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Dumbarton
Oaks Papers
NUMBER THIRTY-ONE
Dumbarton Oaks
Center for Byzantine Studies
Trustees for Harvard University
Washington,Districtof Columbia
1977
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of Plate Layouts.
CLIVE FOSS 27
Late Antique and Byzantine Ankara
BARRY BALDWIN 89
Malchus of Philadelphia
NOTES
NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES 329
John VII Palaeologus and the Ivory Pyxis at Dumbarton Oaks
Vlll ILLUSTRATIONS
13. Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 510, fol. 52v, (photo: Conway Library, No.
detail, The Expulsion from Paradise 276/2/18)
and Adam's Remorse (photo: Conway 30. Rome, Palazzo Sanseverino. Sarco-
Library, No. 219/2[5]) phagus, detail, Philosopher Reading
14. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery. Ivory (photo: Benedettine di Priscilla)
Casket, detail, Adam's Remorse 31. London, British Museum. Ivory, St.
15. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1754, fol. 7v, Penitents Paul and Thekla
16. Ostia. Sarcophagus, detail, The Tomb 32. Munich, Staatsbibliothek. Ivory, The
of Meleager (photo: Fototeca, No. Koimesis (photo: Hirmer Fotoarchiv,
11236) No. 23202)
17-19. The Marys at the Tomb: 33. Istanbul, ArchaeologicalMuseum.The
17. London, British Museum.Ivory Weepers Sarcophagus, detail
(photo: Hirmer Fotoarchiv, 34. Paris, Cabinet des Medailles. Silver
No. 581.1325) Vase, detail, The Death of Patroclus
18. Leningrad, Public Library, MS and the Weighing of Hector's Body
21, fol. 8v, detail (photo: Bild- 35. Asinou, Church of Our Lady. Fresco,
archiv Foto Marburg, No. The Raising of Lazarus
231859)
36. Florence, Bibl. Laur., Plut. 1.56, fol.
19. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, gr.
13r, The Crucifixion (photo: G. B.
qu. 66, fol. 96r (photo: Conway
Pineider)
Library, No. 281/21/27a)
20. Xanten. Ivory Casket, detail, The 37. Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 510, fol. 30v, The
Hercules of Lysippus Crucifixion, The Deposition, and The
Entombment
21. Princeton, University Library, Garrett
16, fol. 112r, Monks Asleep during 38. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1156, fol. 194v, The
Passion and The Anastasis
Prayer
22. Mt. Athos, Dionysiu, MS 587, fol. 66r, 39. Paphos, Monastery of St. Neophytos,
The Agony in the Garden (photo: Enkleistra. Fresco, The Crucifixion
Conway Library, No. 276/3/15) 40. London, British Library, add. 19352,
23. Istanbul, Seraglio, Octateuch, fol. 359r, fol. 116r, The Entombment (photo:
The Brazen Serpent (photo: Courtesy Conway Library, No. 99/27/45, by
of Kurt Weitzmann) Permission of the British Library
24. Bibl. Vat., Regin. gr. 1, fol. 461v, Job Board)
25. Coin of Vespasian, Judaea capta 41a-b. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, theol. gr.
154, fol. 143r,The Presentation (photo:
26. Moscow, Historical Museum, add. gr.
Conway Library, No. 264/13/14-15)
129, fol. 135r, The Hebrews Weeping
42. Cairo. Relief of Kairos
by the Waters of Babylon (photo:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, Collec- 43. Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 139, fol. 136v,
tion Chretienne et Byzantine) David's Penitence
27-29. The Nativity: 44, 45. Peter's Denial:
27. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1613, page 271 44. Brescia, Museo Civico. Ivory
(photo: Conway Library, No. Casket, detail (photo: Hirmer
226/57/30) Fotoarchiv, No. 561.3009)
28. Phocis, Hosios Lukas. Mosaic 45. Mt. Athos, Pantocrator, gr. 61,
(photo: Josephine Powell, No. fol. 48r (Hirmer Fotoarchiv,
Gr. 2-80) No. 644.2071)
29. Mt. Athos, Great Lavra, Skevo- 46. Monreale. Mosaic, The Disciples at
phylakion, Lectionary, fol. 144V Emmaus (photo: Anderson,No. 29683)
ILLUSTRATIONS ix
83. Naples, Museo Nazionale. Fresco, 85. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1613, page 281, The
Hercules Finding Telephos, detail Massacre of the Innocents
(photo: Alinari, No. 12042a) 86. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1754, fol. 17r, Joyful
84. Florence, Bibl. Laur., Plut. 1.56, fol. Penitents
4v, The Nativity (photo: G. B.
Pineider)
(Illustrations in Text)
Following Page 181 I. Plan of Room Over the Vestibule and Room Over the Ramp
(Drawing: P. A. Underwood)
Following Page 181 II. Head of Southwest Ramp, Section (Drawing: P. A. Underwood)
Following Page 181 III. Heads of Southwest and Northwest Ramps, Plans and Sections
(Drawing: P. A. Underwood)
Facing Page 189 IV. Room Over the Ramp, Section, looking West
(Drawing: P. A. Underwood)
Facing Page 200 V. Room Over the Vestibule, Mosaic Fragments
(Drawing: P. A. Underwood, 1951)
Peter, The Martyrdom of James, and 24. Decani, Monastery Church. Fresco,
The Stoning of Stephen Philip Baptizes the Eunuch and The
10. Decani, Monastery Church. Fresco, Baptism of Paul (photo: National
Peter Heals a Lame Man at the Museum, Belgrade)
Beautiful Gate (photo: National 25-28. The Vision of Peter:
Museum, Belgrade) 25. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39,
11, 12. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch: fol. 93r
11. Vercelli Rotulus (photo: 26. University of Chicago Library,
Gabinetto Fotografico cod. 965, fol. 117r
Nazionale, Rome) 27. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi
12. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 128r A.IV.74, fol. 128r
(photo: Perotti) 28. Abbey Collection, cod. 7345,
13. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39, fol. 91r, fol. 465r (photo: Courtauld
Institute,
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch,
and Saul Receives Letters 29, 30. Herod Ordersthe Execution of James
and the Arrest of Peter, and The
14, 15. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch:
Liberation of Peter:
14. Decani, Monastery Church.
29. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39,
Fresco (photo: National
fol. 94r
Museum, Belgrade)
15. Vatican Library, cod. gr. 1613, 30. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi
A.IV.74, fol. 130r
p. 107
16, 17. The Conversion of Paul and Paul Led 31, 32. Herod Ordersthe Execution of James,
to Damascus: and The Liberation of Peter
16. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39, 31. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 131v
fol. 91v (photo: Perotti)
17. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi 32. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek,
A.IV.74, fol. 126r cod. 1191 (theol. 53), fol. 437r
18. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 128v, Saul 33. Decani, Monastery Church. Fresco,
Receives Letters, The Conversion of The Arrest and Liberation of Peter
Paul, and Paul Led to Damascus (photo: National Museum, Belgrade)
(photo: Perotti) 34, 35. The Liberation of Peter:
19. Vercelli Rotulus, Saul Receives Let- 34. Palermo, Capella Palatina.
ters, The Conversion of Paul, The Mosaic (photo: Alinari,
Dream of Ananias, Paul Healed by No. 29055)
Ananias, and The Baptism of Paul 35. University of Chicago Library,
20. Rome, San Paolo fuori le mura. Bible, cod. 965, fol. 119v
fol. 310(cccvii)v, Scenes from the Life 36. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39, fol. 98r,
of Paul (photo: Fine Art Library, The Flogging of Paul and Silas
University of Toronto) 37, 38. The Flogging of Paul and Silas, and
21. Vatican Library, cod. gr. 699, fol. 83v, Paul and Silas in the Stocks:
The Conversion of Paul and Paul Led 37. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi
to Damascus A.IV.74, fol. 135r
22. Decani, Monastery Church. Fresco, 38. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 135v
Saul Receives Letters, The Conversion (photo: Perotti)
of Paul, and Paul Led to Damascus 39. Abbey Collection, cod. 7345, fol. 440r,
(photo: National Museum, Belgrade) The Miracleof the Evil Spirit and The
23. University of Chicago Library, cod. Flogging of Paul (photo: Courtauld
965, fol. 115v, The Baptism of Paul Institute)
ILLUSTRATIONS
* *
xiii
Xlll
40, 41. The Flogging of Paul and Silas: 47-52. The Stoning of Stephen:
40. Vatican Library, cod. Barb. 47. Vatican Library, cod. lat. 39,
lat. 4406, fol. 97r fol. 90r
41. Decani, Monastery Church. 48. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi
Restoration Drawing (by A.IV.74, fol. 124v
Janet Brooke) 49. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 127r
42-46. The Raising of Tabitha: (photo: Perotti)
42. Giustiniani Codex, fol. 129v 50. Abbey Collection, cod. 7345,
(photo: Perotti) fol. 432v (photo: Courtauld
43. Vatican Library, cod. Chigi Institute)
A.IV.74, fol. 127v 51. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek,
44. Vercelli Rotulus cod. 1191 (theol. 53), fol. 435r
45. Palermo, Capella Palatina. 52. Decani, Monastery Church.
Mosaic (photo: Alinari, Fresco (photo: National
No. 29050, Museum, Belgrade)
46. Monreale, South Chapel
1. Trier, Cathedral Treasury. Ivory, The 14. St. Mark Enthroned Amidst
Translation of Relics (photo: Ann his Successors
Miinchow) 15. Berlin, Staatliche Museen.Ivory Pyxis,
2-7. Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Coins, detail, The Sacrifice of Isaac (photo:
Obverse Hirmer Fotoarchiv)
2. Justinian, no. 37e.2 16. Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Ivory,
3. Tiberius II, no. 13a.2 The Nativity
4a-b. Maurice, no. 149: b. Enlarged 17. Paris, Bibl. Nat., suppl. gr. 1286,
5a-b. Heraclius, no. 13e.2: fol. 10v, detail, Herod's Banquet
b. Enlarged 18. Florence, Bibl. Laur., Plut. 1.56,
6a-b. Constans II, no. 22c: fol. 13v, The Ascension (photo: G. B.
b. Enlarged Pineider)
7. Justin II, no. 125a.1 19. Rome, Vatican Museum. Sancta Sanc-
8. Madrid,Real Academia de la Historia. torum Reliquary, Lid
Silver Missorium of Theodosius I 20. Mt. Sinai, Monastery. Icon, The Three
(photo: Hirmer Fotoarchiv) Youths in the Fiery Furnace (photo:
9. London, British Museum. Medallion Michigan- Princeton- Alexandria Ex-
of Justinian, Cast pedition to Mt. Sinai)
10. Rome, Treasury of St. Peter's. Silver 21. New York, Metropolitan Museum.
Cross of Justin II Silver Plaque, St. Peter (photo: Metro-
11. London, British Museum. Silver politan Museumof Art, Fletcher Fund,
No. 50.5.2).
Censer
22. Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Bronze
12. Florence, Museo Nazionale. Ivory,
Plaque, Saint or Apostle
Ariadne (photo: Alinari, No. 20848)
23. Rome, S. Pudenziana. Apse Mosaic,
13, 14. Paris, Louvre. Ivories (photos: Cliches Christ Enthroned in the Heavenly
des Mus6es Nationaux):
Jerusalem (photo: Gabinetto Foto-
13. "Barbarini" Diptych grafico Nazionale)
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS
24. Utrecht, University Library, MS 32, 26-27b. Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Coins of
fol. 90r, detail, The Apostles' Creed Heraclius:
25. Milan, Museo del Castello Sforzesco. 26. No. 52a.1, Obverse
Ivory, The Three Marys at the Tomb 27a-b. No. 233.5: a. Obverse.
b. Reverse
1. Paris, Cabinet des M6dailles.Romanos 13. Paris, Cluny Museum. Ivory of Otto
Ivory. and Theophano
2-4. Dumbarton Oaks Collection: 14. Mount Athos, Lavra, cod. gr. 86,
2. Folles of Constantine X fol. 65r
3. Miliaresion of Constantine X 15. Rome, Palazzo Venezia. Triptych
4. Histamenon of Eudokia 16. Paris, Louvre. Harbaville Triptych
Makrembolitissa
17. Moscow, State Museum of Fine Arts.
5. Zacos Collection, Seal of Romanos IV
and Eudokia Makrembolitissa Ivory Plaque with Constantine VII
7.
6, Dumbarton Oaks Collection: 18. Paris, Bibl. Nat., cod. gr. 139, fol. 431v
6. Histamena of Romanos IV and 19. Vatican Library, Reg. gr. 1, fol. 8r
Eudokia Makrembolitissa 20. Mount Athos, Dionysiou, cod. gr. 587,
7. Seals of Romanos IV and fol. 126r
Eudokia Makrembolitissa
21. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
8. Paris, Cabinet des Medailles, Pattern Kulturbesitz. Ivory Plaque
for a Tetarteron of Romanos IV and
22, 23. Triptychs. The Crucifixionand Saints:
Eudokia Makrembolitissa
22. Paris, Cabinet des Medailles
9, 10. Dumbarton Oaks Collection:
23. London, British Museum
9. Tetarteron of Romanos and
Eudokia Makrembolitissa 24. Hannover, Kestner Museum. Diptych,
(enlarged) Wing, The Crucifixion and The De-
10. One-Third Miliaresion of position
Romanos IV (enlarged) 25. Dresden, Griines Gewolbe. Diptych,
11. Paris, Bibl. Nat., cod. gr. 922, fol. 6r Wing, Chairete and The Anastasis
12. Moscow, Kremlin Armory. Reliquary 26a-c. Paris, Cabinet des Medailles. Romanos
of St. Demetrios Ivory, Oblique Views
la-f. Dumbarton Oaks. Ivory Pyxis 3b. Paris, Bibl. Nat., cod. gr. 1783, fol. 2r,
2. Paris, Louvre, Ivoires, cod. A 53, fol. 2r, John VII, Manuel II, and John VIII
Manuel II Palaeologus and Family 3c. Madrid, Bibl. Nac., Scylitzes Matri-
3a. Modena, Biblioteca Estense, cod. tensis, fol. 145v, Nicephorus Phocas
Mutinensis a.S.5.5., fol. 299r, An- Entering Constantinople
dronicus IV, John VII, and ManuelII
GILBERT DAGRON
Le present article est le texte d'une communication faite a
un Symposium (*UrbanSocieties in the MediterraneanWorld*,
Dumbarton Oaks, mai 1976) qui se voulait tres ouvert et
soucieux de comparatisme. De l le choix d'un large sujet et
le ndcessairemelange de ddveloppements correspondant i une
recherche originale et de passages plus allusifs. Les r6f6rences
bibliographiques ont 0ti rdduites i l'essentiel.
N OUS n'avons pas, pour l'etude de la civilisation urbaine a Byzance,
'equivalent des praktika ou des actes qui nous renseignent sur les
structures du monde rural. Cet equivalent, ce serait une documenta-
tion d'archives qui permettrait de tenter a Byzance-comme on commence
a le faire pour certaines villes occidentales-une analyse parcellaire du tissu
urbain, completee par une exploration archeologique plus systematique et
situee dans le temps de veritables chroniques urbaines. Le tout nous mettrait
en mesure de saisir la vie dans sa continuit e spatiale
s, et temporelle en une
(histoire simultanee de ses habitats et de ses habitants). Les vraies questions
que poseraient alors les byzantinistes seraient: qu'est-ce qui fait bouger le
tissu urbain et la societe urbaine? qu'est-ce qui permet sa cristallisation?
et ils obtiendraient de vraies rponses
problemesaux l qui, le plus souvent,
les occupent: la continuite ou non de la civilisation urbaine a Byzance, le
passage de la cite antique a la ville medievale, les rapports entre ville et
campagne, entre capitale et province.
Faute de veritables series documentaires, quelles voies suivre? Nous man-
quons encore d'etudes limitees debouchant sur des monographies de villes2,
ce qui donne beaucoup de flou a nos syntheses. Au dela, il est possible
d'accrocher a leur place sur une trame chronologique preetablie tous les
renseignements sur les villes et la civilisation urbaine tires des sources les
plus diverses; on obtient ainsi une histoire construite, mais pleine de trous,
de la ville byzantine, avec des periodisations qui sont un moyen terme entre
les continuites et ruptures constatees dans l'histoire de chaque ville. Le con-
cept meme de periodisation risquerait de devenir scientifiquement suspect
s'il privilegiait Fl'venement exterieur en detournant d'une veritable analyse
des structures et des modeles evolutifs, et s'il calquait toute histoire sur celle
de l'Empire; cet Empire dont les byzantinistes ne doutent peut-etre pas assez.
L'analyse directe etant impraticable, j'emprunterai une voie oblique en
etudiant le phenomene urbain par le biais de sa christianisation. Non que le
christianisme porte en lui un modele gen6ral de ville ou de societe urbaine3,
mais parce qu'il couvre de son nom ce qu'il y a de plus specifique et de plus
mouvant dans la civilisation byzantine, jusqu'a s'identifier a la fois a toute
evolution et a toute definition. Non que le christianisme soit cause du passage
d'un urbanisme antique a un urbanisme medieval (il serait tout aussi vrai
ou faux de dire qu'il en est l'effet), mais il colore cette transformation et
nous permet ainsi d'en suivre les detours et les contours sur la base d'une
documentation plus large et plus pleine de sens. Pour n'etre ni trop long,
ni trop general, je me limiterai a quatre aspects de l'evolution des villes
byzantines, ou se rencontrent christianisme et fait urbain: la place des edifices
cultuels chretiens dans l'ensemble monumental et dans le tissu urbain; les
inhumations a l'interieur de la ville qui abolissent l'ancienne opposition polis/
necropolis; le role institutionnel et social de l'evque et du clerg6 dans la ville;
enfin les aspects poliades ou urbains du culte des saints et des reliques. Ces
quatre aspects ne seront pas egalement developpes.
7 La Vie et les Miracles de sainte Thecle, ed. G. Dagron, SubsHag (Bruxelles, 1978), Vie 27, Mir. 1-4.
8 Vita Constantini, III.25-28 (Saint-S6pulcre), 53 (Chene de Mambre).
9 Eusrbe,
A. Frantz, <(FromPaganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens;, DOP, 19 (1965), 185-206.
10
CTh, XVI.10.16 (10 juillet 399): Si qua in agris templa sunt, sine turba ac tumultu diruantur;
XVI.10.25 (14 novembre 435): ... cunctaque eorum fana templa delubra, si qua etiam nunc restant
integra, praecepto magistratuum destrui conlocationeque venerandae christianae religionis signi expiari
praecipimus. ..
11Claude, Die
byzantinische Stadt, 69 sq.; a Corinthe, Cyriaque d'Ancone voit encore au XVe s.
le temple d'Apollon en ruines et les autres temples, cf. R. L. Scranton, Corinth, XVI. Mediaeval
Architecture in the Central Area of Corinth (Princeton, N.J., 1957), 9-10; sur Athenes, Frantz, <(From
Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens>; sur Constantinople, G. Dagron, Naissance d'une
capitale, Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 d 451 (Paris, 1974), 374-76. Un recent article de
J.-M. Spieser, aLa christianisation des sanctuaires paiens en Grece*, dans Neue Forschungen in
griechischen Heiligtimern, Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Abteilung Athen (Tiubingen, 1976),
que je n'ai pu utiliser ici, conclut d'un examen archeologique exhaustif qu'il y a rarement continuite
veritable entre temple et 6glise sur le meme site; la plupart des grands sanctuaires de la religion
traditionnelle etaient deja en decadence lorsque le christianisme s'y installe modestement.
12
Mise au point sur ce sujet dans Claude, Die byzantinische Stadt, 89-97; d'int6ressants parall6les
occidentaux sont a chercher dans Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 21
(SpolBte, 1974): Topografia urbana e vita cittadina nell'alto medioevo in Occidente, particulierement
dans le rapport de Paul-Albert F6vrier, (<Permanenceet heritages de l'antiquit6 dans la topographie
des villes de l'Occident durant le Haut Moyen Age,, 107-8, 119-26.
6 GILBERT DAGRON
parfois suivie d'une sorte de reflux des edifices cultuels vers les quartiers et
la periph6rie, ou ils continuent de prolif6rer13.L'exemple de Gerasa montre
bien cette deuxieme 6tapel4.
Au demeurant, il faut distinguer parmi les eglises celles qui sont des
monuments au sens poliade du mot, et celles auxquelles conviendraient d'autres
termes, avec toutes les nuances qu'impliquent de grandes diff6rences de statut.
Le "monument" chr6tien par excellence est Sainte-Sophie, la Grande Eglise
comme il y a le Grand Palais, condu et situe dans un plan d'urbanisme pour
camper face a face les deux institutions, imp6riale et patriarcale. Insistant
sur ce caractere monumental, les sources l6gendaires qui 6voquent la recons-
truction par Justinien parlent d'impots publics (au lieu de donations privees),
d'expropriation de terrain (quand ailleurs il s'agit d'heritage)15; et elles vantent
la reussite de l'oeuvre en usant d'une comparaison avec le temple de Jerusalem
dont on comprendra le caractere equivoque en la rapprochant de l'un des
themes de la prEdication chretienne: la destruction definitive du Temple,
annonsant la fin du monde et l'attente par l'humanit de la deuxinme
parousiel6. Le cedlbre (Je t'ai vaincu Salomon#17serait un mot d'Opplschre-
tienne. Sainte-Sophie n'est nullement exemplaire, mais correspond a une
epoque et a un certain 6quilibre institutionnel. Pour compenser ce monument
unique on multipliera dans le meme temps les eglises dans la ville et les
oratoires dans le Palais. Aieurs qu Constantinoplemonumentales
se justifient en grande partie par rEference au modele, rapidement depasse,
de l'eveque repr6sentant de la cite; comme le disait D. Zakythinos, la ?(brillante
civilisation des grandes basiliquest doit moins sa disparition a des cataclysmes
ext6rieurs qu'a une inad6quation profonde, progressivement per9uel8.
