Above the gold-wrought, spotless table, A tower rises, vast and wide-pathed, Standing on four-arched silver supports. And it is lifted by silver columns, upon whose tops A four-yoked arch has placed its silver feet.
Therefore, the entire work of the *ciborium* rested on four columns—and these were silver and huge—on which rested four arches of the same metal. Anastasius mentions the arches of the *ciborium* C more than once, in *Leo III*: "He also made, in the circuit of the altar, as above, other white silk curtains embroidered with roses, which hang on the arch from the *ciborium*, four in number." Concerning the silver columns of the *ciborium*, the Anonymous writer has treated them: "He set up huge columns, silver-gilt, together with the *ciborium* and the lilies." Anastasius in *St. Gregory I, Pope*: "This one made for the blessed Apostle Peter a *ciborium* with its four columns of pure silver." Likewise in *Leo III*: "He made in the basilica of the blessed Apostle Paul a *ciborium* with its columns of wonderful size and beauty, adorned with the purest silver, etc." Ibidem: "He made in the basilica of the blessed Apostle Peter over the high altar a *ciborium* with its four columns of pure gilded silver, wonderfully adorned with various things of marvelous size, which weighs 2704 pounds." The *ciborium* itself, which the same Anonymous writer reveals to have been embossed with silver, and of such D a kind as are described everywhere in the same Anastasius, rose up immensely like a tower, which gradually ended in a sharp point, almost like a pine cone, except that in its lower part it was octagonal, or divided into eight sides, which, rising upward, produced the appearance of an elongated triangle at its upper part. But it is better to hear Silentiarius himself:
High above the arches it stretches out like a cone, Similar, but not entirely the same; for it does not spiral, But a certain eight-sided base was made, and from a wider Circle it creeps little by little into a sharp tip. It stretches out eight silver plates, and by joining The harmony of the long battle, they rise, and appearing triangular, They mingle the paths of the eight-yoked way, Gathering into one point of the highest peak.
Thus the *ciborium* hung over the holy table, so that it covered the whole of it like a heaven, says Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople: "And they establish the canopy above the holy table as a heaven." Photius, in *Description of the New Church*: "And the cone-shaped dome itself, and that which lies upon the divine table together with the supporting columns and the underside of the roof." Nor is the *ciborium* described otherwise by Paulinus, book II, epigram 2:
The venerable altars cover the divine covenant, And with the holy cross, the joined martyrs.
Where he alludes to the ark of the testament, after the likeness of which the Christians devised the *ciborium*, so that, just as the ark enclosed and covered the divine tablets and the covenants of the old law, so it might cover and enclose the sacraments and mysteries of the new law; which is also observed by Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, where he speaks of the *ciborium*: "It is also in accordance with the ark of the covenant of the Lord, in which it is said, 'The holy of holies, and his sanctuary,' in which God commanded two cherubim to be made, carved on either side." And thence we read of *ciboria* placed over altars. Anastasius in *St. Symmachus, Pope*: "Where he also made a silver *ciborium* over the altar, weighing 120 pounds." In *Leo III*, p. 132: "He made... over the high altar a *ciborium* of the purest silver, weighing 212 pounds." Lower down: "Where he also offered a *ciborium* over the altar with its columns." And in the same place: "But the *ciborium* which he removed from there, he placed over the altar." *Chronicle of St. Trudo*, I, 1: "An altar... depicted in gold and silver, with a *ciborium* above." Leo of Ostia, I, 20: "He placed a silver *ciborium* over the altar of St. Benedict, and adorned it with gold and enamels at the same time." Finally, Flodoardus, *History of Rheims*, I, 19: "He also attempted to cover the *ciborium* over the altar of St. Mary with silver." Since, therefore, the *ciborium* covered the whole altar and in a way hung over it, for this reason it is gifted with the name of *kalyptra* by Silentiarius, part II, v. 544, where he deals with the curtains which were hung at the four sides of the *ciborium*:
On four silver sides the canopy Was spread out straight, etc.
Certainly by Theodore the Studite the *ciborium* of the church of St. John the Baptist, in the poem which he wrote "on the *ciborium* of the holy Forerunner," is indicated by the name of *kalyptra*:
Beholding me as the canopy of the divine table, Consider me a cherubic rank; For you see Christ being initiated within, The Lord of those above and of those below.
Nor in almost any other words did Symeon of Thessalonica designate the *ciborium* in his book *On the Temple*, calling it "the heavenly tabernacle concerning God, where are the hosts of the angels and the resting place of the saints." By these things, we are finally taught that the *ciborium* is a covering.
and screen are called such in the Roman rite, where in its consecration it is signified in distinct words as being like the divine ark, if not accomplished, certainly conceived and foreshadowed as a *ciborium*. It is conceived thus: "Almighty, everlasting God, who commanded your faithful servant Moses to place two Cherubim upon the ark of the covenant, which, with wings extended toward one another, covered it, with their faces turned toward the mercy-seat, we beseech your ineffable clemency, that you would deign to bedew and consecrate with your holy blessing this covering of your venerable altar—in which your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the propitiation for our sins, is daily immolated by the hands of the faithful, and under which lie the bodies of your saints, who were truly the ark of your testament, that is to say, receptacles of the Holy Spirit—through the same Son, who is consubstantial with you, who was made for us by you sanctification and redemption in the power of the same Spirit of truth, all the falsity of the ancient enemy having been repelled with his satellites, along with the very ornaments pertaining to this canopy itself, or hanging from it, or placed under it; and that you would deign to preserve it for a long time for the protection of the saints’ relics and for the strengthening or increasing of the vows of your faithful, by the grace of the same Lord Jesus Christ, etc." Moreover, the preface to the consecration is inscribed as the preface of the *ciborium*, that is, the altar canopy. From this prayer for the consecration of the *ciborium*, it is clear that it covered not only the altar, but also the bodies of the saints, because they were stored beneath the altar itself. B Gregory of Tours, *De mirac. mart.*, ch. 28, writing of the tomb of St. Peter: "He is buried in the temple that was called in ancient times the Vatican, having four rows of very wondrous columns, ninety-six in number. It also has four at the altar, besides those that sustain the *ciborium* of the tomb. For this tomb is placed under the altar, and is held in high regard." And hence it perhaps happens that writers generally call the small structures or tabernacles in which these are wont to be stored, when they are not stored under the altar, *ciboria*. Anastasius in *Honorius PP*: "He ornamented her tomb (St. Agnes') with silver, and placed above it a gilded bronze *ciborium* of wondrous size." Hugo of Flavigny, *Chr. Virdun.*, p. 166: "The bodies of the saints, by whose merits the Church flourishes, truly adorn the mercy-seat; and in the middle, on a sufficiently high and prominent *ciborium*, rests the holy Viton, his brow wreathed in the purest gold and most precious gems, in which the incircumscript and incomprehensible majesty of God is enclosed, having to the right of Blessed Peter and to the left of the same Blessed Viton prominent images made of gold with chasing work, which are surrounded by columns of purest gold, with silver bases, produced by casting and engraving art. The *ciborium* itself of the Lord's resurrection, apparition, and admirable ascension is adorned with chasing work with extended symbols, having before it an altar consecrated in honor of St. Pulcronius and all the martyrs, and having also its own *ciborium*, in which is contained the (body) of the same Blessed Pulcronius, [ornamented] with gold and silver." Anselm, *in Episcopis Leod*, c. 30: "They are placed in one shrine, which shrine has been placed in the *ciborium* next to the body of Blessed Lambert up to this day, with other relics of the saints." Indeed, even now, the shrines of the saints are accustomed to be stored in *ciboria* or, as we call them, tabernacles, at the sides of the *ciborium* itself that preserves the sacred pyx. Furthermore, the term "majesty" is to be noted in Hugo of Flavigny, by which most writers, especially Albericus, a. 1204, author of the C *Vita abbatum S. Albani*, p. 92, and the anonymous *De miracul. S. Fidis*, ch. 8, and some others, designate the luminous circles that commonly surround the heads of the saints, and indeed the images of the saints themselves. Certainly those who were in charge of the structure of the magnificent temple which Anne of Austria, Queen of France, mother of our most invincible king, recently built in Paris, and which they commonly call Val-de-Grâce, seem to have revived in some manner the use of the ancient *ciboria*. For at the sides of the altar rise six very tall marble columns, upon which rest golden arches, decorated with various ornaments and statues of angels, which cover and shadow the entire altar. Moreover, since the *ciborium* was raised to the middle height of the temple or apse, from there Papias perhaps interpreted *ciborium* as the "higher half."
58. Paul the Silentiary adds that the edges of the surface of the *ciborium* are connected, with fixed craters (which are called cups in Exodus XXV) in which were foreshadowed the images of wax candles in silver. D "Where they join the ends of the edge to one another, They fashion a harmony, having set up fixed Silver craters; and upon each crater They set up torch-bearers, and a shining ornament Like wax, reporting the decoration, and not a light," etc. Craters of this sort are described by Eusebius, *De vita Constantini*, III, 31, and by Anastasius in *Leo III*, whose words are these: "He made above the *ciborium* of the high altar of the Blessed Apostle Peter four larger vessels of the purest silver, having in the middle gilded silver candles, weighing 140 pounds." The same in *Leo IV*: "He also made, for the sake of ample beauty, four baskets of the purest silver above the columns of the *ciborium* itself, weighing 42 pounds," and p. 194 he mentions silvered candles that stood in the presbytery.
59. Another form of the crater is described by the same Silentiary, and it is said to be placed in that spot where the extreme and upper parts of the *ciborium* are joined together, part II, v. 313: "And of the joined harmony A long spine stands; and they, looking like triangles, Mix the paths of a road with eight ranks Gathered into one, a sign of the topmost peak, Where we also raised the image of the crater with art. And the lips of the crater, bent downward, fashioned The form of a leaf." For in this place, by "crater parted into leaves," he understood lilies, which those who wrote about the Sophian church report that Justinian had placed on the highest part of the *ciborium* together with a sphere. The Anonymous writes: "Above the *ciborium* he set a sphere of solid gold."
ὁλόχρυσον, which was a weight of 118 pounds, and golden lilies weighing 6 pounds, and above them a golden cross with precious and rare stones, which cross also had a weight of 70 pounds. The Greeks gave the name *crater* to this, because architects call these architraves such, since they are cut into the shape of lily leaves. The Latins also use the word *lilium* in this way. Leo Ost. III, 28: He bought columns, bases, and lilies, as well as marble of diverse colors in abundance. Anastasius, in *Leo III*: And he decorated it with diverse columns, as much porphyry as white, and sculptured with bases and lilies along with the posts. And below: This holy pontiff had lilies placed upon the very columns, and above the lilies themselves he placed stone slabs of metal, and decorated the work with diverse pictures of wondrous magnitude. And in *Leo IV*: He made a ciborium and columns and lilies gilded with purest silver. Add St. Gregory, I, I, ep. 66.
60. Therefore, the extremities of the ciborium were placed upon golden lilies, or the lips of the crater were fashioned in the likeness of lilies, from which a sphere or, as Codinus calls it, a *melon* (apple) sprang forth, upon which stood a cross shining with the gleam of stones. Moreover, such was the form of ciboria, that those which become broader at the base and end in a point create the figure of an apple. The author of the *Chronicle of Fontenelle*, ch. 13, describing a ciborium that contained the relics of St. George, says: It is of quadratic form, rising from four corners at the base, and thus by gradually diminishing the whole work in width, it is rendered narrow at the top, so that it results in a pyramid in height, being solidified at the conclusion of every small apple. But what the Anonymus calls a sphere and Codinus an apple, is nothing other than the pole of Silentiarius, who adds the following to the above: C *In the middle he placed a space,* *A shining silver type of a pole.*
Whether as a sphere and mere ornament, or whether Justinian wished the sphere to represent the figure of the heavens: for Symeon of Thessalonica, in his book *On the Temple*, says that the heaven is designated by the bema itself—"the heaven through the holy bema"—and that we possess the altar as "another heaven." Whence Chrysostom, homil. 3 on Ephesians, writes that when the veils of the bema are drawn back and opened, then heaven itself is in a way opened: "When you see the double doors being drawn up, then imagine that the heaven is being parted from above and the angels are descending."
