CHAPTER IX
THE ANCIENT PRECINCTS AND EXTERNAL PARTS OF THE CHURCH
Palace.—Before entering on particulars of the exterior of the church, it will be well to have a clearer view of the edifices in its immediate neighbourhood as they appeared in the time of Justinian.
The group of buildings of which the Augusteum was the centre was profoundly modified by the fire of the Nika Sedition, and by the building energy of the emperor. The researches of Labarte and Paspates have been almost entirely confined to the elucidation of the palace as it existed in the tenth century.
A restoration of the relative position of the several parts of the palace, unless by the discovery of remains positive evidence is obtained, is certainly impossible; the attempt of Labarte was worth making, but Paspates, in bringing forward another scheme, seems only to have succeeded in showing how conjectural the whole matter is, although he speaks of certain scraps of walls as belonging to this or that part of the palace with as much confidence as if he had found them labelled. His work carries internal evidence of the greatest inexactness and confusion, and has proved most misleading, although his citations are valuable.
It should not be assumed that wherever a palace is mentioned by the historians the “Great Palace” is the one referred to, and it must be remembered that the palace described in the Ceremonies was the result of gradual growth: indeed, what is required is a chronological analysis of its history. We have seen in the first chapter that according to the Paschal Chronicle Constantine built a palace by the hippodrome, and the Notitia mentions the palaces of Placidia and Marina in the same neighbourhood. According to Procopius the palace was almost rebuilt by Justinian, but he only specifically mentions the Chalké.
Remains of a palace now on the sea-wall, exactly to the south of the curve of the hippodrome, are thought to be portions of the palace “Hormisdas” which Justinian occupied before he came to the throne (B, on Plan, [Fig. 2]). Close to the sea-wall farther to the west was the double church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus and SS. Peter and Paul, of which the first survives as Little Sancta Sophia (A, on [Fig. 2]). These were early works of Justinian, and his monogram and that of Theodora appear on the capitals of S. Sergius.
Procopius tells us that the church of S. Sergius was “close to the king’s palace which was formerly called by the name of Hormisdas. This was once his own private house,” and when he became emperor “he joined it to the other imperial apartments.” The Great Palace was higher up the slope, against the hippodrome and Augusteum, to which its gates opened.
It was long after Justinian that the great palace reached its maximum development; the Chrysotriclinum was erected by his successor Justin II. The houses of Marina and Placidia were still in use at the end of the sixth century, although this is mentioned by neither Labarte nor Paspates. The wedding of the daughter of Phocas was celebrated in the former,[283] and “the Royal palace of Placidia” is referred to by John of Ephesus. The writer tells us that Tiberius II., the successor of Justin II., made large additions to the palace. Before he reigned alone the wife and daughters of Tiberius occupied the house of Hormisdas, “as it was situated just below the palace, and he would go down and spend the evening with them and return early in the morning to the palace.”[284]
Justinian II. also added to the palace, and in the ninth century Theophilus built the Triconcha. Basil the Macedonian still further increased the assemblage of buildings.
It is clear that in the time of Justinian there were at least four more or less separate palaces grouped together—the Great Palace, Hormisdas, and those of Marina and Placidia.
Hippodrome.—The information in regard to the hippodrome brought together in the works before mentioned, and by Gyllius, cannot be recapitulated here.[285] As the ground fell away steeply towards the south, that end had to be raised high on vaults, and this retaining wall, perhaps forty feet high, forming a semicircular curve, still exists.[286] On either side rose the tiers of the marble seats. At the north end was the royal stand, called Kathisma, from which the emperors watched the games; this was raised above arched chambers, where the chariots for the arena were kept. The south-west end was called Sphendone—The Curve. A rough draft of Constantinople, made early in the fifteenth century for Bondelmontius, reproduced by Mordtmann, shows columns standing on the retaining wall around this curved end. A clear representation of this semicircle of columns is also given in the Nuremberg Chronicle. Banduri reproduces from Panvinius, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, a drawing of the hippodrome which seems to have been made with considerable care. Beneath it is written, “The ruins of the circus or hippodrome of Constantinople as they were a hundred years before the capture of the city by the Turks.”[287] But that it should have been in a ruinous state at this time is not borne out by the accounts of writers like Clavijo and Bondelmontius, who described it in the generation before the Fall: on the contrary, we should suppose this to be one of the draughts for the Venice view of the city published about 1570, with which it agrees in many respects.[288] This bird’s-eye view shows the monuments on the Spina, the Grand Stand and its “Podium” of vaults, and also the high external retaining wall of the curve, above which the columns again appear, but set back from its face, so as to leave a passage outside the columns, the outer wall being finished with a battlement. It is true that in the engraving it is rendered as if these columns were attached to a wall, or rather as if a wall were built between the columns, for they appear both inside and out; but this interpretation cannot be given to a description of this colonnade by Gyllius.[289] “In the front of the hippodrome facing the Propontis there was a range of seventeen pillars of white marble standing when I first came to Constantinople, going round that part of the hippodrome which lies between south and west.” They stood on a low wall, about two feet six inches high towards the hippodrome, but outside it was fifty feet to the ground. They were of the Corinthian order, three feet five inches in diameter and twenty-eight feet high, standing eleven feet apart on pedestals; above them was an architrave to which rings were fixed for curtains. “Above was another range of pillars, which were remaining some time after the taking of the city by the Turks.” These last were only reported to Gyllius; and if we accept such a second tier we may suppose that it ranged with a colonnade surmounting the containing wall of the terraces of seats. Paspates makes from this account a wonderful and impossible arrangement; he supposes the first-mentioned columns to have been continued along the external sides of the hippodrome, he further rears the second range on them, and this he thinks upheld the immense mass of the rising seats. “If we suppose,” he says, “the height of those in the upper row to have been twenty-one feet, we have about fifty-six feet as the height of the wall on which the seats for the spectators were built.”
