The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine Building

by W. R. Lethaby; Harold Swainson

Region III.

Is a plane surface in its higher part, where is the Circus, but from the end of this it descends steeply to the sea. It contains the Circus Maximus; the house of Pulcheria Augusta; the new harbour; a semicircular portico, called by the Greeks Sigma; the Tribunal of the Forum of Constantine; 7 streets; 94 houses; 5 large porticoes; 11 private baths; 9 private cornmills. It had 1 curator; 1 vernaculus; it had also 21 collegiati; and 5 street wardens.

Region IV.

From the Golden Milliarium is prolonged, with hills rising to right and left in a valley leading to an open space. It contains the golden Milliarium; the Augusteum; the Basilica; the Nymphaeum; the Portico of Fanio; a marble ship—the monument of a naval victory—the church or martyrium of S. Mennas; the Stadium; the Scala Timasii; 32 streets; 375 houses; 4 large porticoes; 7 private baths; 5 private cornmills; 7 terraces of steps. It had 1 curator; 1 vernaculus; 45 collegiati; 5 street wardens.

Augusteum.—Thus Region I., occupying the land between the Acropolis wall and the sea, was partly reserved for palaces; Region II. coincided with the Acropolis, and had its south end devoted to the Forum Augusteum and the Christian Basilicas of S. Sophia (“the Great Church”) and St. Irene (“the Old Church.”). It will be observed that in the Notitia the Augusteum is given to Region IV., to which it does indeed adjoin; Mordtmann[18] considers that the Augusteum, like the buildings round it, must have belonged to Region II., but suggests that there may have been a continuation of the open space farther to the west in Region IV., and some such space as this certainly seems required by several of the references.

Gyllius first made the identification of the Augusteum with the present open space on the south of S. Sophia; in this he was followed by Labarte, and Mordtmann concurs. Paspates in making the Augusteum occupy the ground along the east side of the Hippodrome stands alone against, as it seems to us, all evidence. For example, he is compelled to shift the inscribed pedestal of the statue of the Empress Eudoxia, which we cannot but believe was found in its original position (see Mordtmann, p. 64, and Paspates, p. 105, and below, p. [13]). The Mese moreover he makes the centre of his Augusteum. Mr. Bury thought it proved that the Augusteum “was also called the Forum of Constantine,” because a passage in Cedrenus speaks of the Senate House (τὸ σενάτον) as in the Forum of Constantine. It is perfectly clear however from the Notitia that there were two Senate Houses—one in the Forum mentioned in the extract we have given from the description of the sixth ward, and the other included in the second region as just quoted.[19]

In the Augusteum was erected a Senate, its front facing the west. “The Senate,” says Mordtmann, “was placed where to-day stands the Tribunal of Commerce.” That is, on the east side of the present place of S. Sophia against what must have been the eastern side of the Augusteum and the ancient Acropolis, on the seaward wall of which it was probably founded. In digging the foundations of the Tribunal of Commerce in 1847 the ancient pavement was found, at a depth of twelve feet, and the base of the celebrated statue of Eudoxia, with an inscription, marked it as the site of the Courts of Justice (Mordtmann, p. 64). The statue, Socrates[20] says, was “of silver, and it stood upon a lofty pedestal (bema), not far from the church called S. Sophia, with a road between.”

The Augusteum, following the Hippodrome, does not lie four-square with the cardinal points, but almost diagonally to them: for convenience, however, we shall speak of the directions as North, South, East, and West, calling the side towards the Mese the west. On the north side, and following the same system of alignment, is the present S. Sophia. The palace of the Patriarch probably adjoined the church, on the north side of the square.

The royal palaces mentioned in the Notitia were on the south of the Augusteum. According to the Paschal Chronicle, written about 630 A.D., Constantine the Great made a palace beside the Hippodrome, “and the ascent from the palace to the stand of the Hippodrome was by means of the stair called the spiral” (Paspates, Great Palace, p. 47). This palace does not seem to have become of great importance until Justinian’s time. The Notitia merely mentions the House of Placidia Augusta, and the House of the most noble Marina, the daughters of Arcadius, in the first ward; and the House of Pulcheria Augusta in the third; and speaks of several other royal palaces in the 9th, 10th, and 11th wards. The palace of the emperor at this time was in the 14th ward, which was outside the walls and isolated, making “the figure of a small city by itself;” this is the celebrated palace of Blachernae.

The Church.—It was in May 328 that Helena is said to have discovered the true cross and other relics at Jerusalem. And this event, which synchronizes exactly with Constantine’s choice of Byzantium as his capital, was probably not without direct relation to the foundation of the church dedicated to Christ. Socrates writes, “A portion of the cross she (Helena) inclosed in a silver chest and left in Jerusalem as a memorial, but the other part she sent to the king.”[21]