61. Silentarius then adds that a cross stood above the pole, which is the same as above the sphere or apple. D *Above it* *A cross shining, rising up.*
That by the crosses placed upon ciboria, either Christ hanging upon the cross or something similar was represented, is evident from those things which are handed down by Pope Nicholas I, ep. 2: "What is contrary to our faith in the fact that in the center of the vault, above the altar, our souls desire with affection its figure, [the figure of Him] who is the Word made flesh?" Where the word *affectando* is the same as *adorando* (worshipping): for he expressed indeed the relative, or affective, adoration of holy images, as Anastasius Bibliothecarius says in his *Hist. eccl.*; which we have proved in several notes on the *Alexiad* to be called *relative* by Greek writers, and which is defined thus in the opinions of the Holy Fathers, *On the Adoration of Images*: "It is also a relative and kissing [venerating] prostration, elicited from a friendly disposition and grateful appropriation, declaring goodwill to the beloved." By the word *desiderare* (to desire), the holy pontiff seems to hint at Christians and the faithful, while they gaze upon Jesus hanging on the cross above the altar in the ciborium, that they seek his most sacred body, which is preserved in it and under the cross, and desire its reception with affectionate longings. For the holy Fathers use the word *desiderare* for the most part in this notion where they treat of the sacrosanct sacraments, and especially of the sacrament of the Eucharist, as Tertullian *ad uxorem*, II, 4 and 6, St. Ambrose *De fratre suo* and *De sacrament.* I, IV, St. Eligius, hom. 8, and St. Zeno of Verona, *invitat.* VIII, *ad Fontem*. Whence in the Latin-Greek Glossary *desiderata* is explained as *leitourgia*, *teleth*, that is, the sacrosanct office of the mass, in which the body of Christ and the sacrament of the divine Eucharist are perfected, as Joseph Scaliger long ago observed in his *Epistolae*, p. 195, Casaubon in *Exercit.* 16 *ad Annal. Baron.* c. 45, Lacerda, in *Advers.* c. 136, n. 15, and others. Finally, the center in Nicolaus is nothing other than the upper part of the altar niche, which is curved and shaped into the likeness of a shell, and which Paulinus describes as shining with stars, representing the heavens, *Nat.* X: B *There is also in the inner bend of the greater hall* *An inserted chamber far off, as if a daughter of its summit,* *Spacious with a starry vault.*
For Symeon of Thessalonica said that the niche and the bema represent heaven, as was noted above. What we said concerning the cross placed upon the ciborium is furthermore confirmed by Anastasius in *Leo IV*: He built a sacred altar above, and a ciborium with a cross, etc. And from the same Paulinus, II, epigr. 2, where he describes the whole apparatus and ornament of the ciborium: *The venerated altars cover the divine covenant,* *And with the martyrs composed with the cross* *All the signs of the life-saving Christ come together,* *The cross, the body, the blood of the martyr, God himself.*
He has certain things consistent with these in epist. 12, *ad Severum*: *The Trinity shines in full mystery:* *Christ stands as a lamb, the voice of the Father thunders from heaven,* *And through the dove the Holy Spirit flows.* *A bright globe encircles the cross with a crown;* *To which crown are the crown of the apostles,* *Whose figure is in the choir of doves.* See the same below p. 155 and Honorius of Autun 4, 135. - by Silentiarius, part II, v. 203: *Above the golden immaculate table* *A vast tower rose up with a wide passage.* Nor is it called otherwise by Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople:
"The apse of the sanctuary is a displacement of the cross, and the towers are the signs; for this reason both are considered in relation to the person of those performing the sacred rites." A For I could scarcely agree with Goar, who thinks that the four columns of the ciborium are designated in this place, especially since the name "tower" among most Latin writers designates either a larger or a smaller ciborium. For they called the "smaller ciborium" that which was portable and fashioned in the likeness of the larger one, as we shall soon show; whereas the "larger" was what covered the altar. The Chronicle of the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel states: "In the year 1103, the larger ciborium of the church, which Roger had built, collapsed." And Paul the Deacon, *De Gestis Langobardorum*, III, 25, and Aimonius following him, *Hist. Franc.*, III, 3, record: "Of which gold the king himself later had a solid ciborium of wondrous size and great weight made, and decorated with many most precious gems, and wished to send it to the Lord’s sepulchre in Jerusalem." Therefore, by "tower," Fortunatus of Poitiers understood a ciborium, l. III, epigr. 23, which is inscribed to Bishop Felix, *On his tower*: "How well these joined gifts teach that the golden golden works bring forth/ The huge pearl of the consecrated body of the Lamb," etc. B And Flodoardus, *Hist. Rem.*, II, 6: "He also placed upon the altar of the church of St. Remigius a golden tower which he had had made according to his vow." Anastasius in *St. Innocentius PP.*: "A silver tower with a paten and a gilded dove, weighing thirty pounds." Finally, St. Remigius, in his testament, according to the same writer, I, 18: "To you, the heir of my above-mentioned church, I command a small tower and an image-adorned chalice to be made." That the sacramental Eucharist was accustomed to be stored for the infirm or as viaticum in these small towers is explicitly taught by Gregory of Tours, *De gloria mart.*, I, 86: "And having taken the tower in which the mystery of the Lord’s body was kept, the deacon began to carry it to the door; and having entered the temple to place it upon the altar, it slipped from his hand and was carried into the air." Although it may be doubted whether "tower" in these passages is understood to mean the tower of the ciborium which hung from a dove, or rather the pyxis itself or the ciborium, which the *Ordo Romanus* calls an *itinerarium*. For it is certain that not only the sacramental Eucharist but also sacred relics were stored in these small towers, or rather in small chests fashioned in the manner of small towers, so that they might in some way reflect the form of the larger ciboria in which the divine Eucharist hung; whence the Gr.-Lat. Glossary translates *purdiskárion* and *pyrgískon* as "small tower" and "shrine." Certainly, Leo of Ostia, I, 53 and III, 30, and Peter the Deacon, IV, 73, testify to relics stored in small towers. Regarding the sacred Eucharist reserved in gold or silver towers, the custom that still persists in our churches provides significant testimony, in which, on more solemn feasts, it is exposed for the people to see and adore in a more elevated place on the altar or tabernacle: but especially in those sacred edifices where it does not hang under a dove or from the upper part of a ciborium: for in those places the sacred Eucharist is nowhere else exposed C and explained. Indeed, it seems the origin of this current custom was taken from this, so that both the sacred Eucharist and the very vessels in which it is stored might be kept in secure places, lest they be exposed to theft. Whence, because the sacred Eucharist reserved in them is shown to the faithful on certain days, such sacred vessels are even now called *ostensoria* and *monstrantia*, especially in Germany and Belgium; in which provinces they are always fashioned in the shape of a tower, as they were formerly in our France; concerning which custom Gropper dealt in his books *De Eucharistia*, p. 450, and Fronto Ducaeus on Paulinus, p. 785; nay, and from there the *Chronicon aulæ regiæ*, c. 17, and the author of *Bohemia pia*, p. 99 and 105, attribute that name to the small towers in which sacred relics are stored. D 65. We have said that pyxides, which contained the sacred particles of the Eucharist reserved for viaticum, were stored in the form of a smaller ciborium. Indeed, Honorius of Autun observes in *De antiquo ritu missæ*, I, 61: "The oblation was not formerly consumed in its entirety by the priest celebrating the sacred rites, but was divided into three: one part cast into the chalice, another consumed by the priest, and the third placed in a pyxis for those dying as viaticum." That pyxis, or at least the small tower with the pyxis itself, is called a "smaller ciborium" and an *itinerarium* in the *Ordo Romanus*, in the chapter inscribed *Præfatio minoris vel itinerarii ciborii*. The following prayer follows the lemma: "Let us pray, dearly beloved, for the indulgence of Almighty God, that having put aside the admissions of human frailty, He may deign to consecrate through the Only-begotten Word, who is His power and wisdom, this repository prepared for sacred uses, in the spirit of sanctification." But what is called a "repository" in that Preface is called a "conditorium of sacred pledges" in the consecration which follows the Preface, and simply *conditorium* in this place: "then, with head bowed, the pontiff or deacon salutes the sacred things, so that if there should be an excess, he may command that it be placed in the *conditorium*." Furthermore, it is called a "smaller ciborium" and an *itinerarium* to distinguish it from the larger ciborium, which the same *Ordo Romanus* calls an *umbraculum altaris*: an *itinerarium*, that is, portable, just as below in the same place a "portable table" is mentioned, which we commonly call a "portable altar." This smaller ciborium is likewise called a "repository" in the testament of Perpetuus, Bishop of Tours, vol. V of the *Spicilegium Acherianum*, and the Greeks call it a *pyxíon*, as can be gathered from Pachymeres, lib. VII, and Nicholas, Bishop of Casula, in the *Typicon*; but later writers call it *pyxomēlon*, a word corrupted, as is fair to believe, from *pyxomēlon*, for which reason there are not wanting those who opine that *pyxomēlon* is the same as *artophórion*. That the sacred pyxis was hung above the altar is to be observed from Hugo of Flavigny in the *Chron. Virdun.*, part II: "One pyxis of onyx in which the Lord's body is kept, hanging over the altar." Leo of Ostia, *Chr. Casin.*, III, c. ult.: "A gold pyxis with enamels for the body of the Lord." And Leo IV PP. *De cura pastorali*: "Let nothing be placed upon the altar except a capsa with the relics of the saints."
A ...a pyxis with the Lord’s body for the viaticum for the sick. Indeed, Ratherius of Verona has these same words in his *Synodica* to the priests, except that for *pyxis* he uses *burida*; this latter word is also used by Paul the Deacon in his *Life of Saint Gregory the Great*, ch. 19. Now, these pyxides in which the holy Eucharist is carried to the sick are commanded to be made of ivory or to be ivory-covered, on account of the scratching, as specified in the synodal statutes of Odo, Bishop of Paris, ch. 5, no. 5, and ch. ult., no. 55; this seems to be understood not of the principal pyxis that hung from the dove, but of a smaller one, into which the holy Eucharist for carriage to the sick was poured from the larger one.
64. But now, as we have said that the Lord’s body was accustomed to be placed beneath a cross or beneath the figure of a cross in the ciborium, this is confirmed by the Second Council of Tours, canon 3, where it is ordained that the Lord’s body is not to be arranged on the altar in an imaginary order, but under the title of the cross; that is, not in the ciborium itself or, as we call it, the tabernacle—which is called "imaginary order"—or in a work of gold or silver elaborately wrought and adorned with various figures and images. Whence it is concluded that the most holy Eucharist for the viaticum hung beneath the cross, kept not in the ciborium itself but outside it in a pyxis; a practice observed even now in most of our churches, especially cathedral ones. The holy pyxis hung from a dove, by which, as is established, the Holy Spirit is represented among Christians. The synod of Constantinople, act 5, makes mention of such gold and silver doves hanging over altars or holy tables and even baptismal fonts; in this synod are contained the complaints of the clergy against Severus, who had carried off the doves of the altar and baptistery: "For he has made off with those gold and silver [doves] which were hanging above the divine fonts and altars, in the form of the Holy Spirit, saying that the Holy Spirit ought not to be named or represented in the form of a dove." These words are also found in the Seventh Synod, act 5. But even if it is not entirely certain from this passage that doves hung over the altars, still, such use in churches is gathered from other writers, mostly Latin, especially Paulinus, Epist. 12, to Severus, where he describes the whole altar arrangement:
And through the dove flows the Holy Spirit.
Moreover, from the testament of Bishop Perpetuus, which we mentioned, in which he gives and bequeaths to Amalarius the priest one common casket of silk, and also a *peristerium* and a silver dove for the reliquary. In which place *peristerium* seems to be synonymous with dove, for the Greek is *peristerion*, and also *peristeridion*, a small or lesser dove; unless it were a case in which the dove itself was contained. I know that certain *peristeria* are called *kosmaria* in Hesychius. Furthermore, Udalricus confirms this custom, *Consuet. Cluniac.* II, 30: "The deacon [carries] the aforesaid pyxis with the dove continually hanging above B the altar to be removed." And 1, 9: "But as for the hosts, when they have been consecrated, they are changed with those that are kept in the pyxis and the gold dove hanging continually above the altar, especially for the sake of the sick, so that whatever may happen, the viaticum may be ready." Finally, Anastasius makes mention of such doves hanging over altars in the *Life of Hilary* and *Saint Innocent*. From which it is abundantly gathered that the custom had prevailed in both the Eastern and Western Church, and that it is therefore highly probable that the Sophia ciborium had its own dove and pyxis.
65. But since the profane are barred from the sacred inmost shrines, and they are accessible only to the priests, it is permissible, for one who relates this level, to burst forth with the Silentiarius himself, part II, v. 338, in these words:
Whither am I carried! Whither does the unbridled myth wander? Hold, O daring voice, with sealed lip; Dare not again lay bare to eyes what it is not lawful for people to see. But those who have been initiated into the mysteries, with their hands, since [this] spectacle demands it, Having spread out a veil dyed with Sidonian Phoenician shellfish, You have roofed the back of the table, And for the four sides, having spread the silver covers From above, you have shown to the unnumbered people Enough gold, etc.
I say that both the altars and whatever is contained within the sacred veils—or the Holy of Holies—are opened only to priests. For those things within the veil are called ἁγία ἁγίων, as it is in the manuscript *Lexicon* of the Royal codex 2062. For as Cyril of Alexandria says, *De Adorat.* 3, C "The altar and those things within the veil have been entrusted to the priests, to whom it is proper they should be spoken of, and they shall guard their priesthood." I would judge that these words ought to be understood of the veils which were spread out to the four columns of the ciborium, which the Silentiarius treats of in this place, which were accustomed to be spread on the four sides of the ciborium, so that the whole place of the sacred inmost shrines, in which the Holy of Holies is performed, might be enclosed on all sides, so that it might not lie open to the profane rabble or the common people; for, as Gregoras says, *Hist.* X, "The chambers of the kings, and all things sacred and precious to humans, are covered by veils from one thing to another, so that they may not be exposed to unholy crowds to be debased or D despised through the facility and ease of their apprehension." Symeon of Thessalonica reveals this concerning the sacred altars in his book *De Templo*: "And the altar is covered and adorned with coverings, because even the things within it are difficult to behold and not to be taken by all." And elsewhere: "And the [veil] of the altar represents the heavenly tabernacle concerning God, where there is the rest of the angels." And shortly after, he sufficiently reveals that these veils are spread to the four sides of the altar: "The holy table has four parts of cloth for the four corners, etc." Anastasius the Librarian in *Paschali PP.*: "He also made four red silk veils in the circuit of the altar with *gammadii*." The same in *Leone III*: "He also made other white veils of holoseric silk in the circuit of the altar, four in number, which hang from the arch of the ciborium."
