306. View of Church of St. George at Thessalonica. (From Texier and Pullan.)
No inscriptions or historical indications exist from which the date of the church can be fixed. We are safe, however, in asserting that it was erected by Christians, for Christian purposes, subsequently to the age of Constantine. If we assume the year 400 as an approximate date we shall probably not err to any great extent, though the real date may be somewhat later.
307. Plan of Kalybe at Omm-es-Zeitoun (Syria). No Scale.
How early a true Byzantine form of arrangement may have been introduced we have no means of knowing; but as early as the year 285—according to De Vogüé—we have a Kalybe[[225]] at Omm-es-Zeitoun, which contains all the elements of the new style. It is square in plan, with a circular dome in its centre for a roof. The wing walls which extend the façade are curious, but not singular. One other example, at least, is found in the Hauran, at Chaqqa, and there may be many more.
308. View of Kalybe at Omm-es-Zeitoun. (From De Vogüé.)
Still, in the Hauran they never seem quite to have fallen into the true Byzantine system of construction, but preferred one less mechanically difficult, even at the expense of crowding the floor with piers. In the church at Ezra, for instance, the internal octagon is reduced to a figure of sixteen sides before it is attempted to put a dome upon it, and all thought of beauty of form, either internally or externally, is abandoned in order to obtain mechanical stability—although the dome is only 30 ft. in diameter.
As the date of this church is perfectly ascertained (510) it forms a curious landmark in the style just anterior to the great efforts Justinian was about to make, and which forced it so suddenly into its greatest, though a short-lived, degree of perfection.