These columns probably formed an open screen through which the spectators might see the sparkling waters of the Propontis, set with the blue jewels of Prince’s Islands and the white peaks of Olympus rising far away to the left—one of the most beautiful scenes in the world. This addition of a natural spectacle behind the scene was frequently obtained in ancient theatres: the best known is that at Taormina. Clavijo[290] speaks of the hippodrome as being “surrounded by white marble pillars,” but he adds “thirty-seven in number.” The anonymous Russian who wrote about the same time says “thirty columns and their summits are united by an architrave.” See [Fig. 2]. An “open hippodrome” and a “covered hippodrome” are mentioned by the Byzantine writers. Labarte distinguishing them, placed the latter within the palace. Byeljayev, however, conjectures that the covered hippodrome was a part of the Great Hippodrome. Be this as it may, the “rings for curtains” of Gyllius suggest that portions were sheltered by a Velarium.
Bondelmontius[291] writes thus of the hippodrome: “In it those cf noble birth joust in the presence of the people, and there are combats and tournaments. It is 690 bracchia long and 134 wide, and it is built above vaults, in which a cistern of the best water covers the whole of the space mentioned. At the head of the hippodrome are high pillars [of Kathisma] where the emperor sits with his nobles, and on both sides in its length are seats of marble arranged in steps where the people sit and see all the games.” On the outside towards S. Sophia there was the church of S. Stephen, “from the galleries of which the ladies watched their chosen champions.” On the Spina he notices a fountain where the wounded were laid, the two obelisks, and the three serpents “with open mouths from which, it is said, on days of jousting water, wine, and milk used to spout.” At the end of the Spina were four small marble columns where the emperor sat on feast days.[292]
Besides the bronze serpentine column from Delphi, there still stands in the hippodrome an Egyptian obelisk, set up by Theodosius I. on a pedestal sculptured with a representation of the emperor viewing the games from the Kathisma, and a record of the methods used in erecting the obelisk by means of ropes and winches. Nicetas in his life of S. Ignatius says that a brazen pine-apple surmounted this obelisk. A third monument is a large built-up obelisk of stone, pitted all over where pins which attached bronze plates were inserted. An inscription often quoted, records that Constantine, father of Romanus, repaired it and added to its beauty. The casing of bronze was probably covered with reliefs and ornament, as was the case with the pillar in the Augusteum, and the anemodulium, which was set up by Theodosius in the Forum Tauri. This last was an obelisk entirely cased with bronze, “having reliefs[293] of cattle, sheep and skipping lambs; peasants labouring or playing on their pipes, and birds; there was also represented the sea, and sea-gods, and cupids playing at ball. On the point was a statue of a woman which turned to the slightest breath of the wind.”
Among the statues in the hippodrome mentioned by Nicetas as having been destroyed was the colossal bronze Hercules, and a sundial which was in the form of an eagle with wide expanded wings trampling on a serpent. The twelve hours were marked out beneath its wings, six on either side, and the sun shining through a hole in each wing marked the hour or the day. Near the eastern goal was a row of statues of charioteers, driving their chariots and turning the goal. Besides these there were many other statues of persons and animals; an elephant with a proboscis that moved is mentioned, but it is not clear however that this last was in the hippodrome.