Dans les villes d'Orient, l'edifice chretien est avant tout r6p6titif, et non
pas unique. Il suffit de d6nombrer les Eglises reper6es ou fouill6es (12 connues
a G6rasa, plus de 14 a Athenes, 19 a Oxyrhynkos)l9 pour comprendre qu'elles
excsdent les n6cessites du culte, ou du moins que leur multiplication et leur
repartititonne sont pas directement determinees par elles. La structure meme
des villes s'en trouve modifi6e: martyria, 2glises, monasteres s'accrochent a
toutes les asp6rites du site urbain: lieu saint, lieu memorable ou simplement
berceau d'une famille. Quelques emplacements cultuels anciens, que le paga-
nisme officiel et egalisateur avait plus ou moins oblit6res, sont ainsi rede-
13 F. W. Deichmann, RAC, II, col. 1237-41, s.v. (Christianisierung*.
14 C. H. Kraeling Geasa, City of the Decapolis (New Haven, onn., 1938). Le groupe piscopal
s'installe au centre dbs le IVe s., mais les lieux de culte se diversifient et se multiplient dans la deuxieme
moitie du Ve s. et au VIe s. (p. 66).
15
AtiioyiiS mTEplr-is oiKoSOIfis TroOvaoOvrij ... dcyias Soqfia., 2-5, Scriptores originum, 6ed.Preger,
75-81.
16Jean Chrysostome, Homelie 75, In Mat., PG, 58, col. 685-94. La diff6rence entre temple et
synagogue ou 6glise a &te remarquablement mise en valeur par F. W. Deichmann, <Vom Tempel zur
Kirche*, Mullus, Festschrift Theodor Klauser, JbAChr, suppl. I (1964), 52-59.
sur
17
AiiyraitS, 27, Scriptores originum (v. note 6), 105. Sur l'importance de cette comparaison et
la facon dont le Temple de Jerusalem a pu etre pris comme modele, cf. G. Scheja, ?Hagia Sophia
und Templum Salomonist, IstMitt, 12 (1962), 44-58.
18D. Zakythinos, (La grande brche dans la tradition historique de l'hell6nisme*, XapiolnrplovEts
'Avao,dolov K. 'Opxv6vov (Ath6nes, 1966), 315.
19Donnees rassemblees par Claude, Die byzantinische Stadt, 85-89.
LE CHRISTIANISME DANS LA VILLE BYZANTINE 7
Certes, ces explications sont en grande partie legendaires, mais on devine que
les vraies causes ne sont pas moins accidentelles; la legende aussi bien que
l'histoire a pour effet, dans ce cas, de rompre la coherence et l'unite spatiale
de la cite en y introduisant la dimension du temps.
Cette histoire que concretise le lieu de culte est le plus souvent celle d'un
patrimoine investi dans un oIKos de la ville. Par la l'eglise ou le monastere urbain
?aByzance appartiennent beaucoup plus au monde social et economique de la
ville qu'au monde institutionnel de la cite. Qu'on pense aux multiples fonda-
tions pieuses, nees de donations ou de dispositions testamentaires, qui trans-
forment une residence aristocratique en monastere, eglise ou hospice, et a
ces petits couvents dont nous avons tant d'exemples aux Xe-XIe s., qui sont
destines a abriter une sepulture familiale et a perpetuer le souvenir d'un
nom24. Dans tous ces cas, l'<asperite>a laquelle s'accroche l'edifice cultuel est
la fortune, avec les hasards de sa distribution dans la ville, dont dependra
exclusivement la localisation des fondations, et le caractere prive que ces
fondations garderont toujours plus ou moins.
Les Patria peuvent encore servir de point de depart: si suspects que soient
parfois les renseignements fournis par eux, il sont, faute d'archives, l'une des
tres rares sources qui nous indiquent la liaison entre fortune privee, fondation
pieuse et quartier urbain du Ve au Xe s. Si le detail reste flou, le mecanisme
peut s'interpreter.
La reussite d'un individu suppose, pendant toute cette epoque, sa venue a
Constantinople, son enrichissement, et l'achat, grace a cette fortune nouvelle,
d'un terrain (a batir ou deja bati) dans la capitale, un oltos qui soit a la fois
son oiKia(une residence lui donnant une "surface") et un capital investi. La
Vie de Daniel de Scete rapporte le cas tres simple d'un carrier enrichi d'Alexan-
drie, Eulogios, qui vient s'installer a Constantinople sous Justin Ier, devient
prefet du pretoire et patrice, achete une o0aiaa Eyai1r, tout un quartier de
Constantinople qui garde le nom de ra Aiy&rrTou,lorsque notre homme, com-
promis dans la sedition Nika, est oblige de s'enfuir et que les biens sont con-
fisques25. Ce que peut etre ce genre de bien foncier, la Vie d'Olympias en
donne deja une idee26: une residence, un ou des immeubles de location,
Epyaorfptia (ateliers-boutiques) et services divers (boulangeries, bains prives);
en somme, tout un complexe immobilier de bonne rentabilite, auquel sont
parfois affectees ces rentes d'Etat que sont longtemps les parts d'annone
attributes aux immeubles27et des revenus fonciers provinciaux.
Olympias donne ses oTKota Sainte-Sophie, ceux d'Eulogios reviennent a
l'Etat. Mais les Patria montrent par un tres grand nombre d'exemples que
1'olKosprive ne devient veritablement quartier que par la fondation d'un
28
Scriptores originum, ed. Preger, 220, 227, 252, et passim.
29 Ainsi -rT 'Apcavrfou,oi Leon VI r6nove 1'eglise Saint-Thomas que l'on dit fondee par Amantios,
ibid., 249; -rT ITrEipoVou les eglises des Archanges sont restaurees par Justinien et reconstruites par
Basile Ier: ibid., 220-22.
30 Ainsi aT-r
Kaptavouc'est Maurice qui construit une eglise, Scriptores originum, ed. Preger, II,
241.
31Voir plus bas, notes 101-3. Je n'etudierai pas ici la distinction entre les KaSolKcd &KKAr1oial,
a
eglises #ouvertes8 dependant plus directement de l'6veque, et les EuKT1'plolOIKOI,chapelles #<priv6es?
relevant de monast6res ou de particuliers et desservies par un clerg6 propre (cf. E. Hermann, <Die
kirchlichen Einkiinfte des byzantinischen Niederklerus>, OCP, 8 [1942], 402-10); notons seulement
que les (6glises catholiques) ne sont pas des 8(paroisses*,qu'elles ne sont defendues avec vigueur par
Justinien que dans la mesure oiu leurs privileges sont menac6s, et que Leon VI place les chapelles
((priv6es))a egalite liturgique avec les eglises 8catholiques#, ce qui n'est evidemment pas sans conse-
quences 6conomiques (Nov 4 et 15). On peut donc dire que, dans les centres urbains au moins, il y
a a Byzance beaucoup plus qu'en Occident liberte de pratique cultuelle, comme il y a liberte d'entre-
prise economique.
32 Texte r6cemment etudie
par P. Lemerle, Cinq dtudes sur le XI6 silcle byzantin, Editions du
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris, 1977), 65-112.
10 GILBERT DAGRON
orwXo-rTpopE0ovroi 'Pal8croij. Nous avons ici le cas, assurement tr6s banal tant
il est modeste, d'une fondation religieuse qui suit les contours d'une fortune
privee, la fige et la sacralise, etablissant une liaison fortuite entre deux centres
urbains, Raidestos et onstantinople, et remodelant deux iots d'habitation33.
Sans doute les cinq moines d'Attaleiate, son hospice du Misericordieux et son
eglise du Prodrome representent-ils peu de chose en eux-memes, mais ils sont
constitues par la diataxis en une veritable petite unite economique, dans
laquelle est investie une bonne partie du patrimoine, autant pour des raisons
fiscales que charitables, et qui aura a mettre en rapport des revenus de
provenances tres diverses (domaines ruraux, ateliers, boutiques ou logements
loues, ce que le texte appelle Ta vol ) avec des depenses locales (pauvres
(pau du
quartier, moines, malades, commemoraisons et, pour les surplus, descendant
d'Attaleiate)34.
Cette fondation, et en general toute fondation d'eglise ou de monastere
dans les villes byzantines, n'entraine donc pas seulement une modification
topographique et une nouvelle cristallisation du parcellaire urbain, mais,
minime ou tres importante, une polarisation economique. Tout se passe comme
si ce type de propriete urbaine etait a la fois une ref&renceindispensable a la
ville et l'element le plus instable de la fortune patrimoniale; comme si une
telle propriete pouvait se constituer et disparaitre en deux generations, avec
les consEquences que l'on devine sur l'evolution de l'habitat et la division
parcellaire, sauf si l'olKoSlaic devenait oITKO religieux et empechait le trop
libre jeu du droit successoral romain ou les empiftements du fisc. Le patri-
moine s'en trouve a la fois atteint dans sa dEfinition et consolide dans sa
duree. Quant aux eglises et monasteres, leur fonction de rouage economique
les rend particulierement sensibles aux variations de la fortune, de la circula-
tion monetaire et de la configuration urbaine; ceux-la memes dont l'existence
monumentale est attestee sur plusieurs siecles de l'histoire byzantine, ont
connu pour la plupart changements de statut ou de propri6taires et periodes
d'abandon.
C'est ainsi qu'a Corinthe, les premieres eglises (IVe-Ve s.) sacralisent quel-
ques points plus ou moins eloignes du centre: sommet de l'Acropole, banlieue
du Kranion, site devenu
ede funraire 'Asklepieion; a la meme epoque (apres
395) le centre est remodele selon un plan d'urbanisme a l'antique, et probable-
ment sans eglise, la transformation de la basilique julienne en basilique
episcopale restant tres hypothetique36. Les eglises apparaissent lorsque l'espace
public est envahi: au IXe ou Xe s., une chapelle s'etablit sur le bema, en plein
milieu de l'Agora, la ou saint Paul etait cense avoir pris la parole37. Elle y
reste avec de multiples modifications pendant toute la periode suivante, mais
comme centre d'un quartier d'habitation de plus en plus dense, incluant
6choppes et boutiques, donc ouvrant a la vie economique un espace jusque-
la monumental. Au XIIe s., l momnastereSaint-Jean et ses dependances
restructurent en un grand ensemble la partie Ouest de l'ancienne place, tandis
que sur les ruines du Bas-Agora s'eleve un autre grand monastere38.A Athenes
encore, ou l'Agora antique est submerge d'habitations des avant le VIIe s.,
l'implantation d'eglises de quartiers et de fondations pieuses a caractere plus
ou moins familial correspond a une multiplication des centres39. Telle est la
ville medievale dont Michel Choniate est l'eveque et que les Latins prennent
en charge40.
sont relatees dans les Patria sur La decouverte, lors d'excavations, d'os de
'
geants ou de tombes sortileges au cceur meme de La vieille cite constan-
tinienne65.
On doit admettre que les nouveaux cimetieres de Lavile, entre 330 et 412,
sont installes hors-Les-murs'a proximite des portes; mais ils sont 'a nouveau
incLusdans le perim&ereurbain defini par les remparts theodosiens, comme le
sont quelques monast6eres de banlieue qui deviennent alors sans le vouloir
monast6~resurbains , et cette fois ils ne paraissent pas avoir e'e detruits ni
recouverts, mais &re rest~s en usage. La d ouverte d'hypog6es, de frag-
ments d'elifices ou d'inscriptions funeraires dessinent une zone d'inhumation
'
entre Les anciens et Les nouveaux remparts, qui n'a du reste plus tout fait
l'unite et La disposition axiale d'une ne&ropoleantique, avec une particuli6re
densite sur La septieme colline. Sans doute peut-on hesiter sur La date de
certains reliefs funeraires67,mais non pas sur celle d'inscriptions qui prouvent
que bien apr'esTheodose II des sepultures continuaient de trouver place dans
Les regions de Constantinople nouvellement urbanisees". Une Loi d'Anastase,
reprise et precisee par Lanovelle 59 de Justinien sur Lagratuite des inhuma-
tions 'a Constantinople, apporte une confirmation; sont designes comme Lieux
habitueLs de sepulture: l'exterieur de Lavile (ca -rT-vvEcov'miax6v),LesBlacher-
nes, Sykai/Galata (-r76 'rppaacx 'IovarTivtavG$v XuOG$v) et Lazone urbaine tEXPI
frroi
TrWvvicov TELXI-V ou iaO TCOV VECOV TEtIX&V, c'est-'a-direLapartie de LacapitaLecom-
prise entre L'enceinteconstantinienne et L'enceintetheodosienne69; c'est Ia que
l'imperatrice Ir'ene transf'ere Le cimetiere des pauvres, jusqu'alors implante a
Sykai70; c'est Ia qu'il faut LocaLiserles Evacrraea cviija-raque Theophane oppose
aux 'rpoao'mc*apvflacra71, et Le cimetiere oii PselLos, au XIe s., en rentrant 'a
ConstantinopLe, voit sa familLepleurant sur La tombe de sa soeur72. Un peri-
m6etre demeure interdit aux morts, celui de La vieille cite constantinienne,
encore circonscrit par Les <cvieuxmursb, toujours visibLes et qui marquent
une etape dans Lesprocessions73:il est encore sacril'ge, sauf en cas d7epidemie,
d'y enterrer les morts; Theophane Lesuggere a propos de Lapeste bubonique
de 746, au cours de Laquelle La mortalite est si forte qu'on en est reduit 'a
65
TaPaa-r6Oais,5d, 25
= ps.-Kodinos, 90-91, Scriptores originum, ed. Preger, 22, 34, 198-99.
66 Tel celui de Dalmatios, cf. ActaSS, Mai, vol. VII, p. 256.
67 Les reliefs funeraires chr6tiens trouves 'a
Ta?kasap et maintenant au Mus6e d'Istanbul (une
traditio legis et une majestas domini) 6taient dat6s par N. Firath du ye ou du debut du VIe s. (voir
ci-dessus note 63); A. Grabar propose une datation plus haute (vers 400) dans Sculptures byzantines
de Constantinople, IVP-X6 s. (Paris, 1963), 37-39; mais parmi les arguments invoqu6s, il en est un
qui ne nous parait pas convaincant: l'impossibilit6 de trouver une tombe 'a cet endroit, c'est-'a-dire
intra muros, apr6s 412.
68 Cf. A. M. Schneider, #Gotengrabsteine aus Konstantinopel*, Germania, Anzeiger der Rdmisch-
germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archdologischen Instituts, 21 (1937), 175-77. Il s'agit de
tombes du VIe s. 69 CJ, 1.2.18; Justinien, Nov 59.5.
70Ps.-Kodinos, 11.87 et 177, Scriptores originum, td. Preger, 246, 270: T6v 89 a&ysovAovx&v,iv 4
ol -rE3vECbr-e3&rroovrat... Zi'riov Elpfivrif 'A3ilva{a 61TcaS&oapE&v 3&r-rovrratot -rivyrens.Sur -r&'Iepiov,
cf. J. Pargoire, IRAIK, 4 (1899), 45-56.
71 Th6ophane, ed. C. de Boor, I (Leipzig, 1883), 423.
72 K. N. Sathas, Meaacuwnvdj BiP?toSAiKn, V (Venice-Paris, 1876), 29: ME-TvXov Piv oiiv A.8-nTb -MXos
6 Or
Kai Kcrr'&KWvo-tb ppoS yev6W6voSIv3a aTb
EIaEWLTAW96J3S, -r$Sartto ...
T1s dc&5AXiis
73 des cort6ges triomphaux: la Voie triomphale franchissait la muraille constantinienne 'a
Ou
l'Exakionion, cf. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, 2e 6d. (Paris, 1964), 28.
LE CHRISTIANISME DANS LA VILLE BYZANTINE 17
monde des morts perd de son unite et de sa coherence aussi bien dans le
domaine de l'eschatologie que dans celui des pratiques fun6raires: les deux
plans se completent et s'expliquent sans qu'on puisse etablir entre eux d'autres
liens qu'un large synchronisme. L'hagiographie oppose progressivement a l'idee
d'une condition commune dans la mort et a l'attente d'une resurrection collec-
tive, encore si fortement exprimees au VIe s., celle d'une rmuneration indivi-
duelle et d'une place devolue a chacun apres sa mort en fonction de sa vie79;
et a cette hierarchisation des recompenses et des peines post mortemcorrespond
diesiti
une diversification es modes et des lieux de sepulture selon la saintete, le
rang, la fortune et meme le type de mort. Les condamnes ou suicides (pioSAvarol)
sont enterres a part 8, sans doute parce qu'a Byzance comme ailleurs on craint
leur vengeance; les etrangers et les pauvres ont droit a des oevo-rTaqa81; l'argent
permet inversement aux plus riches de fonder un monastere pour y avoir
leur tombe et celles de leur famille, ou d'acheter un lieu de sepulture dans un
monastere existant82; nous retrouvons ici le role du patrimoine: c'esta l'occa-
sion ou en prevision de la mort qu'il tend a se figer en fondations. Les eglises
n'ont pas eu seulement pour role de faire entrer subrepticement-comme
disait Dyggve83-la necropole dans la cite, mais de faire eclater le monde de la
mort et de differencier les morts. Le culte des reliques et la liturgie eucharisti-
que ont cet effet par la dialectique qu'ils instaurent entre une <vraie vie# et
une<vraie mort)>,rompant avec le dualisme antique; et surtout l'eglise, meme
garnie de tombes, n'est jamais cimetire: l'usage semble s'etre fixe dans un
assez subtil equilibre entre l'interdiction pure et simple d'enterrer la ou sont
conservees des reliques et la vieille attirance qui groupait les sepultures ad
sanctos; des saints veritables aux pieux eveques, clercs ou moines, qui <morts
ne sont pas morts>84, aux empereurs et hauts dignitaires, et jusqu'aux p6cheurs
dont un miracle expulsera le corps, comme une charogne, du sanctuaire oht
79Voir, par exemple, la Vie d'Andre Salos (PG, 111, col. 664-77 et 772-73 notamment) ou la Vie
de Basile Jeune
le (6d. S. G. Vilinskij [Odessa, 1911]). Aboutissement iconographique: la mort du juste,
distinguee de celle du pecheur; cf.'EprilvEiarijs coypapwKn s
TXVTiS, ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus
(Saint-Petersbourg, 1909), 212-13.
80 IUs sont enterr6s ai
Th&
nEayiov, cf. Th6ophane, ed. de Boor, I, 420, 437, 442; Janin, Constan-
e
tinople byzantine, 2e ed., 405; idem, Lageographie eccldsiastique de I'Empire byzantin, Premiere Partie,
Tome III. Les glises et les monasteres (Paris, 1953), 409. On ne fait pour les pioS&oroi aucun service
fun6bre (Cassien, PL, 49, col. 529); il faut pour les enterrer une permission sp6ciale (Basiliques,
60.53.3); ce traitement particulier repose sans doute sur la croyance, contre laquelle lutte Jean
Chrysostome, que ceux qui sont morts de mort violente deviennent sur terre des demons (PG, 48,
col. 963). Nous sommes tres pres de ce que Frazer appelait ((la peur des morts*, et de la distinction
habituelle dans les soci6tes eprimitives? entre mort naturelle et mort violente.
81 Ps.-Kodinos, 85, Scriptores originum, ed. Preger, 246; Th6ophane, ed. de Boor, I, 106; pour
Antioche, Jean Moschos, Pratum spirituale, 88, PG, 87, col. 2945; pour Emese, Das Leben des heiligen
Narren Symeon von Leontios von Neapolis, ed. L. Ryden (Stockholm, 1963), 168. IL s'agit tant6t de
caveaux sp6ciaux, tant6t, comme a Constantinople, de veritables fosses communes.
82 Parmi une
longue liste d'exemples, qui pourrait commencer avec Rufin et son apostoleion des
Rufinianae (395), citons les monasteres TCa)Vracrpiov, Tris Ep9poorIvrIS, de Constantin Lips, de Saint-
Mamas apres sa reconstruction par Georges de Cappadoce, du Chartophylax, du Christ Philanthrope
(Janin, Eglises et monasteres, s.v.). Michel Attaleiate, quant a lui, a achete une tombe familiale dans
le monastere de Saint Georges Av-r4 KvTrapiaicp.
83 E.
Dyggve, #The origin of the Urban Churchyard#, CIMed, 13 (1952), 147-58.
84 La Vie et les Miracles de sainte
Thhcle, ed. Dagron, Mir. 30;
l'expression est employee a propos
de deux 6v6ques enterr6s exceptionnellement dans le collateral Sud l'6glise
de Sainte-Th6cle pres de
S61leucie.
LE CHRISTIANISME DANS LA VILLE BYZANTINE 19
ils sont indument enterres85,une hierarchie se dessine, qui tend a faire dependre
l'emplacement des tombes de criteres de dignite et de moralite86,et a ordonner
les morts eux-memes entre les deux absolus de la mort et de la vie.
Chaque sepulture devient, a ce compte, un cas particulier, et la dispersion
prevaut. Mais il y a aussi le phenomene collectif, bien connu des archeologues,
des cimetieres spontanes, et souvent provisoires, qui s'installent sur le site
d'eglises, de monasteres ou de monuments publics abandonnes, a la recherche
d'un peu de sacre et surtout d'une terre dont le statut interdise l'alienation:
la basilique B de Philippes ecroulee, le monastere Saint-Menas lorsque Symeon
le Nouveau Theologien vient le restaurer87,plus tard le Grand Palais88. II
s'ensuit une grande spontaneite du fait cemeterial; les lieux d'inhumation se
trouvent de plus en plus lies au tissu urbain, marquant ses points forts, se
coulant dans ses vides, se fractionnant selon les fondations et les quartiers,
se depla9ant selon les epoques.
Cette nouvelle repartition des vivants et des morts dans l'espace urbain est
assurement a inclure dans une definition de la ville byzantine; des perturba-
tions demographiques suffisent sans doute a l'expliquer, le christianisme lui
donne forme et justification.
doine, le signe distinctif de la cite; que l'eveque est devenu, par fonction, le
chef d'une assemblee de clercs et de notables qui remplace la curie dans la
designation du curatorlTrrcr6ip 'ro?cos, du defensorlxbSiKoset des autres SlolKrlTai91.