A B Add page 142 and 165. William the Librarian in *Stephen VI*, p. 371: "Of Patriarch Nicetas sitting and watching in the synthronus." Scylitzes in *Constantine*: "A disturbance occurred on the day of Pentecost because of the seat during the liturgy, since the metropolitans would not allow the syncelli to sit in the synthronus." The *Greek Euchologium* also mentions [synthronus] in this sense, where it treats of the ordination of a bishop; Pachymeres, VII, 31, Symeon of Thessalonica, and others do as well. And that name is rightly bestowed, because it was one and the same structure of seats which encompassed the recess of the apse, so that all the ministers of the church might sit in them at once and together. Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.* X, 4: "And here also, having completed the temple, he adorned it with chairs in the highest places for the honor of the presiding clergy, and furthermore with benches in order, as was fitting for the whole." And Constantine Porphyrogenitus in *Basil*, c. 55: "The seats within (the sanctuary) and the steps before them, and the very holy tables themselves, have all the gold poured over them from silver." From the place, therefore, in which the synthronus consisted—namely the conch, which some Latin writers also call the *absida*—the seating of the church ministers in the conch is likewise called an *absida*, or at any rate the episcopal or patriarchal seat itself. Indeed, in an old Glossary it is said that the *absida* is the seat of the bishops, just as in Papias, in whom these things are found: "*exedra absida*, that is, the place of the seats." Nor does Saint Augustine seem to have used it in any other significance (Epist. 225): "I returned to our seats, the crowd having been left; I was saying to those whom I could, who had ascended to us into the *absida*, those of higher rank." The same, Epist. 203: "In the future judgment of Christ, neither graduated *absidae* nor covered cathedrae will be used for defense." From which it is clear why the Synod of Sardica, can. 10, stated: *εἰς τὴν ἀψίδα τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς διαβῆναι*, for "to arrive at the episcopal dignity or throne," since bishops used to sit in the *absidae* or conchs on higher and graduated seats. And these were covered not only with precious veils and curtains, as is in the same Augustine, but were also higher than the seats of the other ministers of the church, as Eusebius hints in the cited passage, and it is read as a canon in the 4th Synod of Carthage, can. 35, that the bishop in church and in the assembly of presbyters should sit in a more elevated place. This custom was observed in Christian churches, and furthermore touched upon by Urban I in epist. c. 4; Saint Ambrose in the book *De dignitate sacerd.* c. 6; Saint Augustine in *Psalm* cxxvi; Amalarius, *De reb. eccl.* I, 10; and Honorius of Autun I, 45 and 13. But C especially the episcopal or patriarchal cathedra is bestowed with the word *thronos* everywhere among the Byzantine writers. The Anonymous author, *De locis Hierosol.* c. 3, describing the bema of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: "The throne of the patriarch is there." And hence it has come about that churches are called by the name of the throne—the highest pinnacle of dignity—and they are called *throni* in which the patriarchs and bishops presided, just as... D 66. But before we leave the conch and describe the *synthronus* which existed in it, it is appropriate to do so. For the middle of the conch was encompassed on both sides by the seats of the priests and ministers of the church performing the sacred rites, and in them the seat of the patriarch and a more elevated throne, so that they converged toward the nearest center. Silentiarius, part 1, v. 229: "The middle girded itself with seats for the initiates, And tiers running in a circuit; and that which is after it, Gathering under the foot-stool, it draws together Nearer about the center upon the floor." The Anonymous author reports that these seats consisted of only seven—I do not know if truly—in which the priests ministering to the patriarch as he performed the sacred rites were accustomed to sit with him: "He gilded the seven bases of the priests in which they sit, together with the throne of the high priest and the four columns, setting them on either side." This series of seats in the conch the Greeks call the *synthronus*.
A It is the custom for seats to be called by the Latin term. Now, regarding the deepest recess of the central conch, since it was surrounded on either side and in every direction by benches—thrones of the patriarchs and bishops, which Silentiarius calls *mystipolous thokous* or priestly seats—they appear to have existed on the right side of the altar. Scylitzes says in his *Stratioticus* regarding the patriarch: "For as soon as he had descended, those of the crowd took hold of him, and having brought a throne, they sat him upon the right side of the holy sanctuary." The *Ordo Romanus* also indicates this: "Finally, the bishop kisses the Gospel and the altar, and proceeds to the right side of the altar to his seat." Furthermore, one may observe this from Marcellinus Comes, when he recounts that John, the Roman pontiff, on having arrived at Constantinople in the year 525, was received with wondrous honor by the Emperor Justinian, and had sat upon the right throne of the church, "and celebrated the day of our Lord’s resurrection with a full voice in the Roman prayers." By these words Marcellinus implies that John had taken precedence in the assembly of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and had sat at his right. B But Goar places the patriarchal throne in the middle and deepest recess of the conch, which the episcopal benches, or *subsellia* (benches) of those who attend to the sacred rites, surround on either side. He adds, moreover, that Christ is customarily depicted above that throne, with hands crossed in the shape of a cross upon a table placed before him, the right holding the sacred bread, the left grasping the cross—and here and there, and on the sides, above the seats of the bishops and priests, the effigies of the twelve apostles are delineated, just as they are still to be seen today in the basilicas of Saint Paul and the Savior in Rome. Whence it becomes clear that Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, was referring to this when he said the *bema* is the throne "on which Christ, the King of all, sits with his apostles," as is also the case with Symeon of Thessalonica in his book *De Templo*: "Sitting upon the *synthronus*, imitating Christ, he has as fellow-sitters the bishops and priests, who imitate the apostles." And from his book *De Sacramentis*: "The upper seat shows the super-celestial seat of Jesus, and the steps beneath it show the order and ascent of each of the hierarchs and priests, where it is not permitted for anyone else to sit, nor [even] for their deacons." The same author says in other words in his book *De Templo*: "Through the holy *synthronus*, [it signifies] the Word who was incarnate and sits at the right hand of the Father in the heavens, and through the steps, the order and ascent of each of the ordained men and of the angels."
67. I have said that there were two smaller recesses, or rather two larger conches, adjacent to the place where the holy table stood, one to the right and north, the other to the left and south of the altar. If I am not mistaken, Silentiarius (Part I, v. 236) describes these conches adjacent to the larger one. For when he had said that the middle and larger conch contained the priests' benches arranged in a circle, he adds that it admits (on either side) another arch, resting on solid foundations, drawn in straight lines at the bottom, but curved above in the shape of a half-cylinder, D which, as they rise from the ground being much narrower than the larger one, form the shape of a half-cylinder until they are sinuous above. Procopius also attributes this shape to the larger conch, although it more properly belongs to the smaller ones. Silentiarius soon adds that the conch—the eastern one, that is—extends two other conches on either side, proceeding toward the west, as if it were extending its arms to receive the clergy and the chanters. Regarding these smaller conches, Silentiarius says:
The one which follows, supported by strong foundations, Is linear in its base, but above it is a circular arch, In its shape not like a sphere, but a cylinder Divided in two.
Of these conches, the one which Symeon of Thessalonica places on the right the Greeks call *prothesis* (πρόθεσις), as if you were to say "proposal" or "table of proposal," taking the name from the ceremony performed in it. For in it, says Allatius, the priest before the mass, and those serving with him, prepare all things necessary for completing the holy rite, such as bread, wine, and other items, after which they retire to the holy table where the holy liturgy begins. In Pachymeres (I, 19) it is called the *conche of the prothesis* (κόγχη τῆς προθέσεως). Paulinus calls both conches *secretarium*, and describes the use of the former, or *prothesis*, in this way:
This is the venerable sanctuary where is stored, and from which Is brought forth the life-giving pomp of the holy ministry.
C And in Epistle 12 to Severus, in the passage cited above, while speaking of these two conches, he says: "One of them is open to the one offering the sacrifices of jubilation." Where I would judge that for "open" (patet) one should read "prepares" (*parat*): for the priest does not offer the sacrifices in this conch, but in the middle and larger conch; rather, the *prothesis* prepares or makes ready the sacrifices of jubilation for the priest who is offering, or rather, about to offer. For since in either conch the things necessary for performing the holy liturgy—and thus in the *prothesis* the host and wine, and in the *diaconicon* (the vestry) the garments, books, vessels, and ecclesiastical utensils—are prepared, these two conches are called *paratoria* in the *Ordo Romanus*. The subdeacon receives the chalice as he follows and gives it to the acolyte, and he carries it into the *paratorium*, that is, to the *prothesis*, where the chalices and other vessels were stored for the use of the sacrifice, which can be abundantly proven from the holy liturgies.
68. The other conch, which is set to the left or south of the altar, the same *Ordo Romanus* calls by the same name, *paratorium*: "The book is stored in a certain *paratorium* or *secretarium*." It was observed above that Paulinus called the conches adjacent to the larger one *secretaria*. Therefore, the *paratorium* is the same as the *secretarium*. That ecclesiastical books were stored in this conch is taught by the same Paulinus, while he describes its use thus:
If the holy desire to meditate on the law holds anyone, He will be able, sitting here, to attend to the holy books.
For in that conch the sacred readings were performed, s-
A ceret, which is that part of the bema properly permitted to deacons, as those who for the sake of the office and for the necessity of standing in them had to attend to both concs—namely, the prothesis and the diaconicum. For Symeon of Thessalonica, in his book *On the Temple*, says that no one is permitted to sit in the holy throne except priests, and not even the deacons themselves, to whom another place is attributed, which is accordingly called the *diaconicum*, where it is not forbidden for them to sit—namely, the place so called in which it is permitted for them to sit. I do not know if the manuscript Greek Lexicon which exists in the Royal Library, codex 2062, favors this view, where it says that the *diaconicum* is the veil, as it were, of the altar—that is, the whole space of the bema which lies outside the altar curtains is the *diaconicum*, and because it was permitted for them to stand and move about in it by reason of their function, but not to enter the sanctuary, just as the subdeacons were permitted the same spaces of the bema; whereas subdeacons and readers stood in the solea outside the chancel of the bema, as the same Thessalonican teaches. And from this it is gathered what Canon 21 of the Synod of Laodicea establishes, when it says that it is not permitted for subdeacons to stand within the chancel of the bema: "Ministers ought not to have a place in the B *diaconicum*," for that was permitted only to deacons.
It is fair to believe that this canon is to be understood in this way, even if Balsamon and Zonaras have interpreted *diaconicum* as the office of a deacon. The former opinion is certainly favored by Isidore Mercator, who translates *diaconicum* as "secretarium": "The *secretarium*, he says, which the Greeks call *diaconicum*," which is held in the same words in the Council of Agde, Canon 66; so that by "secretarium" he understood the conch which the Greeks call *diaconicum*, which took its name from the deacons ministering in it, as we have observed. For it is hardly likely that *diaconicum* should be taken to mean an exedra outside the church, since it would be lawful for any ministers of the church to stand in it, and all the clergy would proceed from it to the altar. Now, as to the fact that in the Council of Arles II under Pope Siricius, Canon 15, deacons are forbidden to sit among the presbyters in the *secretarium*, this seems to be understood either of the greater *diaconicum*—the *secretarium* or vestiary—into which priests or bishops would withdraw when about to deliberate on ecclesiastical affairs, and, to use the words of Sulpicius Severus, when they were either at leisure for greetings or occupied in hearing petitions, they would sit there; or, rather, of the lesser *diaconicum*, that is, the conch which the Greeks call *diaconicum*. For in this *diaconicum*, when priests about to celebrate the sacred rites put on their sacred vestments or perform other things related to the sacred liturgy, the deacons are forbidden to sit with them, on account of the reverence C they owe to the priestly character.
69. Beyond this, other conchs arise, two on each side of the wall or partition, which Silentiarius says progress toward the west. Each one of them is supported by two Egyptian porphyry columns, which they call Roman, and [which were] from the widow Marcia
A breasts, which separate the sanctuary from the rest of the nave. After the shells were elevated and the great columns set in place, he was to set the Roman columns with them; but they did not do so, but rather set them into the four shells. B For two other columns of the shells, he projects, creeping toward the west, as if stretching out arms folded around to embrace the much-hymned people in his own houses. These, indeed, they lighten with golden crowns; spotted, shining with purple wool, the columns, standing round in the semicircle of the circle, bear a tremendous weight, which the well-greaved women of Nile-flowing Thebes once brought forth.
To this end, therefore, these four shells were fashioned, to receive the people singing, C that is, as I interpret it, the clergy and the chanters, who, while the liturgy of the Mass was being performed, either sang antiphonally with or responded to the priest celebrating the holy rites at the altar. For in the choir and the nave, the rest of the prayers and, as they are called, the ecclesiastical hours, were chanted. Soon he adds that six other Thessalian [columns] are placed upon the pairs of porphyry columns, by which the final part of the gynaeceum or the upper porticoes rises, which are disposed in such a way that two pairs lean upon them; and therefore two, which consist in the middle, appear to stand in empty air and to be supported by no foundation. Silentiarius mentions these Egyptian porphyry columns again in Part II, v. 34.
70. The bema, or this part of the church devoted solely to the priests, is separated from the nave or choir by a screen adorned with columns, cancelli, architraves, and images, so that access to it may not lie open to just anyone, as Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople says. Theophanes Cerameus, in a homily on the church of Saint Peter in the palace: D That screen or holy chancellus is called by Nicephorus Callistus, John Cantacuzenus, and others passim. Porphyrogenitus in *Basil*, c. 55: It is called [a screen] by Cyril of Scythopolis in *Life of Saint Euthymius*; in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon; and by the author of the *Life of Saint Sabas*; by Silentiarius, or by Sozomen, VII, 27. The royal manuscript of the Greek Glossary: In another place it calls [it] the screen or sacred chancellus. Finally, these cancelli are called [this] by Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, who further observes that they were for the most part cast of bronze; such were the cancelli of Leo of Ostia, *Chronicle of Monte Cassino*, II, 33: He also made cast bronze cancelli before the altar, namely, to be set between the choir and the sanctuary. It has stone cancelli (c. seq.), and silver ones [mentioned by] Anastasius in *Saint Sylvester* and other places, as also Cyprian in *Life of Saint Caesarius of Arles*; such were the cancelli of the bema in the Church of Sophia, the elegance of which was such that there was nothing of ivory or marble or bronze in them, but the whole screen, or whatever separates the bema from the nave, was entirely overlaid with silver. Silentiarius, Part II, v. 265. From which it is also understood that the cancelli of the Sophian bema existed under the eastern arch, which supports the hemisphere. And those screens of the bema did not consist of single cancelli or panels, which Silentiarius calls *plakas*, but twelve columns especially rose up in them, likewise covered with silver, which were so disposed that they joined together in pairs. The same Silentiarius, Part II, v. 269. Joined to these were various circular tablets, on which were depicted in sculptural work images of Christ, the angels, the prophets, the apostles, and the Deipara (Mother of God). In the middle, however, on a similarly round tablet, were depicted in the same sculptural work the monograms of Justinian and Theodora, together with the figure of the cross. Silentiarius, v. 295. I have spoken of the monogram in my *Anna Alexiad*.