Sigurd, King of Norway, saw the games given here in 1111; there was a spectacle in which people appeared as if riding in the air, some sort of fireworks, also music with playing of organs, harps, and other instruments.[294] Benjamin of Tudela (1161) says, “lions, bears, and leopards were shown, and all nations of the world were represented, together with surprising feats of jugglery.” The hippodrome was used for spectacles after the change of masters. An Italian MS. of 1582 in the British Museum describes the ambassadors and princes sitting on staging, with a large stand for the band in the “piazza” of the hippodrome; the Sultan and his son sat on an inclosed and covered throne.[295]
Augusteum.—“In front of the palace,” says Procopius, “there is a forum surrounded with columns. The Byzantines call this forum the Augusteum. On the eastern side stands the Senate-house.” Other writers speak of it as the Agora of the Milion, or simply as the Milion, from the building which adjoined it. Zonaras seems to call it the Proaulion of the Great Church. Round its sides were peristyles, and the buildings mentioned in the first chapter, most of which were rebuilt by Justinian. It was laid with a marble floor of long slabs, a portion of which was discovered many feet below the present level, together with the inscribed base of the silver statue of Eudoxia, when Fossati built the new government offices in 1848.
“Outside the palace the public baths of Zeuxippus and the great porticoes and all the buildings on either hand as far as the Forum of Constantine are the work of the emperor Justinian.”[296] Large pillars have frequently been found which appear to have formed part of colonnades in the Augusteum. Gyllius saw seven large Corinthian columns, forty-six feet high over all and “twenty foot ten digits apart.” On the shaft of one was cut the name of Constantine, with the signal of the cross he saw in the heavens, and the inscription ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΚΑ. These, he seems to suggest, may have belonged to the Milion. On this is built up a characteristic piece of restoration by Paspates, who sees in the seven columns, standing over twenty feet apart, and obviously in a straight line, “a square building resting on seven columns,” to which he adds an upper range of pillars supporting a domed chamber. Bondelmontius, who is also cited for these columns, says there were six, and all in a row. They were almost certainly a part of the nine columns seen by Clavijo[297] before the Fall, when he was told that “a great palace used to stand on the top of them, where the patriarch and his clergy held their meetings.”
This great square, surrounded by colonnades, contained so many statues and other works of art that Labarte well calls it an open air museum. To the north, opposite the south-west corner of the church, was the colossal bronze equestrian statue of Justinian surmounting a pillar, which, according to Procopius, stood on seven stages of steps and was covered with bronze reliefs. The king looked to the east, and carried the orb of the earth surmounted by a cross in his hand. The pillar had originally been erected by Arcadius to support a silver statue of Theodosius his father. The statue of Justinian, which replaced that of Theodosius, was destroyed by lightning in 1492.[298] The fragments were seen by Gyllius, and, from measurements which he gives, it seems to have been from twice to three times natural size. Bondelmontius says the pillar was seventy cubits high. A very good drawing of the statue, now amongst the MSS. of the Serai library, made about the year 1340, is reproduced by Mordtmann. This pillar and its statue is often called the Augusteum, and it probably gave its name to the place in which it stood.
The Milion.—It is probable that the city milestone existed before Constantine, who may have built the structure over it. According to Du Cange[299] the Augusteum, with which it was so closely associated, was often called by its name; so that Codinus tells us that the church of S. Phocas was built “in the Milion.” It appears to have formed the western boundary and gate of this forum, or at least of its inner part, if divided, and to have been connected with a colonnade running north and south as well as with the Mese. It is spoken of as a colonnade (embolos), as vaulted (kamara and phournikon), or as having many arches (apsides). Cedrenus and other writers speak of statues in the apsis or kamara of the Milion. It can hardly be doubted that it had four large arches facing different ways. A structure of this kind remains at Lattaquieh, which is about ten metres square and was surmounted by a dome. De Vogüé[300] compares it with ruins of a similar erection found at Palmyra, the Mesomphalion of Nicaea, and the Umbilicus of Antioch described by Dion Chrysostom, and others. This last stood at the centre of the two great colonnaded streets that ran east to west and north to south through the city.
