Brotherhood," pinned the papal excommunication on the cope of Acacius as he was advancing to the altar. And it witnessed the close of that protracted contest, in the complete and unreserved submission to Rome which was exacted by the formulary of Pope Hormisdas, as the condition of reconciliation. The structure of Theodosius stood a hundred and fourteen years from 415 to 532, but perished at length in the fifth year of Justinian, in a disaster which, for a time, made Constantinople all but a desertthe memorable battle of the blue and green factions of the hippodrome, known in history as the Nika Sedition. The restoration of St. Sophia, which had been destroyed in the conflagration caused by the violence of the rioters, became, in the view of Justinian, a duty of Christian atonement no less than of imperial munificence. There is no evidence that the burning of the church arose from any special act of impiety directed against it in particular; but it is certain that the ancient feuds of the religious parties in the East entered vitally as an element of discord into this fatal sedition; and even the soldiers who had been engaged on the side of the civil power in the repression of the tumult, and who were chiefly legionaries enlisted from among the Heruli, the most savage of the barbarian tribes of the empire, had contributed largely to the sacrilegious enormities by which, even more than by the destruction of human life, the religious feelings of the city had been outraged. The entire history of the reconstruction exhibits most curiously the operation of the same impulse. It was undertaken with a large-handedness, and urged on with an energy, which bespeak far other than merely human motives. Scarce had Constantinople begun to recover after the sedition from the stupor of its alarm, and the affrighted citizens to steal back from the Asiatic shore to which they had fled in terror with their families and their most valuable effects, when Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles to prepare the plans of the new basilica, on a scale of magnificence till then unknown. On the 23d of February, 532, within forty days from the catastrophe, the first stone of the new edifice was solemnly laid. Orders, to borrow the words of the chronicler,* "were issued simultaneously to all the dukes, satraps, judges, quæstors, and prefects," throughout the empire, to send in from their several governments, pillars, peristyles, bronzes, gates, marbles, and all other materials suitable for the projected undertaking. How efficiently the order was carried out may yet be read in the motley, though magnificent array of pillars and marbles which form the most striking characteristic of St. Sophia, and which are for the most part, as we shall see, the spoil of the older glories of Roman and Grecian architecture. We shall only mention here eight porphyry columns from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, which Aurelian had sent to Rome, and which, having come into the possession of a noble Roman widow, named Marcia, as her dowry, were presented by that pious lady to Justinian, as an offering vreo uxiκής μου σωτηρίας, “ for the salvation of her soul."t Indeed, some of the incidents of the undertaking are so curious in themselves, and illustrate so curiously the manner, and feelings of the age, that we are induced to select a few of them from among a mass of more or less legendary details, supplied by the anonymous chronicler already referred to, whose work Banduri has printed in his "Imperium Orientale," and who, if less trustworthy than Procopius or the Silentiary, has preserved a much greater amount of the traditionary gossip connected with the building. For the vastly enlarged scale of Justinian's structure, it became necessary to make extensive purchases in the immediate circuit of the ancient church; and, as commonly happens, the demands of the proprietors rose in proportion to the necessity in which the imperial purchaser was placed. It is interesting to contrast the different spirit in which each sought to use the legal rights of a proprietor. The first was a widow, named Anna, whose tenement was valued by the imperial commissaries at eighty-five pounds of gold. This offer on the part of the commissary the widow unhesitatingly refused, and declared that she would consider her house cheap at fifty hundredweight of gold; but when Justinian, in his anxiety to secure the site, did not hesitate to wait upon the widow herself in person, she was so struck by his condescension, and so fired by the contagion of his pious enthusiasm, that she not only surrendered the required ground, but refused all payment for it in money; only praying that she might be buried near the spot, in order that, from the site of her former dwelling itself, she might claim the purchase-money on the day of judgment." She was buried, accordingly, near the Skeuophylacium, or treasury of the sacred vessels.* 66 Antiochus at once to the Emperor's tribunal, and, in the midst of the assembled spectators, completed the negotiation.