71. Entrance from the nave into the bema was open through three doors, which were opened in the cancelli, the middle being huge or larger, the others of lesser size on either side, and, to use the words of Paulinus, *Natali* 10, "And a triple door opens through the running cancelli." The same Silentiarius, v. 300. The Greek writers generally call such doors of the bema *hagia thyra* (holy doors), Pachymeres, 4, 25, and others. The author of the narrative concerning the affairs of Armenia, edited by Combefis, reports that the Armenians, who had agreed to the Constantinopolitan Council, which they call the Fifth, [spoke] of one of these [as] the "Armenian door" from the name of their...
A sacred railings and the so-called *soleæ* placed before the divine sanctuary; where those writers mention *soleæ* in quite a large number, although the *solea* was not proper to the church of Hagia Sophia alone, but all sacred churches had their own *soleæ*. And this is sufficiently gathered, moreover, from Leo Grammaticus (pp. 450 and 451), where he makes mention of the *soleæ* of the churches of Blachernae and St. Mocius. But what part of the temple this is, the more learned scholars doubt and do not agree among themselves; yet above others, Leo Allatius instituted a most learned and brilliant dissertation on this matter in his *Symmikta*, Book I, where, having discussed the opinions of writers, he established his own, saying that the *solea* was the base, the supports, and the lower parts of the railed structure, which are accustomed to be made solid; from which, he says, it happened later that that space which was poured out before the *solea* itself began to be called the *solea*. And the Greek manuscript Lexicon in the Royal Library (cod. 2062) seems to favor this opinion: "Kigklis: the railing of the court, or the *solea*," or as another Lexicon has it, which is inscribed *Stephanos Lexeon* (cod. 1688), "or the *soleia* of the sanctuary," so that the railing and the *solea* appear to be one thing. But although it is certain that the space which was opposite the railings of the sanctuary was called the *solea*, it did not for that reason take its name from that sole or base of the railings, but rather from the floor or more elevated pavement which stood higher in this place. Whence Menard on the *Sacramentary* of Gregory and Goar on the *Euchologion* rightly said in more than one place that the *solea* is an elevated pavement of the church, which is before the doors of the sanctuary, between the choir and the sanctuary, in which is the altar; of which sort it seems to be described by Leo of Ostia (III, 27): "But that thing especially which is next to the altar and in the choir, he distinguished with those steps by which one ascends to the same altar, using a decent variety of veneers of precious marbles." This is indeed argued not only by a similar, somewhat higher pavement, which is likewise seen in these places in our own churches, but also by the Graeco-barbarous words *ο σολέας, σολεῖος, ἡ σολέα, & soléas* and *ή σωλία*, which Byzantine writers use everywhere, who had undoubtedly imbibed them either from the Latins of a later age or from the Italians, with whom they always had great commerce. Indeed, among the Italians, whatever rises somewhat above the pavement is called *solea*, as among the Franks it is called *seuil* or *solium*: whence first we call the step of a door or the threshold of a house *le seuil de la porte*, namely, the first and lower beam, upon which the whole wooden structure rests, and which one who wishes to enter a house is bound to cross; which beam is indeed called *seule* in the municipal custom of Orléans (art. 377), and of Nevers (chap. 26, arts. 8 and 11), *soulier* in that same Nevers (chap. 10), as *sogliare* in Florence; *sol* in Reims (art. 238), *soline* in Amiens (art. 198). But also among the more recent Greeks, the Lexicon already lauded teaches that *σωλεία* of any houses was a part: "*Solia*: space; but *soleia* is that of a house," namely, the threshold: for it is for the Cruscan academicians *soglia pietra o scalone, dove posano gli stipiti*.
72. But the holy doors, when they were cancellated, were for the most part covered with veils, so that the sacred rites performed at the altars might not be seen by just anyone. Such doors are called *clatratæ* and *cancellatæ* (railed doors) by the Anonymous, but the veils are called *theia parapetasmata* by St. Dionysius in his *Epistle to Demophilus*, *amphi-thyra* by Chrysostom (Sermon 3 on the Epistle to the Ephesians), Theophylact Simocatta (V, 14), and Evagrius (VI, 20), as if "doors of the veil." Later Greeks called these doors *bēlo-thyra* (barbarous word), which the scholiast of Aristophanes uses in *The Frogs*, and Codinus in *De Officiis*. Whence *bēlo-thyron* is formed in the *Euchologion* and in Malaxos, even if this later word seems to be called as it were the "door of the sanctuary" (*bēmatos thyrion*). But William the Librarian, in *Stephen VI*, seems to use this word for any veil, even that of an altar: "He also made in the same basilica four *belothera*, one of which was woven with gold." And below: "He contributed three silk *belothera* in the circuit of the altar." Concerning *velothyra*, thus Paulinus (*Nat. VI*): "Yet others bring precious gifts, and may they / Excel at the expense of the service, who bring / Beautiful veils for the doors to be covered, etc." And Epiphanius in his *epistle to John of Jerusalem*: "I found there a veil hanging in the doors of the church." Finally, in the Council of Narbonne (a. 589, can. 13), junior clerics are ordered to raise the veils for the seniors at the doors. But before we leave from the railings of the *bema*, it must be observed that this whole part of the sacred building, enclosed by railings, is commonly called by our own people *cancellum* (*le chancel*). Hugo Plagou, in the French version of William of Tyre (ms.), [writes]: *Li patriarche prit le califfre, et l'enmena el cuer et el chanciel, pour bien voir apertement le sacrement*.
73. To those going out from the *bema* through the railings, the *solea* first occurs. Symeon of Thessalonica (*Dial. de Sacramentis*): "An entrance is made into the *solea* from the *bema*." The *Euchologion* in the ordination of a deacon: "Two deacons having gone out from the holy *bema* take the deacon about to be ordained, standing in the *solea*." For the *solea* was next to the sacred railings, as is gathered from Cantacuzenus (I, 41), writing that the emperor "passing through the *solea* finds the patriarch at the holy doors," and Codinus intimates that the *solea* existed between the ambo and the *bema*, when he says that the emperor descends from the ambo, not from that part which [faces] the "beautiful doors," but from the other which faces the *solea* and the holy *bema*. Whence it is evident that the *solea* was near to the sacred railings and to the *bema* itself, since both the *solea* and the railings separated the *bema* itself from the nave. For Theodore the Studite seems to write this: "The columns, and those called *solioi*, which wall off the venerable sanctuary." Thus also Nicephorus, Patriarch of CP, in his *Antirrhetica* II (c. 45), where he joins the *solea* with the railings: "What then would they say about those things in the B C D
doorway. Therefore, if I guess correctly, *solea* will be the same as the threshold, and *soleæ* the same as thresholds; a term which writers use commonly when they speak of sacred buildings, or of those who set out to those very sacred buildings for the sake of a vow. Paulinus, *Nat.* 9:
*Would that they might celebrate these joys with healthy vows,* *Nor mix their own cups with the sacred thresholds.* A
And below: *Creeping upon the thresholds.* *Yield to the sacred ones.*
Hence the familiar formula of speaking, to set out to the thresholds of the saints or to visit them, when writers make mention of those who undertake pilgrimages to their tombs or memorials. For since the relics and bodies of the saints were stored within the apses or *bemata* in the Confessions, that is, under the altars, the faithful used to stand in the thresholds or in the *soleæ* of the *bema*, and there fulfill their prayers and vows. Pope Nicholas I, Epistle 8: "So many thousands of men from all the ends of the earth hasten daily to the protection and intercession B of the Prince of the Apostles, Peter, and propose to remain until the end of their lives at his thresholds." It is used thus commonly in Victor III, Book III of the *Dialogues*, Leo Ostiensis II, 49, Peter the Deacon, *Chronicon Casinense* IV, 92, and others; in which places the word "thresholds" is taken for the sacred building itself, that is, a part for the whole. Although there are some who contend that "thresholds" should be understood as the very first portico of the building, and thus as the doors themselves, in which the pilgrims would stop, when they would pursue their veneration of the martyrs themselves in such a way that they would fear to enter the building sacred to them. Paulinus, *Nat.* 6:
*But he who was the cause of so great a service* *To the Lord, standing in the middle of the thresholds,* *Weeping again, but now with the joy due to the Saint,* *Offers his vows.*
But sometimes they would even kiss the doorposts themselves: whence in Chrysostom, Homily 3 on the Epistle to the Corinthians, *προθῦρα τοῦ ναοῦ φιλεῖν*; in Arator, Book II of his *Historia Sacra*, and Paulinus, *Nat.* VI, to press kisses upon the doorposts; in Prudentius, *Hymn* 2 and 11, to kiss the thresholds of the apostles and martyrs; finally in Gregory of Tours, *De Mirac. Sancti Martini*, IV, 14, to kiss the threshold of St. Martin. Paulinus, in the passage cited:
*He is stretched out before the doors, and presses kisses on the posts,* *And with his tears he waters all the ground, for the holy threshold,* *Poured out upon the earth.*
For just as those who are excommunicated and are kept from the entrance of the church are said to be separated from the thresholds of the church in Leo Ostiensis, III, 43, Peter the Deacon, books IV, 32, 57, 88, 94, 109, and others passim, so pilgrims, for the sake of humility and greater veneration, and in the manner of penitents, used to stand on the thresholds themselves, as those who deemed themselves unworthy to enter the building itself. However the matter may be, it is also not far from the truth that the pilgrims themselves fulfilled their vows in the thresholds or *soleæ* of the *bema*, which Anastasius in *St. Adrian* calls *liminaria* C of the Pope, p. 117: in like manner, and in the lower threshold of the confession of the apostle himself, Lib. XXV. Peter the Deacon, IV, 93, also calls the *liminare* by the same notion, which Anastasius, pp. 152, 156, 173, 177, calls the vestibule of the altar and of the confession; of the entrance of which vestibule he makes mention besides on pp. 133, 134, 140, 141, 161. But that which is called a *liminare*, the *Ordo Romanus* seems to call a *ruga*, narrating how the pontiff, once the sacred liturgy is finished, returns to the D *secretarium*, where he adds these things: "Then seven candle-bearers precede the pontiff, and the *subdiaconus regionarius* with the censer to the *secretarium*: after them the *bajuli*, after them the candle-bearers, after whom the acolytes who tend the *ruga*, after them the cross-bearers outside the *presbyterium*, then the junior *mansionarii*; and he enters the *secretarium*." Nor is this word to be understood in a different signification in Anastasius the Librarian in the *Lives of the Pontiffs*, where it occurs frequently, whatever Caesar Bullinger may protest. In Stephen IV: "He also made regularized silver [plates] above the *rugas*, through which they enter to the altar." In St. Adrian: "In the same basilica from the entrance [he] adorned the *rugas* up to the confession with purest silver." In Leo III: "He also built a major altar under the apse, whose face and confession or *rugas* he bedecked with purest silver for the decoration of that same altar." In Paschal: "He built his sacred confession most nobly inside and outside with its little *ruguli*." And p. 150: "Finally he handsomely adorned and decorated his confession, surrounding it inside and outside with its little *ruguli*." Elsewhere, however, he shows not once that these *rugas* were in the entrance of the *presbyterium*, that is, the *bema*. In St. Paul: "He also made *rugas* in the church of the Blessed Peter the apostle in the *presbyterium* where people enter, which he adorned on both sides, right and left, with purest silver." In another place: "He also made six images adorned with silver plates, from which he placed three above the *rugas* which are in the entrance of the church of the *presbyterium*." Again: "He made at the same time silver *rugas* weighing down the entrance of the *presbyterium*, etc." Since therefore, as the *Ordo Romanus* has it, the acolytes guarded the *ruga*, and it was not lawful for them to enter the *sacrarium*, it is sufficiently proven that the *ruga* was outside the *sacrarium* and thus near to it. The *ruga*, in truth, sounds the same as our *rue* or *platea* [street]: for thus this word is used in William of Tyre, XI, 25, and in a Bull of Pope Alexander of the year 1165. In the *Pastorale* of the Church of Paris, Book XIX, parchment 17: "As far as the place which is called Tudella, in the *ruga* of the same St. Germain." Thus Papias likewise seems to accept *ruga*: *rugæ, romæ, simitulæ*. Where it should be read *ruma*; for he expressed the Greek word *ῥύμη*. Gloss of St. Benedict, *ruga ῥύμη*. For also in this place *ruga* is perhaps accepted for *platea* [street], for *ῥύμη* for the Greeks does not only sound the wrinkle of the forehead, but also a street. Hesychius: "*Ἄμφοδα* are *ῥύμαι*, streets, thoroughfares." *Lexicon Graec.* ms. in the Royal library cod. 930: "*ἄμφοδον ῥύμη, ἄμφοδον δίοδος, ῥύμη*." In which places it should be read *ῥύμη* and *ῥύμην*. But also H. Stephanus derives the French word *rue* from *ῥύμη*. He correctly [derives] *rugam*...
A also, from which were once made very precious garments—an author for this is Pliny, XXXVI, 7 and 8. Latin Gloss. MS in the Royal Library, codex 1013: *Onychinum*, a kind of metal; *onyx*, a kind of marble. Lucan, on the palace of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, in which Julius Caesar was received with royal splendor after the Pharsalian battle, book X: "And the whole onyx, poured out into the hall, was trodden underfoot." And Martial, bk 1, epigram 50: "And the onyx, trodden under your foot, shines."
But also Paul the Silentiary, among the varied marbles and opulent stones in which the Sophian temple shone everywhere, enumerates the onyx, part II, v. 223: "As much as the onyx has brought forth in shimmering metal, Pale-gold and precious." As also Statius: "Here Libyan and Phrygian stone, here hard Laconian Rocks grow green, here the streaked onyx and the vein matching the deep Sea." And elsewhere: "The onyx mourns from afar, and, excluded, the ophite complains."
When, however, the sacred cancelli closed off the temple itself at the furthest parts of the pillars or supports that were nearest to the bema on the east, that space which filled the breadth of those pillars formed the *solea*, as I opine, until it was joined to the ambo which was raised in like manner within the other extremity of the pillars toward the east. For the pillars are wider on the side that faces the inner part of the temple.