The principal reference to the Milion is the description by Nicetas[301] of the struggle with the insurgent troops in the reign of Alexius Manuel. “As many buildings as adjoined the Great Church and commanded the Augusteum were seized by the rebels, who scaled the large apsis which stands over the Milion, and also fortified the church of S. Alexius, which is joined to the Augusteum. But the imperial troops made a sally from the great palace and established themselves in the church of S. John called Diippus; and the agora was full of men who were injured by those on the apsis of the Milion, and on the church of S. Alexius. But fresh troops from the palace filled all the thoroughfares and passages leading to S. Sophia. The rebels, coming out of the temple and passing by the Augusteum, became engaged with the others in the narrow ways, and the conflict remained uncertain, until the imperial troops drove back from the streets those who had come out of S. Sophia and shut them within the Augusteum. The imperial troops broke open the gates of the Augusteum, and the rebels were forced from the top of the Milion by the troops mounting the apsides, while the rest of them, being worsted in the Augusteum, gave way; but a shower of missiles was kept up from the part called Macron, overlooking the Augusteum, and the neighbouring chamber of Thomais. They took refuge in the pronaos of the church, where is the Archangel Michael in mosaic standing with drawn sword as if on guard. The imperial troops, because of the narrowness, were unable to follow them with advantage, nor did the insurgents dare to trust themselves out again. The patriarch descended into the proskenion or protekdikeion of the church, and then harangued them to prevent further sacrilege.”
In the Ceremonies we twice read of the emperor passing through the nave of S. Sophia and its Royal Gate, then across the narthex, and, by the louter (fountain), reaching the steps of the athyr (atrium). “Then he passes through the Milion, and along the Mese and reaches the Forum, where is the Chapel of S. Constantine.” Labarte, wrongly explaining this as the Forum Augusteum, instead of that of Constantine, makes the louter the baptistery, and the athyr its porch. Other processions from the Palace to the Church through the Milion have been given by Labarte.
The colonnades adjoining the Milion are mentioned in the account of a fire which attacked a part of the Great Church in the reign of Isaac Angelus. “The parts by the apsis of the Milion, and the Macron, and the place called the Synods were burnt. The porticoes of Domninus were reduced to ashes, as well as the two covered ways starting on both sides of the Milion one of which reaches to the Philadelphion.”[302] The Philadelphion was towards Constantine’s forum, and the other way probably led from the Milion north and south to the church and the palace gate.
We learn from Agatho the Deacon[303] that in the porticoes (stoai) of the Milion were represented the seven Œcumenical Synods of Constantinople; this is probably what is meant by Nicetas, where he speaks of “The Synods” as quoted above (see, however, Mordtmann, p. 68). The seven synods is one of the iconographic schemes given by the Byzantine Manual, and they are represented in the mosaics at the Nativity Church at Bethlehem.
Horologium.—In close connection both with the Milion and the church was the court of “the time-measure”—a sundial or water-clock. At the triumphal entry of Basil “they passed along the Mese up to the Milion, and entered through the embolos of the Milion into the Horologium, and, having put off their crowns in the metatorium within the Beautiful Gate, they entered the narthex.”[304] The Horologium is constantly spoken of as being near the baptistery, and was certainly on the south side of the church.
Baptistery.—In our first chapter we have given reasons for supposing that the round building at the north-east formed part of the earlier church and became the baptistery of Justinian’s building. Buzantios considered that the former was the baptistery “perhaps also used as a sacristy.” A knowledge of an earlier baptistery would seem to be implied in the way the south-west building is spoken of by Porphyrogenitus and later writers as the “Great Baptistery by the Horologium.”
According to Codinus and the Anonymous the Great Baptistery was built before the church, and Salzenberg thought the style was earlier than that of the church. Is it possible that this was built as an independent church and only ultimately became the baptistery? It appears from the account of the Russian pilgrim Anthony that in the twelfth century its dome was painted with the baptism of Christ in Jordan, a scheme which agrees with the two baptisteries at Ravenna.
St. Peter’s Chapel, &c.—To the east there were some detached buildings, at least in later times. The Anonymous we have seen mentions a chapel of St. Peter as near the skeuophylakium. Anthony speaks of this chapel, in which St. Peter’s chains and the carpet of St. Nicholas were preserved, as behind the altar. The anonymous Russian says a chapel of St. Nicholas was behind the bema, and also speaks of a marble basin covered with a lead roof, “where they baptise the emperors” as being behind the altar, in a space set round with cypresses. Anna Comnena also mentions “the chapel of the Hierarch Nicholas” as part of the Great Church and a place of sanctuary.[305] The passage of St. Nicholas is also referred to. It is possible that this chapel was otherwise known as St. Peter’s, and either this or “the place where they baptise the emperors” may be the present round building—the ancient baptistery as we suppose. That St. Peter’s chapel was of some importance and detached seems clear from the Menologium. On January 16 was celebrated the adoration of St. Peter’s chains. It is explained that after Peter’s release, “the chains were found by some believers and guarded from generation to generation until they were brought to Constantinople by a pious emperor and placed in the church (ναὸς) of St. Peter which is near St. Sophia.” We have given a picture of the chains in [Figure 8]. A tradition of some of these buildings may be preserved in an Italian MS. of 1611 in the British Museum. “The ancient buildings round the church have been ruined by the Turks except a small part of the close (canonica), where they have made dwellings; there is also the sacristy and the place of the baptistery, which had originally three vaulted ceilings, one above another. It was of wonderful architecture and made with six angles. From the sacristy to the base of the dome is an arquebus shot; between it and the Seraglio lies a road.”