Telle est la solution d'Anastase, puis de Justinien pour redonner vigueur a
l'institution poliade, par reference a un modele politique traditionnel qui
equilibre representation municipale et pouvoir imperial delegue a des fonc-
tionnaires locaux. Mais il est clair quel'eveque, en se substituant aux magistrats
municipaux, joue un peu le meme role subversif que l'eglise en se substituant
au temple dans le schema de l'urbanisme antique.
La legislation du VIe s. aboutit a une veritable elimination du pouvoir
provincial au profit d'une sorte de pouvoir urbain qui ne reconnait plus que
l'empereur:. eveques, clercs et TrpoTA-rov-rTs
sont officiellement habilites a adresser
des demandes ou des ambassades dans la capitale, notamment pour se plaindre
des provinciarumjudices et denoncer leurs exactions92; la juridiction episcopale
s'elargit a mesure que la partialite du gouvemeur est tenue pour habituelle.
Le resultat est cette etonnante novelle de Justin II, qui decide, en 569, que les
praesides des provinces seront choisis et presentes a la designation imperiale
par l'eveque du lieu et l'elite des KT-rTOpeKal oiKTropEs, IVa.. .xi
. EvoiTIVS iT-reoirrl-
covT-rs aslKoTEvaLCras. L'empereur est encore necessaire pour con-
-rais rrapXiats
ferer TOtr
Oi(Po7a rfs apxis, mais c'est a l'aristocratie locale qu'il reconnait le
droit de gerer ses propres affaires; tout pouvoir qui n'est pas issu de la ville
est repute<(etranger#. Meme si la loi n'est guere efficace, meme si elle ne vise
qu'a supprimerl'abus des sufiragia et ne fait qu'etendre al'Empire entier le
systeme mis au point par Justinien pour l'Italie reconquise, ses dispositions
enregistrent un nouveau partage des competences politiques93.
Se produit donc des le VIe s., sous le couvert de l'institution episcopale, un
decollement entre les structures etatiques, reduites a leur aspect militaire et
fiscal, et une societe urbaine plus librement organisee qui va faire prevaloir
ses choix. Sort de cette evolution une regionalisation qui ne fait que reconnaitre
l'eloignement de Constantinople et la suprematie de quelques grands centres
urbains sur des cites en decadence, la dissidence des capitales orientales qui
decident, a l'initiative de leur eveque, de negocier avec les conquerants de
l'Islam pour poursuivre leur destin de vile94, etl'Empire des themes. Dans
un texte comme la Chroniquede Josue le Stylite (vers 510-515) le gouverneur
d'Osrhoene existe encore entre l'eveque et l'armee, entre l'empereur et la ville,
et quand il est dit aux troupes de Qawadh, ?Vous savez par experience que
cette ville n'est ni a vous ni a Anastase, mais au Christ qui l'a benie#, ce n'est
pas encore pour justifier, mais pour conjurer une dissidence95; mais bientot
91CJ, 1.4.19; MAMA, III, 122-9 (no 197); Justinien, Nov 15 de 535 et 128 de 545. Cf. A. H. M.
Jones, The Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1964), 758-59.
92
Justinien, Nov 86 de 536 et 134.3 de 556; voir aussi MAMA, III, 122-29.
93 Nov 149; cf. Claude, Die byzantinische Stadt, 119-20; Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 306 et 395.
94
Theophane, ed. de Boor, 338-39 (Kyros d'Alexandrie); Michel le Syrien, Chronique, 6d. et trad.
J.-B. Chabot, II (Paris, 1901), 425 (Kyros d'Alexandrie, Sophronios de Jerusalem).
95 The Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, chap. 39, 40, 42, 61, 78, 6d. et trad. W. Wright (Cambridge,
1882), 29-31, 52-53, 63. Les ambassades a Constantinople sont aussi bien le fait de Mar Pierre que
du gouverneur.
LE CHRISTIANISME DANS LA VILLE BYZANTINE 21
et non pas du tout comme le president d'une assembleede type curial, c'est-
entree dans les ordres majeurs, la latitude, si bien attestee par l'epigraphie
et les papyrus, qu'ont les moines aussi bien que les clercs d'exercerun metier
(potiers, medecins, bateliers...), et surtout par le caractere extremement
mouvant du monachisme.D'une certainefa9on,si l'eveque est le representant
ideal des possedants, les moines constituent la population urbaine type dans
les villes o ils s'installent: ils sont un lment
dmographment
ogrhiqeent instable,
generalement etranger, generalement fondu dans le tissu urbain ou les faubourgs
des villes, comme le sont les martyria ou les fondations qu'ils animent10?.Aussi
96Th6ophylacte Simocatta, VII.2-3, 6d. C. de Boor
(Leipzig, 1887), 249-50.
97 Cf. A. Guillou, Rdgionalisme et inddpendance dans l'Empire byzantin au VIIe s. L'exemple de
'Exarchat et de la Pentapole d'Italie (Rome, 1969), 179.
98 Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, ,L'administration de
l'Empire byzantin aux IXe-Xe s.), BCH, 84
(1960), 70-78.
99A la fin du XIe et au XIIe s.
beaucoup des eveques dont les noms figurent dans les listes de
presence des reunions synodales ont df abandonner leur siege; le probl~me est pose de savoir s'il
faut ou non revenir sur l'interdiction d'elire un eveque et de l'ordonner a Constantinople meme, cf.
N. Oikonomides, o(Un decret synodal inedit du patriarche Jean VIII Xiphilin concernant l'election
et l'ordination des 6evques,, REB, 18 (1960), 55-78. I1 y a donc soit des eveques in partibus, soit
une intervention religieuse effective du patriarcat de Constantinople et de l'empereur dans les terri-
toires soumis aux Turcs: Euthyme Malakes, dans le discours qu'il adresse i Manuel Comnene a
l'occasion de la venue de Kilidj Arslan a Constantinople en 1161, declare que Byzance continue de
nommer les 6evques dans tout ce qui fut l'Empire, cf. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Noctes Petro-
politanae (Saint-Petersbourg, 1913), n0 6, p. 162-86.
100 Voir ce que nous apprennent a ce sujet le canons s 4, 8, 18, 23, 24 du concile de Chalcdoine.
22 GILBERT DAGRON
L'institution ecclesiastique dessine donc bien, encore une fois, les limites
extremes du phenomene urbain: une definition politique en marge de l'Empire,
et ce que nous appellerions une economie de <(libreentreprise).
meme temps oiu la ville est devenue un espace banalise et indifferencie, elle
retrouve une topographie sacree, celle de ses reliques, et un temps sacre, celui
de la liturgie et des commemorations, qui trace dans le tissu urbain des
itineraires processionnels.
CLIVEFOSS
IN the eight centuriesfrom the reign of Diocletianuntil its conquestby the
Seljuk Turks, Ankara flourished as one of the most important cities of Ana-
tolia. Located on the busiest highway in the country, it long maintained
a role as a provincial capital, a military base, and a center of trade, industry,
and intellectual life. Its history is known from a variety of sources-histories
of the Empire and Church, letters, speeches, laws, lives of saints, inscriptions,
and others-which offer considerable, if sporadic, detail, providing far more
information on the first three centuries than on the succeeding half millen-
nium. The whole period falls into two discrete and clearly definable divisions:
the late antique, from Diocletian to Heraclius, and the Byzantine, from
Heraclius until the Turkish conquest. They are separated by an event of major
significance: the capture and destruction of Ankara by the Sassanian Persians
in 622. Previous to this event, the city was a large and developed metropolis
with monumental public buildings, spreading far into the plain beneath its
acropolis; subsequently, it consisted of an imposing fortress on the acropolis
containing the main settlement, with a field of ruins and perhaps scattered
habitations outside the walls. Although the period after the disaster is
relatively obscure, material is available to provide a narrative history of
both.'
system of Asia Minor-a major supply base, a place where the troops could
take up winter quarters, and a gathering point for new recruits. Naturally,
numerous emperors and their armies passed through the city on their way to
the wars and contributed to the local economy.2
Although Galatia, a country of the interior with a rigorous climate and few
trees, was sparsely populated compared with the rich provinces
pAegean of the
region, it was well suited for raing sheep and goats and supported the related
industries of textile production and the manufacture of dyes. In all proba-
bility, much of this industry was centered in Ankara and served the needs
of the army.3 With its importance for trade, industry, and the army, it is not
surprising that Ankara became the capital of Roman Galatia and remained
an administrative center for a millennium, long after the Empire and its
organization had changed beyond all recognition.
In Late Antiquity the factors which had been responsible for the growth
of Ankara gave it continued a andeven increased importance and prosperity.
When the capital was moved to Constantinople, the highway through Ankara
became the main route between the capital and the East. During the fourth
century in particular, when the imperial residence was often at Antioch
(Constantius II stayed there from 337-51, Julian for about half his reign,
and Valens from 371-78), the court, the army, and officials and messengers
of all kinds constantly passed through the city. In maps and guides of the age,
therefore, Ankara occupies a prominent place. The Antonine Itinerary, revised
in the early fourth century, lists the three routes which connected the West
with Ankara, as well as those from Ankara to Tavium and Caesarea. In 333
a Christian of Bordeaux made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and left behind
a detailed record of the highway that led there. He listed not only the cities,
but also the mutationes, where it was possible to change horses and rest, and
the mansiones, small towns which offered overnight accomodation, for the
whole route was well organized for official or private travelers. In Asia Minor
the pilgrim passed through Galatia and Ankara; the entire region, which
stretched for about 200 miles, contained only three cities, but there was a
mutatio or a mansio about every ten miles. A less detailed, but still significant,
record is provided by a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus of the fifth century,
which contains a somewhat garbled list of towns between Egypt and the
capital; the route is essentially the same as that of the Bordeaux pilgrim,
and the name of Ankara duly appears. The only map which survives from Late
Antiquity, the Peutinger Table, naturally shows the route and the stations
along it between Constantinople and the Cilician Gates via Ankara; it also
includes the highway from Ankara to Tavium and the East in a rather confused
form. On this map, Ankara is shown as a walled city with six towers, a
conventional portrayal of an important place.4
The importance of Ankara is well summarized in one late antique source,
the Expositio totius mundi et gentium, a description of the Empire compiled
around the middle of the fourth century:
Inde obviat Galatia provincia optima sibi sufficiens. Negotiatur vestem
plurimam; aliquotiens vero et milites bonos dominis praestat. Et habet
civitatem maximam quae dicitur Ancyra. Divinum panem et eminen-
tissimam manducare dicitur.5
This reveals that the province was rich in grain, pasture,
asand manpower,
and was a center of trade in textiles, probably manufactured locally. The
metropolis, therefore, would have had a significant commercial and industrial
role, and, in fact, Galatian merchants were famous in Late Antiquity. When
for example, the Emperor Julian was urged to attack the Goths in 362, he
replied that there was no need, since the Galatian slave traders, who sold
Goths everywhere, were already enough for them.6 Similarly, the poet Claudian,
writing in 399 against the eunuch consul Eutropius, pictures him in his youth
standing in the train of a Galatian slave trader, waiting for a buyer.7 Through-
out the period, active Galatians frequented the eastern provinces with different
purposes-as pilgrims to the Holy Land and Egypt, and occasionally as monks
to join the religious communities in those lands.8
4 Antonine
Itinerary: K. Miller, Itineraria romana (Stuttgart, 1916), liv-lxvii; Bordeaux pilgrim:
ibid., lxviii-lxxx; C. Noordegraaf, "A Geographical Papyrus," Mnemosyne, 6 (1938), 273-310. The
name of the city is spelled ANKAFPA,perhaps indicating a popular pronunciation of the name Ancyra
similar to its modern form and otherwise unattested; Peutinger Table: ibid., 656-67, 672f. The city
was walled, in fact, in Late Antiquity, as shown on the Table.
5
Expositio, cap. 41, ed. J. Rouge (Paris, 1966), 178, with parallel and virtually identical text of
a somewhat later and shorter work, the Descriptio totius orbis.
6 Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII.7.8.
7 Claudian, In Eutropium, 1.59.
8
Individual Galatian pilgrims and monks will be considered below.
32 CLIVE FOSS
apparently still alive. He may be the governor who completed and dedicated the wall to the city,
and whose name is likewise missing: ibid., no. 290. Two other inscriptions, nos. 292 and 293, are
possibly also to be associated with construction of the wall. Both fragmentary, they mention the
clarissimus Aur. Dionysius Argaeinus, who completed an unspecified building at an unknown time.
15 Ibid., no. 306, probably of the time of Constantine or later because of the Christian name.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 33
endangered. The steps which the government took to relieve the situation
are revealed in a short account of a local martyr. In the reign of Aurelian,
a grain merchant named Philumenus traveled from his native Lycaonia to
bring wheat to Galatia. When he arrived in Ankara, he was denounced as a
Christian and put to death.16His journey of a hundred miles or more to a place
which normally produced a surplus of grain may be taken to illustrate the
severity of the famine and methods adopted for its control. Famine again
struck Ankara when St. Clement, born in 265, was a young man not yet
eighteen. The narrative of his life records that the precocious Saint performed
great acts of charity when men and beasts were perishing from starvation.
He rescued pagan children whose parents had died or abandoned them by the
road, fed and
an clothed
cl e them, e and brought them up as Christians with th
providential assistance of an older Christian lady of some wealth.7 The charity
of the Christians thus supplemented the efforts of the government to relieve
the situation.
Diocletian finally restored settled conditions in which urban life could
flourish, and carried out a reorganization of provincial administration. Galatia,
a vast area which had stretched from the Pontic mountains to the Taurus,
was considerably reduced, so that it consisted only of the northern part of
the central Anatolian plateau. Ankara remained the capital, as it did after a
second reduction under Theodosius which detached the western part of
Galatia, making it into a new province with its capital at Pessinus. There-
after, Galatia Prima, the province of Ankara, was ruled by a governor with
the relatively high rank of consularis and contained five minor cities and one
urbanized region in addition to the metropolis.l8 It is possible that the head-
quarters of the vicar of Pontus, whose diocese extended over the whole of
northern Asia Minor from the Bosporus to the Euphrates, was also in Ankara.19
I6 Synaxarium CP, 263f.
17 Vita Clementis, PG, 114, cols. 816-93; for the famine, see col. 824. The date of Clement's birth
is given (col. 816) as the twelfth year of Valerian, when Valerian and Lucianus were consuls, which
at first sight seems impossible: Valerian reigned only eight years, and shared the consulship each
time he held it with his son Gallienus. The twelfth year of Gallienus, however, was 264/65; in 265
the consuls were Licinius Valerianus and Lucillus. This, therefore, must be the year which the author
of the Vita intended and which he indicated with remarkable accuracy for such a source. The Life
contains several historical references which may be worthy of some trust.
18 For the division under Theodosius, see Malalas, 348, and for the cities,
Hierocles, Synecdemus,
696.4-697.2. The date on which the governor assumed the title consularis is uncertain, but it would
seem to be earlier than the Theodosian division of the province. An inscription from Appola, about
twenty miles southwest of Amorium in Phrygia and apparently part of its territory, mentions a
consularis of Galatia: W. M. Calder, "Julia-Ipsus and Augustopolis," JRS, 2 (1912), 255-57, no. 13,
republished in MAMA, I, 439; cf. PLRE, s.v. ...tic(ius), where the stone is incorrectly attributed
to Ipsus, apparently because of the title of the original publication. The inscription, a
fragmentary
boundary stone commencing with a cross, comes from a district which belonged to Galatia Salutaris
after the division. Since Salutaris was governed by a praeses, mention of a consularis suggests that
the inscription antedates the division, and that the governor of Galatia was already consularis in the
fourth century. It is also possible that the inscription belongs to a time later than that of Hierocles,
and that the governor of Salutaris was then promoted to consularis, an assumption for which there
is no corroboration.
19The evidence is too complex to treat here; I hope to discuss it in detail elsewhere. The most
important indications that the vicar may have had his seat in Ankara consist of the following:
Vita Clementis, col. 825: the Saint tried in Ankara before the vicar; Vita Platonis, PG, 115, col. 404:
the vicar Agrippinus presides in Ankara; St. Basil, Ep. 225: bishops summoned to the
judgment seat
34 CLIVE FOSS
Administration of the city was in the hands of the local Senate with whom
the People was nominally associated.20
The attentions of the regime of Diocletian are evident in the restoration
of the highway system, which had apparently fallen into disrepair during the
long period of crisis. Under the Tetrarchy, the main highway was rebuilt,
as was the road which led westward to Germe and Dorylaeum.21 The same
period saw the beginning of restorations in the city which apparently con-
tinued into the fourth century, and involved the city wall and numerous
important public buildings.
The age of Diocletian is famed for the Great Persecution, which claimed
several victims at Ankara. The pious narratives of their sufferings, though
largely fictitious, contain some important details about the city.
St. Clement of Ancyra is the best known of the local saints. A native of
Ankara and already a noted philanthropist as a young man, his sufferings
began under Diocletian when he was taken before the vicar Domitianus in
Ankara, interrogated, and beaten severely. When he could not be brought
to recant, he was sent to be tried before the Emperor. As he left Ankara,
Clement prayed to the Lord to protect the city from the Devil and tyrants;
the civic patriotism which had characterized earlier centuries was still vital.
After numerous trials, he was sent back to his native Ankara and executed
at a place called Cryptus. The orphans whom he had rescued from the famine
many years before had already been slaughtered at the same place, as had
his associates Agathangelus and the deacons Christopher and Chariton.
Clement and Agathangelus were buried in a deep tomb at Cryptus, near
the entrance of a church which stood there at the time the life was written
by a man evidently familiar with the local topography. The deacons were
buried nearby, and a small shrine was eventually dedicated to their memory.22
St. Plato, a contemporary martyr, was more famous than Clement in Late
Antiquity. A church in Ankara was dedicated to him and his cult, celebrated
in the Galatian countryside, had spread to Constantinople by the sixth
century; he seems, indeed, to have been the patron saint of the city.23 His
life, however, provides few details beyond the usual narrative of interrogation,
torture, and execution. In the reign of Galerius, Plato was denounced to the
vicar Agrippinus who was presiding in the basilica opposite the temple of
of the vicar in Ankara; Justinian, Novel VIII: vicariate of Pontus abolished and combined with the
is
governorship of Galatia Prima, which suggests that they shared a capital. On the other hand, there
evidence which shows vicars active in other cities; it does not necessarily contradict the notion that
else-
they had their headquarters in Ankara, for none of the other sources mentions a headquarters
where, nor would it be unnatural for the vicar, whose duties included collection of taxes and super-
vision of the revenue, to travel widely.
20 Note, for example, the dedication of the boule and demos to John the Restorer: Bosch, Quellen,
no. 306.
21 The work is attested by milestones: ibid., nos. 299-304, and Macpherson, op. cit. (supra, note 2),
no. 2).
22 See Vita Clementis, for the prayer, col. 833, and for the execution and burial, cols. 889-92. For
Zeus. After unsuccessfully urging him to sacrifice to Apollo, the vicar had
Plato led outside the city to a place called Campus and executed.2
Plato had a brother named Antiochus who also enjoyed a local cult. He
was a doctor who was arrested as a Christian while curing the sick in the
cities of Galatia and Cappadocia. Taken before the governor, Hadrianus, he
was tortured and executed, but even at the moment of his death made a new
convert and martyr; the executioner, Cyriacus, when he saw blood and milk
miraculously issuing together from the Saint's headless trunk, professed
Christianity on the spot and was forthwith decapitated.25
Other local martyrs are not as well attested. Julian, a native of the town
of Crentius, about 20 miles northwest of Ankara, was an old man at the time
of the persecution of Licinius, when he withdrew into a wooded mountain
and hid in a cave with 42 companions. One day, as he went to get water,
he was seen by some local pagans who were sacrificing to Hecate at a nearby
temple and was taken to the governor in Ankara and executed.26 Eustochius
and his nephew Gaianus were natives of Lycaonia; together with the three
children of the latter, they were horribly executed at Ankara by order of the
vicar Agrippinus.27Other saints are associated with Ankara, but their chrono-
logy, and sometimes their very existence, is dubious.28
24 Details may be found in the Vita Platonis, cols. 404-25, a very vague account which deals
mostly with the dialogue between the Saint and the vicar and the torture and execution of the
former; cf. the criticism of the tradition by J.-M. Sauget, in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, X, cols. 959-61.
25
ActaSS, Iul., IV, 25f.; Synaxarium CP, 821, 824f. 26 Synaxarium CP, 41.
27 Ibid., 766; a town in
Lycaonia, near the monastic complex now known as Bin Bir Kilise, was
apparently named after Gaianus: see J. Noret, "Gaianopolis, ville de saint Gaianos?," AnalBoll, 96
(1972), 101-5.
28 I have excluded the
following, who are sometimes presented as historical martyrs of the Great
Persecution: Eustathius, Theodotus (and the Seven Virgins), and Socrates. The narrative of Eusta-
thius' gruesome sufferings (Synaxarium CP, 851) bears no chronology, and the name of the governor
Cornelius is not helpful. The acta of Theodotus were once regarded as having historical and topo-
graphical value; the case was advanced in detail by the editor, P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, in I Martirii
di S. Teodotoe di S. Ariadne (= ST, 6) (Rome, 1901), introduction, 11-16. The work was subsequently
demonstrated, however, to be almost entirely legendary: H. Delehaye, "La passion de Saint Theo-
dote d'Ancyre," AnalBoll, 22 (1903), 320-28. The topographical details have little conceivable relation
to Ankara, for the central event of the story involves a procession from the city to a lake to bathe
the images of the gods. No such lake exists near Ankara, which is situated in a region notable for its
dryness. The story, if it has any basis in truth at all, may refer to Antioch, where the featured perse-
cutor Theotecnus held office (though the lake of Antioch seems too far from the city to be readily
accessible, and apparently did not even exist at this time: cf. Sir L. Wooley, Alalakh [Oxford, 1955],
5; R. J. Braidwood, Mounds in the Plain of Antioch [Chicago, 1937], 9f.), or, as is perhaps more
likely, to Ancyra in Phrygia, a city located on a lake; Ancyra is mentioned only in the title of the
vita, without specification. It has been generally accepted that Malos, described in cap. 10 and sup-
posedly 40 miles from the city near the sources of the Halys, is to be identified with the modern
town of Kalecik, which is evidently built on the site of a substantial ancient settlement: Ramsay,
op. cit. (note 2 supra), 251; J. G. C. Anderson, "A Celtic Cult and Two Sites in Roman Galatia,"
JHS, 30 (1910), 163-67 (with description and justification); followed by Mitchell, op. cit. (note 2 supra),
444-46. If, however, the narrative has no reference to Ankara, there is no reason to suppose that
Malos was located in Galatia (note that Ramsay ignores, and Franchi de' Cavalieri tries to explain
away, the rather clear statement in the vita that Malos was located near the source of the Halys;
that river inconveniently rises in Armenia). It is conceivable, for example, that "Halys" might be a
corruption for the name of another river, such as the Hyllus which rises not far from Phrygian Ancyra.