So that I may return to the *solea*, that part of the temple in the common and accepted mode of speaking was called *bema* B, that is, in which the readers stood. For when access to the sacred bema—being more elevated than the other parts of the church—was open only to the priests and the ministering deacons, the subdeacons and readers stood outside the cancelli in the *solea*, which was equally elevated; whence it was called their *bema*, after the manner of the sacred bema in which the priests stood. Symeon of Thessalonica supports this: "The subdeacons and readers must sit outside the bema, towards the *solea*, which is indeed also called the *bema* of the readers." Although there are those who think the *solea* was called the readers' *bema* because it was in a way subordinate to the ambo, to which Sozomenus explicitly attributes that appellation, IX, 2: "I suppose it to lie around the ambo, being the *bema* of the readers." And Socrates says no differently, 1. VI, where he writes that he C preached to the people for the most part from the ambo, "whence he was accustomed to speak before." In the Council of Laodicea, can. 15, canon singers are said to ascend to the ambo; and in the Sacramentary of Saint Gregory: "The reader ascends to the ambo, proclaiming," etc. Finally, thus Saint Cyprian, ep. 34, says the reader is placed upon the pulpitum, that is, upon the tribunal of the church, to have read the precepts and the Gospel of the Lord. They report that Justinian constructed the Sophian *solea*, as well as the ambo, of onychite stone, *ἐξ ὀνυχίτου λίθου*, both of which they narrate were shattered by the fall of the dome, among whom is Cedrenus. Anonymus describes it as much more precious: "He made the ambo with the *solea* with *sardonyches*, inserting also precious stones, with columns of solid gold and pearls and shields and sapphires." Nor does it forbid the foundation or pavement, which is trodden by feet, from having been paved with onychite stone, since onyx is a species of marble, which D others also call alabastrites.
74. Concerning the Sophian ambo to the east and toward the middle part of the church, Silentiarius establishes in his description: "There is a tower, of wide passage in the very midst of the hall, Delicate to behold and inclined rather toward the East, Distinguished by the unadulterated customs of books."
To the east and in sight of the bema, an ambo is likewise established by Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople: "The ambo stands before the door of the bema," as also by Symeon of Thessalonica, in his book *De templo*: "The ambo, that which is before the bema," etc. In another place: "The place is [the one] located opposite the most holy bema, which has been defined toward the east, and of the ambo." But the ambo was built in such a way that one part looked toward the *solea* and the *bema*, the other toward the *naos* and the *Beautiful* gates, with the *solea* intervening between the *bema* and the ambo: this is explicitly gathered from the passages just cited, where we treated of the *solea*. But the part of the ambo that faces the *bema* seems to be called the "right" side by Nicetas the Paphlagonian in the *Life of Ignatius*, Patriarch of Constantinople, where he narrates the dream of Bardas Caesar: "And when we were near the ambo, there were seen two tall and grave men, having the appearance of cubicularii, of whom one, taking the king as a prisoner and dragging him to the right, pushed him out of the *solea*, judging him as guilty," etc. Cedrenus, narrating the same dream: "Who, guiding him, lead him to the cancelli of the sanctuary." Another al-
- [alt-version omitted] ternative interpretation is of that part of the ambo, which, namely, looked toward the *naos* and the pronaos or narthex, which Alexius Aristenus calls A *opisthambonos* in canon 21 of Ancyra. And thence arose the name in Greek for that prayer which, after the sacred liturgy is performed by the priest officiating at the ambo, is recited to the people—as it is in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom; which prayer is, indeed, a certain compendium of all the prayers which are said in the sanctuary, and is uttered by the priest himself, so that the people may at last understand what was the aim and end of those petitions which had been made in the inner sanctum up to that point, as Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople indicates in express words; a prayer of this kind was almost the *Oratio ad complendum*, or the final Collect of the Mass, concerning which they who have written about the rites of the Church speak frequently. The priest, therefore, about to recite this prayer, goes out from the bema and ascends the ambo from the eastern entrance, and turns toward the people facing the west, which part of the ambo is the rear and left side, with respect to the bema. Whence, since Balsamon in canon 12 of the Council of Nicaea says that those who defect from the faith ought to stand for three years outside the church behind the ambo and go out with the catechumens, these things B are to be understood in such a way that they be understood to be within the precincts of the church or temple, just as the catechumens: for just as these, before the Gospel is read, enter the holy building and listen to the sacred readings and homilies, so those others stand, as Symeon of Thessalonica says, that is, in the part where the ambo is seen to be behind and to the left of the bema, though they are assigned a station for themselves in the lower part of the building, which is joined to the narthex; they stand in the church, and when the mass of the catechumens is finished, they go out with them and betake themselves into the narthexes or porches. And this is the genuine meaning of the words of Balsamon, which have exercised most learned men in vain.
75. To ascend to the upper parts of the ambo, there was a double entrance or steps, or a staircase or spiral [staircase], namely from the east and from the west, as in other ambos. Ugutio Pisanus, manuscript: "Ambo: a pulpit, where there are steps on both sides; which steps or entrances are called steps of ascent and descent," says Anastasius the Librarian in *Silvester Papa*, p. 17. Paulus Silentiarius: "A level base, with twin pathways of the ambo, Of which one ever stretches toward the night, the other toward the dawn." The Emperor descends from the ambo, not, however, from the side by which he ascended, that is to say, from the one looking toward the *oraiae pylae* (Beautiful Gates), but from the other, toward the *solea* and the holy C [sanctuary]. "He entered as far as the holy doors, and turning around, ascended three steps of the ambo." For, "They are opposed to one another, but both lead to the same space, circling in equal measure." Of this double ascent, Cantacuzenus also makes mention, 1, 41; and from him Codinus, *De officiis*, c. 17, of which [ascents] he declares one to be facing the *oraiae pylae*, the other the *solea* and *bema*. Leo Grammaticus remembers the ascent to the east, p. 466. D From these, it is further constructed that the ambo stood between the *oraiae pylae*, through which the exit from the *naos* or choir into the pronaos and narthex lay open, and the *solea*, which was outside the *bema*, as we have indicated; with which the writers concerning the Sophian church agree, whilst they say that Justinian, the temple having been finished, entered it, and from the Royal or *Basilica* gates, which are the same as the *Speciosae* (Beautiful), proceeded to the ambo, and exclaimed in these words: "I have conquered you, O Solomon." These two entrances were so constructed that they were opposite each other and met in one, and formed a rounded place or circle. Silentiarius: From this it appears to be gathered that the ambo existed in the middle of the church, and did not, as the larger pulpits of churches do today, touch both pillars. And the word *pyrgos* (tower), by which the ambo is designated by Silentiarius, proves this; since it in no way agrees with today's pulpits, it seems rather to have had something similar to those higher chairs from which preachers deliver a sermon to the people, which in some churches are stationed in this part also. Accordingly, the ambo existed before the great sacred gate, even if it were somewhat distant from it, as Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople declares in express words, writing: "the ambo before the door of the *bema*." And so, with such elegance and at such vast expense had Justinian at first raised the ambo, that he had constructed it entirely, along with the *solea*, of onyx stone, as we have indicated from Cedrenus. Writers on the Sophian church add that he adorned the ambo with sapphires, crystal, and other more precious stones, and even with golden columns, and that he spent on both—namely the ambo and the *solea*—the thousand-hundred [i.e., a million] pounds of that tribute which Constantine the Great once imposed upon Sarbarus, the king of the Persians: so the recent Greeks prattle. But when that ambo, which Glycas and Codinus write was *polyolbon* (very wealthy) and *polythaumaston* (wondrous), had, by the fall of the hemisphere which happened in the year of Justinian, been crushed together with the *solea*, Justinian raised another again, but one in elegance and beauty far inferior to the former, if any faith is to be placed in the same writers: "But they, being unable to make the ambo and the *solea* such a* polyexodon* (with many exits) and *polytimon* (very costly one), made it base, by means of stones and silver-clad columns with round silver [ornaments], with the *solea*; but he did not wish to make the dome of the ambo, as I said, because of the many exits." And all that *kallithemeilon* (beautifully founded) stone foundation, "Where the wise bring the divinely-spoken paths of books." Lastly, Codinus adds that a cross had been placed upon the ambo, which was of one hundred pounds of gold. 76. That the place near the *bema* and the ambo was where the sacred well existed is proven by what the Anonymus writes concerning it, namely that part of the Sophian church in which was the *hagion phrear* (holy well) and the sanctuary.
A And the site of the ambo, that it was the house of a certain Antiochus the eunuch. The reason for the name appears shortly, and it is said to be from the mouth of the well, upon which Christ sat and conversed with the Samaritan woman, which [well] was brought from Samaria and placed in this location: for this reason it was called the "holy well." The author of the narrative of the miracle wrought at the holy well of the Great Church—to whom, as with so many other things, we owe much, as we do to the most learned man Combefis—implies that this sacred well existed at the eastern gate of the temple: "In this sacred and renowned temple, I say, there was a certain painting of Christ, our true God, done in colors upon a tablet near the eastern gate, wherein was the holy mouth of that well of the Samaritan woman, at which the true Fountain, the River of knowledge, the Drinker who said 'thirst no more,' Christ, economically conversed with the Samaritan woman." Upon this, the painting of the sacred image set up there was honored, being worshipped and venerated faithfully. Nicetas Paphlago, in the *Life of Patriarch Ignatius* (p. 712, ed. Concil. 1618), mentions this sacred well, as does Constantine Porphyrogenitus, concerning the veil hung at the *hagion phrear*. The same Anonymus adds that bronze trumpets were brought from Jericho and placed at the holy well, fashioned after the semblance of those which the angels held when the walls of Jericho fell. Finally, Codinus reports (which the Anonymus passes over in silence) that the seat of Saint Constantine (that is, the emperor) stood above the holy well, over the trumpets.
77. We arrive at the part of the temple obstructed by new chancels, which the Greeks call *naos* by a particular and proper term, in which not all the faithful, as Allatius maintains, but only the clergy and singers stood. But since that part of the temple was contracted into a circular or certainly oval shape, the Greeks sometimes called it *choros*, and the Latins *chorus*. Ebrardus of Bethune in his *Graecismus*: *Here the crowd is a chorus; which blows in the air, a chorus;* *A chancel is a chorus, etc.,*
though he erroneously confuses chorus with chancel, because perhaps among the Latins of a later age that part of the temple in which the altar and choir stand is called *chorus* by the same chancels. Isidore, in *De eccl. Offic.*, 1, 3, also holds that this part of the temple is so called: "From the *chori* (choirs) of those chanting; for *choros* according to Suidas is a system of those singing in churches." Hence with us, the part which is divided from the chancels toward the altar is called the choir, and it is open only to the choir of chanting clergy, as the Council of Tours II, can. 4, states. Furthermore, we observed above from Gyllius that this part of the Sophian temple comprised within the pillars and columns is of an oval shape. "For the inner part of the temple," he says, "and that huge empty space in the middle, if considered alone as comprised within the pillars and columns, is of oval shape, but if the whole is viewed both inside and outside the pillars, it is square." For thus from each side there are three halls below and the same number above, as if suspended B from the lowest pavement; they proceed square, then within eight pillars they are contracted into an oval form, up to the curvature of the four arches supporting the hemisphere. But the clergy and singers sat on both sides in the *stasidia*, as is in the *Euchologion*.
78. The *naos* and the choir constituted that space which is contained within the four greater pillars, whose umbilicus—that is, the center of the dome or *trulla*—hangs perpendicularly, seems to be called *omphalos* or *to meson tou naou* in Marcus, *De dubiis typicis*, c. 96; *mesomphalos* in Gregory of Caesarea, *Oration on the Nicene Fathers*; and *meson-naos* in Balsamon on the 74th canon of the Council in Trullo.
79. Indeed, by other chancels, the part of the temple destined for the priests, clergy, and singers was divided from that in which the faithful stood—namely, the lower part, which leans toward the narthex. Leo Ost. III, 27: "He also enclosed the front of the choir, which he placed almost in the middle of the basilica, with four large tables of marble." But where that middle part of the Sophian temple was separated from the lower, just as in the chancel of the *bema*, marble columns arose in it. For Gyllius reports that between two pillars, by which the fourth part of the western sphere is supported, four green columns stand, and the same two joined together, and six small green Ionic columns, which intervene between them.
80. Furthermore, the chancels of the *bema* opened with three doors, namely the middle major one and two minor ones at the sides. The middle is called *horaia pyle* by Codinus, *De Off.* c. 17 and 18 (we would say *la belle porte*), *basilike* in the *Typicon* and *Euchologion* more than once, and in Codinus and the Anonymus; furthermore, in Leo Grammaticus, p. 460, and Marcus Hieromonachus, *De dubiis typ.* 96, who distinguish the *basilikas pulas* entirely from the holy ones, which were of the *bema*. The Latins of the Middle Ages call the primary doors of buildings "royal," as *Regula magistri*, c. 30, 83, 95, and *Chronicon Novalicense*, c. 14. Verses in the *Life of Saint Theodardus the confessor* in Calellus: *He built the floor, devoted, with a clear hymn,* *He raised royal [doors] everywhere wondrously.*
Thus in Anastasius in *Honorius PP.*: "He invested the royal doors in the entrance of the church, larger ones, which are called *medianæ*, of silver." In Conon: "Those who had been sent from the army to guard the royal [doors] of the basilica kept them closed." In Leo III, "royal greater [doors]," p. 131, 153, 154, 143.
81. Finally, we arrive at the third and last part of the sacred temple, in which the *poluglōssos homilos*, as Silentiarius speaks, or the crowd of the faithful composed of various nations and languages, stood. Writers hardly agree among themselves concerning its proper name. Allatius contends it was gifted with the name of narthex, whose opinion in this matter we have discussed above with a sufficiently accurate examination. Others wish it to be called *pronaos*, as it occurs to those entering before the *naos* or choir; and this seems to be hinted at.