Boundaries.—Probably the fullest and clearest account of the approach to the church through the Augusteum is given by the Spanish ambassador Clavijo, who was at Constantinople in 1405, at a time when many of the buildings in the precincts had been destroyed. In a court in the front of the church, he saw “nine very large columns of white marble,” and he was told that before his time a palace had been here, where the patriarch met the canons in chapter. “And in the same place before the church stands a stone pillar of marvellous height, on the top of which is a horse of copper as large as four horses put together; on the horse was an armed knight with a great plume on his head like a peacock’s tail. The horse has chains of iron round its body secured to the column to prevent it from falling, or being moved by the wind. The horse is very well made, and one fore and one hind leg is raised, as if it were in the act of prancing. The knight, on its back, has his right arm raised, with the hand open, while the reins are held with the left hand. This marvellous horse is said to have been placed here by the Emperor Justinian, who erected the column. At the entrance to the church under an arch in front of a gate, is a place adorned with four columns, and below is a little chapel very rich and beautiful. And beyond this chapel is the gate to the church covered with bronze very great and high; beyond again is a little court surrounded by high galleries [horologium?]. Afterwards there was another gate of bronze [the south porch]. Beyond this gate there is a ‘nave’ vast and high, with a ceiling of wood [the exonarthex]. And on the left hand there is a cloister very large, and beautiful [the atrium], with many stones of jasper of infinite variety of colour. On the right hand under the said nave-covered as I have said—and after the second gate, you arrive at the body of the church, which has five doors, high and large, covered with bronze, of which that in the middle is the greatest.”[306]
The present south porch we should suppose is the pronaos mentioned by Nicetas as that where the Archangel Michael stood on guard. The exonarthex is now vaulted, but not covered with mosaic; it is bare and rough, and it seems possible that at one time there may have been a ceiling of wood.
Stephen of Novgorod (1350) says that the first gate of the church was by the column of Justinian; then there was a second, a third, fourth, fifth and sixth and by the seventh you entered the great church. This may be exaggeration, but Gyllius speaks of the south entrance formerly being by six valvae of brass, “now there are only three, ingeniously worked,” so that there would appear to have been at least one more double door in his time than the two now existing. If we consult the careful drawings made by Grelot, which take us half way back to the conquest, we shall see that the boundaries of the cypress garden on the south side agree entirely with the present walls. The first of the turbehs was built here about a hundred years after the conquest, and we may almost safely assume that it was backed against the outer wall, as at present. Now when we find Clavijo, some fifty years before the conquest, in approaching the church from this side, speak of an outer gateway and a court before the church was reached, we shall almost certainly be justified in placing this outer gate on the present boundary. The fountain in the south court we suppose occupies the site of an ancient fountain. A comparison of Grelot’s plan (1680) with Fossati’s (1850), will make clear the south boundaries of the church, as they existed at the time of the conquest. The octagonal building attached to the south side of the church shown in Fossati’s plan must be Turkish, probably the library of the sultan mentioned by Pococke.
The palace of the patriarch, with the library of the Thomaites, we would place on the ground between the south boundary and the church, the gardens which belonged to it occupying the ground of one of the courts. It had evidently been destroyed by the time of Clavijo’s visit, and for what is known as to the buildings we must refer to Paspates.
The courts to the north of the church were probably occupied by the cells of the clergy and the college called Didaskalion (see our page [49]); Bondelmontius speaks of “the way of a thousand columns in pairs” (the Mese) through which the emperor walked to S. Sophia “where the houses of the 800 clergy were round the church.”[307]
The Atrium.—The street lying at an angle to the west wall of the entrance courtyard, rising steeply towards the hippodrome, is probably ancient.
Some considerable remains of the atrium colonnade were in existence in the present century, but they were finally destroyed in 1873.[308] The present boundary of the western court appears to occupy the position of the exterior west wall of the atrium. Outside it there is a level roadway, beyond which the ground falls rapidly to the street. As the church stands across a hill the ground had to be made up to a level, and this, together with the position of the street, would account for the court not having been square as was usually the case. As excavations have shown that the pavement of the Hippodrome and the Augusteum were eight or ten feet below the present level,[309] steps would have been required to attain the level of the church at the west. The Ceremonies show that the royal processions entered and left the church on the south side through the Augusteum, which served as a great forecourt to the church on this side. Without doubt this was the principal entrance. Clavijo and other visitors all appear to have entered the church from the south. When Grelot’s western view was made (before 1680) no west doors to the atrium existed, but it was entered from the north and south only. In our plan we have therefore shown only one door in the west wall of the atrium, possibly there was none ([Fig. 3]).