A similar, if less complex, case is presented by Socrates, a priest who is supposed to have overthrown
the altar of Zeus at Ankara and to have been executed there: Synaxarium CP, 53, 158. This, too,
has been exposed as a fable by H. Delehaye, "Sainte Theodote de Niche," AnalBoll, 55 (1937), 201-25.
Naturally, the authenticity of the saints here accepted cannot be guaranteed, but three of them, at
least, were the object of local veneration in Late Antiquity.
36 CLIVE FOSS
The church of Ankara became one of the most important in Asia Minor.
It was the seat of the metropolitan bishop of Galatia, who came to rank
fourth in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. Ankara also enjoyed the
distinction of being chosen as the site of church councils in the fourth century.
Soon after the end of the persecutions, a general council was held there in
314 to deal with the problems arising from the actions of church members
during the persecutions. In such a critical time, accommodation and modera-
tion were necessary, and those who had lapsed were received back into
communion with degrees of penance which reflected the reluctance, willing-
ness, or even enthusiasm with which they had transgressed. Other provisions
treated a variety of disciplinary questions.29
The years of persecution had also been a time of political confusion with
several civil wars. These disturbances are attested at Ankara by a large
hoard of 577 coins which was buried in or near the city in about 310.30The
deposit probably reflects the insecurity of the time following the death of
Galerius, when a struggle for his inheritance seemed imminent. It might
also conceivably have been buried by a refugee from the Great Persecution.
In any case, stability was restored by Constantine, whose reign marks the
beginning of a long period of peace for Galatia and most of the other pro-
vinces of Asia Minor.
During the reigns of Constantine and Constantius II, Ankara is best known
for its ecclesiastical history, since the local church was headed by two bishops
who gained notoriety throughout the Empire as leaders in the Christological
controversies. The secular record preserves only the slightest notices: a statue
was dedicated to Constantine in Ankara by the praetorian prefect Flavius
Constantius, who held office from 324 to 327, and another was set up to
Constantine or Constantius II by Lucilius Crispus, vicar of Pontus. Either of
these may commemorate some benefaction to the city, or even an imperial
visit.31 Constantius II is known to have visited Ankara on at least two
occasions. On 8 March 347 he issued a law from Ankara, where he had stopped
on his way to campaign against the Persians, and three years later he passed
through again as he was returning to Constantinople after receiving the news
of the revolt of Magnentius.32 On this occasion, he was met by the aspiring
young orator Themistius, who delivered a highly successful speech on Philan-
thropia to the Emperor. He had apparently come to Ankara fearing that
his voice might not be noticed among the multitude of eloquent rhetoricians
who would flock to Constantius in the capital. His efforts were well rewarded:
29 For the Council of
Ancyra, see C. Hefele and H. Leclerq, Histoire des conciles (Paris, 1907), I,
298-334.
30 The hoard is tabulated and
analyzed by D. Kienast, "Der Miinzfund von Ankara (270-310
n. Chr.)," Jahrbuch fuiirNumismatik und Geldgeschichte,12 (1962), 65-111.
31 Prefect: Bosch, Quellen, no. 305; vicar: R. D'Orbeliani, "Inscriptions and Monuments from
Galatia," JHS, 44 (1924), no. 45.
32 Law: Codex Theodosianus (hereafter Cod. Th.), XI.36.8.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 37
the citizens of Ankara were so impressed by his speech that they tried to
persuade him to stay and teach there, and Constantius was so pleased that
he quickly promoted Themistius' career so that within a few years he was
one of the most distinguished rhetoricians in the Empire.33
During the first half of the fourth century, the role of Ankara in the history
of the Church was considerable, and barely missed being even greater. In
late 324 or early 325 Constantine called a general council in Ankara to
resolve the Arian controversy. The choice of the city is ready witness of the
distinction of its church and the convenience of its location, but Ankara was
not destined to be the site of the First Ecumenical Council. Within a short
time, the Emperor changed his mind and moved the council to Nicaea, on
the grounds that its location was more convenient for the western bishops
(who had now been summoned), that its climate was more salubrious, and
that it was closer to the imperial court which then met in Nicomedia.34 Of
these, the last reason was obviously the most important; the Emperor played
a dominant part in the proceedings of the Council.
Ankara was represented at Nicaea by its bishop Marcellus, who firmly
defended the Orthodox position. Unfortunately for his memory, he later fell
into heresy, was deposed from his see in 336, and was replaced by Basil.
Only afterethe decree of a council and with the support of the Pope and the
western Emperor could he return to the city. The population of Ankara,
however, had grown fond of their new bishop, and it was only after considerable
rioting that Basil was ejected and Marcellus restored. The disturbances were
violent: houses were burned, there was much fighting, and crowds stormed
through the city. Nuns and priests were stripped and dragged naked to the
Forum, and even the sacred Host was profaned by being hung around the
necks of priests. In the meantime, the doctrines of Marcellus had spread,
and the city had the dubious distinction of lending its name to the adherents
of the new heresy, who came to be called Ancyro-Galatians. The triumph
of Marcellus was short-lived with the death of Constans in 350, the Arians
gained the upper hand, and Marcellus was exiled, this time to disappear from
history.35
Basil, the successful rival of Marcellus, was one of the most important
bishops of the eastern Church in the mid-fourth century, the leader of the
substantial and moderate sect of Arians which was closest to the Orthodox
in doctrine. He was a native of Ankara and a doctor by profession. Like
many of his medical colleagues, he was a learned man and an accomplished
33 Themistius, Or. I, XXIII.299a; for the career of
Themistius, see 0. Seeck, Die Briefe des
Libanius, zeitlich geordnet (Leipzig, 1906) (hereafter Seeck, Die Briefe), 293f.; and PLRE, s.v.
Themistius 1.
34Notice of the planned council at Ankara survives
only in a Syriac translation of a Greek docu-
ment: H. G. Opitz, Athanasius Werke, III, pt. 1, Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites
(Berlin, 1934), no. 20.
35The career of Marcellus may be reconstructed from Socrates, 1.36, 11.15,
19, 21, 23, 26; Sozo-
men, II.33; and Theodoret, Hist. Eccl., 11.8, a considerably more sympathetic treatment. For the
riots, see Hilary of Poitiers, frag. III.9, PL, 10, col. 665; cf. Athanasius, Apol. contra Arianos, 33,
PG, 25, col. 304.
38 CLIVE FOSS
speaker, for the medical education of the day stressed rhetoric as much as
technical training. During the years after his restoration to Ankara, where
he was evidently very popular, Basil took an active part in the administration
and policies of the Church in the eastern Empire and gained considerable
influence with the Emperor. The details of his career reveal little about Ankara
except that in 358 he celebrated the dedication of a new church there, an
occasion for festivi
est ann for a synod of the invited bishops. Two years later,
when Constantius had fallen under the influence of the extreme Arians, Basil
was deposed from office for various irregularities which had occurred during
his administration at Ankara. He was accused of striking and seizing the
papers of a priest who had been traveling through the city, of turning over
numerous of his ecclesiastical adversaries to the civil authorities for punish-
ment, and, among many less monstrous offenses, of failing to excommunicate
a quack doctor who had caused the death of several people. Another of the
complaints against him, which reveals much of the spirit of the time, was
that the clergy whom he had traduced to provincial governors were so cruelly
treated and loaded with chains that they had been forced to bribe the soldiers
not to treat them too severely. Whatever the truth of these charges, which
are known only from the accusations of his enemies, it is evident that the
bishop of Ankara had considerable power in the city and influence throughout
the Church. Basil went into exile from which, in 363, he unsuccessfully peti-
tioned Jovian for restoration to his see; thereafter, he disappears from history.3
As a man of learning who devoted his talents to the Church rather than
the state, Basil represents a phenomenon of his age, and the events of his
bishopric suggest that the life of Ankara was also typical of the period: riots,
corruption, and collusion between ecclesiastical and civil authorities were well
known in other great cities. In Galatia, however, the civil violence was so
severe that Julian could write sarcastically in 362 that the Christians should
be more grateful to him than to his predecessor, for in the reign of Constantius
many multitudes of heretics had been butchered in Galatia and villages
destroyed, while nothing of the kind had happened in his reign.37
The short reigns of Julian and Jovian saw great activity in Ankara as the
Emperors and their courts
theoo stoppedd re on their route between the capital
and the eastern frontier. Julian had been on the throne only a few months
when he left Constantinople in May 362 for Antioch, his appointed base for
a major campaign against the Persians. In Galatia he made a detour south-
ward to Pessinus to worship at the famous shrine of the Mother of the Gods,
where the indifference of the inhabitants showed him that his restoration of
paganism was not yet a success.38 The next stop was Ankara, where Julian
36 For the career of Basil, see the summary by R. Janin, in DHGE, with full reference to the
sources; St. Jerome considered him worthy of a chapter in his De viris illustribus, PL, 23, col. 372;
church at Ankara: Sozomen, IV.13; charges against Basil: ibid., IV.24. Two of Basil's numerous
works survive, one on theology and one on virginity: see Epiphanius, Adv. Haer., PG, 42, cols. 425-42;
and F. Cavallera, "Le 'De Virginitate' de Basile d'Ancyre," RHE, 6 (1905), 5-14.
37 Julian, Ep. 52, to the People of Bostra.
38 Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII.9.3-7; Julian, Ep. 22 ad fin.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 39
stayed for some time, holding court and listening to the pleas of people who
had lost their property by violence or who complained that they had unjustly
been forced to serve in the local senates, an onerous burden which could
easily bring financial disaster. He judged fairly but severely; unlike most
emperors of the time, he rejected the testimony of slanderers and informers,
but he enforced the senatorial obligations without mercy. Julian was especially
concerned with the financial well-being of the Empire which was still consider-
ably dependent on the local senates to provide public works and services.
In this matter he was so severe that the petitioners, failing to find release
through justice, were characteristically forced to resort to large and secret
bribes to escape their unwanted obligations.39 During his stay in Ankara,
Julian issued laws that all teachers had to be approved by the municipal
senates, that governors should ensure that adequate postal service be available
to the agents of the treasury, and that governors should not begin new public
works until they had completed the projects of thei predecessors, with the
exception of temples.40Of these the first was especially appropriate to Julian,
who had recently forbidden Christians to teach, and to Ankara which had a
senate notoriously fond of learning.
The memory of Julian is intimately associated with his attempt to restore
paganism; at Ankara he took important measures for its success. One of the
features of his program was a conscious imitation of the strengths of the
Christian Church-its organization and its philanthrophy. Consequently, he
appointed one Arsacius to be high priest-a pagan bishop of the province-
of Galatia, and gave him elaborate instructions in a letter. In order to
strengthen paganism in Galatia, where it seems to have been making slow
progress, he requested that all priests provide a good example to the people
by attending divine worship with their families and servants, and not to
disgrace their office by appearing in theaters or taverns or indulging in any
shameful occupations. As we have already seen in the casee of St. Clement,
the Christians from an early time had organized active philanthropy of a kind
which had been almost entirely unknown to paganism and had thereby gained
converts and loyalty among the urban populations. Julian, therefore, instructed
his priest to set up hostels for travelers and to care for the poor by regular
distributions. The government would provide 30,000 bushels of wheat and
60,000 pints of wine yearly in Galatia; of this, one fifth would be given to the
poor who served the priests and the rest distributed among strangers and
beggars. The state thus proposed to take over the functions of the Church;
the grain and wine would probably be provided from the abundant Galatian
39Ammianus Marcellinus, XXII.9.8-12.
46 Cod. Th., XIII.3.5, VIII.5.13, XV.1.3. None of these laws bears an indication of its place of
issue, but the chronology makes Ankara the overwhelmingly probable site. The first was issued on
17 June 362, the second received in Constantinople on 20 June, and the third issued on 29 June.
Julian was still in the capital on 12 May (Cod. Th., XIII.3.4); he arrived in Antioch on 18 July:
J. Bidez, La vie de l'empereur Julien (Paris, 1930), 400 note 1. A saint's life suggests that Julian left
Ankara on 29 June: Vita Basilii, ActaSS, Mart., III, *14; he proceeded thence to Tarsus, and then
hastened on to Antioch. A stay of about two weeks in Ankara in June would thus be entirely prob-
able.
40 CLIVE FOSS
harvests. Julian in the same letter also urged pagan villagers to offer their
firstfruits to the gods, and required the priests to keep a distance from the
civil authorities: they were not to visit governors in their homes or meet
them at the city gates, but were to receive them only in the temples.41 In
such ways the Emperor hoped to provide a firm foundation for his restored
religion, but his sudden death while fighting the Persians caused the whole
experiment to be aborted.
Julian is famous also as a persecutor of Christians, and his stay in Ankara
produced at least one martyr, Basil, a local priest whose life contains some
plausible circumstantial details.42 St. Basil had already gained some notoriety
by proving himself an annoyance to the Arians when they were supreme
in Ankara, and as a consequence had been prohibited from preaching. When
Julian came to the throne, Basil attacked the pagans so violently that he was
denounced to the praetorian prefect Saturninus for stirring up a sedition.
Informed of his actions, the Emperor sent two rhetoricians, Helpidius and
Pegasius (whom his biographer calls "teachers of perdition"), to convert him
to reason.43Although aided by a priest from Nicomedia, they had no success,
and Basil was left to the personal attention of Julian. The Emperor soon
arrived and was greeted on the outskirts of the city by "servants of the Devil"
bearing the image of Hecate. He proceeded to the palace where he met with
the leading citizens and distributed largess. On the following day he watched
the spectacles which were put on in his honor, then returned to the palace
and summoned the uncooperative Basil. After some fruitless discussions,
Julian, disgusted with th wewhole affair, departed for Antioch and left Basil
to be killed on 29 June 362.44
A certain Busiris was less successful in his attempt to achieve the crown of
martyrdom. He was arrested by the governor of Galatia for ridiculing the
pagans, tortured, and consigned to prison. After the death of Julian he was
released, renounced his heresy, and lived into the reign of Theodosius.45The
narrative of other persecutions inspire considerably less confidence, but may
41
Julian, Ep. 49; cf. Sozomen, V.16.
42Note that the persecutions of Julian, here as elsewhere, seem to have been quite mild; see
B. de Gaiffier, "'Sub Iuliano Apostata' dans le martyrologie romain," AnalBoll, 74 (1956), 5-49. He
lists the saints and criticizes the tradition, showing that the association of many of the martyrs with
Julian is doubtful, except when attested by other early sources.
43The statement about these two rhetoricians is one of the best indications of the accuracy of
the vita; Helpidius and Pegasius were historical figures, both renegade Christians. Helpidius is known
to have accompanied Julian on his Persian expedition, and therefore would have passed through
Ankara. See PLRE, s.v. Helpidius 6; and T. Barnes, "Another Forty Missing Names," Phoenix,
28 (1974), 224-33 for the identification of Pegasius. The association of two known men with Basil
does not, of course, prove that anything else in the vita is true; the comes scutariorum Frumentius
is otherwise unknown, but the hegemon Saturninus may plausibly be identified with the praetorian
who
prefect Saturninius Secundus Salutius, who accompanied Julian on his eastern campaign, and
set up a dedication to him in Ankara (see infra). It is not inconceivable that he preceded the Emperor
to the city, and that he persecuted Christians there as he did, very mildly, at Antioch: see PLRE,
s.v. Secundus 3. It had previously been suggested that Saturninus must have been a vicar of Pontus:
PLRE, s.v. Saturninus 4, where the events are misdated to 363.
44 Vita Basilii, ActaSS, Mart, III, *12-*15; cf. Sozomen, V.11, confirmation of the existence of
the Saint.
45 Sozomen, V.11, a narrative which concurs better with the known moderation of Julian, and
families, and maintained such close contact that in later years their sons
would come to Antioch to study with him. The relationships were based on
mutual advantage as well as on friendship; in return for hospitality, Libanius,
a man of great fame and influence through the eastern Empire, could obtain
favors for his friends and could request help from them when needed. His
abundant correspondence, which often consists of such requests, brings many
individual citizens of Ankara into the light of history; most of them were
cultivated men of wealth and property, pagans prominent in civic affairs and
patrons of learning.
The ruling aristocracy of Ankara consisted of families closely related to
each other by marriage. The head of one of them, Maximus, was extremely
rich and of an old family. He had acquired his wealth by honorable means-a
circumstance unusual enough for Libanius to mention it-and by 361 had
retired from public life to his country estate where he lived as a gentleman
farmer and hunted. He rarely came into the city, and when he did he only made
his friends in the marketplace unhappy that he would leave so soon. When he
retired, he gave the greater part of his fortune to his son, who thus incurred
the obligation of being enrolled in the local senate and of assuming the burden-
some duties which accompanied that office.58Maximus was evidently one of
the most influential people in the city, for even new governors on assuming
office were recommended by Libanius to present themselves to him.59
Hyperechius, the son of Maximus, was a favorite of Libanius and the
object of his special attentions.60 He had come to study with the great teacher
when he was at Nicomedia (343-48) and continued as his pupil at Con-
stant
lentinopleand Antioch. When this long training was finished, Libanius
advised him to become an advocate in the office of the governor of Galatia,
but Hyperechius decided instead on a career with the central government,
which could lead to greater advancement. Libanius obligingly gave his
assistance and wrote a vast number of letters during the reigns of Julian
and Jovian to officials who might be able to advance the young man's career.
Four successive governors of Galatia were besieged with requests to help-one
of them even after he had retired from office-as were Julian, the tax assessor
of Bithynia, Nicocles, a sophist of Constantinople, and high officials who
merely happened to be passing through Ankara, where Hyperechius could
hope to catch them. Among these were Modestus, the prefect of Constantinople
who was on his way to assume his new duties; Caesarius, the count of the im-
perial treasury, who was traveling with the court of Jovian; and Datianus the
patrician, who had been left behind when Jovian and his retinue moved on.61
58
Libanius, Ep. 298, and Seeck, Die Briefe, 210f.: Maximus XII.
59 Libanius, Eps. 298 to Acacius and 779 to
60
Maximus, both governors.
See PLRE and Seeck, Die Briefe, for full references and details of Hyperechius' career; it is
well summarized in Petit, 162-64.
61 Governors:
Ecdicius: Libanius, Eps. 267, 1359, 1419; Acacius, Ep. 298, cf. Ep. 308; Maximus:
Ep. 779; Leontius: Ep. 1267; Julian, Ep. 1454; Nicocles: Ep. 810; Caesarius: Eps. 1114, 1443;
Modestus: Eps. 308, 792; Datianus: Ep. 1115. The requests were not all direct; although
Hyperechius
was advised to approach Modestus himself, the latter had been requested to intercede for him with
Acacius. For full details, see Seeck, Die Briefe, s.v. Hyperechius and the names above.
44 CLIVE FOSS
ibid., 284.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 45
sent his son to Antioch to study and took his civic duties so seriously that he
spent a large part of his fortune for the city. Libanius wrote to the governor
asking some relief for his friend.66Another host of Libanius during his days
at Ankara had been Eusebius, son-in-law of Agesilaus. While visiting him,
Libanius held in his arms his young son, who subsequently grew to become
one of his pupils. The elder Eusebius was a skilled rhetorician, and as such
was commended to the governor when he returned to Ankara in 361.67 He had
a brother, Olympius, to whom Libanius wrote expressing his affection for
the whole family, for Ankara, and for the Galatians in general.68
All these closely related friends of Libanius were rich and influential
citizens; others, though not of this great family, were also of considerable
power in the city. Of them, Bosporius had been sent on the embassy to
Jovian with Strategius; he seems also to have been the head of the local
senate, for it was to him that Libanius wrote in 362 asking favor for another
Ancyran, Achillius. This Achillius had settled in Palestine and had become
a successful and popular doctor; when his father died in 362, however, he
was obliged to return to his native city to assume the duties of a decurion.
Libanius wrote to Bosporius asking exemption from the obligations, so that
the doctor could return to his adopted country.69
Libanius profited from his popularity in Ankara by becoming the teacher
of many sons of the leading families. The fathers are often known by name,
if not much more, from the correspondence. Among them were Parnasius,
whom Libanius had visited during his stays in Ankara; Pompeianus,
whom he commended to the governor as a special friend; and Arion, whose
father Agathius had been a philosopher.70
The practical effect of the network of friends which Libanius main-
tained is evident in the case of Aetius of Ankara and Obodianus of
Antioch. The former, a rich and influential man, had studied with Liba-
nius, then returned to his native city to become an advocate; he possessed
land in Phoenicia, and was able to give his daughter a generous dowry.
When Obodianus, a leading citizen of Antioch, had been sent to the capital
to congratulate Julian on his accession, he fell from his horse and hurt his
shoulder and was forced to stay in Ankara. There he received the hospi-
tality and consolation of Aetius, for both were united in their acquaintance
with Libanius. Naturally, when he returned to Antioch, Obodianus did not
cease to praise his Galatian host to their mutual friend.7' In this case, a
man of Antioch could find help and sympathetic company in a strange and
distant city because of the extensive connections of his famous compatriot.