Codinus, *De officiis*, c. 17: "Outside the so-called *horaia* gates, that is, in the *pronaos*." Now although Goar thinks these words should be understood as referring to the vestibule or narthex, Allatius says they wander far from the mark, signaling out Goar, who wishes the *pronaos* to be the porticoes. Nor does Balsamon object, in canon 74 of the Trullan Synod, where he says: "Every place dedicated to the Lord is called *kyriakon*, even if it is not a church, but perhaps a *pronaos* or some other sacred place," for, as the same Allatius infers, in the vocabulary of the church, *naos* is properly understood. In the same sense, he considers that another passage of Balsamon should be taken, in canon 2 of Dionysius of Alexandria, in which he distinguishes the *pronaos* from the *proaulion*, and writes that it is the "place of the second repentance, the one called that of the hearers." However, that opinion of Allatius does not become clear from these places; indeed, since from the same writer on canon 14 of the Council of Nicaea, and in the Epistle of Gregory of Nyssa to Letoius, the hearers are said to have stood "outside the *naos*," where others have "outside the church," but in the *naos* or choir only the clergy, and the faithful stood outside the *naos*, as Silentiarius explicitly reveals, I do not fully see how the *naos* is that third part of the sacred edifice. Furthermore, Balsamon says that the *pronaoi* belonged to those who were not permitted to enter the church, i.e., the hearers; which must be understood of the time when the sacred mysteries were being performed; for before the Gospel they would enter the church to hear the sacred Scriptures and homilies; whence they were called "hearers." After the Gospel, however, they would depart from it and remain in the narthex while the sacred mysteries were being concluded, "the fearful mysteries being performed," as Symeon of Thessalonica has it in his book *Against Heresies*. Hence it is left uncertain whether in Nicetas, in *Manuel*, book 11, the "entrance of the *pronaos*" is the entrance of the sacred edifice itself, or actually the entry to the vestibule. For since Balsamon distinguishes the *pronaoi* from the *proaulia*, it is possible that by the word *proaulia* he understood the areas that stand before sacred edifices: it is certain that at one time *pronaoi* were called such courtyards; in which sense we have the "pronaon of the mother of the gods" and the "pronaon of the temple of Mars" in Gruter 27, 2: 172, 3; 214, 4. Thus also this word is used by Vitruvius iv, 4; and by Perdiccas the Ephesian, *De Thematibus Hierosolymitanis*: "And a tree with dense shade standing in the *pronaos*."
But those who contend that the *pronaos* is the third part of the temple, among whom is Genebrardus, think that the French word *prone* is to be derived from it, namely that prayer which, according to the rule of the office, the curate has for the people in that lower part of the edifice and outside the choir, during the solemnities of the Mass; which is called *pronum* in the Provincial Councils of Bologna, a. 1523, Chartres 1526, Catalonia 1557, etc., *prone* in the Customary of Paris, art. 30, Blois, art. 3, and Dun, art. 58, so that in a certain way the curate is said to perform the office of a teacher of the hearers with this prayer or allocution to the people, just as it is in Saint Cyprian, epistle 24, concerning the reader who is acting. I know that Salmasius, in his book *De Primatu Papae*, deduces this word from the Latin *praeconium*—that he might fulfill the function of the herald of the word of God in that place: but I would scarcely subscribe to this opinion.
82. With the description of the church of Sophia—by the Silentiary and other authors—completed, it remains that we say something of its principal exedrae (for so the author Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl.* x, 4, says that appendages of sacred buildings are to be called). Of these, two have been considered especially famous, to omit the others, if any existed: the baptistery and the diaconicum. We shall begin with the baptistery, by which name Christians designate the place dedicated to the office of baptism. That it was usually constructed almost apart from temples is taught by Eusebius in the place just cited, and by the others whom Brissonius widely cites in *ad Leg. Dominico*, *Cod. Theod. De spectaculis*; Steph. Durantus, *De ritib. Eccl.* 1, 19; Brouverus *ad Fortunat.* 1. 1, poem. 15; Josephus Vicecomes and others. And the baptistery existed not only outside the sacred edifice, but also toward its lowest part, or not far from the western porticoes or narthex, in which place the Sophian baptistery seems to have been situated, with the Sophian baptistery—about which Codinus writes: "the level of the *naos* and the basin and the nartheces and the things around them"—having been the house of Damian the patrician; whether in this place the narthex is called the lower part of the temple, or the portico of the vestibule. Paulus Silentiarius, part 1, v. 148, indicates that it was toward the lower porticoes which are within the temple, at which place generally, on this side and that, the catechumena are supported by stronger marble columns.
C They will stand in the earth Opposite one another, in two, two; upon the heads of whom A curved beam, wrapped in four-way chains, Has supported the back for female seats, Directing the people to the immaculate, cleansing baths Of the Andromean life, etc.
Furthermore, the Sophian baptistery was of such size that we read in the acts of the councils (in the Synod of Chalcedon, act 1, and in Cedrenus in the *Rhinotmetus*, and Paul the Deacon, book iv, *Hist. Misc.*) that the Constantinopolitan people, in an uproar, took refuge there. Hence it is not surprising that it is called
a great illumination-place
in the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle in *Basilisco*, andgreat illuminator
in the same Cedrenus under Leo the Isaurian.83. In the baptistery was the fountain or reservoir of waters, in Greek *kolymbēthra*, sometimes called a *dexamene*, into which those being baptized were immersed. This fountain was indeed held in such veneration among the Constantinopolitans that those who had the right of asylum at the Sophian temple—as did almost all sacred edifices—when they fled there, would strive to reach the baptistery, and would take hold of these sacred fonts. Procopius, in *Hist. arcana*: "Which, fearing it might happen, they flee into the sacred place of Sophia, and having come to the divine bath, they clung to the *kolymbēthra* therein." In another place: "Coming to the sacred place of Sophia, he suddenly sat down at the divine *dexamene* itself, which Christians consider most sacred of all," where Suidas, who transcribed this passage, quite ignorantly interprets *dexamene* as a "table receiving divine things."
It is, however, nothing other than the baptismal font, which by the same Procopius and Theophanes, in the 2nd year of Theodosius the Younger and the 7th of Zeno, is called a A *kombethra*, by others a *dromos*, by Gregory the Great a "sewer," and by Anastasius in his *Ecclesiastical History* a "natatorium." Theodore Lector, in his *Ecclesiastical History* 1, also used the word *kombethra*: "And he caused him to be slaughtered in the *kombethra*"; and Cedrenus likewise, concerning Leo and Copronymus: "For he baptized in the holy *kombethra*," where Paulus Diaconus, in his *Historia Miscella* XXI, has "in the holy washing." Into these holy fonts, perennial waters flowed from aqueducts, as is gathered from Anastasius, *Lives of the Popes*, pp. 117, 134, 163, and from the treatise *On the Head of St. John the Baptist*, which is found in some manuscripts of St. Cyprian. The Sophian baptistery, moreover, possessed the right of sanctuary, just as the church itself did, as the *Chronicon Alexandrinum* testifies, p. 752: "Basiliscus, taking his wife and children, fled into the Great Church, into the great baptistery."
84. Another building adjoined to the Sophian church was the exedra, called the *diaconicon*. Now a B *diaconicon* is what Greek writers call it, which others name the church *secretarium*, and we customarily call the sacristy. This word occurs not once among writers, not only for the exedra so named, but sometimes for a small niche in the sanctuary area where priestly vestments necessary for the sacred liturgy were kept, as we mentioned above—for example in Philostorgius VII, 3; Cyril in the *Life of Euthymius*, cc. 18 and 19; the author of the *Life of St. Auxentius the Archimandrite*, c. 1, n. 3; in the *Euchologion*, the *Typicon of Sabas*, the *Passion of the Holy Sabaitic Fathers*, etc. It seems to have been so called either because it was originally the seat and assembly of the deacons, or rather because this exedra was primarily entrusted to their care. For in it, not only did they care for the church vessels and priestly vestments, but, before the sacred liturgy or divine ecclesiastical office was performed, the deacons not only performed their duties but also sat according to the requirements of their office.
Whether, however, the *diaconicon* of the church was the same as that prison which likewise bore the name of *diaconicon*, I see is a matter of controversy, although it is probable that it was the same exedra. For since the ancient bishops of the church considered it ungodly for accused clerics to be detained in the same prison as secular criminals, either because they wanted to preserve and protect their own authority and jurisdiction over them, or, as is more probable, because they wanted to act more leniently toward their own clerics than ordinary judges were accustomed to do, they confined them in their church *secretaria*, *skeuophylakia*, or catechumenia until they had atoned for their sins and crimes through the penance imposed upon them, which they call an *epitimion*. Thus Pope Gregory II, in his 2nd epistle to Leo the Isaurian in the V Synod: "Bishops, when someone has sinned, cast him as if into prison into their *secretaria* and the treasuries of the sacred vessels, and send them away to the church *diaconia* and into the *catechumena*." Hence we often read of delinquent clerics cast into the *diaconica* as a type of prison; for this is what the law at 30 Cod. Theod. *de Hæret.* points to: "All heretics, C without a doubt, know that all the places of this city are to be removed from them, whether they be held under the name of churches, or those things which are called *diaconica* or even *decanica*."
At this passage, Cujacius considers the *diaconicon* to be the same as the *decanicon*—namely, an ecclesiastical prison in which clerics accused of guilt were held. In this sense the *decanicon* is taken by the jurist Julian, *Constit.* 73: "An executor of lawsuits having been established may be shut up in the *decanica* of the churches, intending to pay the appropriate penalties." These words exist in the same terms in Lib. X, *Capitularies of Charlemagne*, c. 225, where Justinian’s *Novella* 97 has *dikanikois*. Furthermore, mention of *decanica*, or rather *dikanika*, occurs in the petition of Basil the deacon at the Council of Ephesus, Part I: "Thence, being beaten by the crowd of *dekani*, we were led away into the *dikanikon*, and there, stripped and bound as guilty of punishment, they insulted, overturned, and kicked us." And below: "Oppressed in the *dikanikon* and suffering hunger," where the translator renders *dikanikon* as "ecclesiastical tribunal," but erroneously, as I believe. For although in reality it may have later been given this name, in this passage the word *dikanikon* clearly signifies a prison—if not an ecclesiastical one, then certainly one that was entrusted to the care of the *dekani*, that is, the lictors. Unless one prefers that *decanicon* in this epistle be taken for the place where the *decani* or *rhabdouchoi* (as they are called by Cedrenus, p. 170) kept their station, concerning whom writers speak passim. But if D the *decanicon* was the same as the *diaconicon*, it is probable that *decanicon* and *dicanicon* were corruptions of what should have been called the *diaconicon*. Nor do I know whether later Greeks persuaded themselves that *dicanicon* was derived from the word *dike* (justice) because bishops exercised their judgments in the *diaconica*, which the *Gesta de nomine Acacii* indicate with these words: "Saying that Peter was once condemned in the *diaconion*, and now even removed from the Christian society"—for the words of Gregory II cited above sufficiently declare that *diaconium* and *diaconicon* are the same thing.
85. Since, therefore, the *diaconica* performed not only the role of a prison at times, but also that of an ecclesiastical tribunal, from this I think it happened that these exedrae were called *secretaria*. For *secretaria* are properly those of judges, as is the "great secret-room of the judge" in the Council of Milevis II, can. 16, from which it is named a *secretarium*, says St. Augustine in c. XXXIV of *Ezechiel*, c. 3. And I believe this followed from the fact that synods and councils were very often gathered in the *diaconica*, and the causes of the clerics were examined in those assemblies; whence later we read of the sessions of the bishops who participated in the synods being called *secretaria* passim: in Anastasius in *St. Agatho*, pp. 54 and 55; in the Lateran Synod under Pope Martin in the year 649; in the Roman Council in the year 745 under Pope Zacharias, acts 1 and 2; in the Council of Caesaraugusta under Pope Damasus; in the Councils of Carthage III, IV, and V; in Milevis II; in Carthage VI; in the African councils, ch. 1 and 52; in Arles I; in the Council of Jerusalem under Pope Agapetus; in Seville II, c. 1, etc.
