ADDITIONS
P. 20, n. 1. The date of the dialogue Philopatris has been the subject of much argument, notably in Byzant. Zeitschrift, vols. v and vi, 1896-7. It has been placed under Carus, Julian, Heraclius, and John Zimisces. The matter is unintelligible unless at an early period of Christianity, and I should be inclined to maintain that interpolations in one or two places by late copyists (see [p. 256]) have given it a false semblance of recency.
P. 24, note. John Malala was unknown to Ducange (not having been published till 1691), and hence has been neglected to a great extent by later writers on Byzantine antiquities. He is the earliest authority for much of what is to be found in the later chronographers. According to Conybeare the Paschal Chronicle did not copy Malala, but an original common to both; Byzant. Zeitsch., 1902.
P. 33. There is no record of the building of the Golden Gate, but John Malala (p. 360), says that Theodosius II gilded it, whence the name. Most probably this statement includes the erection of the monument. I am now satisfied that the Golden Gate had no direct connection with Theodosius the Great, but was raised by his grandson to commemorate the overthrow of the usurper John by his generals Aspar and Ardaburius at Ravenna in 425. This is the “tyrant” alluded to (“post fata tyranni”), who had supplanted the infant Valentinian III in the West, afterwards the husband of Eudoxia, daughter of Theodosius II. The victory caused the greatest excitement at CP., of which Socrates (vii, 23) gives a striking account. They were all sitting in the Hippodrome when the news arrived, whereupon the Emperor, with the whole audience, rose up, abandoned the games, marched through the streets singing enthusiastically, and the rest of the day was spent in the churches giving utterance to fervid prayers. It is inconceivable that so tame a couplet could have been composed to celebrate the martial deeds of Theodosius I. The clash of arms would have been heard in any inscription designed to record the achievements of an Emperor who won battles in the field by his own tactics and strategy. But in a generally quiet reign, with the palace under the rule of the women, any decided success would be magnified and the weakling Theodosius II would naturally be associated with the prestige of his grandfather, whose name he bore. The case is one on all fours with that of the great statue in Taurus (erected after a minor Persian war), so skilfully allocated by Déthier (see [p. 72]) and the boastful inscription on it (Gk. Anthol. Plan., iv, 65). The inscription on the Golden Gate was not sculptured, but was composed of metal letters fastened to the stone by rivets. Many of these holes can still be located on the decayed surface. These were first observed by Strzygowski in 1893, and by joining them judiciously the form of the letters originally attached could be made out. The lines ran across the top of the gate, the first verse of the couplet being on the left side, the second on the right. See the monograph by S. on the Golden Gate, Jahrb. d. Kaiser. Deutsche Archæol. Instit., 1893, viii, 1. But the origin of the old Golden Gate in the Constantinian wall remains unsolved; for surmises see Van Millingen.
P. 31. It is highly improbable that the wall of Theodosius ever ran through to the Golden Horn, as, in order to do so, it would have had to cut the parish or region of Blachernae in two. It must have pulled up therefore at the previously existing wall which surrounded that part; see the Notitia, reg. xiv. Hence there must always have been a projecting portion of the fortifications at this end.
P. 37. Van Millingen decides to identify the palace of Bucoleon with that of Hormisdas, as hitherto the building on the wall has been popularly named. This identification now seems to me quite tenable. Both the Anon. and Codinus (pp. 45, 87) mention, in somewhat different terms, the locality of H., and connect it with Port Julian, evidently to the west of the existing ruin. I am satisfied that the latter is really the Bucoleon built by Theodosius II, and that the Hormisdas, which must have been altogether reconstructed by Justinian (Procop., Aedific., i, 10), has quite disappeared. Theodosius could not by any sort of implication be said to have built a house of Hormisdas, who was dead long before he was born. Later this palace (Hormisdas) was diverted to ecclesiastical purposes, became, in fact, a sort of Church House, where meetings were held, and also a hostelry for members of the priesthood when visiting the capital; see pp. 669, sqq. In the latter connection it is often mentioned by John of Ephesus in the work already referred to (p. 345, n. 2).
P. 74. The identification of the Bin bir derek with the cistern of Philoxenus is a mere surmise—a monogram on the columns is said to stand for Εὖγε φιλόξενε! The researches of Forscheimer (and Strzygowski) give a more likely elucidation which, with the Yeri Baian Seraï, a much larger cistern still full of water, will be considered later on. See p. 539 and cf. Lethaby and S., p. 248.
Pp. 78, 319. There were three localities at CP. which might conceivably have been called Hebdomon by the inhabitants: 1. The seventh of the fourteen parishes of the city as described in the Notitia; 2. The camping ground near Blachernae of the seventh regiment of Gothic mercenaries; 3. A kind of Field of Mars for reviewing the troops situated seven miles from the Milion on the shore of the Propontis. When processions to the Hebdomon are mentioned, it is always the last place which is meant, and there the church of St. John was founded. I do not know whether there is any literary reference to either of the first two localities under that name, but much confusion has been occasioned by the contradictory views of various writers, especially Gyllius and Ducange; see Mordtmann, op. cit., p. 29.
P. 100. The actual sums which it appears that scholars accept as obligatory on three praetors to spend annually for the public shows are respectively £150,000, £120,000, and £90,000, in all £360,000! Under these circumstances it was scarcely worth while for Olympiodorus to mention such a trifle as the 1,200 lb. of gold (£48,000), expended by Probus in his praetorship, unless it was to show how beggarly he was in comparison with his predecessors in office, the least of whom had to disburse under legal compulsion nearly double that amount. It is strange that none of Gibbon’s editors has noticed that his “ridiculous four or five pounds” is in reality £57 5s., at his own estimate of the value of the follis (.548d.), viz., 1∕ 2025 of the silver follis or purse, which he makes equal to £6; iii, p. 293 (Bury). I have read somewhere that Sir Isaac Newton could not work the simple rules of arithmetic.
Pp. 252, 274. The evidence for Galerius’s edict of toleration and Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313) is the same, viz., Lactantius and Eusebius. There is no good reason to doubt the latter. The attitude of Galerius towards Christianity was mere toleration after failure to suppress; Constantine’s that of favour and adoption. Every one knew that Galerius would spring again if he got the chance. If C. took up Christianity as one of his religions c. 312, he would naturally, after his victory, issue a manifesto to define his personal policy and inclinations. Too much stress is often laid on the light doubts of recent investigators.
P. 294, n. 2. Since this section on religion was written, two movements on the lines indicated have come to the surface, one a petition by university teachers for more freedom in dealing with the mythological texts in relation to students, the other a similar petition by ministers of the establishment, for the same freedom, with respect to the public. Both failed, but doubtless the tide of rationalism will rise again and again until the desired emancipation be achieved. These are symptoms of a readjustment of popular religious beliefs at no distant date, perhaps within a generation or two, a consummation I had not anticipated as likely to occur for centuries to come. But, as the chick emerges suddenly from the egg which immediately before was to all appearances physically unaltered, so sociological revolutions, long brooding beneath the surface, are sometimes fully achieved in a moment of time.
Pp. 345, 348. Were we without the Anecdotes of Procopius we should still know practically all that he has revealed about Theodora. 1. That she was a prostitute, John of Ephesus, Aimoin. 2. That she was in a very lowly condition before her marriage, Codinus. 3. That she was vindictive and cruel when on the throne, Liber Pontificalis, Vigilius. All this evidence is adverted to circumstantially in its proper setting throughout the work.
⁂ For Corrigenda et Addenda to the whole work see end of Vol. II.
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