Although the Ancyrans were usually extremely hospitable to strangers,
66
Libanius, Ep. 767; Seeck, Die Briefe, 47f.
67 Seeck, Die Briefe, 142, s.v. Eusebius XIX and XX.
68 Ibid., s.v.
Olympius VIII; Libanius, Ep. 1241.
69
Seeck, Die Briefe, s.v. Achillios III, Bosporios; Libanius, Eps. 756, 1444.
70 Seeck, Die Briefe, s.v. Parnasius
II, Pompeianus IV, Arion; see the table of students in Petit,
118.
71Aetius: Seeck, Die Briefe, 49; PLRE, s.v. Aetius 2; Obodianus: Libanius, Ep. 733;
Seeck,
op. czt., s.v.
46 CLIVE FOSS
The sources for the history of the city during the two and a half centuries
between the death of Jovian and the Persian invasion are much more sporadic
and less detailed than those so far considered. Such is the case for most of the
cities of Asia Minor; for Ankara, at least, they are sufficient to illustrate the
continuing military, administrative, and religious importance of the city. The
events of the beginning of this period, in particular, reveal Ankara as a major
military base.
Valens, appointed ruler of the East by his brother Valentinian while the
army was at Nicaea, had been on the throne for only a year and a half
when he was faced with the revolt of Procopius. He received the news in
October 365 at Cappadocian Caesarea and hastened to Galatia to learn the
seriousness of the revolt, which so depressed him that he considered resigning
the imperial power. However, urged by the encouragement of his friends, he
sent two legions into Bithynia to face the usurper. At Mygdus on the Sanga-
rius they were won over by an emotional plea by Procopius, and deserted
to him. Valens nevertheless persisted and marched westward, where his efforts
failed and he barely escaped capture. Leaving Bithynia in the hands of
Procopius, he withdrew to Ankara, which was to be his headquarters for the
winter. In these bleak circumstances, the imperial forces did gain one victory
at Dadastana on the frontier of Galatia, where the hapless Hyperechius was
turned over by his men without a fight. During the sojourn of the Emperor
and the army in Ankara, a son was born to Valens on 18 January 366. He
was called Valentinianus Galates, "the Galatian," a nickname reflecting his
place of birth. In the spring Valens ventured westward once again, took
Pessinus, and marched into Phrygia where he defeated and killed Procopius
and resumed supreme power.88For the rest of his reign, the Emperor resided
in the capital or in Antioch or fought on the Danube frontier. Naturally, in
their journeys between those cities, Valens and his retinue had occasion to
pass through Ankara; one such visit is marked by a law of July 371 for-
bidding anybody to give shelter to decurions who were seeking to avoid their
compulsory public duties.89
Valens, like Constantius, was a fervent Arian and persecuted the Orthodox
throughout his domains. One of his agents was the vicar of Pontus, Demos-
thenes, who summoned a synod at Ankara in mid-winter 375 in an effort to
discredit Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa.90After the death of Valens,
the Orthodox gained supremacy under Theodosius, who had little occasion
to visit the eastern provinces. Ankara, however, felt his presence in 381 when
he vindicated the memory of Paul, the patriarch of Constantinople who had
been deposed and executed by Constantius. The Saint's body, which had
apparently been preserved in Ankara, was brought from there and enshrined
in the capital.91
Under Arcadius, Ankara achieved new distinction as one of the residences of
the Emperor and his court. Each year in the early summer, as the climate
and humidity of the capital became insufferable, the imperial entourage would
set out for the fresher upland plains of Ankara, proceeding leisurely through
western Anatolia. The choice of Ankara seems to have been encouraged by
Arcadius' eunuch minister Eutropius, who, early in the reign, ran an adminis-
tration of such venality that provincial governorships were sold to the highest
bidder; that of Galatia is duly listed among them. The regime of Eutropius
was bitterly satirized by the court poet of the West, Claudian, who wrote
that the procession of the unwarlike minister and his train as they returned
from Ankara was so pompous that one might imagine that he had conquered
88For these events, see Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVI.7-9.
89 Cod. Th., XII.1.76. 90 St. Basil,
Eps. 225, 237.
91Socrates, V.9, an early source, and the only one to associate Paul with Ankara. The archbishop
was exiled to Armenia and executed at Cucusus; the circumstances of the removal of his body to
Ankara, which seems to have been firmly in the hands of the Arians since the accession of the bishop
Basil, are unknown. The lives of Paul by Photius (ninth century) and Simeon Metaphrastes (tenth
century) make no mention of Ankara; the latter, in fact, relates that the Saint's relics were brought
from Cucusus, though this might be a mere inference from the place of his execution.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 51
the Persians and drunk of the Indus. Since the government moved with the
Emperor, it is possible to follow the imperial progress to Ankara for a few
years by the dates of laws which were issued along the road. In 397 Arca-
dius was at Nicomedia in late June, at Ankara by 4 September, and back in
Constantinople by 26 September. The following year he did not leave the
capital before 3 July, was in Nicomedia on the 6th of that month, at
Nicaea on the 12th, and at Mnizus in Galatia on the 27th; no laws were
issued from Ankara, but the court presumably spent August and part of
September there, returning to Constantinople before 11 October. In 399,
according to Claudian, Eutropius was about to leave for Ankara in the spring
of the year in which he was consul, but the annual movement had to be
suspended because of a devastating revolt of the Goths in Asia Minor. For
a few years it is not possible to reconstruct the imperial itinerary, but
in 405 the customary pattern reappears: the Emperor reached Nicaea early,
on 12 June, and was in Ankara on 10 July and 12 August, returning to the
capital before November.92 In general, Arcadius and his court seem to have
spent most summers in Ankara, which thus became functionally the capital
of the Empire. The city would have had to provide accommodation and
services for the whole retinue for months at a time, but would certainly
have benefited from their sojourn.
So far, Ankara has been seen as a military and administrative center, an
imperial resort, a place with a highly literate upper class, and a zealous
Christian community dominated by influential bishops. In the early fifth
century the city appears as a center of piety and charity, since it is known
primarily from the works of two Galatian Christians, Palladius and St. Nilus.
Palladius was born in Galatia in the reign of Julian or Jovian, became a
monk, and made extensive visits to Egypt and the Holy Land. He was made
bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia in 400, but was deposed and exiled five
years later because of his partisanship for the patriarch John Chrysostom.
In 412 he returned to Galatia, and subsequently became bishop of Aspona,
a city southeast of Ankara on the great highway; he died before 431. Palladius
is best known for his Lausiac History, written around 420, a series of bio-
graphies of holy men in Egypt and elsewhere.93 Less is known of his con-
temporary, St. Nilus, who was a native of Ankara and lived in a monastery
in or near the city for many years. He appears to have spent much time
in Constantinople, where he also became a disciple of Chrysostom; he died
before the middle of the fifth century. Many writings of St. Nilus on monas-
ticism and moral subjects have survived in addition to a remarkable corpus
of 1062 letters, two of which are addressed to Palladius.94The works of these
two holy men provide, en passant, much information about Ankara.
92
Eutropius: Claudian, In Eutropium, II.97-102, cf. 416; sale of offices: ibid., 1.259; chronology
of laws: Seeck, Regesten, 293, 295, 309.
93 See The Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. Dom Cuthbert Butler
(Cambridge, 1904) (hereafter
Hist. Laus.), for the text and details of the life of the author.
94 See M. Th. Disdier, in DTC,
XI, pt. 1 (1931), cols. 661-74, for the lives and works of Nilus and
a summary of the complex discussions which have arisen about his identity and the
authenticity of
52 CLIVE FOSS
In the early fifth century there were reportedly more than two thousand
virgins in Ankara. Among them, the most outstanding was Magna, a chaste
and ascetic woman who contributed generously to hospitals, to the poor,
and to bishops on pilgrimages. Palladius wrote a short account of her, and
Nilus addressed to her a treatise on voluntary poverty in 426 or 427 which
further reveals that she was a deaconness.95 Magna was evidently a rich
woman who had devoted herself to charity; she was not alone in such actions.
The ex-count Verus and his wife Bosporia were leading citizens of Ankara and
so generous that they cheated their heirs by giving the income of their property
to the poor and to the churches of the cities and towns. When a famine raged,
they opened their own stores of grain to the poor, and in so doing converted
many heretics to Orthodoxy. They themselves lived in great simplicity in the
country to avoid the luxury of the city, and wore only the cheapest clothes.96
The unusual name of Bosporia suggests that she might have been the daughter
or at least a relative of Bosporius, the correspondent of Libanius and leader of
the senate. He had been a rich pagan; the contrast between the luxurious
world portrayed by Libanius and the pious asceticism of its descendants of
sixty years later, when Christianity seems to have triumphed overwhelmingly
in the region, is remarkable, though of course exaggerated by the differing
nature of the sources.
While he was in Galatia, Palladius met an old man, Philoromus, who had
spoken boldly against Julian but seems not to have suffered excessively
thereby. Philoromus spent many decades in monasteries, journeyed on foot
to Rome, visited the Holy Land and Egypt, and retired to Galatia, where
he was still writing at the age of eighty; his works have not survived.97 An
unnamed monk completes the picture which Palladius presents of the pious
of Ankara and its region. This monk lived with the bishop of Ankara and gave
much help to the prison and the hospital. By his time, the Church had
developed an extensive system of philanthropy, already the subject of imita-
tion by Julian. One night, this monk went out to the porch of the church
where a multitude of people had gathered, lying there for their daily food-a
normal occurrence in all great cities, as Palladius remarked. On this occasion,
one of the women was in the pangs of childbirth with no doctor to assist
her; the monk obligingly delivered the baby. The same holy man would
immediately sell a book if given one, saying that he could not endure to
lean over a writing-tablet, since compassion drove him from studies.98
Further colorful details come from the writings of St. Nilus. Two of his letters
deal with the local martyr, St. Plato, who by this time had become the
patron Saint of the city. In one of them, Nilus violently reproaches the ex-
his works; cf. the detailed treatment of K. Heussi, Untersuchungen zu Nilus dem Asketen (Leipzig,
are
1917); see also infra, note 103. The works of Nilus are printed in PG, 79; the letters to Palladius
11.133 and 134, col. 256.
95 Palladius, Hist. Laus., 67; Nilus, cols. 968-1060.
96 Palladius, Hist. Laus., 66.
97 Ibid., 45.
98 Ibid., 68.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 53
note 2), 65-67, with a plan; and Macpherson, o. cit.. (sra, note 2, 11, with a photograph, p. x.l.
It is not clear whether the road from Bithynia into Phrygia mentioned in Buildings, V.3.12-15, is
the great highway, as seems probable, or some other.
115 Itinera ed. P. Geyer, CSEL, 39 (Vienna, 1898), 144.
Hierosolymitana,
Procopius, Buildings, 1.4.27.
116
117
Procopius, Bell. Vand., IV.9.13.
118 For the
plague, see J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, 2nd ed. (London, 1923),
62-66; for its effects, see J. Teall, "Barbarians in Justinian's Armies," Speculum, 40 (1965), 294-322;
and E. Patalgean, Pauvret6 dconomiqueet pauvretd sociale a Byzance (Paris, 1977), 85-92.
119 Vita Theod.
Syc., cap. 8.
120
Ibid., cap. 3.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 57
Protector David. When she died not long after, a messenger came with the
news and her dowry to the young Saint, who had stayed behind in the vil-
lage.l21 Theodore was left with the charge of his young sister, a virgin of
twelve who tried to imitate him in holiness. The Saint thought it best to
encourage her desire for piety, and took her to Ankara and committed her to
the nuns of the convent of Petris. She became a nun herself and died three
years later.122When his grandmother died several years later, she left Theo-
dore enough money that he was able to build a large church with three
apses on a hill near Syceon, with an oratory dedicated to St. Plato adjacent
to it.123
Sometime later there was a recurrence of the plague in Ankara, and both
men and oxen perished. The problem was so serious that the Protectors of
the city sought a typicay late antique remedy:
calemledthey on the holy man,
and led him back with them to Ankara. Some who had daughters in the con-
vent of the Mother of God of Beeia persuaded him to stay there and bless its
inmates with his prayers and his presence. Theodore found the cure for the
pestilence the same for a great city as for the remote villages of the country-
side. On an appointed day the whole population of the city and the neigh-
borhood went in procession behind the Saint who prayed to God for deliver-
ance. His prayers were successful, Ankara was freed from the plague, and
even the cattle were saved by being sprinkled with holy water which Theodore
blessed. The citizens of the metropolis then brought him back to his monastery
with profuse thanks.l24 In this scene, which was a common one and which
might be repeated in the West or the East for most of the next millennium,
the spirit of the Middle Ages is already evident. In the time of Julian and
Libanius a veneer of classical rationality still subsisted, especially in the
cites; now, two centuries later, an enormous change has taken place, and the
difference between country and city, which so marked classical culture, seems
to have faded as the rural, and less rational, spirit triumphed.
the fame of St. Theodore spread, the number and rank of his visitors
Astat
became more substantial. Many of them, of course, were peasants, and on
numerous occasions the Saint was called to the villages to relieve drought
or pestilence, drive out demons, or perform other public services. Others came
from Ankara; among them was a man whose dumb son the Saint caused to
speak.125But the most distinguished visitors passed through Syceon because
of its location on the great highway. In 578, as he was returning from a
victorious campaign against the Persians, the future Emperor Maurice stopped
to consult the Saint. A holy man from the desert in the East, on his way to
ask a favor of the Emperor, visited Theodore. Domentziolus, nephew of the
Emperor Focas, called on the Saint during his march to the frontier to defend
it against the inroads of the Persians, and became a frequent visitor as
121 Ibid., caps. 6, 25, 33.
122 Ibid.,
cap. 25.
123 Ibid.,
cap. 55.
124 Ibid.,
cap. 45.
125 Ibid., cap. 61.
58 CLIVE FOSS
his high military command caused him to pass often along the highway.
An imperial secretary was cured of stomach trouble at Justinian's bridge
over the Siberis, and a condemned prisoner, George of Cappadocia, who had
led a revolt against Focas, was offered consolation by the Saint. The notorious
consul Bonosus, a favorite of Focas, visited Theodore, but the Saint's reputa-
tion probably reached its highest point when he received the Emperor Herac-
lius in 613. The Saint invited the Emperor to stay for dinner, but the latter
replied that he must hasten on to the frontier.126All these dignitaries were
following the great highway which led through Ankara to the frontier; they
necessarily stopped in the city, and their presence, by illustrating the import-
ance of the highway, suggests that the prosperity of Ankara continued to the
very end of the age.
Theodore himself also traveled on occasion, making three journeys to the
Holy Land. On one of these he encountered some fellow Galatians, pilgrims
or merchants. They recognized him and commended him warmly to the people
of Jerusalem, who were then suffering from a drought. They had a holy man
in their country, they said, who could fill the whole world with rain in a single
prayer. By this time, Theodore had gained considerable notoriety as a local
saint, and the Galatians, loyal to their native country, showed great pride in
him, as they had earlier demonstrated for their patron Saint, Plato.127
The centralization of the late antique government required provincials to
go to the metropolis to conduct important business. Consequently, when the
bishop of Anastasiopolis, a city near Syceon, died in about 580, the local clergy
and landowners went to Ankara to petition the archbishop Paul to appoint
Theodore as their shepherd. The archbishop agreed, and the Saint was forcibly
dragged from his cell and ordained in the metropolis. His tenure as bishop,
although it lasted some fifteen years, was not an unqualified success; the holy
man, independent of the regular church organization, could not easily adapt
to its structure. After disputes with the local magnates, who had considerable
influence in the administration of the church, Theodore decided to resign his
office and went to Ankara with his request. The archbishop, reluctant to
accept the resignation, in his turn sent to the patriarch in Constantinople for
advice. When consent finally came from the capital, Theodore was freed of his
cares and allowed to return to his normal existence.28 He continued to work
miracles in the region, saving the peasantry and others from oppression,
demons, and natural disasters. During the reign of Maurice, for example,
when a severe famine again afflicted Galatia, the Saint miraculously provided
wheat for the villagers.129
Theodore's promotion to the bishopric illustrates some of the changes which
had taken place in the life of the late antique city since the time of Liba-
130 The
bridge was three hours west of the village of Balkuyumcu; its inscription was published by
W. M. Ramsay, "Inscriptions de la Galatie et du Pont," BCH, 7 (1883), 22 no. 11.
131 Vita Theod.
Syc., cap. 115.
132 Ibid.,
cap. 116.
60 CLIVE FOSS
133
Ibid., cap. 134; cf. the quotations from the time of Focas and Heraclius about the end of the
world in Jones, Later Roman Empire (note 82 supra), 316f.
134 The following list gives the dates for which the buildings were attested and reference to the
footnotes of this work where more detailed references may be found. Those marked * were restored,
and those marked ** were built in Late Antiquity.
135 I infer the existence of a basilica or some similar public building from Vita Clementis, 860,
where the Saint was brought before the governor Curicius, who was presiding in a place called Cryptus.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 61
* The
building "of Theodotus" (ca. 300; note 16)
The prison (ca. 300, 362, 420; notes 16, 53, 111)
** Unspecified buildings of John the Restorer and the governor
Maximus (ca. 300, 362-64; notes 16, 78)
Public works:
* The
aqueduct (ca. 300; note 15)
* A fountain
(ca. 300; note 15)
** Fountains and nymphaea (362-64; note 78)
Ecclesiastical buildings:
The cathedral church (420; note 98)
The new church dedicated by Basil in 358 (note 36)
Church of St. Plato (ca. 430; note 99)
Church of St. Clement at Cryptus (uncertain date; note 22)
Church of the Archangels (no date)136
Church "of the Saints" (no date)137
Church of the Novatians (ca. 403; note 105)
Chapel of Christopher and Chariton at Cryptus (uncertain date;
note 22)
Monastery of Nilus (5th cent.; note 94)
Monastery on the mountain opposite the citadel (ca. 400; note 101)
Monastery of Attalina (ca. 620; note 168)
Convent of Magna (426; note 95)
Convent of the Mother of God of Beeia (late 6th cent.; note 124)
Convent of Petris (late 6th cent.; note 122)
Hospice (xenodochion) (ca. 420; note 95)
Hospital (nosokomeion)(ca. 420, ca. 480; notes 98, 110)
Places:
Campus (ca. 300; note 24)
Cryptus (ca. 300; note 22)
Private buildings:
Country estate of Maximus (361; note 58)
To these, of course, should be added buildings mentioned in earlier texts
which would still have been standing and used in Late Antiquity, such as the
theater, the amphitheater, the bath, and numerous temples.138 The vast
majority of these buildings has vanished without a trace, or at least cannot
be identified with any surviving remains, but two are represented by important
anointing rooms, and swimming pool.142Such thermae were erected all over
Asia Minor and other parts of the Empire in the second and third centuries.
Its fate during the invasions is not certain, but it was included within the cir-
cuit of the third-century walls and shows evidence of substantial later repairs
which were considerably less splendid than the original construction. The
walls around the pool, for example, were originally covered with marble revet-
ment and mosaic; when these were repaired, the marble and mosai
thewererrtrno
removed and replaced with plaster. Similarly, in the interior of the building,
many places where the mosaic was removed were filled in with plaster or crude
mosaic.143Since the building has not yet been published in detail, it is not
possible to extrapolate much from the repairs. They evidently show that the
bath was in continued use, and that at some time the city did not have
the resources or the inclination to rebuild it in its original magnificence.
This would well accord with the circumstances of the age, when cities were
notoriously short of funds because
ca of the ever increasing financial demands of
the central government; but lack of chronology precludes consideration of the
remains in a satisfactory historical context. Valuable confirmation of the
continuity of the baths through Late Antiquity, however, is provided by the
coin finds from the site. These indicate considerable activity in the third and
fourth centuries, some decline in the fifth and sixth, and a break in the
reign of Heraclius.144A large group of very small bronze coins, "minimi," of
Anastasius, all in remarkably fine preservation, may reflect some major repairs
of the time or, more probably, represent a hoard buried for safekeeping.l45
This bath is possibly to be identified with the gymnasium of Polyeidus
named in two late antique inscriptions. The first records only that it was
restored after being ruined, but the other, which contains the praise of John
"the Restorer," is more specific and provides details of the reconstruction.
John restored the arches of the aqueduct which stood next to the gymnasium
and brought in the great volume of water that was needed; he roofed the
colonnades of part of the building which had been abandoned and rebuilt its
water channel; and he restored the "winter bath"-the room or rooms used
in the winter, presumably because they faced south-and adorned it with
marble revetment and other decoration.146From this, it is apparent that the
142
The baths have never been published, but useful preliminary reports and restorations exist:
K. O. Dalman et al., "Archaologische Funde in Ankara 1931," AA (1932), 234-48
(preliminary);
N. Dolunay, "Tiirk Tarih Kurumu adina yapilan 9ankilrkapi hafriyatl," Belleten, 5
(1941), 261-66
(important); M. Akok, "Ankara Sehrindeki Roma Hamami," Dergi, 17 (1968), 5-37 (excellent series
of plans and discussion of restoration).
143
Repairs: Dolunay, op. cit., 264, 266.
144
The coin sequence is tabulated in Appendix II; I examined the coins in the Museum of Ana-
tolian Civilizations, Ankara, through the kind courtesy of Bay Raci Temizer, the Director, ana
Bay
Musa Kurum, numismatist, who will publish them properly. All the coins in the
Appendix were found
in the excavations of 1939: they are discussed by Bosch, Quellen, 321.
145 See
Appendix II; Bosch, loc. cit., mentions a hoard found in a waterpipe, but gives no indica-
tion of the coins which it contained; those of Anastasius seem by their
homogeneity and condition
to have formed an independent group.