Fig. 25.—Original state of West Front as built by Justinian.
Outside the present south-west entrance of the court there remained until 1869 a stone inscribed
✚ϹΑϹΘϹΕΝΘΑΔΕΚΑΤΟΙΚΙΜΗΔΕΙ....
Its form suggests that it was a step, or it may have been a lintel from one of the doors into the atrium or the rim from a fountain.[310] The words “The Holy God dwelleth here let no....” may be compared with the inscriptions for fountains and gates given on pages 84 and 264.
This atrium court of S. Sophia was called by the Byzantine authors aule, mesaulion, aithria, and by some late writer, garçonastasion, which Du Cange explains as “the place where pages wait.” The cloistered walk originally surrounded it and formed a quadriporticus; although the eastern walk, the present exonarthex, is inclosed and entirely different from the other colonnaded walks, the atrium is often referred to as “Four-porticoed” (Tetrastoon). It cannot therefore be doubted that the exonarthex with its great piers replaced the original eastern walk, for the sake of greater abutment to the church. This is equally clear from the building itself and the description of the poet. (See Figs. [3], [24], [25], [29]). The “Propylaeum” often spoken of must either be this exonarthex, or the gateways in the atrium.
The cloister walks were vaulted, and the walls covered with marble. One of the capitals remained in the courtyard as lately as 1873, when it was drawn by Canon Curtis; it resembled those in the gallery inside, with deep sculptured dosseret and small volutes below. More than one writer remarks on the great beauty of the marble shafts. They were set in close order, and we may see from Salzenberg that, when we add for their bases, they were some twenty-two feet high, and must have made a fine portico to the west front. In 1852 two of the pillars were represented on the plan of Fossati as still in situ: now every evidence of the atrium has entirely disappeared.
Phiale.—In the middle of the court was placed a fountain, where, according to the Silentiary, was a “bubbling stream leaping into the air from a bronze pipe.” The name given to such a fountain by Greek writers was phiale or colymbethra, and, by the Latins, cantharus or nymphaeum. At S. Sophia it was also called “The Laver of the Atrium” (λουτὴρ μεσαυλίου).[311] The louter or loutron, with its colymbethra, formed a sanctuary for the pursued: we read in Procopius of their “fleeing to the church of S. Sophia, and coming to the holy loutron, and laying hold of the colymbethra which was there.”[312]
According to the Anonymous author, on whom we place no reliance, the phiale had twelve arcades or columns, and lions spouted out the water. Canopied phialae it is true still exist at St. Demetrius at Salonica, and in the monasteries of Mount Athos. The canopy of the phiale at old St. Peter’s was of bronze; under it the great pine cone, which still remains, threw out water in innumerable little threads. On the canopy were probably placed the beautiful bronze peacocks, which also still exist.[313] A very beautiful fountain of this kind, at Constantinople, was placed before the church built by Basil in the palace. The basin was marble, from which rose a pine cone pierced with holes. Above on the cornice were placed cocks, stags, and rams, of cast bronze, from which the water flowed.[314]
In the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra, the basin of the fountain rests on lions, and the water runs away from the fountain in four open streams to the four sides of the cloister. This work was certainly executed under Byzantine influence, and it is curious to find more than one small garden fountain at Constantinople in which the water issues from the mouth of lions. On the other hand it seems probable that the Anonymous imitated the description of the temple of Solomon and the laver, which stood on twelve oxen. The other washing place he describes (see page [141]) with the different kinds of animals represented, seems to be founded on the description of that of Basil’s church.
Porphyrogenitus speaks of the “cup of the phiale”; and it seems most probable, considering the simple description of the Silentiary, that, as in so many ancient churches, it was at first merely a bowl, standing on a pillar rising from a polygonal basin. In the time of Michael Palaeologus, there was such a basin on the sides of which “was engraved on the marble the honoured form of the cross.”[315] A bowl figured by Gruterus[316] in 1602 as “newly found at Constantinople,” has been spoken of by Du Cange and others as having belonged to S. Sophia, although the evidence of this is not very positive.[317] This was a circular bowl very similar to the well-known representation of a cantharus of Justinian’s time in the Ravenna mosaic. The inscription around the rim read equally well in both directions.[318] This circle being horizontal, we cannot but think, as it would necessarily be read from outside, that Gruterus was mistaken in putting the bottom of the letters toward the centre; we have therefore reversed this in our figure. The words “Wash thy sins, not thy face only,” almost certainly refer it to a phiale. Eusebius, for instance, speaking of one of these fountains, says, “it is not meet for an unclean foot to step on the sacred place within the temple,” and Paulinus tells us that at Nola those who entered the church washed their hands in a similar place.[319] Probably, so accurate a writer as Du Cange had good reasons for referring the bowl in question to S. Sophia. Dr. Covel of Cambridge, who was at Constantinople from 1670 to 1677, and has left a valuable MS. now in the British Museum, which we shall have further occasion to quote, also gives the inscription, which he says came from the fountain of S. Sophia, but again, it is possible he derived this from Du Cange, or from Grelot, whom he appears to have met, for some of the Frenchman’s drawings are included in the MS.