86. Nor was the name for the Sophian *diaconicon* unique: for it was also called the *metatorium*, if indeed...
mesatōrion is the same as mitatōrion, which learned men indeed opine. This is gathered from these words of the Euchologion: A *After chanting the thrice-holy hymn, the most holy patriarch goes down into the mesatōrion, that is, the diaconicum, and goes out into the holy sanctuary from the right side.* Therefore, just as the Euchologion establishes the mesatōrion on the right (whether of the temple or the altar, it is uncertain), so Cedrenus [establishes] the mitatōrion in [the life of] Leo the Philosopher, such that it is reasonable to believe them to be one and the same, and consequently that there is an error in the Euchologion. Thus Cedrenus: *For this reason the patriarch forbade the emperor from entering the church, whence he proceeded through the right side into the mitatōrion.* And below: *Which things having written and sealed, they cast into the mitatōrion,* and *the emperor having made a public procession in the Great Church, and having entered into the mitatōrion, and in the place where he was praying.* Furthermore, Theodorus Lector mentions the mitatōrion (Ecl. 2, Lexicon Gr. ms. of the Royal Library, sign. 2062), as does Codinus, who reports that it was raised by Justinian, "In order," he says, "that he might remain there with his officials, and often rest." Which final words indeed moved Goar, so that in his notes on Cedrenus and the Euchologion he wrote that mitatōrion is said as if *minatōrion*, and that it was a chamber at the side of the altar, in which a frugal table—namely, of bread and wine—was set for the singers exhausted by labor, and consequently that it was a place suitable for preparing tables; a sentiment from which Allatius does not entirely dissent. But since the Sophian diaconicum or secretarium was a large triclinium, and consisted not of a single chamber but of various ones, it seems much more probable that it derived this appellation thence, because it was truly the house of the church, that is, of the sacristan (*aedituus*) and *neōkoros*, in which even the emperor, if he pleased, might stay before the holy offices were performed, or when they were finished and completed. For just as Latin writers called a home and domicile a *metatum*, as is evident from Gregory of Tours (Hist. V, 7, 19, and 40; VII, 6 and 24; VIII, 2 and 44; XI, 6; X, 2 and 15; De mirac. I, 44; II, 21 and 24; De miracul. S. Mart. II, 11; IV, 21, to pass over others to be enumerated by me elsewhere, if God favors), and said *metari* meaning "to lodge," as Paulinus (Nat. IX and X) [uses it], so later Greeks use *mitaton* with the same signification, as is had in the Glosses of Basil. Saint Athanasius, or whoever is the author of the narrative concerning the image at Berytus: D *The Christian sought a larger mitaton as...* Meursius cites other writers to confirm this. For this reason, therefore, the Anonymous says that Justinian built and so named this triclinium, that he might rest in it. *He built also a mitatōrion, which he raised there, a beautiful, gilded bedchamber, that when he entered into the church he might rest there.* Where *katheudein* is not so much to be refreshed by sleep as to rest and stay. Such also was the exedra built to that end adjoining the church, of which Anastasius makes mention in [the life of] Gregory IV: *He built also near to the acolyte for the rest of the pontiff, where his limbs might be refreshed after morning prayers or the offices of the mass, a small hospice, but honestly constructed and decorated with excellent paintings.* Thus the metatorium or diaconicum was a large triclinium, in which even the emperor, if at any time he wished to withdraw from public cares and devote himself to piety, and the deacons to sit, and synods to be held, and delinquent clerics to be locked up, [and] the sacred vessels of the church, the ministeria, and vestments [to be] kept, and indeed the sacristan himself, or he who had the care of conserving the temple, could dwell. These sacristans, because they had a dwelling next to the sacred buildings, the Synod of Constantinople under Menna (Act. 6; VI Synod. Act. 7, can. 5) calls *paramonarivs*; and Petrus Diaconus Casinensis in his *Relat. de corpore sancti Benedicti*, n. 2, [calls them] *prosmonarivs* (definitions of the Council of Chalcedon, can. 2; Leo Grammaticus in Michael Balbus, p. 459; and Balsamon on the responsa of Mark the Patriarch, 28). The pagans even had *prosmonarivs*, if the Menologium is to be believed on November 17th. Which word is indeed had also in Italia Sacra (Ughelli, vol. VI, pp. 421 and 423). But he who is called *paramonarius* by the Deacon of Monte Cassino is termed *mansionarius* by Leo of Ostia (n. 26). It is known from Gregory the Great (Dial. II, 24 and 25) that *mansionarii* and *custodes* are used promiscuously, to whom indeed the care of guarding the church was incumbent; whence they are called *excubitores* [and] *mansionarii* by Adrevaldus (Book I, *De mirac. sancti Benedicti*). For they guarded not only the church but also relics and phylacteries, as is gathered from the same Leo of Ostia (II, 34). Whence they were called *martyrarii* in the Council of Aurelian II (can. 13 in Gregor. Tur. *De mirac.* II, 46, and Hist. IV, 11); *custodes martyrum* in Anastasius (in [the life of] St. Silvester, p. 13, and in the Roman Synod under the same Silvester, can. 11); *custodes super sepulcra apostolorum* in the same Anastasius (in St. Leo I, p. 27); *custodes loculorum* in the *Life of St. Zosimus, Bishop of Syracuse* (n. 6), where it is evidently shown they are the same as *ostiarii*. But that the keys of the church were also in their possession Petrus Diaconus teaches (*Chr. Casin.* IV, 53): for *mansionarii* lived in a house contiguous to the church, from which the name remained for that dignity. The author of the *Miracles of Abbot St. Maurus*, c. 10: *A certain clerk by the name of Manfred, who was accustomed to sleep for the sake of custody in a small house contiguous to the basilica itself*; where "to sleep" is the same as *katheudein*, that is, to stay, to dwell, as we have warned. Hence the dignity of the first *mansionarius* was great in the Roman Church, who is called the *Custos Dominicalis Vestiarii* in the *Ordo Romanus*, and of the other vessels of the church, while others of the lower order were called *juniores mansionarii*. Whence he would not be far from the truth who would interpret the *neokoros*, to whom the keys of the Sophian church were committed according to Silentiarius, as *paramonarius*.
87. And not entirely to be condemned is the divination of Wolfgang Musculus, who renders *mitatōrion* in Theodorus Lector as *mutatorium*. For since *mitatōrion* is the same as *diaconicum*, but *diaconicum* again is the same as *vestiarium*, and *vestiarium* finally is the same as *allaximārion* according to Codinus, *De*...
A *off.* c. 2. It is a place, that is to say, a room where garments to be changed are brought forth. Nothing prevents one from thinking that the Greeks used the word *mitatōrion* for *poutatōrion* [mutatorium]. Indeed, among Latin writers of the lower ages, *mutatorium*—if not the place where garments for changing are brought forth—is certainly established as the name for the very vestments that are changed in turn. These are called *xēma* garments in Homer (*Odyss.* 11); "vicarious clothing" in Cassian (*IV, 10*); "things to be changed" (*mutanda*) in the *Rule of the Master*, c. 81; "changing-garments" (*mutatoria*) by others, as we noted in our comments on the *Alexiad*; and finally *allaximata* by the author of *De offic. eccl. CP.* edited by Medonius; and *allaxai* in Codinus—whence *allaxein* [is found] in the same author and in Mark the Hieromonk (*De dub. typ.* c. 43). Avitus of Vienne, book 3 of his *Poems*:
*He used to change his garments with silk twice dyed in purple.*
The secretarium of a church being called the vestiarium is too well known to require confirmation.
88. Consequently, this side-room (*exedra*) has received various appellations due to the various offices performed there. It is called *aspastikos oikos* (greeting-house) from the receptions, as in Theodoret (*V, 17*); or the *salutatorium* in Gregory of Tours (*Hist. II, 21; VI, 11; VI, 27*); in Messianus the presbyter, *On the Life of St. Caesarius of Arles* (p. 252); in Aimoin (*Hist. III, 47*); and in the author of the *Historia Miscella* (p. 412). The *salutatorium*, according to Papias, is the place where those arriving to pay their respects were received; and in Aelfric’s Glossary, *salutatorium* is said to be *greting-hus*, that is, a house of greeting, as it is defined by Hugutio. Furthermore, they mean the *diaconicum* to be called by this name because in it bishops, about to perform sacred rites—before proceeding to the *bema* or altar—would receive the greetings of the faithful, or commend themselves B to their prayers, or, especially, wish to deal with them regarding ecclesiastical business. This is gathered most especially from Gregory the Great, book IV, *Epist.* 54 and 98, in which he commands bishops or archbishops, once the children of the church have been dismissed, to proceed from the *salutatorium* to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass wearing the pallium; and from Sulpicius Severus, *Dialogues on the Life of St. Martin* (II, 1), where it is stated in express words that presbyters sit in the *secretarium*, either occupied with greetings or with hearing business—at which time deacons are forbidden to sit with the presbyters in the *secretarium* in the Council of Arles II, 1, as was observed above. Certainly, that the pontiff, about to perform the sacred rites, should be greeted by the deacons before he proceeds to the altar is observed from the *Ordo Romanus*: 'When the pontiff has entered the church, he does not go up immediately to the altar, but first enters the *secretarium*: where, on having entered, he sits in his seat, and the deacons, having greeted the pontiff, depart from the *secretarium'; although I do not deny that these words can be taken as referring to the greeting which the deacons provide before they leave the *secretarium*. Nor do I know whether bishops were also greeted by diocesan presbyters in the *salutatorium*. In the Arabic *Council of Nicaea*, c. 55, it is commanded that the chorepiscopus should gather the presbyters twice a year to greet the bishop and to surrender themselves to him and... to have communion with him, and for them to dine with him, and that this should take place first at the end of the year, and secondly on the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is equally uncertain whether the canon 12 of the Council of Pavia under Pope Leo IV should be referred to these greetings of the faithful, by which penitents are forbidden to loiter at greetings, so that they were forbidden from greeting priests in the *secretarium*, which was permitted to the faithful, or at least from admitting those greeting them at home. Just as bishops were occupied with greetings in the *secretaria*, so too were the abbesses. Indeed, in the *Rule of St. Caesarius* c. 36, and the *Rule of St. Donatus* c. 37, these words are found: 'It is to be observed that the abbess should not proceed to greetings in the *salutatorium* without proper honor, that is, without two or three sisters'; and c. 40: 'If the abbess, as is customary, is occupied with those greeting her.' And in the *Recapitulation of the Rule of St. Caesarius*, c. 8, and the *Rule of St. Aurelian* the bishop, c. 1, it is commanded that whoever comes for conversion, the rule should be read to her in the *salutatorium*. Finally, in the Council of Mâcon I, c. 2, men are forbidden to enter the *salutatorium* or oratory of a monastery of virgins, to which what is contained in the *Rule of St. Aurelian* c. 14 is consistent: in which places the *salutatorium* is the same as the *secretarium* and the *diaconicum*.
89. Now since the sacred vessels were kept in the *secretaria* of the churches, or, as the writers commonly call them, the *ministeria* [sacred implements], it happened that what is to others the *diaconicum* and *secretarium* is sometimes and often called *skeuophylakion*, which the *Passio of the Holy Fathers of the St. Sabas Monastery* shows existed for the most part in the inner part of the *diaconicum*: 'Where the fathers of old have made a *diaconicum*, and inside the *diaconicum* [they made] a *keimēliarchion*, that is, a C *skeuophylakion*.' Hence, such *diaconica* are promiscuously called *secretaria* and treasuries of sacred vessels in the lauded epistle of Pope Gregory II; and one may observe that it is used everywhere in this way. As to why the sacred *ministeria* of the church were stored in the *diaconicum*, the main reason is that they rested on the care and solicitude of the deacons. Isidore, *De eccl. offic. II, 9*: 'The Levites are the custodians of the *sacrarium*: for to them it is commanded to guard the tabernacle and all the vessels of the temple'; which is also found in Cyril of Alexandria, book I, *On Adoration*. Hence it was permitted for them—but not for subdeacons—to touch them with their hands; and as the Council of Laodicea, can. 21, says: 'It is not right for the subdeacons to have a place in the *diaconicum* and to touch the Lord’s vessels.' The Council of Agde, can. 66, translates this as follows: 'It is not right for non-ordained ministers to have permission to enter the *secretarium*, which the Greeks call the *diaconicum*, and to touch the Lord’s vessels,' whether those words are to be understood of the greater *diaconicum* or of the lesser, that is, the *conchula* of the *bema* so named, as we have noted above. But regarding the care of the sacred vessels which was initially entrusted to the deacons, that was subsequently changed: for theirs in the Church of St. Sophia was given to the great *skeuophylax*, of which ecclesiastical dignity learned men have spoken everywhere, and to whom, as it is right to believe, the deacons were subordinate. Furthermore, the *skeuo*...
the Anonymus mentions the Sophian treasury: A that small vault was called the *diaconicum*, because in it the sacred vessels and likewise the priestly vestments necessary for performing the holy liturgy were brought from the greater *diaconicum* and stored. For I believe it is clear from what has been set forth above that the *diaconicum* was an outbuilding attached to the holy church, and therefore shut off and removed from the sanctuary, a fact also indicated by the same Symeon when he writes that a bishop to be consecrated proceeds from the *diaconicum* to the sanctuary through the right-hand side of the temple and the *solea*, with the priests leading him and a deacon going before; whereby learned men observe that by the right-hand side, the temple itself or the choir is to be understood. Therefore, from the *diaconicum*, which existed outside the church, the priest proceeding to the sanctuary had to pass through the *solea* (nor is this surprising, since the doors of the sanctuary faced it alone), and therefore through that part of the church which separated the sanctuary from the *naos* properly so-called. And these are the things which it was possible to observe scattered among writers through a shortage of time regarding the church of Sophia. B
BY THE SAME DESCRIPTION OF THE AMBO RECITED PRIVATELY AFTER THE FIRST GREAT POEM IN THE PATRIARCHAL PALACE
C You have fulfilled every hope, O Emperor, by adding what was lacking to the all-beautiful temple. Therefore, most illustrious men, I come now at an opportune time, to add to the book what was lacking; for it would be beautiful for my discourse to build the temple along with the Emperor, the subject matter of this discourse. What a theater! How full of ardor for hearing better things! For I do not think it is to me that you are paying attention here, but your gathering becomes a theater because of that temple. What a theater! For although I am calling you together for the third time and interrupting your accustomed labors, I see no one among you bearing it ill, nor preferring to be free for business. For nothing is small, since there is nothing small, in these things which pertain to the greatest—and also to this temple. D
To Him who has produced for us all grace A and the pious festivals of long delight; Who, having cast into us all a solemn joy, 20 hath stirred up every rational nightingale, as if at the appearing of spring, winter having departed, every branch then at once nourishes the sweet melody of varied song. Nothing of the temple is therefore small; 25 for it is truly a spectacle of all-bearing delight. I shall therefore approach the venerable place, which the Emperor has recently fashioned, having consecrated it as a most beautiful area for the books of the mystical discourses. 30 Sing the divine apostles of Christ, of whom by the voice of the immaculate Spirit the message came to men, announcing the human birth of Christ; or you who after the tomb, [bearing] to the untainted nations of the earth symbols proclaiming the resurrected God, 35 have brightened the entire dome of the sorrow-stricken world, having scattered the blind cloud of the joyless mist. You, who the sword, who the life-destroying scourge, who the furnaces gladly endured, and did not bow your necks to senseless idols, but established the base of your spirit 40 firm in the honor of the immaculate God, for whom the necessity of death appeared more productive of inexpressible joys than the light of the sun; whom at last Christ the King crowned, having washed them in his own life-giving bath, and with blood-stained streams purified all the corruption of their garment. B Come, establish choirs, and with holy songs weave together a melody in our dances! For yours is the place that is sung, where many an untainted echo arises from the divine books. 50 There is in the midst of the broad temple a tower, delicate to behold and inclined somewhat toward the east, set apart from the pure customs of the books,
DESCRIPTION OF THE AMBO
. Standing upon upright bases, accessible by twin paths, of which one extends toward the west, and the other toward the east; 55 for they are opposite to one another, but both lead to one place, to an equal, circular circumference. For here the stone winds a space that is similar in circle; yet it is not equal in all parts with a circular compass, but it gathers slightly until it extends the rim of the stone. Toward the west and toward the east 61 the neck of the circular stone extends, resting upon steps. And under silver metals, as far as the girdle, the divine prince set up beautiful walls, similar to horns. For he does not wind 65 silver in a circle around the stone, but in the midst a silver plate, having unfolded a blessed circle, makes the wall straight; and having opened two harmonious arches, the skilled man opens the paths of the step on either side. Nor does fear seize those entering upon the edges of the sacred steps, for art erected shining stone 71 enclosures; and they are raised above the steps just as much as is necessary for a human hand to guide. Having understood these things, one lightens his labor while stepping onto the upward path.A Obliquely from both sides, it rises and ends along the middle steps. Indeed, this stone is not empty nor fruitless; for in this way they did not cut the wild hilltop of the sheer peak, a fast-measuring director of a long path. But it is entirely brightened by skillful works, and having a variegated form, it is adorned with brightness. In it, there are continuous currents as if they were eddies, here resembling endless circles, and there drawing out the slightly wandered spirals of the circles. In some places, a blush is seen mixed with yellow, and in others, a brightness beautiful to human fingernails. Elsewhere, a radiance having rushed toward an argentine sheen, lingering quietly, imitated the lovely likeness of a bee’s wax, which mortals, washing it in pure flowing waters, often dry under the solar rays, and which approaches white. It has not yet completely changed its color, still showing golden remnants. So too, colored by the passage of long years, it puts on the hue of crafted ivory. Here, the marble offers a livid appearance—for divine nature did not perchance let the livid color perish, but mixed it into the stone by painting it artfully. A white and varied grace of flowers shines around these; for here, a flower of livid saffron color surrounds a spacious area, and there it appears paler, just as the light appears around the light horns of the new moon. B Near the rocky cliff is the Holy City [Hierapolis], which has fixed its famous name to the stone. And the whole artfully constructed stone structure, where they proclaim the divine teachings of the wise books, the art furnished with eight sumptuous columns, of which two are toward the North, two toward the South, and two toward the Sunrise, two toward the thresholds of night, so that it might not sway, but stand beside the stone as if it were another roof, where the heralds of wisdom raise a pleasant and eloquent voice. There is a roof for those standing below, and for those above a flat surface. And you would consider that which is equal to the spacious plains, immovable around the feet of men; but the lower part the craftsman hollowed out and curved over sacred heads with excellent art; Just as are the curved backs of a hard-shelled tortoise, which a bovine skin covering the helmet shakes when the Pyrrhic dancer agitates it with whirling motions. Now, the topmost front of this entire stone is protected on all sides by silver metal, where the skilled craftsman, carving with an iron point, arranged the lovely networks of leafy clusters, depicting multifarious trees and beautiful flowers. With all the steps, the area, and the columns, the clever architect, C an expert man, keeping all the foundations immovable, raises the base of the stone pedestal beneath.