146 Bosch, ibid., no. 306; his translation contains several
misunderstandings. The word holkos
does not mean "arcade," but "aqueduct" or "water channel," and is so used
commonly in Late
Antiquity, e.g., Justinian, Novel XXIV.3, XXV.4; and particularly a verse inscription of Miletus
64 CLIVE FOSS
from the time of Justinian (Milet, 1/9: A. von Gerkan and F. Krischen, Thermen und Palaestren
[Berlin, 1928], 170, no. 343) which associates holkoi of water with a bath. This meaning of holkos does
not appear in the lexica. For the correct interpretation of the "winter bath," see J. and L. Robert,
"Bulletin 6pigraphique," REG, 59/60 (1946/47), no. 207. I have supposed that the lacuna at the end
of line 4, s...... si (no indication of the number of missing letters), might be filled with skoutl6si,
"revetment." Much work remains to be done on the inscription.
147 Minicius: Bosch, Quellen, 291, an inscription which further exemplifies the building activities
of governors of the city.
148
Jerphanion, "M6langes," 151-53.
149 For Mt. Tamerlane and its modern settlement, see Mamboury, Ankara, 41, with the illustra-
tion on p. 86; and for the remains on its summit, W. F. Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia
Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia (London, 1842), I, 133. The Moslem holy site is discussed
in Eyice, op. cit. (supra, note 139), 112 note 98. It appears in the engraving of Tournefort (1701) and
Lucas (1705), in the anonymous Dutch painting of Ankara (18th cent.), and on early photographs;
for these, see Eyice, op. cit., figs. 2, 3, 10, 13, 62; and Mamboury, op. cit., 81. For its significance, see
F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford, 1929), 325, 328, 449; and the refer-
ences in Eyice, op. cit., 112 note 98.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 65
should occupy ground which was of no other use. Finally, the Campus outside
the city where St. Plato was executed would have been the plain west of the
city beyond the marshes now represented by the Genclik Parki. This area has
produced numerous Christian tombs and gravestones, and was still the site
of a cemetery in the eighteenth century.150
Most of the surviving or excavated late antique remains cannot be identified.
The former are represented by a column and a church; the latter consist
mostly of private houses.l51 The so-called "Column of Julian" is a familiar
sight in the center of the old city of Ankara. It stands 141/2 meters high,
and consists of a rectangular base, a horizontally fluted shaft, and amcapital
decorated with acanthus leaves and round blank medallions. No inscription
indicates its date and purpose; the population has attributed it since the
sixteenth century or earlier to the Queen of Sheba, while the more learned
are responsible for the association with Julian. The latter suggestion, though
more plausible, has nothing to recommend it beyond the known fact of
Julian's sojourn in the city. Stylistic investigation of the capital has suggested
instead that the column may be the work of the late sixth century; the
occasion for its erection remains unknown.152
Of the many churches and monasteries mentioned in the sources only one
survives from Late Antiquity, and this is not an original construction but the
partial rebuilding of the temple of Rome and Augustus near the Column of
Julian. After the prohibition of pagan worship by Theodosius, the solidly
built walls of the temple were available for new uses. The interior was divided
by rows of columns into three aisles, and an apse was added to the east end.
The paving of the cella was removed and the floor lowered, while a crypt was
excavated under the apse. At this time, or perhaps much later, arched windows
were cut into the cella wall. By the time of this work, part of the building
seems to have been in ruins, for the columns of the opisthodomus, which
certainly would have been used had they still stood, were not incorporated
into the new construction. The style of the apse, in which alternating bands
of red and grey stones are used, has suggested a date in the fifth century
for the transformation of the church.
Danger still lurked, however, in the stones of the pagan building, which
were commonly thought to be infested with demons; to safeguard against
them crosses were incised on the walls, a common practice under the circum-
stances. There is good reason to believe that the rebuilt temple was a
monastery. An epitaph carelessly incised on the inner wall in a late antique
150 See the
engraving of Tournefort and the map of von Vincke (supra, note 139), and infra for
the Christian remains.
151 Additional archeological evidence is
provided by the vast quantity of late antique fragments,
mostly of marble, which have been reused in various parts of Ankara, notably in the walls. They testify
to the prosperity of the city, but cannot be put to satisfactory use here, since they have not been
collected and published; a few, however, are discussed and illustrated by Jerphanion, "Melanges,"
223f.
152
Mamboury, Ankara, 189f.; Eyice, op. cit., 70, 101, 110; R. Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien (Leipzig,
1936), 202; for local folklore associated with the column, see Hasluck, Christianity and Islam, 713,
749.
66 CLIVE FOSS
153 D. Krencker and M. Schede, Der Tempel in Ankara (Berlin, 1936, 32-35; M. Restle, "Ankyra,"
in RBK, 171 f.; crosses: F. W. Deichmann, "Friihchristliche Kirchen in antiken Heiligtiimern," JdI,
54 (1939), 107; cf. Foss, Byzantine Sardis (supra, note 83), 49; inscription: Jerphanion, "MElanges,"
291 no. 67; wall: E. Mamboury, "Les parages du temple de Rome et d'Auguste a Ankara," TurkTar-
Derg, 5 (1949), 96-102 with plan.
154 Akok, op. cit. (supra, note 140), 324-29.
155 Ibid., 310 note 2.
156 See Jerphanion, "MElanges," 225f., for mention of numerous sarcophagi in the shape of jars
and discussion and illustration of several vaulted brick tombs. The necropolis extended up the slope
of Maltepe, the present site of the mausoleum of Atatiirk.
157 Dalman et al., op. cit. (supra, note 142), 250-55; law of Theodosius: Cod. Th., IX.17.7.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 67
that the tombs were built in the fourth century.l58 The Christian epitaphs
found in this graveyard and elsewhere are generally uninformative; they bear
the name of the deceased, with a characteristic attribute of doulos theou or
panton philos, and often an indictional date, which is of no use in estab-
lishing chronology since there was a new indiction every fifteen years. Most
of these numerous inscriptions have been dated to the fourth-sixth centuries.
A few provide some specific information: two mention churches otherwise
unknown, two others indicate an occupation-a priest who was also a silver-
smith, and a grave-digger-while one may be dated with some precision.159
The country estate of Maximus, the friend of Libanius, presumably lay in
the environs of Ankara. Although it cannot now be identified, two buildings
which have been excavated near the city may be considered for comparison.
At Etiyokusu, five kilometers to the north, a viavi of several large rooms stood
on a hilltop. One of the rooms was evidently a kitchen; huge clay jars were
used for the storage of food, while cisterns guaranteed a supply of water.
Coins from the building show that it was in use from the late third century
through the late sixth or early seventh.160Another such edifice was revealed
at Yalncak, ten kilometers south of Ankara, where the excavators discovered
what seems to have been a large house with stone foundations and walls of
mud brick. It had six columns on the front and faced a courtyard; coins
show that it was inhabited in the third and fourth centuries.161Although few
details are known of these buildings, it is not unreasonable to surmise that they
represent the country estates of rich Ankarans. Besides such estates, the
countryside would have been dotted with villages, and contained numerous
churches and monasteries. Thee life
ie of St. Theodore vividly reveals the appear-
ance of the rural areas of western Galatia, but comparable material is lacking
for the neighborhood of Ankara. Only one inscription hints that monasteries
would also have existed there; found at Haci Abdul Pasa ;iftligi, about
one-half hour south of the city, it is the tombstone of the abbot of the local
(unnamed) monastery.162
158See the anonymous notice, "Freskli Bizans mezar," in Belleten, 3
(1939), 484; and K. Bittel
and A. M. Schneider, in AA (1940), 595f.; cf. M. Akok and N. Penge, "Ankara istasyonunda bulunan
Bizans devri mezannm nakh," Belleten, 5 (1941), 617-22. For the frescoes in the context of similar
works from Christian tombs of Asia Minor, see N. Firatlih, "An Early Byzantine Hypogaeum Dis-
covered at Iznik," Milanges Mansel (Ankara, 1974), 919-32.
159For Christian epitaphs, see Anderson, "Exploration" (supra, note 2), 97f.; Jerphanion, "M6lan-
ges," 284-91, nos. 61-66; Ramsay, "Inscriptions" (supra, note 130), no. 10; D'Orbeliani, op. cit.
(supra, note 31), 35; F. Miltner, "Epigraphische Nachlese in Ankara II," JOAI, 30 (1936), 27-66,
nos. 30, 36, 38, 42-44, 51, 52; churches: see supra, notes 136, 137; silversmith: CIG, 9258; grave-
digger: Anderson, op. cit., no. 84; dated inscription: H. Gr6goire, "Inscriptions historiques byzantines.
Ancyre et les Arabes sous Michel l'Ivrogne," Byzantion, 4 (1929-30), 437-68: "L'ere d'Ancyre et
Artemidore ambassadeur et cubiculaire": pp. 453-61, an epitaph apparently dated to the year 594
of the local era, equivalent to A.D. 573 (note that Gr6goire was mistaken about the era used at Ankara;
see the discussion in Bosch, Quellen, no. 133). The other inscription analyzed by Gr6goire is presented
as a set of verses in honor of Artemidorus, who served as an ambassador under Zeno; the text is so
uncertain, however, that it seems unwise to accept Gregoire's subtle arguments or to attempt to
interpret the inscription.
160 S. A. Kansu, Etiyokusu Hafriyatz (Ankara, 1940), 28, 35f.,
figs. 33-37. The late antique remains
are not discussed.
161B. Tezcan, Yalzncak
Village Excavation in 1962-1963 (Ankara, 1964), 15; ibid., 1964 (Ankara,
1966), 12; cf. Mitchell, op. cit. (supra, note 2), 436f. 162 Anderson, "Exploration," 97, no. 79.
68 CLIVE FOSS
to settle the rebellion by negotiation, and sent a monk to deal with Comen-
tiolus. As he passed through Syceon, the emissary met the Saint and was
reassured that the revolt was foolish and would soon come to an end. When
the mission failed to accomplish its aim, Heraclius sent a far more important
representative, Philippicus, who had been in command of the Persian front
under Maurice. While he was observing the rebels' military movement in
Bithynia, however, he was arrested and transported to Ankara; on the way,
he received the blessing of the Saint. Comentiolus now planned to march west
to attack Heraclius, but was overthrown in his turn by Justin, patrician of
the Armenians, who led a force of his men and killed the rebel during the
night. Peace was established, and Heraclius assumed full control over Asia
Minor within a few months of his accession; the revolt seems to have taken
place during the winter of 610/11. This "Patrician of the Armenians" was
presumably the magister militum per Armeniam, an officer created by Justinian
who had the duty of defending the northern stretch of the frontier. His
presence at Ankara indicates that he, also, had taken up winter quarters in
the city, probably because of its strategic location with easy access to
threatened frontiers of Armenia and Syria. These events reveal the continuing
military importance of Ankara; it is no coincidence that the two generals
should retire there for the winter, nor that the usurper should make it his
headquarters. The city had been an important military base for centuries,
and would only gain in prominence as enemy attacks became more concentrated
on the borders of Anatolia in the succeeding age.164
In the following spring, Heraclius moved on the offensive, sending the
famous general Priscus to command the army at Cappadocian Caesarea. He
failed, however, to prevent the city from falling into the hands of the Persians,
who now penetrated for the first time the plateau of Anatolia. This blow
caused widespread consternation and fear that the Persians would soon
advance farther west. The villagers of western Galatia came to St. Theodore
for help and were reassured that they had nothing to fear so long as he was
alive. His prediction naturally was accurate, but his life soon came to an end:
when he died on 22 April 613, his native province was still untouched, but
disaster was near.165Heraclius set out on the great highway in January 613,
stopped in Syceon to receive the blessing of St. Theodore, and proceeded to
164 For the revolt of
Comentiolus, see Vita Theod. Syc., cap. 152. The importance of this source
was first noted, and the revolt discussed comprehensively, by W. Kaegi, "New Evidence on the
Early Reign of Heraclius," BZ, 66 (1973), 308-30. Kaegi, pp. 312-13 and note 11, seems surprised,
however, at the importance of Ankara, and remarks that the text of Theodore of Syceon "shows
its emergence as a military center early in the seventh century." In fact, as stressed many times above,
Ankara was a great military center as early as the second century and maintained that role throughout
Late Antiquity. Here, as so often, it is necessary to realize that the Byzantine period represents
a direct, if diminished, continuity from Late Antiquity, and that many of its "innovations" trace
their origins back to Justinian or earlier. Note also that the sources for military history of the
provinces within the frontier is obscure. It is possible that the army, or part of it, would as a matter
of course spend the winter in Ankara, as it had done in the time of Trajan (see note 2
165 Capture of Caesarea: Sebeos, Histoire
supra).
d'Hdraclius, trans. F. Macler (Paris, 1904), 63-65; Nice-
phorus, Breviarium, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1880); Vita Theod. Syc., caps. 153-55; prediction: ibid.,
cap. 153.
70 CLIVE FOSS
Antioch, which had fallen two years before. His forces were crushed there by
the Persians, and again at Issus as they withdrew. Cilicia was lost and the
Taurus and Anti-taurus marked the limits of imperial power.16
In the years after these defeats, Asia Minor lay open to the Persian armies.
In 615 they made a spectacular march the whole length of the country to
besiege and occupy Chalcedon. In this campaign, which illustrates the collapse
of the imperial defences, they probably followed the great highway and passed
by Ankara. Since they seem to have aimed at a decisive defeat which would
bring Heraclius to terms, they did not occupy the country through which
they passed and probably left many fortified centers intact behind them.
Unfortunately, these years are the most obscure of the war; the sources are
almost completely silent, and the devastation of Asia Minor can only be
reconstructed by using the supplementary evidence of coins and archeology.
One event, however, was of sufficient importance to be recorded by both
Greek and Syrian chroniclers: the fall of Ankara in 622. The circumstances
are unknown, but an oriental writer adds the significant information that the
Persian general Sharbaraz killed or enslaved all the inhabitants.167 In the
context of this war, which was fought with appalling brutality by both sides,
the fate of Ankara is altogether plausible. Many people, of course, would have
fled before the Persian army arrived. Among them was Eustathius, hegumen
of the monastery of Attalina, who is known from the writings of a fellow
Galatian, the monk Antiochus, a native of a place called Medosaga about
twenty miles from Ankara. This Antiochus, like many of his earlier country-
men, had taken up residence in the Holy Land. He had joined the famous
monastery of St. Saba near Jerusalem, but was forced to withdraw from it
when the Persians attacked. His surviving work consists of 130 homilies on
faith and conduct, representing an abridgment of the doctrines of the Old
and New Testaments. As he wrote in his prefatory epistle, these were intended
for the use of Eustathius, who had written to him of his own troubles. The
abbot of Ankara had been forced to wander from place to place because of
the prevailing "Chaldaean storm," by which Antiochus denoted the Persian
attack. He had been suffering hunger and thirst, not of bread and water but
of hearing the word of God. Since he could not carry books with him where
he took refuge, Antiochus offered him the scriptural abridgment for solace
and utility.168This brief but valuable notice illustrates the conditions of the
time; the monk had to flee from Ankara without his possessions as the Persians
advanced and to take refuge where he could find it. Neither his ultimate
residence nor that of Antiochus is known.
166 Caesarea and Antioch: Sebeos, op. cit., 65, 67; Vita Theod. Syc., cap. 166.
167 The date of the capture of Ankara is not certain. Theophanes, the only Greek writer to record
the event, places it in the tenth year of Heraclius (x.619-x.620); his chronology of this part of the
war, however, is confused, and I have followed the oriental writers, who give the date as the first
year of the Hegira (vii.622-vi.623): Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. J. B. Chabot (Paris, 1904),
II, 408; Chronicon anonymum ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens, ed. I.-B. Chabot, CSCO, Scriptores
Syri, III, 14 (Louvain, 1937), 180; Agapius of Membidj, Histoire universelle, ed. A. Vasiliev, PO,
VIII, 198. Of these, Agapius adds the detail about massacre and enslavement.
168 See the
prefatory epistle of Antiochus Monachus, in PG, 89, cols. 1421-28.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 71
The Persian troops ravaged the countryside as well as the city. A holy man
named Leontius, who had been a disciple of St. Theodore, lived in a cell near
a village in te vicinity of Syceon. When the
inPersians came, they ordered
him to leave his cell and killed him when he refused.169This incident, which
may have been associated with the capture of Ankara or with another passage
of the Persians through the district, was robably typical of the sufferings
caused by the war. Further details are lacking; the sources only record the
great siege of the capital which the Persians attempted with their Avar allies
in 626. This attack shows that the country was still open to their passage,
but it was a final effort. Within two years, Heraclius won a remarkable victory
and the Persians withdrew from Asia Minor forever. The damage they had
done, however, was enormous.
The archeological record of the Persian attack is of greatest value, for the
excavations of the Roman gymnasium provide a remarkable illustration of the
destruction wrought by the armies of Chosroes. The building was destroyed
by fire; the ruins were found covered with a layer of ashes and debris. Objects
found in this debris provide unambiguous evidence for the date of the calamity:
they included gold coins of Heraclius, a large jar dated to the same period,
and, most outstanding, an agate ring stone apparently of Sassanian manu-
facture.170There can be no doubt, therefore, that the building was destroyed
by Persians in 622. This is fur ntherconfrmed by the sequence of coins found
in the excavation. Although continuous from the third century through the
early years of Heraclius, they drop off suddenly: only one coin of the late
years of Heraclius (a bronze piece of 640), and two of Constans II (641-68),
represent the rest of the seventh century, while only two pieces were found
from the succeeding two hundred years."'7 The conclusion is inescapable that
the gymnasium m was destroyed
deePersiansby the and not reoccupied until the
Middle Byzantine period, and then only on a very small scale. The fact that
one of the greatest buildings of the late antique city, in an important location
within the city walls, was ruined and lay abandoned gives some suggestion
of local conditions. It is possible that much of the lower town was destroyed
by the Persians, who are supposed to have massacred or enslaved the popula-
tion, and that subsequently Ankara did not have the resources to reconstruct
on the old scale. Such is the pattern of development in major cities of the
Aegean region; severe devastation by the Persians, followed by marked contrac-
tion of the city or withdrawal to an acropolis.172When information is again
available, in the mid-seventh century, Ankara has made a drastic transforma-
tion from a sprawling metropolis to a heavily fortified town on a hilltop.
169Vita Theod.
Syc., cap. 49.
170 For the destruction of the gymnasium, see the report of Dolunay, op. cit. (supra, note 142),
266; and, in more detail, Arik, op. cit. (supra, note 140), 49f.; the jar and some of the coins are
illustrated, but not the ring stone. 171 For the coin sequence, see Appendix II.
172 I have discussed this
phenomenon in the article cited supra, note 163, and at much greater
length in Byzantine Cities of Western Asia Minor (Diss. Harvard University, 1972); the latter is
unpublished, but will be used as a foundation for a general work on the history of the Byzantine
city in Asia Minor. See also M. Hammond, "The Emergence of Mediaeval Towns: Independence or
Continuity?," HSCPh, 78 (1974), 1-33, esp. 28f.
72 CLIVE FOSS
BYZANTINE ANKARA
The two centuries after the disastrous reign of Heraclius were marked by
the unremitting attacks of the Arabs, whose raids penetrated the fertile lands
of Anatolia year after year. This constant harassment, combined with the
loss of the rich provinces of the Near East which left the Empire confined to
Asia Minor and parts of the West, naturally produced great changes in the
military and administrative structure. It is in connection with the Arab attacks
and the reorganization of the army that Ankara appears in the meager
chronicles of the age.
Heraclius may have lived to see the first warriors of Islam who crossed
into Asia Minor in 641.173The goal of this expedition is unknown, but it was,
in any case, merely a prelude to much more serious attacs which ravaged
the lands and villages of the Empire and ensured that it could never entirely
recover from the Persian attack. Within five years the th armies of Muawiya
reached the great fortress of Amorium in Phrygia, a hundred miles southwest
of Ankara, and in 654 the same general gained the far greater distinction of
capturing Ankara, the first time it yielded to the advances of the Moslems.174
Until the middle of the eighth century the capital of the Caliphate was at
Damascus, and the majority of attacks were launched through the Cilician
Gates. This necessitated considerable strategic changes for the Empire, whose
defences had been geared to attack from the Persians through Armenia or
across the Euphrates. In earlier days, as already noted, the roads from the
frontier converged on Ankara before leading on to the capital. Now, how-
ever, Arab forces, who had Constantinople or the rich and fertile lands of
the Aegean zone as their goal, would follow the most direct route from the
Cilician Gates and avoid Ankara altogether; they would proceed through the
Lycaonian steppe to Pisidian Antioch to reach the west coast, or to Amorium
if they aimed at the capital. Numerous raids, however, departed from Armenia
or Mesopotamia and were led by the ancient road system toward Ankara.
The two greatest military centers of the plateau, therefore, were Ankara and
Amorium, cities within easy communication of each other and protecting
respectively the northern and southern approaches to the capital. Their
primacy was recognized by the Arabs, who frequently made them the goal
of their greatest expeditions. In the Byzantine period, the highway system
which had given Ankara its importance remained intact, supplemented and
occasionally overshadowed by the southern route through Amorium.l75
173 For the Arab
attacks, see E. W. Brooks, "The Arabs in Asia Minor (641-750), from Arabic
Sources," JHS, 18 (1898), 182-208, a chronological series of extracts from Arab writers; and H. Ahr-
weiler, "L'Asie Mineure et les invasions arabes," RH, 227 (1962), 1-32, a considerably more theoretical
treatment. See now the comprehensive survey of R. Lilie, Die byzantinische Reaktion auf die Aus-
breitung der Araber (Munich, 1976).
174 Capture of 654: F. Baethgen, Fragmente syrischer und arabischer Historiker, AbhKM, 8 (1884),
22 (text), 112 (translation); in the same campaign, Muawiya marched as far as Marj al Sahm in
the vicinity of Amorium.
175 The
highway system of Anatolia remained essentially unchanged through the Byzantine period.