Fig. 26.—Inscription on Phiale from Gruter.
In this collection are drawings of two beautiful phiale cups, which existed at Ephesus when visited by Dr. Covel. From the simple elegance of their forms we suppose that these bowls cannot be later than the sixth century.[320] See [Fig. 27].
Pavement of the Court.—When the Anonymous tells us that the four boundaries of the church were called after the rivers that flowed from Paradise, it is quite evident from the context that he is speaking of the atrium; and it seems probable that immediately before, where he speaks of “ever flowing waters of great rivers,” he is describing the pavement of the court as figuring four streams. This certainly would furnish a reason for the walks taking their names from the four rivers of marble which flowed towards them, like the four real streams flow in the court of the Alhambra. There is much to countenance this theory. For instance, the atrium of old St. Peter’s was called Paradise: Simeon of Thessalonica tells us the part outside the doors of a church represented the creation, as the bema symbolised heaven; and the idea might easily be referred to the words used in the service for blessing the waters of the phiale.
Fig. 27.—Phiale Bowls from Ephesus.
This custom of blessing the waters on the eve of Epiphany, to which Paulus the Silentiary alludes (see page [44]), was practised as early as the end of the fourth century.[321] Goar gives the ritual.[322] After the evening service the priest with the censer and candlestick proceeds to the “luter of the mesaulion,” chanting “the voice of the Lord is upon the waters.” Part of the ceremony of blessing included a prayer, “We beseech thee, O Almighty Father ... who fixed Paradise in Eden and bade its quadruple spring flow far and wide ... who blessed the waters for Jacob, and hast bidden us, through thy prophet Isaiah, to draw water in gladness from the fountains of the Saviour.” The account of the Anonymous may be a duplication of his description of the interior, but outside Charlemagne’s church at Aix there is a pine cone which formerly belonged to a phiale; the water rained from it through little holes, and about the foot are verses referring to the rivers of Paradise and Baptism.
West Front.—On the east side of the atrium court, against the west wall of the exonarthex, rise four great piers from which spring flying arches to the west wall of the church. Salzenberg thought that the upper arches were Turkish, and that the piers were originally intended to support equestrian statues, which he therefore shows in his drawings. Other writers, amongst whom is Fossati, say that the bronze horses now on the gallery outside the west front of S. Mark’s at Venice, taken from Constantinople in 1204, came from this position; but there is not the least authority for this statement, and the horses at Venice are not half the size of those that would be required to justify the suggestion. Bondelmontius in 1422 describing the columns of the city, speaks first of that of Justinian, “secondly of that of the Cross, where are seen four upright porphyry columns; and on them were placed four bronze horses which the Venetians took to S. Mark’s at Venice, but the columns remain.” Brocquière, writing ten years later, says that “westward [in the city] is a very high square column with characters traced on it, and bearing on the summit an equestrian statue of Constantine in bronze. He holds a sceptre in his left hand, with his right extended towards Turkey in Asia and the road to Jerusalem as if to denote that the whole of that country was under his government. Near this column are three [sic] others placed in a line, and of single pieces which bore the three gilt horses now in Venice.” Brocquière has here certainly confused the column of Justinian, and that of Constantine, but we may safely accept Bondelmontius. The porphyry column of Constantine, situated in the Forum Constantine, at this time bore a cross with the inscription “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Many modern writers place the four horses in the hippodrome, as Nicetas speaks of “the arched starting-places for the racers, above which are fixed powerful horses of gilt bronze, curving their necks and facing one another as if eager for the course” (Ed. Bonn, p. 150).