† A third was a cobbler, called by the classic name of Xenophon. His sole earthly possession was the stall in which he exercised his trade, abutting on the wall of one of the houses doomed to demolition in the clearance of the new site. A liberal price was offered for the stall; but the cobbler, although he did not refuse to surrender it, whimsically exacted as a condition precedent, that the several factions of the charioteers should salute him, in the same way as they saluted the Emperor while passing his seat in the hippodrome. Justinian agreed; but took what must be considered an ungenerous advantage of the simple man of Very different, but yet hardly less leather. The letter of Xenophon's concharacteristic of the time, was the con- dition was fulfilled. He was placed in duct of one Antiochus, a eunuch, and the front of the centre tribune, gorgeousostiurius of the palace. His house stood ly arrayed in a scarlet and white robe. on the spot now directly under the great The factions, as they passed his seat in dome, and was valued by the imperial procession, duly rendered the prescribed surveyor at thirty-five pounds of gold. salute; but the poor cobbler was balked But Antiochus exacted a far larger sum, of his anticipated triumph, being comand obstinately refused to abate his de- pelled, amid the derisive cheers and mand. Justinian, in his eagerness, was laughter of the multitude, to receive the disposed to yield: but Strategus, the pre-salute with his back turned to the assembly !‡ fect of the treasury, begged the Emperor to leave the matter in his hands, and proceeded to arrest the obdurate proprietor and throw him into prison. It chanced that Antiochus was a passionate lover of the sports of the hippodrome, and Strategus so timed the period of his imprisonment that it would include an unusually attractive exhibition in the hippodrome-what in the language of the modern turf would be called "the best meeting of the season." At first Antiochus kept up a determined front; but, as the time of the games approached, the temptation proved too strong; his resolution began to waver; and at length, when the morning arrived, he "bawled out lustily" from the prison, and prom-thusiasm never abated, nor did his enerised that, if he were released in time to enjoy his favorite spectacle, he would yield up possession on the Emperor's own terms. By this time the races had begun, and the Emperor had already taken his seat; but Strategus did not hesitate to have the sport suspended, led For al But it is around the imperial builder himself that the incidents of the history of the work, and still more its legendary marvels, group themselves in the pages of the anonymous chronicler. though the chief architect, Anthemius, was assisted by Agathias, by Isidorus, of Miletus, and by a countless staff of minor subordinates, Justinian, from the first to the last, may be truly said to have been the very life and soul of the undertaking, and the director even of its smallest details. From the moment when, at the close of the inauguratory prayer, he threw the first shovelfull of mortar into the foundation, till its solemn opening for worship on Christmas-day, 538, his en gy relax. Under the glare of the noonday sun, while others were indulging in the customary siesta, Justinian was to be seen, clad in a coarse linen tunic, staff in hand, and his head bound with a cloth, directing, encouraging, and urging on the workmen, stimulating the industri ous by liberal donations, visiting the loi- | believed, one of the eunuchs of the palterers with his displeasure. Some of his ace in a resplendent white dress came to expedients, as detailed by the chronicler, him, ordered him at once to call back the are extremely curious. We shall men- masons, that the work of heaven might tion only one. In order to expedite the not be longer retarded. On the boy's work, it was desirable to induce the men refusing to quit the post of which he had to work after-hours. The natural way been left in charge, the supposed eunuch of effecting this would have been to offer volunteered to take his place, and swore them a proportionate increase of pay; "by the Wisdom of God" that he would but Justinian chose rather to obtain the not depart from the place till the boy same result indirectly. Accordingly, he should return. Justinian ordered all the was accustomed-if our authority can be eunuchs of the palace to be paraded berelied on-to scatter a quantity of coins fore the boy; and on the boy's declaring about the building; and the workmen, that the visitor who had appeared to him afraid to search for them in the open day, was not any of the number, at once conwere led to continue their work till the cluded that the apparition was supernatshades of evening began to fall, in order ural; but, while he accepted the exhorthat they might more securely carry off tation to greater zeal and energy in forthe spoil under cover of the darkness! warding the work, he took a characteristic advantage of the oath by which the angel had sworn not to leave the church till the return of his youthful messenger. Without permitting the boy to go back to the building where the angel had appeared to him, Justinian sent him away to the Cyclades for the rest of his life, in order that the perpetual presence and protection of the angel might thus be secured for the church, which that divine messenger was pledged never to leave till the boy should return to relieve him at his post!