Much confusion was typically introduced into this subject by W. M. Ramsay, who invented a Byzan-
tine military highway which crossed the peninsula south of Ankara; see Historical Geography (note 2
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 73
In Late Antiquity the commanders-in-chief of the eastern armies were
generals stationed on the frontier; the magister militum per orientem,who had
charge of a vast area from the Euphrates to Egypt, and the magister militum
per Armeniam, a new creation of Justinian who controlled the northern part
of the frontier. Both these officials apparently used Ankara as their base on
occasion, as in the revolt of Comentiolus. These frontier armies were sup-
ported in the interior by detachments of the comitatenses,commanded by the
magistri militum praesentales, and stationed in the cities and provinces of
northwest Anatolia. With the loss of the eastern provinces and with the
alterations necessitated by the Arab attacks, the headquarters of these armies
were moved to strategic points in the Anatolian plateau from which the troops
could be mobilized to meet a threat from any direction. The general of Armenia
took up his residence at Amasia, the commander of the oriental army at
Amorium, and a general of the troops of the interior, the comitatenses, at
Ankara, in a convenient central location from which communication could
easily be maintained with the other armies and with the capital. The changed
situation first appears in an imperial letter and an Arab account, both of the
late seventh century. The letter lists the commands without specifying their
headquarters, but the Arab account refers to the generals as patricians of
Amorium, Ankara, and the Armeniacs.176Since Greek had become the language
of the administration, the sources called commanders not by their old Latin
titles of magistri militum, but by their Greek equivalents: two of the three
generals of Anatolia thus became the strategoi of the Armeniac and Anatolic
armies, while the commander at Ankara kept the old Latin title of comes of
the imperial Obsequium (Hellenized to Opsikion), reflecting his origin as chief
of a body of the comitatenses.The date of these military changes is uncertain,
but since they were completed by the late seventh century and were occasioned
by the Arab attacks, it is most reasonable to associate them with the reign
of Constans II (641-68), when Arab raids regularly began to enter Asia
Minor.177
supra), 197-221, esp. 214f. The evidence will be discussed by David French in a forthcoming paper
on the Byzantine highway system of Asia Minor. I am grateful to Mr. French for allowing me to read
his paper in manuscript.
176 The
imperial letter, written by Justinian II to the Pope in 687, may be found in Mansi, XI,
737, or in any discussion of the Byzantine administrative system. The Arabic document is an
appendage to the list of themes, or Byzantine provinces, which Ibn Khordadbeh drew from al-Jarmi
(9th cent.). Its importance was first noted by N. Oikonomides, "Une liste arabe des strat6ges byzantins
du VIIe siecle et les origines du Theme de Sicile," RSBN, N.S. 1 (1964), 121-30, where sound
arguments
may be found for dating the document to the late seventh century. The document consists merely
of a list of the twelve "patricians," or army commanders, of the Byzantines, six at
Constantinople
and six in the provinces. This corresponds closely with information from other sources; the
provincial
generals are known from the letter of Justinian II and the chronicles, and the six commanders of the
capital are no doubt those which appear in later Arab and Greek writers: see H. Gelzer, Die Genesis
der byzantinischen Themenverfassung (Leipzig, 1899), 17-19; and J. B. Bury, The
Imperial Administra-
tive System in the Ninth Century (London, 1911), 47-49. The Arab list does not state the
headquarters
of the Armeniac general; I presume that he resided at Amasia, as he did around 900: see the list
of Ibn al Fakih, apud E. W. Brooks, "Arabic Lists of the Byzantine Themes,"
JHS, 21 (1901), 76.
177
I shall discuss this date elsewhere; it is offered here as a hypothesis which accords with the
known history of Ankara. It would not be appropriate here to consider the history of the
Byzantine
theme system, which is extremely obscure and has become the subject of much
controversy. Two
74 CLIVE FOSS
works are essential to understand the system and to avoid being seriously misled. The first, "L'origine
du regime des themes dansl'Empire byzantin," was written by Charles Diehl in 1896, and may be
found in his Etudes byzantines (Paris, 1905), 276-92. Although subject to revision in some details,
it presents the clearest picture of the continuity of late antique military administration. Subsequently,
much obfuscation was introduced into the issue; this accretion of error has been removed by
J. Karayannopulos, Die Entstehung der byzantinischen Themenordnung (Munich, 1959), where full
bibliography may be found.
178 For a convenient description of the Byzantine walls, see Mamboury, Ankara, 155-88, and,
for a detailed discussion, Jerphanion, Mdlanges, 144-219.
179 This is shown by the fact that the lower wall begins from a projection, itself a late rebuilding,
on the southeast bastion of the inner circuit: Jerphanion, Mllanges, 92. Mamboury, however, believed
that the lower wall was the older, built by Constans II, and that the upper citadel was a product
of the reign of Leo III (717-41) (see preceding note). His views have commanded little following
and those of Jerphanion are generally accepted, e.g., by Restle (see supra, note 153).
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 75
such officers were posted to Ankara, which had at the same time the distinc-
tion of housing an apotheke, or customs depot, where goods collected as taxes
in kind were stored. The direct taxes, most of which fell on the land, were
collected by officials of the central treasury called dioiketai assigned to indivi-
dual provinces; a dioiketes of Galatia is known from the eighth century.182
The customs depot indicates that even in times of suffering from the greatest
economic dislocation Ankara remained a center of trade, as it no doubt did of
government. The civil governor of Galatia does not appear in the sources of
the period, but the provincial administration continued to exist with little
alteration through the seventh century.
During the eighth century the situation on the eastern frontier changed
considerably. The Arabs presented their greatest threat in 674-78, and again
in 717-18 when they besieged Constantinople. On the latter occasion they
were resoundingly defeated by Leo III, who later followed up his victory by
crushing the Arab forces at Acroenus (Afyon) in 740. Shortly afterward, the
Umayyad caliphate of Damascus collapsed and was replaced by that of the
Abbasids, who moved the capital to Baghdad. Although this gave the Empire
some respite, the establishment of the new dynasty meant that the Byzantines
were soon faced with a well organized and determined foe.
In the same period, important administrative changes were made which
gave the generals both civil and military power in their districts, so that
the old provinces disappeared and were replaced by military circumscriptions.
These districts, which had originally been so large that three of them encom-
passed the whole of Asia Minor, were subdivided by Leo III and Constantine V.
Under the latter, the general of the Obsequiumtook up new headquarters at
Nicaea, and Ankara became the capital of a new province, or theme, called the
Bucellarian after the buccellarii, troops who had been stationed in the region.
The new theme stretched from the salt lake to the Black Sea and included
Galatia, Paphlagonia, and eastern Bithynia. In the mid-ninth century Paphla-
gonia was separated to form an independent theme, and in the reign of Leo VI
the Bucellarian province was further diminished by the cession of the Haymana
of southern Galatia to the Cappadocian theme. In the ninth century the
general of the Bucellarians was one of the highest ranking officials of the
Empire. He received a salary of thirty pounds of gold and had eight thousand
men under his command, most of them presumably stationed at Ankara. In
addition, as the civil governor, he was in charge of a large administrative staff
which included the chartularius of the theme, an officer responsible for the pay
of the troops and at the same time subordinate to the central treasury; one
chartularius is known from the mid-ninth century.183
182 The customs officers are known from surviving lead seals which were attached to packets to
show that the tax had been paid. See the tables of H. Antoniadis-Bibicou, in Recherches sur les
Douanes d Byzance (Paris, 1963), 227; and of G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals (Basel,
1972), 172, cf. 136. For the operations of the customs and the functions of the commerciarius, see
Antoniadis-Bibicou, 157-224, 246-55, and Zacos and Veglery, 135-40. The dioiketes is also known
from a seal: Zacos and Veglery, no. 3189.
183 For the Bucellarian theme, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Thematibus, ed. A. Pertusi
(Vatican City, 1952), 71, 133-36. The transfer of southern Galatia is mentioned in Constantine
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 77
Ankara appears in the sources of this time in connection with Arab attacks.
In 776 and 797 Arab forces reached Ankara but apparently did not capture
it. On the latter occasion, however, they may have inflicted severe damage,
for in 805 the Emperor Nicephorus fortified the city-that is, he presumably
made repairs to the walls. In the following year it was approached by an
army under the Caliph Harun, who reconnoitered, presumably observing the
fortifications, and withdrew.84 Although there is no evidence that the city
fell on either of these occasions, a later legend recorded that Harun captured
Ankara and took the bronze doors of the city gate back to Baghdad with him
as a trophy; they were supposedly inscribed with cryptic verses in Greek of a
kind which could be paralleled in the Arabian Nights.185
As the Arabs became familiar with Asia Minor from their incessant raids, the
fame of the great fortress of Ankara spread, and its name appeared in Arabic
literature and legend. One story records that when the Caliph Mamun (813-33)
captured the city he found in it a statue of the great pre-Islamic Arab poet
and hero Imru'l Qays. The poet had gone to Constantinople to seek the help
of Justinian against his enemies and was returning home when he was killed
at Ankara by a poisoned cloak which the Emperor sent him. He was buried
in a tomb next to the grave of a princessness at the foott of a mountain called
Asib, and the Greeks eventually erected the statue in his honor. The whole
story, of course, is fantastic, and is based on references in the poems of
Imru'l Qays and on confusion between him and an Arab, Amorkesos, who
actually visited the capital in 473. The buildings mentioned, however, are real:
the tomb of the princess is the Column of Julian (for so it was called by the
Turks much later), and that of the poet is probably the neighboring Temple of
Rome and Augustus; the statue was no doubt some real but anonymous
statue which was standing at the time.186The legend thus explained references
in the poems, as well as the origin of large and probably ruined buildings
which the Arabs would have seen outside the city walls. It must be of late
origin, however, for Mamun, constantly preoccupied with civil war, never had
occasion to capture Ankara, but his death in the Taurus after a raid on the
Byzantines made him the subject of legend.187
Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik (Budapest, 1949), 236. Numerous
generals of the theme are known from seals of the eighth and ninth centuries: see Zacos and Veglery,
op. cit., index, s.v. Bucellarion; seal of chartularius: ibid., no. 1768. For the officers of the theme, see
Bury, Administrative System (supra, note 176), 41-45.
184Attacks of 776 and 797: E. W. Brooks, "Byzantines and Arabs in the Time of the
Early
Abbasids," EHR, 15 (1900), 735, 741; repairs: Theophanes, 481; Harun: Theophanes, 482.
185The story is transmitted by a Turkish writer of the seventeenth
century, Haji Kalfa; see his
Cihannuma (Constantinople, A.H. 1145 [= 1732]), 643; and cf. J. von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte
des osmanischen Reiches (Pest, 1827), I, 160, 590.
186 For the
legend, see Le divan d'Amro'lkais, ed. Baron MacGuckin de Slane (Paris, 1837), 27f.;
and G. Olinder, The Kings of Kinda (Lund, 1927), 113ff.; and, for its interpretation, Hasluck,
Christianity and Islam (supra, note 149), 712-14. Note that the Arabic authors do not all agree
in associating the verses of Imru'l Qays with Ankara; for al-Harawi, for example, Mt. Asib was
near Kayseri: al-Harawf (t 1215), Guide des lieux de p6lerinage, ed. D. Sourdel (Damascus, 1957),
133.
187
Legends of Mamun: Hasluck, Christianity and Islam, 301-3, 696-98.
78 CLIVE FOSS
The Caliph Mu'tasim (833-42) was far more successful in his wars against the
Byzantines than had been his father Harun or his brother Mamun. In the
spring of 838 he set out from Baghdad with the greatest army the Arabs had
ever equipped. Its banners bore the name of Amorium, the strongest of the
Byzantine fortresses and the ancestral home of the ruling dynasty. In fact,
Mu'tasim's goal was double; he divided his forces so that the main army
would march with him through the Cilician Gates, while another huge force
commanded by Afshin would approach from the east. The two armies would
meet at Ankara, which was their first goal. Mu'tasim "planned the descent
upon Anqira carefully so that if God conquered it for him he could go on to
'Amuriyya, as there was nothing in the land of the Byzantines greater than
these two cities, nor anything more worthy to be his goal."88sThe main army
proceeded across the dreary Cappadocian plain until it came within three
days' journey of Ankara. By then, the Arabs were suffering from shortages
of water and fodder, and were forced to behead their captives until only one
remained. This old man, wishing to save himself, led an Arab force up into
the mountains, where the people of Ankara had taken refuge upon hearing
of the approach of Mu'tasim. The Arabs found the refugees at some salt mines,
defeated their resistance, and gained the needed supplies.189
Meanwhile, the Emperor Theophilus had marched east to repel the attack
of Afshin, whom he met in the neighborhood of Dazimon. The Byzantine
force was crushed and the Emperor fled from the field, withdrawing to
Dorylaeum to await the outcome of the operations of the caliph against the
two greatest fortresses of Asia Minor. Theophilus, in a last effort to preserve
Ankara, sent a eunuch to guard the city and lead the resistance of the popula-
tion, but he found the place deserted and was ordered to Amorium. At Ankara,
Mu'tasim and Afshin joined forces as planned, and destroyed the city. The
walls of the citadel were demolished and the remaining population was led
into captivity.190The victorious Arabs then marched on to Amorium, burning
the villages as they went; after a siege of two weeks the famous stronghold
of the Christians was taken and razed, its population massacred or led into
captivity. The capture and destruction of these two great centers was prob-
ably the most spectacular victory for the Arabs in their long struggle with the
Empire, and it made a great impression on contemporaries.
The results of these conquests were not long lasting, and Ankara soon rose
from its ashes. The degenerate successors of Mu'tasim, involved in a struggle
with their Turkish generals and with uprisings throughout their wide domains,
were unable to follow up the advantage which the Arabs had momentarily
move
gained, while the Byzantines grew in strength and were soon able to
188 Quoted from al-Tabari's The Reign of al-Mu'tasim, trans. E. Marin (New Haven, 1951), 61;
detailed
the whole campaign is narrated in ibid., 60-67 (Baghdad to Ankara), 67-76 (Amorium); for
modem accounts with full discussions of historical and topographical problems and reference to the
and
literature, see J. B. Bury, A History of the Eastern Roman Empire (London, 1912), 263-72;
et
A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance les Arabes. I, La dynastie d'Amorium (Brussels, 1935), 144-74.
189 Tabari, 64-67.
190Ibid.; Vasiliev, op. cit., 159 note 3.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 79
on the offensive. In 859 Michael III led an expedition to the east which
reached the Euphrates. In preparation for this major move, works of fortifica-
tion were carried out on major cities of the interior, and Ankara saw its walls
rebuilt two decades after their destruction.
The work was commemorated by inscriptions in verse which honored the
Emperor and the city. In the first of them, viewers of the restored city and its
gate were invited to praise the "piously working founder of cities, the despot
and faithful lord Michael, the benefactor," and to salute the city as a new
Zion, inscribed with pictures painted by God. At the beginning of Michael's
reign, while he was still a child, his mother Theodora had restored the reverence
of icons which had been forbidden since 815. Michael could justly praise his
own piety which apparently decorated the city gate with an icon of Christ.
The second poem deals more specifically with the city, which it addresses.
Ankara, ruined by suffering and forced to her knees by the bloody hands of
the Persians, was invited to cast off her cloak of mourning, to put on a bridal
dress, and to take the hand of her deliverer, the lord Michael, "charming
Ankara, the most brillant of cities, the splendor of the whole land of the
Galatians." These verses would also appear to have been associated with a
picture, perhaps a mosaic in a public building, of the Emperor raising Ankara,
who is kneeling at his feet. The same lines remark that the city was strength-
ened by stones which had been trodden by God; this would indicate that
miraculous stones or relics were built into the walls to give them magical
protection, just as the icons of Christ guarded the weakest point, the gate.
Other inscriptions reveal the date of the work, June 859, and have suggested
that the future Emperor Basil I was instrumental in carrying it out.191
The reconstruction involved the south side whero
of the inner fortress, the
huge bastion at the east corner was completely rebuilt; narrows slits for
archers were built into the wall, and stones decorated with crosses were
inserted above them to guarantee divine protection of the kind mentioned
in the poems. At the same time the whole lower circuit may have been added,
more than doubling the enclosed area of the city.192The protection was soon
needed; Michael's great campaign ended in ignominious defeat, and an Arab
force under Omar, the emir of Malatya, marched across eastern Asia Minor
and reached the Black Sea, where they sacked the port of Amisus. After this
unparalleled triumph they planned to return through Galatia and Cappadocia
to the Cilician Gates. As they passed along the great highway southeast of
191These
inscriptions were first analyzed and their importance indicated by Gr6goire, op. cit.
(supra, note 159), 437-49. The first poem is on p. 438 and the second, from which the quotation is
taken, on p. 439; for the date, see 444ff. Gregoire does not make any association between the second
poem and a picture, but the content seems to make this a likely supposition.
192
Jerphanion, Mllanges, 168, 180-90, 192-97, 208-19; cf. Restle (supra, note 153), 175f.; but
note that Theophanes, 481, specifically states that Nicephorus "built" (ektise) Ankara; this would
seem to indicate that he might have been responsible for the construction of the lower rampart,
while the work of Michael III was confined to extensive restoration. The inscriptions were found in
the inner citadel and, of course, need not be taken literally to indicate that the whole castle was built
or rebuilt, any more than the "destruction" by Mu'tasim would mean that it was really razed to the
ground.
80 CLIVE FOSS
the poem takes place in the same lands around the Euphrates where the
Paulicians had been active. The poem, of course, is not historical, but contains
reminiscences of actual events. Among them appears the capture of Ankara
by the uncle of the emir, who has also been identified as one of the Paulician
leaders. In the introduction of the poem, which consists of flat verses added
by a monkish editor, Ankara appears in more prominence than the poem
would justify, and with specific praise:
TOTrEpi(plpovKai pEya Kaorpov ErI,
r6TO
SvaTrov Tr Kai KaTrcoXupco0vov
rlv "AyKupav.
"The famous and great castle, the powerful and fortified Ankara."'96The city,
a distinguished heroine of the long struggle with the Arabs, thus fittingly
found a place in the epic which commemorated them.
Contact between the Byzantines and Arabs, of course, was not confined to
warfare, although that aspect is stressed by the chroniclers. Ambassadors and
other travelers crossed the frontiers, and Arabic geographic literature shows
an increasing awareness of the interior of Asia Minor. The road system was of
particular interest to the Arabs for obvious reasons and Ankara, because of its
strategic location, is mentioned in works on geography. In the tenth century
al-Muqaddasi describes the main highway from Malatya to Constantinople,
with Kayseri (Caesarea in Cappadocia), Ankara, and the Sangarius listed
among the intermediary points; that is the ancient military highway, which
was still of central importance. Similarly, al-Idrisi, writing in the early twelfth
century, lists two highways which reached Ankara: one from the Euphrates
to the Dardanelles, evidently identical for the most part with the preceding,
and another from Konya (Iconium) via Ankara to Paphlagonia and Amasya.197
These indicate, as do the courses of the campaigns of the Arabs and Byzantines,
that the road system of Anatolia, which had originally endowed Ankara with
such prominence, remained essentially intact through the Middle Ages.
The Byzantine historians, like their late antique predecessors, were interested
in the emperor and court, the Church, and wars on the frontier. When peace
was established in Asia Minor by the great victories in the east, these writers
had little occasion to mention the cities of the interior which, like Ankara,
were far removed from the center of events. Consequently, the last centuries
of Byzantine rule are obscure and the city appears only incidentally. In 907,
when Euthymius became patriarch of Constantinople, Gabriel, the bishop of
Ankara, knowing the special devotion the new patriarch felt for St. Clement,
presented him with the Saint's sacred shawl; the relic had evidently been
preserved in the city, probably in the church of St. Clement. Gabriel's gener-
196Digenes Akrites, ed. J. Mavrogordato (Oxford,
1956), lines 9-11; cf. 11.77. The historical
reminiscences of the epic were investigated in several studies by H. Gregoire, who pursued them
with his usual ingenuity and fantasy; the introduction of Mavrogordato, pp. xxx-lxxxiv, provides a
valuable summary and corrective.
197
Al-Muqaddasi: E. Honigmann, "Un itineraire arabe a travers le Pont," AIPHOS, 4 (1936),
270; al-Idrisi: Gdographied'Edrisi, trans. P. A. Jaubert (Paris, 1840), II, 309, 311f.
82 CLIVE FOSS
osity may have won him the favor of Euthymius, but when the latter was
deposed in 912, the bishop of Ankara was investigated by the new patriarch,
Nicholas Mysticus, for corruption and embezzlement.198 A bishop of the
following century did more substantial good works. In 1032 famine afflicted
Cappadocia and northern Asia Minor and was followed by its usual associate,
the plague. The inhabitants left their homes and fled in the direction of the
capital but were met on the way by the Emperor, who gave them money and
supplies and persuaded them to return. In this crisis Michael, the bishop of
Ankara, did everything possible to relieve the suffering of the distressed
population.199Five years later another natural disaster struck when an earth-
quake destroyed five villages in the Bucellarian theme; Ankara seems not to
have been affected.2 These casual references reveal chronic problems rarely
recorded by the historians of the day. The greater part of Asia Minor lies
in an earthquake zone and such disturbances are frequent, though not usually
severe in the region of Ankara. Similarly, as already seen in the life of Theodore
of Syceon, the agricultural basis of the economy was fragile; in a bad year
crops could fail and famine and the plague could afflict the villagers. Events of
this kind would have been incessant, and should be borne in mind as part of
the background for the whole Byzantine period.
As long as the Empire had power on the Anatolian plateau, the Bucellarian
theme with its capital at Ankara remained a major province. The provincial
administration, however, continued to adapt to changing circumstances. By
the eleventh century, when most of the Empire was at peace and the need
for a militarized administration diminished, civil magistrates again came to
take highest power in the provinces, and a krites, or judge, appeared as the
provincial governor. Such officials are known for the Bucellarian theme in
the eleventh century; one of them received a letter from Michael Psellus,
asking favor for the dioiketes of Ankara who needed assistance in collecting
the taxes.201For a brief moment, the world of Libanius almost seems to have
been resuscitated. Civil magistrates were once again in charge of rich and
peaceful provinces, and a famous writer and statesman corresponded with
high officials and asked favor from them.
The last acts of the long drama of Byzantine Ankara are veiled in obscurity.