Between the four great piers of the west front there are now three doorways. If, however, we refer to the plates of Salzenberg, we shall find that only the two lateral ones are there shown, and that the position of the central door is occupied by a window; this arrangement was seen by Texier in 1834, and is shown in a MS. drawing of his, now in the library of the Royal Institute of Architects. Referring to the views and plan which Grelot published in 1680, we see the central bay occupied by a belfry, with a pyramidal top rising above the roof of the exonarthex. Now in Goar’s Euchologium[323] there is a note to this effect, “The Greeks first took up the use of bells from the time when Urso Patricio, Doge of Venice, in the year 865, sent them to Michael the emperor, who greatly valued them, and built a tower for them against S. Sophia.” We have already seen that large repairs were made to the west front of the church about this time (page [123]), with a view of counteracting the thrust of the vaults. Before the belfry was built the Semantron would have been used; this was a plate of bronze or wood suspended in the atrium and struck like a gong (see [Fig. 28]). It appears from the Russian pilgrims that the bells remained in use for only a short time. A sixteenth century French MS. in the British Museum speaks of the old square tower and bells. Grelot[324] says “this tower, formerly the belfry, is now void, the Turks having exchanged the music of bells for the noise of cannon.” It was not fifty toises high, and could not have held many bells, or large ones.[325]
Fig. 28.—Semantron at Constantinople, from Lenoir.
The upper story of the narthex, Grelot tells us was supported by six flying buttresses, and both his exterior views show three complete piers and flying arches on each side of the tower. The bay next the belfry on the right was occupied by a low building with a pent roof, in which were descending steps, at the bottom of which they drew off water from “the great cisterns under the church, from which it was said a boat might reach the sea.” As to the doors there were three towards the west, used when Grelot made his plan, two being those at the extreme north and south, opposite the lateral atrium walks, and the other, which was less, and little used, was next the belfry on the left, and is in fact the left one of the three present doors. The arches, which cover two of the spaces between the piers and make them into porches, are shown in the view by Fossati of the unrestored state of the front.
Fig. 29.—West Front as altered in the Ninth Century.
Comparing the drawings of Grelot and the plan given by Du Cange, both published in 1680, with the present remains, it would appear that there were formerly ten of these buttresses; two being merged in the central belfry, and the two outside ones incorporated in the minarets, on the sides of which traces of them may still be seen. Two others have either been destroyed by the Turks, or Grelot’s drawings are wrong to this extent, as no trace seems to remain of more than eight. Of these eight which now in part remain, Salzenberg only reserves the four at the centre, on which he places the horses. Our Figs. [26] and [29] represent the original west front and the altered façade of the ninth century; see also Plan, [Fig. 24].
Cisterns.—On the south side of the right-hand pier is a small arch which gives access to a little recessed chamber in the buttress. From this and from a similar recess north of the central entrance, water from the cisterns beneath the church was probably obtained: a cross on the wall of the little chamber would seem to show that it was a “holy well.”[326]
Clavijo says the cisterns beneath the church would float ten galleys, and C. Lebrun (1714) speaks of ten cisterns and forty columns standing in the water. The only real description of the cistern we have been able to find is in Dr. Covel’s MS. diary in the British Museum. In 1676 he writes, “We went to see the vaults under S. Sophia; they were full of water, then 17 feet deep, and overhead, from the water up to the top of the arch was about 2 yards and 6 inches. Every pillar is square (4½ feet), and distant from another just 12 feet. The bricks are very broad, thin, and well baked; [it is] not plastered within, the mortar very hard. They say it goes under [the] At-Meidan, but we could not enter it. The waste water of the Aqueduct enters into it, and [going] out of it passing through the Seraglio, goes into the sea by the dunghill. [There is] severe punishment to [those who] have houses with offices [draining] into it; or [for those who] throw any filth into it: the well of S. Sophia [opens] into it and many wells in the Seraglio.” He gives a diagram plan, showing two rows of eight piers and a third row of three, although, as no boundary is shown, it is impossible to say if this is the whole extent (see below).[327]
Generally.—Some of the exterior was doubtless cased with marble like S. Mark’s; indeed some of the marble plating remained in Salzenberg’s time. “The walls outside (the Anonymous writes) were covered with large and valuable stones.” Where not so incrusted the narrow coursed brickwork showed in thin red lines, almost equalled by the thick joints of the mortar. From this brickwork the marble lattices of the windows, each with its slab at the bottom charged with a cross, shone out fair, and the gray lead of the many domes rose above all, curve on curve in pearly gradation of light. The courts were doubtless closely set with cypresses, like those which now rise about the turbehs on the south side.
Many passages in the Byzantine authors show how much beauty of site was regarded as essential for a fair church.[328] Procopius, describing the Church of the Fountain at Constantinople, says, “there was a grove of cypresses in a rich meadow of blooming flowers, a garden abounding in fruit, with a gently bubbling spring of sweet water, everything suggested the site of a church.”