A So that they might widen those foundations of the roof, they cast semicircles about the mid-belly with stones, and in the space surrounding [the area], they set columns at intervals, encircling the semicircle. The whole belly extended under four magnificent columns, here and there, toward the South and the North. And the cavity, like a house, protects the stones within the circular enclosure. B These conspicuous columns, throughout the Phrygian region and through the midst of the Mygdonian cliff, the stonecutters raised with vigorous mattocks, these lovely columns. And if one were to look at the stone’s flowers, he would say that white lilies had been mingled with the calyxes of roses and the soft petals of the short-lived anemone; here the metal, painted with the living color of roses and with a sweet whiteness, there revealing a living whiteness and a sweet flush. Others, rarely intermingled with these, creep through the fine veins like violets, and with both flowers infused, they give a purple color, like the blood of the Laconian shell. When they had first established the circumducted base, fashioned with art and shimmering with curved orbs, they placed stone bases bound together above, extracted from the Bosporean rocky cliff. C They shine with a white luster, and over the whitening color, a blue vein is scattered in various wanderings. The craftsman polished two of the four sides of each base, and steel, with engraved work, bound the circular top of them, so that the column might stick fast in its seat, resting firmly upon the base below. A column, sitting upon a polished base, smiles upon the decorations of the whole temple, just as when the sun first rises on the horizon, a white cloud is variegated with roseate splendors; so a semicircle is cast about the four columns. And the craftsmen caused four other columns, enclosing the semicircle, to curve in a splendid covering of marble for the well-worked cavity. Disposing three intervals among the four columns, the wise architect crowned these with stones of the city of Hierapolis, curving the beautiful stone slightly over the base of the pedestal; for it was fitting that the stone adorning the beautiful floor of the inviolate temple should rejoice in a sacred name. Finally, he added a well-compacted door to the space, slightly curved, through which a man rising for the sacred books enters the threshold of the cavity. You will perceive the same appearance of the cavity, in the columns, the base, and the enclosures, toward the Garamantian South and the Arimaspian wind. But the architects did not assign one place to the doors, but arranged one toward the west and the other toward the east. Indeed, the western door is seen to look toward the North, and the eastern one toward the South. The enclosures do not rise to an equal measure with the built columns, but this elegant structure exceeds the threshold, as much as is necessary to hide men in the recesses of the cavity;
A Eight columns dominate with deeply sculptured crown-tops, and they are placed on a firm, level foundation and in a single construction. They gleam with heads bound in gold, in splendid array, just as the golden disk of the sun shines, illuminating the headlands. All the protruding heads, however, are crowned above by a circular ornament bearing lance-like points, which with a single circuit joins the bound columns, even if each is separate from the other. You will find trees fixed upon the fiery-crested summits, shining with the silver of their blossoming fire in abundance. Yet the branch has not run straying wherever it might happen, but it extends in order, like a cone with many rims, heavy with brightness. From the wide-traversed circle, it is always escaping and, at the last, climbs sharply upward. There you will perceive a beautiful terminal girdle, colored on all sides with sapphire dust and wreathed with golden ivy leaves. Toward the houses of Zephyrus and the rapid Ethiopian Eurus they have fixed twin silver crosses upon the rim, here and there, since the revolving nail holds together in assembly ten thousand sparks of fire, tracing the form of a crooked shepherd’s staff.
Thus the pulpit B, having a double-way, shines bright; for they call this place, I suppose, a space suitable for sacred discourses, so that the people may receive propitious light whenever the inviolate mysteries of the divine word are heard. Nor did they place the stones for the steps without consideration, nor would anyone see thin violets mingled with white; for the belly of the edifice is adorned with purple, like a flowering shell. On the flat stones the master-builder marked a slight convexity for the steps useful to men, preparing a firm foothold for the feet, lest a traveler descending the path, slipping, should be snatched from on high and driven headlong to the unstable floor. Thus, with decorum, the stones on both ways withdraw one from another, as much as one who ascends might press his foot alternately.
Just as in the sea’s swells an island rises, variegated with ears of corn and vine-clusters and budding meadow and deep-wooded crags—voyagers sailing past it are gladdened, consoling the pains of their sea-faring anxiety—so, in the middle of the immense hall of the building, the high pulpit appears, built of stones, C a flowery meadow of marble and beauty of art. Yet it does not stand in the middle space entirely separated, in the manner of islands surrounded by the sea; but rather it seems like some maritime land, which follows an isthmus from the middle waves, emerging among white billows, and which at one extremity holds firmly joined the appearance of a true island; but this, mingled with the sea’s eddies, clings by the isthmus-bond to the shore produced by the sea. Such is the pulpit seen to be; for starting from the foundation at the far eastern side, it spreads widely through the halls, until, around the double
A enclosure, it is separated on both sides by walls. They did not set tall slabs upon these enclosures, but only as high as the navel of a man standing there. Thence the gospel-bearer, holding the golden book, turns back and passes through. And as the multitude, eager in the mystic service of the immaculate God, settles its lips and hands upon the holy book B, the vast waves of the stirred people break around. And he, like an isthmus, stretches out to the side, directing the man who is descending from the deep-crowned height toward the august palace of the table. On either side, they have fenced the path with Thessalian stone whose surface is light green. A wide meadow, indeed, brings a charming grace to the eyes beneath these C stones. And beside each Thessalian stone, standard-like, there stands as it were another column, equal in height, yet not looking like circular cylinders; a man might say, as he scans the lines, that the craftsman followed the shape of a cube, not that of long, equilateral columns. Here the builders, having joined the harmony of Molossian stone, have inserted one stone into another by turns. And from the Phrygian mountain, the stonecutter D carved these stones too. There, casting your eyes upon the cattle-tending cares, you might see on the one hand the stone beautifully imitating the creeping of serpents, winding smoothly in sinuous curves. And placed side by side, the red, the silver, and the one between them in color, like some coiling slithering track, roll an A angular spiral in turn. In some places you will perceive moon-like and star-like impressions in the lines of the stone. But also upon the extended edges of the enclosure, they have fitted another long stone, of the same gentle-featured cliff, so that it might be, at the bottom, a firm base of Thessalian stone nestled in the foundations of the foundation, and captured above by another stone fastening. But a bond of four-part columns enclosing the sides fixes their unshaken feet upon the threshold, steady and B immovable. And as when someone, casting golden-twisted threads running everywhere over a multi-colored Tyrian veil, winds the fitting ornament now around the entire hem, now around the beautiful opening of the veil, and now clothes the passage for both hands; and the spring-colored threads of the veil, lushly blooming from every side, hold the glory, and the radiance of the golden thread, flowering with beauty one upon another, raises beauty—so the master of multi-colored work, casting golden-glowing brilliance C upon the green metals of the holy stone, found a way to kindle a brighter radiance in both. And at the eastern limit, by the august enclosure of the table, they cut off the isthmus as a passage, so that they might make the path speedier for those passing through. Such are the works that my glory-bestowing sovereign raises to God the King. And upon these magnificent gifts, the splendor of his...
DESCRIPTION OF THE AMBON
integrity has added this, to prepare a gift consonant with divine counsel for the Ruler of the world, for Christ, the King of all. But do Thou be propitious, Thou who shinest as the splendor of the inviolate Trinity, to the city of Rome, and to its citizens, and to the prince, and to this excellent temple.
ON THE PYTHIAN THERMAL BATHS.
(BRUNCK, Analecta III, 94.)Do you wish to learn, O man, how the artless stream of the thermal springs appears to all, and from where it is provided as a gift without payment for the sick, and as a pleasant delight? I shall show this, and I shall teach you, as far as those skilled in these matters understand, as nature demonstrates, and as experience confirms. Attend, I pray: I shall explain. They think that in the bowels of the earth there are narrow caverns, where the water, running into itself from this side and that, is compressed, and, being compressed, receives that great heat. B Others say that there are sulphurous ores in the recesses of the earth, and that the waters nearby, having necessarily been heated, cannot remain within, but are carried upward with great force. Which do you think is true? The former? But I, having rejected the first opinion, embrace the latter. For indeed, as you know, they have a damp-smelling and malodorous air, whence credence is added to this opinion. C Thus has come forth for all the hot-springing stream, a Hippocrates without life, a Galen without art. The island that exhales fire upward with great noise and movement confirms this. And Media, daughter of Titans, and Pittace of Persia, and Lydia, abounding in gold-bearing earth, bring forth similar things. But very many such things exist beyond the pillars of Hercules. D Furthermore, in the island of Pithecusa and Lipara, there is a dark cavern which, shining widely by night, ejaculates with great din and thunderous crash sulphurous stones, pouring out brightness on every side. Now these things are small compared to other better and greater things. For there is a spring that produces forgetfulness, another that provides drunkenness; one gushes forth oil, another milk. And somewhere a stream runs that heals sick birds, and somewhere one that induces a loathing of wine in inebriated men. There are springs bubbling in the middle of the sea, and there are recesses of the earth from which a prophetic spirit is exhaled. Moreover, how does the earth bring forth bitumen? What then? O miracle of miracles! A spring that is clouded by detraction is made clear by praises. Another...
A they say draws forth cleansing for humors alone; another they herald as strengthening a weak body. Salt water is made bitter by the burning light of the sun, but the night, B they say, sweetens it into a drinkable draught. The wealth of a spring is to have a light nature below, but when it rises, it brings up a heavy weight like chaff. Another flow is small for you, which binds, turns, and strengthens the bruises of bodies and the fractures of bones.
Do you wish that I add more? There is, they say, a stream which, when you pour it into a vessel, if you leave it in the open air at night, you will find it frozen into ice. There is another, they say, from which, when you lean over to drink, you see it receding and fleeing from you, as if into the bosom of a mother. There is also a flow, O miracle, which, if it receives anything, turns the object into a stone in no great number of days. They speak of another fountain C that bubbles forth a little water, but which, when a crowd is present, gives forth more abundant streams. Another they verify, which, when winter is present, is entirely without moisture; but in summer it pours forth a stream. They say it brings forth water that is nitre-like, so that those washed in it have no need of other purifications. A lake pours forth hot water, not meant to be drunk by animals; for it smells like some sort of pus or the putrefaction of some other material. They say that there are many poplars of plants there that produce amber, a gold-colored species. This falls at first like a sticky tear, and afterwards it hardens into stone. O, the strange metal!
Come, I shall tell also of other things. A place holds a lake very small and round, which you will find filled when you approach to wash. It cleanses up to fifty people. But if more men D wish to wash in it, it overflows its banks and casts out those who indulge in such pleasure without discretion. Smoke emerges from a rock, hiding within itself the matter of burning, which you will clearly kindle if you pour oil upon it. Another small rock contains fire, to which, if you drip oil, you will entirely extinguish its brilliance. They say that another in the middle of summer emits fire through an opening, but in winter it bubbles up with water. A certain spring brings forth stones burning like torches, which, when you stir them with bellows, the flame is lessened, but when you pour blood over them, the power of the fire increases. Out of another fissure water and fire burst forth mixed together, so that the opposition of the mixture appears in a fourfold manner.
Thus, the Creator of all, creating, leading, guiding, tempering, and composing infinite natures, wished them to excite wonder and to serve us entirely. Call Him your God, contemplate Him with your mind, fashioning Him into no form, unless you wish to fall into error. This is the incomprehensible spirit, an ineffable thing, a boundless miracle, flashing with eternal light, excelling in unspeakable spirituality, bearing the worlds and lives with most wise care and just providence. Thus, some things I myself have seen, others books teach, and still others experience has taught, and visible things give faith to invisible, small things to the great. These things have been gathered together by trial.