[462] The place was shown to a Russian pilgrim, Anthony of Novogorod (twelfth century; Soc. Orient. Latin. Sér. Géog., v). Other tales in the legendary account refer to a eunuch who yielded on being locked up to prevent his seeing the Circus games, and to a cobbler who stipulated to be saluted as Emperor, etc.
[463] Anon. (Codinus, p. 130, et seq.).
[464] We have seen that the City of Constantine was fitted out on the ready-made system (p. 67, etc.), and no doubt something of the same kind took place now. Gregorovius accepts the statement of the Anon. that Athens contributed art relics to St. Sophia; Athen im Mittelalter, 1889, i, 60.
[465] These details as to the marbles are drawn from the safe authority of Paul the Silentiary (617, et seq.), whose poem descriptive of St. Sophia is copious and exact. Lethaby and S. (op. cit., p. 235, et seq.) try to identify the marbles as far as they are known to modern commerce.
[466] The raising of domes in masonry was well understood throughout the Empire at this time. The knowledge had probably been brought to Rome in the second century B.C. as a result of her conquests in the East. The dome of the Pantheon, built or restored by Hadrian (c. 120), measures one hundred and forty-two feet across, but this is a circular hall which supports the dome all round. Anthemius himself, probably, had lately finished the church of St. Sergius and Bacchus in Hormisdas (now called Little St. Sophia), but in this case eight pillars were given to the dome, and he was doubtless dissatisfied with the effect. Earlier domes in Syria are noticed in Voguë's work. By the use of iron or steel frame-work, much greater domes have been erected in modern times than anything known in earlier ages, e.g., Vienna Exhibition, 1873, 360 feet. In London we have the Albert Hall and British Museum (219 and 140 feet), the latter a reproduction of the Pantheon.
[467] Procopius, loc. cit.; Paulus, 479. According to the Anon., relics of saints and martyrs were deposited in cavities of the masonry in various places.
[468] The earliest known dome on pendentives is a Roman mausoleum in Palestine of the second century; East. Pal. Mem., 1889, p. 172 (Lethaby and S., op. cit., p. 200).
[469] Procopius (loc. cit.) gives some indications of the difficulties they had to contend with through the piers threatening to give way, etc. The Anon. remarks that the dome was said to be made of pumice stone, but that it was in reality of bricks from Rhodes, one-twelfth the weight of ordinary bricks. The main theme of Choisy's work (L'Art de bâtir chez les Byz.) is that domes were built without "centreing" (wooden proppage), simply by working in circumferentially till closure.
[470] One hundred and seven pillars altogether are counted, but only fifty-four are visible as bounding the nave.
[471] Technically such corners are called exedras, and their shell-like roofs, conchs. In these corners six pillars stand over two, at the sides over four.