Of the Buildings of Justinian

by Procopius

In front of the palace there is a forum surrounded with columns. The Byzantines call this forum the Augustæum. I mentioned it in a former part of this work, when, after describing the Church of St. Sophia, I spoke of the brazen statue of the Emperor, which stands upon a very lofty column of stones as a memorial of that work. On the eastern side of this forum stands the Senate House, which baffles description by its costliness and entire arrangement, and which was the work of the Emperor Justinian. Here at the beginning of every year the Roman Senate holds an annual festival, according to the custom of the State. Six columns stand in front of it, two of them having between them that wall of the Senate House which looks towards the west, while the four others stand a little beyond it. These columns are all white in colour, and in size, I imagine, are the largest columns in the whole world. They form a portico covered by a circular dome-shaped roof. The upper parts of this portico are all adorned with marble equal in beauty to that of the columns, and are wonderfully ornamented with a number of statues standing on the roof.

Not far from this forum stands the Emperor’s palace, which, as I have said before, was almost entirely rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian. To describe it all in words is impossible, but it will suffice for future generations to know that it was all the work of this Emperor. As, according to the proverb, we know the lion by his claw, so my readers will learn the magnificence of this palace from the entrance-hall. This entrance-hall is the building called Chalce; its four walls stand in a quadrangular form, and are very lofty; they are equal to one another in all respects, except that those on the north and south sides are a little shorter than the others. In each angle of them stands a pier of very well-wrought stone, reaching from the floor to the summit of the wall, quadrangular in form and joining the wall on one of its sides: they do not in any way destroy the beauty of the place, but even add ornament to it by the symmetry of their position. Above them are suspended eight arches, four of which support the roof, which rises above the whole work in a spherical form, whilst the others, two of which rest on the neighbouring wall towards the south and two towards the north, support the arched roof which is suspended over those spaces. The entire ceiling is decorated with paintings, not formed of melted wax poured upon it, but composed of tiny stones adorned with all manner of colours, imitating human figures and everything else in nature. I will now describe the subjects of these paintings. Upon either side are wars and battles, and the capture of numberless cities, some in Italy, and some in Libya. Here the Emperor Justinian conquers by his General Belisarius; and here the General returns to the Emperor, bringing with him his entire army unscathed, and offers to him the spoils of victory, kings, and kingdoms, and all that is most valued among men. In the midst stand the Emperor and the Empress Theodora, both of them seeming to rejoice and hold high festival in honour of their victory over the kings of the Vandals and the Goths, who approach them as prisoners of war led in triumph. Around them stands the Senate of Rome, all in festal array, which is shown in the mosaic by the joy which appears on their countenances; they swell with pride and smile upon the Emperor, offering him honours as though to a demi-god, after his magnificent achievements. The whole interior, not only the upright parts, but also the floor itself, is encrusted with beautiful marbles, reaching up to the mosaics of the ceiling. Of these marbles, some are of a Spartan stone equal to emerald, while some resemble a flame of fire; the greater part of them are white, yet not a plain white, but ornamented with wavy lines of dark blue.[31] So much for this building.

XI. As one sails from the Propontis towards the eastern part of the city, there is a public bath on the left hand which is called the Baths of Arcadius, and which forms an ornament to the city of Constantinople, great as it is. Here our Emperor constructed a court standing outside the city, intended as a promenade for the inhabitants, and a mooring-place for those who sail past it. This court is lighted by the sun when rising, but is conveniently shaded when he proceeds towards the west. Round it the sea flows quietly with a gentle stream, coming like a river from the main sea, so that those who are taking their walks in it are able to converse with those who are sailing; for the sea reaches up to the basement of the court with great depth, navigable for ships, and by its remarkable calm enables those on the water and on the land to converse with one another. Such is the side of the court which looks upon the sea, adorned with the view over it, and refreshed with the gentle breezes from it. Its basement, its columns, and its entablature are all covered with marble of great beauty, whose colour is of a most brilliant white, which glitters magnificently in the rays of the sun; moreover, many statues adorn it, some of brass and some of marble, composing a sight well worth mention; one would conjecture that they were the work of Phidias the Athenian, of Lysippus of Sicyon, or of Praxiteles. Here also is a statue of the Empress Theodora on a column, which was erected in her honour by the city as an offering of gratitude for this court. The face of the statue is beautiful, but falls short of the beauty of the Empress, since it is utterly impossible for any mere human workmen to express her loveliness, or to imitate it in a statue; the column is of porphyry, and clearly shows by its magnificent appearance that it carries the Empress, before one sees the statue.