* Some of the building operations which this writer describes are equally singular. The mortar, to secure greater tenacity, was made with barley-water; the foundations were filled up with huge rectan gular masses, fifty feet long, of a concrete of lime and sand, moistened with barleywater and other glutinous fluid, and bound together by wicker framework. The tiles or bricks of which the cupola was formed were made of Rhodian clay, so light that twelve of them did not exceed the weight of one ordinary tile. The pillars and buttresses were built of cubical and triangular blocks of stone, with a cement made of lime and oil, soldered with lead, and bound, within and without, with clamps of iron. It is plain, however, that these particulars, however curious they may seem, are not to be accepted implicitly, at least if they are judged by the palpable incredibility of some of the other statements of the writer. The supernatural appears largely as an element in his history. On three several occasions, according to this chronicler, the Emperor was favored with angelic apparitions, in which were imparted to him the successive instructions, first as to the plan of the building, again as to urging on its progress, and finally as to finding funds for its completion. One of these narratives is extremely curious, as showing the intermixture of earth and heaven in the legendary notions of the time. A boy, during the absence of the masons, had been left in charge of their tools, when, as the boy Without dwelling further, however, on the legendary details, we shall find marvels enough in the results, such as they appear in the real history of the building. And perhaps the greatest marvel of all is the shortness of the period in which so vast a work was completed, the new church being actually opened for worship within less than seven years from the day of the conflagration. Ten thousand workmen were employed on the edifice, if it be true that a hundred master-builders, each of whom had a hundred men under him, were engaged to accelerate and complete the undertaking. For the philosophical student of history, there is a deep subject of study in the bare enumeration of the materials brought together for this great Christian enterprise, and of the various quarters from which they were collected. It is not alone the rich assortment of precious marbles,-the spotless white of Paros; *Anonymi, F. 61. the green of Croces; the blue of Libya; together with parti-colored marbles in a variety hardly ever equalled before-the costly cipolline, the rose-veined white marble of Phrygia, the curiously streaked black marble of Gaul, and the countless varieties of Egyptian porphyry and granite. Far more curious is it to consider how the materials of the structure were selected so as to present in themselves a series of trophies of the triumphs of Christianity over all the proudest forms of worship in the old world of paganism. In the forest of pillars which surround the dome and sustain the graceful arches of the Gynæconitis, the visitor may still trace the spoils of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, of the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus, or that of the Delian Apollo, of Minerva at Athens, of Cybele at Cyzicus, and of a host of less distinguished shrines of paganism. When the mere cost of the transport of these massive monuments to Constantinople is taken into account, all wonder ceases at the vastness of the sums which are said to have been expended in the work. It is easy to understand how, "before the walls had risen two cubits from the ground, forty-five thousand two hundred pounds were consumed."* It is not difficult to account for the enormous general taxation, the oppressive exactions from individuals, the percentages on prefects' incomes, and the deductions from the salaries of judges and professors, which went to swell the almost fabulous aggregate of the expenditure; and there is perhaps an economical lesson in the legend of the apparition of the angel, who, when the building had risen as far as the cupola, conducted the master of the imperial treasury to a subterranean vault in which eighty hundred weight of gold were discovered ready for the completion of the work! † Even independently of the building itself and its artistic decorations, the value of the sacred furniture and appliances exceeded all that had ever before been devised. The sedilia of the priests and the throne of the patriarch were of silver gilt. The dome of the tabernacle was of pure gold, ornamented with gol *Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. iii. p. 523. + Anonymi, p. 62. den lilies, and surmounted by a gold cross seventy-five pounds weight and encrusted with precious stones. All the sacred vessels-chalices, beakers, ewers, dishes, and patens, were of gold. The candelabra which stood on the altar, on the ambo, and on the upper gynæconitis; the two colossal candelabra placed at either side of the altar; the dome of the ambo; the several crosses within the bema; the pillars of the iconastasis; the covers of the sacred books; all were likewise of gold, and many of them loaded with pearls, diamonds, and carbuncles. The sacred linens of the altar and the communion cloths were embroidered with gold and pearls. But when it came to the construction of the altar itself, no single one of these costly materials was considered sufficiently precious. Pious ingenuity was tasked to its utmost to devise a new and richer substance, and the table of the great altar was formed of a combination of all varieties of precious materials. Into the still fluid mass of molten gold were thrown pearls and other gems, rubies, crystals, topazes, sapphires, onyxes, and amethysts, blended in such proportions as might seem best suited to enhance to the highest imaginable limit the costliness of what was prepared as the throne of the Most High on earth! And to this combination of all that is most precious in nature, art added all the wealth at its disposal, by the richness of the chasing and the elaborateness and beauty of the design. 66 The total cost of the structure has been variously estimated. It amounted, according to the ancient authorities, to "three hundred and twenty thousand pounds;" but whether these were of silver or of gold is not expressly stated. Gibbon leaves it to each reader, according to the measure of his belief," to estimate it in one or the other metal; but Mr. Neale § is not deterred by the sneer of Gibbon from expressing his belief that gold must be intended." According to this supposition the expenditure, if this can be believed possible, would have reached the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling! It was, no doubt, with profound self Decline and Fall, vol. iii. p. 523. Eastern Church, vol. 1. p. 237. gratulation that, at the end of almost six years of anxious toil, Justinian received the intelligence of the completion of this great labor of love. At his special en treaty, the last details had been urged forward with headlong haste, in order that all might be ready for the great festival of Christmas in the year 538; and his architect had not disappointed his hopes. There is some uncertainty as to the precise date of the dedication; and indeed it is probable that the festival may have extended over several days, and thus have been assigned to different dates by different writers. But when it came (probably on Christmas eve, December 24, 538), it was a day of triumph for Justinian. A thousand oxen, a thousand sheep, a thousand swine, six hundred deer, ten thousand poultry, and thirty thousand measures of corn, were distributed to the poor. Largesses to a fabulous amount were divided among the people. The Emperor, attended by the patriarch and all the great officers of state, went in procession from his palace to the entrance of the church. But, from that spot, as though he would claim to be alone in the final act of offering, Justinian ran, unattended, to the foot of the ambo, and with arms outstretched and lifted up in the attitude of prayer, exclaimed in words which the event has made memorable: "Glory to God, who hath accounted me worthy of such a work! I have, conquered thee, O Solomon!" Justinian's works in St. Sophia, however, were not destined to cease with this first completion of the building. Notwithstanding the care bestowed on the dome, the selection of the lightest materials for it, and the science employed in its construction, an earthquake, which occurred in the year 558, overthrew the semi-dome at the east end of the church. Its fall was followed by that of the eastern half of the great dome itself; and in the ruin perished the altar, the tabernacle, and the whole bema, with its costly furniture and appurtenances. This catastrophe, however, only supplied a new incentive to the zeal of Justinian. Anthemius and his fellow-laborers were now dead, but the task of repairing the injury was entrusted to Isidorus the Younger, nephew of the Isidorus who had been associated with Anthemius in the original construction of the church. It was completed, and the church re-dedicated, at the Christmas of the year 561; nor can it be doubted that the change which Isidorus now introduced in the proportions of the dome, by adding twenty-five feet to its height, contributed materially as well to the elegance of the dome itself as to the general beauty of the church and the harmony of its several parts. The church of Justinian thus completed may be regarded as substantially the same building which is now the chief temple of Islam. The few modifications which it has undergone will be mentioned in the proper place; but it may be convenient to describe the building, such as it came from the hands of its first founder, before we proceed to its later history. St. Sophia, in its primitive form, may be taken as the type of Byzantine ecclesiology in almost all its details. Although its walls enclose what may be roughly* called a square of 241 feet, the internal plan is not inaptly described as a Greek cross, of which the nave and transepts constitute the arm, while the aisles, which are surmounted by the gynæconitis or women's gallery, may be said to complete it into a square, within which the cross is inscribed. The head of the cross is prolonged at the eastern extremity into a slightly projecting apse. The aisle is approached at its western end through a double narthex or porch, extending over the entire breadth of the building, and about 100 feet in depth; so that the whole length of the structure, from the eastern wall of the apse to the wall of the outer porch, is about 340 feet. In the centre, from four massive piers, rises the great dome, beneath which, to the east and to the west, spring two great semidomes, the eastern supported by three, the western by two, semi-domes of smaller dimensions. The central of the three lesser semi-domes, to the east, constitutes the roof of the apse to which allusion has already been made. The piers of the dome (differing in this respect from those of St. Peter's at Rome) present from within a singularly light and elegant appearance; they are nevertheless con sions of the building (excluding the apse and *This is not exactly true. The precise dimennarthex) are 241 feet by 226 feet. |