I will now explain the Emperor’s works to afford an abundant supply of water to the city. In summer-time the imperial city used for the most part to suffer from scarcity of water, although at other seasons it had sufficient; for at that time, in consequence of the drought, the fountains flowed less plenteously than at other seasons, and supplied the aqueducts of the city very sparingly. Wherefore the Emperor devised the following plan. In the Portico of the Emperor, where the advocates, and magistrates, and other persons connected with the law transact business, there is a very lofty court of great length and width, quadrangular in shape, and surrounded with columns, which is not constructed upon an earthen foundation, but upon the rock itself. Four porticos surround this court, one upon each side of it. The Emperor Justinian excavated one of these porticos, that upon the south side, to a great depth, and stored up there the superfluity of water from the other seasons for use in summer. These cisterns receive the overflow from the aqueducts, when they are too full of water, giving them a place to overflow into, and afford a supply in time of need when water becomes scarce. Thus did the Emperor Justinian arrange that the people of Byzantium should not want for sweet water.

He also built new palaces elsewhere, one in the Heræum,[32] which is now called the Hiereum, and in the place called Jucundiana. I am unable to describe either the magnificence or exquisite workmanship, or the size of these palaces in a manner worthy of the subject. Suffice it to say that these palaces stand there, and were built in the presence and according to the plans of Justinian, who disregarded nothing except expense, which was so large that the mind is unable to grasp it. Here also he constructed a sheltered harbour, which did not exist before. Finding that the shore was exposed on both sides to the winds and the violence of the waves, he arranged a place of refuge for mariners in the following manner: he constructed what are called chests, of countless number and of great size, flung them into the sea on each side of the beach in an oblique direction, and by continually placing fresh layers in order upon the others, formed two walls in the sea opposite to one another, reaching from the depths below to the surface of the water on which the ships sail; upon this he flung rough stones, which when struck by the waves break their force, so that when a strong wind blows in the winter season, everything between these walls remains calm, an interval being left between them to serve as an entrance for ships into the harbour. Here also he built the churches which I formerly mentioned, and also porticos, market-places, public baths, and everything else of that sort; so that this palace in no respect falls short of that within the city. He also built another harbour on the opposite continent, in the place which is called after the name of Eutropius, not very far from the Heræum, constructed in the same manner as that which I mentioned above.

The above are, described as briefly as possible, the works of the Emperor Justinian in the imperial city. I will now describe the only thing which remains. Since the Emperor dwells here, a multitude of men of all nations comes into the city from all the world, in consequence of the vast extent of the empire, each one of them led thither either by business, by hope, or by chance, many of whom, whose affairs at home have fallen into disorder, come with the intention of offering some petition to the Emperor. These persons, forced to dwell in the city on account of some present or threatened misfortune, in addition to their other trouble are also in want of lodging, being unable to pay for a dwelling-place during their stay in the city. This source of misery was removed from them by the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora, who built very large hospices as places of refuge in time of need for such unfortunate persons as these, close to the sea, in the place which is called the Stadium, I suppose because in former times it was used for public games.

Note.—For the interesting church of the Chora, see Appendix.

BOOK II.

I. The new churches which the Emperor Justinian built in Constantinople and its suburbs, the churches which were ruinous through age, and which he restored, and all the other buildings which he erected there, are described in my previous book; it remains that we should proceed to the fortresses with which he encircled the frontier of the Roman territory. This subject requires great labour, and indeed is almost impossible to describe; we are not about to describe the Pyramids, that celebrated work of the Kings of Egypt, in which labour was wasted on a useless freak, but all the strong places by means of which our Emperor preserved the empire, and so fortified it as to render vain any attempt of the barbarians against the Romans. I think I should do well to start from the Median frontier.

When the Medes retired from the country of the Romans, restoring to them the city of Amida,[33] as has been narrated in my ‘History of the Wars,’ the Emperor Anastasius took great pains to build a wall round an, at that time, unimportant village named Dara, which he observed was situated near the Persian frontier, and to form it into a city which would act as a bulwark against the enemy. Since, however, by the terms of the treaty formerly made by the Emperor Theodosius with the Persians, it was forbidden that either party should build any new fortress on their own ground in the neighbourhood of the frontier, the Persians urged that this was forbidden by the articles of the peace, and hindered the work with all their power, although their attention was diverted from it by their war with the Huns. The Romans, perceiving that on account of this war they were unprepared, pushed on their building all the more vigorously, being eager to finish the work before the enemy should bring their war against the Huns to a close and march against themselves. Being alarmed through their suspicions of the enemy, and constantly expecting an attack, they did not construct their building carefully, but the quickness of building into which they were forced by their excessive hurry prevented their work being secure; for speed and safety are never wont to go together, nor is swiftness often accompanied by accuracy. They therefore built the city-walls in this hurried fashion, not making a wall which would defy the enemy, but raising it barely to the necessary height; nor did they even place the stones in their right positions or arrange them in due order, or fill the interstices with mortar. In a short time, therefore, since the towers, through their insecure construction, were far from being able to withstand snow and hot sun, most of them fell into ruins. Thus was the first wall built round the city of Dara.[34]