After the battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Turks overran Anatolia with
astonishing rapidity. A few heavily fortified cities held out as the countryside
became Turkish. When the future Emperor Alexius Comnenus made an
expedition to central Anatolia in 1073, he had to fight his way wherever he
went. After his brother Isaac was captured in a skirmish in Cappadocia,
Alexius set out to find him, and came to Ankara where rumor claimed that
Isaac was safe. On his arrival Alexius found that the report was false, but he
did use the city as a base for gathering information, and determined that his
brother was being held for ransom by the Turks. On receiving this news he left
for the capital to raise the necessary money and quickly returned to Ankara.
When he appeared at the city gates, he found them shut because it was night,
and demanded that they be opened to him. The guards, however, feared to do
this because the Turks were camped somewhere in the neighborhood, and
asked Alexius to identify himself. As he answered, his voice was heard by
Isaac who had in the meanwhile been ransomed by the cities of the region,
arriving in Ankara the same day as Alexius, and who was staying in the gate
house guarding the keys to the city. Isaac opened the gates and joyfully
admitted Alexius and his party. The two brothers stayed in the city three
days to rest themselves a their horses, and then returned to Constantin-
thees
ople.202
This account of Alexius Comnenus and his brother is the last mention of
Ankara before its capture by the Seljuks. The Turkish forces, already feared
by the garrison, soon advanced and occupied the city, probably in the decade
of confusion and civil war following Manzikert. Byzantine rule, however, had
one curious and brief aftermath. In the spring of 1101 a crusading army
crossed into Anatoia, and on 23 June arrived safely in
Ankarao, which they
found in the hands of the Turks. The crusaders easily defeated the small
Turkish garrison, took the city, and duly restored it to the Emperor according
to their agreement. They then advanced into Paphlagonia, where they met
with complete disaster. A second party of crusaders followed just behind,
reaching Ankara soon after the first had left. Although the two groups had
planned to join forces, the new arrivals abandoned the effort when they saw
that their fellows had crossed into the mountains of Paphlagonia, and instead
turned southward to Iconium; they, too, were completely defeated.203These
events are the last in the history of Byzantine Ankara. The imperial forces
could not hold out long in the recaptured citadel surrounded by enemy terri-
tory, especially since the main Byzantine effort was directed not toward
central Anatolia but to the west and south. Probably within a few years,
Ankara was again taken by the Seljuks, and it has remained a Turkish city
ever since.204
The archeological record of Byzantine Ankara, like that of many other
cities in Asia Minor, is exiguous. The greatest monument, the fortifications
of the city, has already been considered. Outstanding also was the small
church of St. Clement at the foot of the southwest slope of the citadel hill.
This elegant building, only 23 by 14 meters in size, was a domed basilica with
a cruciform interior plan, galleries, a narthex, and an apse with a polygonal
exterior. The interior was decorated with geometric and floral designs, and the
202
Nicephorus Bryennius, 64-66.
203 For the Crusade of 1101 at Ankara, see the accounts of Albert of Aix, in Recueil des historiens
des croisades. Historiens occidentaux, V, pt. 2 (Paris, 1895), 564, 575; and Anna Comnena, XI.8;
cf. J. L. Cate, in A History of the Crusades, ed. K. Setton (Philadelphia, 1958), 354f.
204 For the Turkish
capture of Ankara and its subsequent history until the Ottoman conquest,
see Wittek, op. cit. (supra, note 1), 338-54.
84 CLIVE FOSS
outside with regular courses of brick and stone. No document has survived
to date the church; stylistic comparison has suggested the seventh, eighth,
or ninth centuries, while historical considerations might favor a date late in
that long period. Since the church was built outside the citadel walls, its con-
struction would seem more appropriate to a time when the city enjoyed some
security, perhaps in the reign of Michael III or later. If it was indeed built at
Cryptus, the site of the martyrdom of St. Clement, the church probably
occupied the site of one or more earlier shrines.205
Other archeological data suggest that Ankara recovered and prospered in
the two centuries after the defeat of the Arabs by Michael III. Finds of coins
and pottery at the Roman baths, ruined since the Persian invasion, indicate
some reoccupation from the reign of Leo VI (886-912) through that of Romanus
Diogenes (1067-71). Similarly, an inscription on the wall of the cella of the
temple of Rome and Augustus suggests that the monastery which had func-
tioned there in Late Antiquity was again in operation. This inscription, a wordy
set of verses, reveals by the initial letters of each line the name of Eustathius,
a turmarch, the highest military commander after the general.206 In it, he
prays to God for redemption from his sins. The verses have been dated to
the ninth or tenth centuries, and, taken with the other archeological evidence,
indicate that the city expanded outside the citadel walls in the final centuries
of Byzantine rule.
CONCLUSION
The late antique cities of Anatolia had their individual characters, some-
times only dimly visible through the scattered evidence. Ankara, too, had a
personality of its own: it was a prosperous and busy city, a center of the
army, administration, and trade. Its enterprising merchants traveled through-
out the eastern Empire, while its streets saw the passage of armies and
emperors-Julian held court, Jovian entered on his ill-fated consulship, and
Arcadius so liked the city that it became his summer resort. Constantinople
was rprresented by the governor of Galatia and the vicar of Pontus with
205 Detailed
description: Jerphanion, Mdlanges, 113-43; summaries: R. Krautheimer, Early
Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Baltimore, 1965), 202-4; Restle (supra, note 153), 172-75. For
an attempt to place the church in a broad stylistic development, see H. Buchwald, The Church
of the Archangels in Sige (Vienna, 1969), 36-62, passim. A late antique tombstone reused in the church
may suggest that it stood in or near a graveyard, and perhaps strengthens the identification of the
site with Cryptus. The inscription on the stone, which is unpublished,
blid, askindly communicated to
was
me by Prof. Sevtenko.
206 Baths: pottery: Dolunay, op. cit. (supra, note 142), fig. 81, impressed ware of perhaps the
tenth century; cf. The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors (Oxford, 1947), 41-46 and pl. 17 (my
thanks to Dr. Judith Herrin for this reference); coins: see Appendix II. Inscription of Temple:
Gr6goire, op. cit. (supra, note 154), 449-53; for a similar inscription, with further parallels, see
T. Drew-Bear and C. Foss, "The Epitaph of Thomas: A Middle Byzantine Verse Inscription from
Afyon," Byzantion, 39 (1969), 74-85. The insipid verses of Eustathius had the rare good fortune of
inspiring a modern poet, G. Seferis, who saw them in 1949 during a long stay in Ankara: see his
poem, Ankyrano Mnemeio, and his remarks on the monument, in Meres tou 1945-1951 (Athens,
1973), 140, 144; English trans. A. Anagnostopoulos, Days of 1945-1951 (Cambridge, Mass., 1974),
116-20. I am grateful to Mr. Anagnostopoulos for drawing my attention to this work.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 85
large staffs to carry out their duties, while local administration was run by
the municipal senate of rich and cultivated men. In the time of Libanius
the network of influence in which these men and the officers of the government
were involved gives some insight into the nature of power in the city and the
whole Empire. The tranquil faCade of the pagan upper classes was only part
of the picture; Ankara was subject to riot and violence like other cities, and
the triumph of Christianity which occasioned much of the disturbance reveals
some aspect of the life of the rest of the population. Piety and its close
associate, fanaticism, were manifest in the actions of the humblest citizens
and the most exalted prelates from the great persecutions until the end of
the period. The new religion captured and transformed the upper classes of
Libanius' day, so that a century later some of them were affecting simplicity
or abandoning thehe secular
ser world. By the time of Justinian, much had changed
under the constant corrosion of imperial financial demands and the devastating
attack of the bubonic plague. The ruling classes virtually disappeared, replaced
by military officers, the Protectors, who were readily willing to call in a local
holy man to save the city by his magic.
The vivid flashes of the sources are reflected in the archeological record
where a few instances may indicate general trends. Prosperity, though not the
opulence of an earlier age, appears in the Roman baths rebuilt and maintained
after the troubles of the third century. The life of the ruling classes seems to
find its counterpart in the substantial private houses with their mosaics and
baths, while the triumph of Christianity is clearly manifested in the conversion
of the greatest temple of the city into a church or monastery. The column
"of Julian" remains annenigma-its date and purpose unknown-but certainly
a monument of the age.
Neither the army, for which Ankara was a major headquarters, nor the
Church, which flourished in it, could save the city from the fire-worshipping
armies of Chosroes in 622. Parts of the lower city were ruined forever, while
the population fled or suffered massacre or slavery. This disastrous event
marked a clear break in the life of the city. The late antique metropolis
disappeared, but Ankara remained one of the greatest cities of Asia Minor by
the reduced standards of the day. The seventh century, which brought not
only the Persians but the Arabs as sackers of cities, also produced the mag-
nificent ramparts which symbolize the will of the city to live and to resist its
most determined foes. Through the long and obscure ages of Byzantine rule
Ankara was a great fortress, and it remained an economic and administrative
center. Its location on a great highway, which had bestowed prominence in the
beginning, always kept Ankara great. "Charming Ankara, the most brilliant
of cities," kneeling at the feet of Michael the Drunkard, was raised by his
buildings and his battles to overcome her adversaries and to be remembered
in the Byzantine epic as "the famous and great castle, the powerful and
fortified Ankara." But the epic age which praised her turned its attention
farther east, leaving the city to pass obscure and prosperous centuries in which
construction expanded beyond the citadel walls. The peace was suddenly
86 CLIVE FOSS
interrupted in the mid-eleventh century by the arrival of the Turks, who soon
brought Ankara under their rule and introduced a new age destined to bring
the city greater size, wealth, and renown than it had ever known.207
APPENDIX I
New Governors of Galatia and Vicars of Pontus
The authenticity of the following names, attested in the saints' lives, cannot be guaranteed:
Governors:
Curicius 305/11
Hegemonat Ankara under Galerius,failed in his effort to move St. Clement from Christianity:
Vita Clementis,PG, 114, cols. 860-64.
Lucius 311/13
Hegemon at Ankara under Maximian; ordered execution of Clement and his companions:
Vita Clementis,col. 884.
Hadrianus 305/13
Hegemon,apparently of Galatia; persecutor of Antiochus, brother of St. Plato: Synaxarium
CP, 824f.
Vicars:
Domitianus 305/11
-riv Toi piKcapiou &pXhv EXoVTw Kal TOis Ip?Epit 'S rCIarTiacs &vSlaTpi3ovTi; persecutor of
St. Clement: Vita Clementis, cols. 825-28.
Domitius 305/11
St. Clement was sent for judgment to Ao~tricp piKapicpTMiV'AlIOrlvcGOv
dpxQv SIwrrovnl:
Vita Clementis,cols. 864-69. Perhaps identical with the preceding.
Agrippinus 305/11
Vicar at Ankara, persecutor of St. Plato: Vita Platonis, PG, 115, passim. Responsible also
for execution of Eustathius, Gaianus, et al.: Synaxarium CP, 766. Perhaps to be identified
with Agrippinus, eparch at Nicomedia (i.e., Praetorian Prefect?) under Galerius: Vita
Clementis,cols. 852-60, or with the recipient of CJ, IV.29.15, a law of 294.
207 It is a pleasure to record the help I have received. A grant from the American Council of
Learned Societies enabled me to travel to Ankara and carry out the necessary field work. While
there, I enjoyed the hospitality of the British Institute of Archaeology and the assistance of its
director, Mr. David French. Bay Raci Temizer, director of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
granted me free access to the unpublished coins of the Qankinkapi excavations, and Bay Musa Kurum,
numismatist of the museum, assisted in inspecting them. The work of assembling source material
was lightened by Dr. FriedrichHild of the TabulaImperii byzantiniin Vienna, who allowed me to
consult the extensive files on Byzantine sites which his team has compiled.
LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE ANKARA 87
APPENDIX II
BARRY BALDWIN
queur, terminating his Paulys Realencyclopddienotice of the historian.l
He was not exaggerating. There is not one item on offer in the volumes
of L'Annee Philologique; Englemann-Preuss are equally barren for the period
1700-1850. Malchus deserves a better fate. After all, his extant fragments2
do constitute a major primary source for the reign of Zeno. Hence the present
paper.
There are two external witnesses to the existence of Malchus: Photius and
the Suda.3 Neither give a floruit for the historian, but that is not a great
impediment to knowledge. Like Olympiodorus, Priscus, Candidus the Isaurian,
and many others in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods, Malchus
wrote contemporary history. His animadversions upon Zeno make it most
unlikely that he could have published his work before the death of that
emperor. Admittedly, this is not conclusive. Eunapius, for instance, seems
to have got away with a surprising amount of abuse under Theodosius. But
he was operating in the relative obscurity of Sardis; Malchus was much closer
to imperial eyes.
To be subjoined is the statement in the Suda that Malchus wrote an account
of events from Constantine to Anastasius. As will be seen, that claim causes
problems; hence it cannot be adduced on its own to prove anything. But
taking everything together, it is utterly reasonable to assign Malchus to the
reign of Anastasius.
If the historian possessed the quality of TOvlaTIK?
onrivEos,4 which he attributed
both to Odovacar (fr. 10) and Pamprepius (fr. 20), it may be that he did not
bring out his work until after 496, when Anastasius had safely crushed the
Isaurians, for it was not a version that would have stood him in good stead
had the war turned out the other way. Against this, it might with equal
justice be supposed that Malchus produced his History during the struggle
as propaganda for Anastasius. Certainly, the work is too detailed and polished
to be a "rush job." But nothing forbids the speculation that it might have
been well under way before 491.
Both Photius and the Suda dub Malchus as sophist; a flexible label, not
one that tells us much. Photius, it should be remarked, dignifies him with the
title ovyypacpes at the end of his article. A sophist writing history evokes no
surprise. There had been many others, ever since the Antonine age.4a Priscus
of Panium is the most pertinent case.
1 RE, 14, cols. 851-57.
2
Text in Niebuhr ed. (Bonn, 1829), 231-78; Dindorf, HGM, I (Leipzig, 1870), 383-424; Miiller
ed., FHG, IV (Paris, 1868), 111-32; Excerpta de legationibus, ed. C. de Boor (Berlin, 1903), see Index,
s.v.
3 Bibl., cod. 78; Suda, M 120 (Adler ed.).
4 See infra, p. 106, for the literary antecedents of this phrase.
4a The precise meaning of "sophist," and its relationship with "rhetor," has
always been some-
what elusive. For a full discussion of the problem as it applies to the heyday of the Second Sophistic,
92 BARRY BALDWIN
Malchus is not given to autobiographical detail. Still, there are one or two
indications of a professional interest in literature and its practitioners. The
wickedness of the Emperor Leo is exemplified by his relegation of the gram-
marian Hyperechius (fr. 2a). In the same sequence5 that ruler is somewhat
redeemed by his gift of money to Eulogius the Philosopher, and by the hope
(expressed to a eunuch who objected to the largess) that he would see the day
when the military budget could be diverted to the teaching profession.6
Finally, in the detailed account of Pamprepius (fr. 20), there is the obtruded
comment that he was intrigued against by an enemy with "more knavery
than befitted a teacher."
The historian's nomenclature discloses his geographical origins, for Malchus
was a Syrian name meaning "king," which is certified by both Eunapius and
John Lydus.7 Hence, when Photius assigns him to Philadelphia, one can be
sure that the Palestinian city is meant.
The Suda, presumably following Hesychius of Miletus, regards Malchus as
Bulav-ros.The epithet must indicate provenance. Elsewhere8 in the Suda, it
denotes place of birth. The adjective is employed both of old Byzantium and
of Constantinople.9 Either Hesychius or his epigones are in error, which is of
moment, given other problems'0 in the lexicon's notice of Malchus.
However, it is a reasonable conjecture that Malchus spent a good season of
his life in Constantinople. The Suda singles out his description of the great
fire which ravaged the capital under Basiliscus as one of the finest sequences
in his history. The destruction of the library elicited a narrative "reminiscent
of a tragedy." To be sure, a conflagration sounds like an excuse for a literary
set piece. Photius was impressed by the description achieved by Candidus
the Isaurian of a similar fire in the city of Leo's time. Indeed, one historian
might well have been trying to outdo the other.
see G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in te Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), 12-14. As to the later
Roman and Early Byzantine periods, the formulation of Victorinus (Rhetores Latini Minores, ed.
Halm, 156.21) may be instructive: dicendum etiam videtur, quae distantia sit inter rhetorem,sophistam,
et oratorem. Rhetor est i docet litteras atque artes tradit eloquentiae: sophista est apucdquem dicendi
exercitium discitur: orator est qui in causis privatis ac publicis plena et perfecta utitur eloquentia. It
may also be instructive to consider the three separate definitions offered by the Suda, S 812-14
(Adler). The word ysocperfs does not commonly occur in later Greek texts: the Lexicon of E. A.
Sophocles registers only Lucian, Peregrinus, 13 (where the word is applied to Christ); Lampe's
Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961) has no examples. In the period in question, "Sophist" seems
to me to denote a teacher or professor, though, given that the term "rhetor" can mean "lawyer"
in early Byzantine Greek (cf. Alan and Averil Cameron, "The Cycle of Agathias," JHS, 86 [1966],
15-16), we should be alive to possible mutations of meaning. See further the article by K. Gerth, in
RE, Suppl. Band 8, col. 723.
5 Bearing in mind that this is awkwardly juxtaposed with the balance of fr. 2a, and might be
either deficient or misplaced; cf. Miller, loc. cit.
6 Which, of course, recalls the similar optimism of Probus claimed by the HA, Probus, 20. 3.
7 Eunapius, VS, Giangrande ed., iv. 1. 4; Lydus, De Mensibus, 4. 118.
8 There are thirteen occurrences registered in Adler's index. All are in biographical notices deriving
from Hesychius.
9 chronicle
E.g., A 3933 (Aristophanes of Byzantium); E 851 (Heliconius, sophist and author of a
from Adam to Theodosius I); M 174 (Maximus, the teacher of Julian). In this last case, note that
Maximus is said to be "either Epirote or Byzantine," which confirms the usage. The Suda is doubly
in error, for the Maximus in question hailed from Ephesus; cf. PLRE, I (Cambridge, 1971), 584.
10
Specifically, the scope of Malchus' work, for which see infra.
MALCHUS OF PHILADELPHIA 93
For all of that, the extant fragments do not suggest that Malchus wasted
much space on set pieces. Grief over the destruction of the library at Con-
stantinople would come naturally from a man of letters who used and appre-
ciated its facilities. He also wrote eloquently, adds the Suda, on the fate of
statues in the Augusteum. That betokens a precision of detail acquired by
autopsy.
He may have been widely traveled. Photius calls attention to the degree
to which both East and West feature in the historian's narrative. He never
seems handicapped, as Eunapius"1 had been, by the difficulty of obtaining
Western news in the East. The detailed accounts of Gothic peregrinations
(frs. 15-19) abound with topographical minutiae: Sondis is a great mountain,
hard to climb; the road to New Epirus is narrow; Lychidnus is full of springs;
Adamantius is the first commander to traverse an obscure and narrow road
with cavalry; and so on.
Of course, one can never be sure what comes from a man's experience and
what from his reading. Malchus never refers to exploits of his own, as do,
for example, Olympiodorus and Priscus.12 Nor does he formally credit any
information to sources oral or written. Anything is possible. Some eyewitnesses
will surely have been accessible to the historian. Literary materials were not
lacking. On geographical matters, he might follow the example of Olympio-
dorus and consult a writer such as Asinius Quadratus, invariably cited for
topographical points in later authorities.13 In Malchus' own time, there was
Capito Lycus, whose Isaurica are always adduced in later ages for geo-
graphical items.14
Men of letters tended to roam widely, in search of patrons and success.15
Malchus need not have been an exception. His obvious sympathy for Pampre-
pius may be that of a fellow professional. One also cannot help wondering if he
was ever entrusted with a diplomatic mission which enabled him to see some-
thing of the world. It is well known that Olympiodorus and Priscus were both
so employed; the phenomenon recurs with Nonnosus in the reign of Justinian.16
And the age was propitious for literary men. According to John Lydus,l7
Anastasius gave preferment to them as a matter of policy.
Embassies are a major theme in the narratives of Malchus. A good three-
quarters of the extant fragments are preserved in the De legationibus of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Of course caution must be exercised against
11 Fr. 74.
12 On Olympiodorus, see E. A. Thompson, "Olympiodorus of Thebes," CQ, 38 (1944), 43-52;
J. F. Matthews, "Olympiodorus of Thebes and the History of the West," JRS, 60 (1970), 79-97.
Fr. 18 describes his mission to the Hun king Donatus. Priscus' account (fr. 8) of his visit to Attila
is too familiar to require comment.
13 For
Quadratus, consult Jacoby, FGrHist, 97; cf. Zosimus 5. 27 for Olympiodorus and Qua-
dratus on the subject of Ravenna.
14 Text in Miiller, FHG, IV, 133-34.
15 See the brilliant article
by Alan Cameron, "Wandering Poets: A Literary Movement in Byzantine
Egypt," Historia, 14 (1965), 470-509.
16Photius, Bibl., cod. 3, is the source for Nonnosus
(whose father and grandfather had been on
similar missions).
17De mag., 3. 50.
94 BARRY BALDWIN
33 Suda, L 646 (Adler); see later for this and other fragments possibly belonging to Malchus.
34
Including the notice of Malchus; the others are: H 611 (Hesychius); I 53 (Jason); T 895
(Suetonius Tranquillus).
35 For
Kci as unarguably copulative before Ecos,see, e.g., K 1165 (Adler).
98 BARRY BALDWIN
this work on the same detailed scale. It does not mean that Malchus nowhere
wrote about events down to 491.
4. One objection to the foregoing hypothesis would be that a general account
of the period between Constantine and Anastasius is an unlikely project in an
age of contemporary history written in great detail. The only impetus for
such a work would be religious, and we have seen that that was one of the
inspirations least likely to afflict Malchus of Philadelphia.
Therefore, it can still be maintained that the work described by Photius
was the only one issued by Malchus. Events prior to 474 will have been
cursorily surveyed in an introductory form, on a very much smaller scale
than that discerned in Photius and the surviving passages. One can adduce,
for easy instance, Ammianus and Eunapius for similar disproportions (Zosimus
will also be thought of). Items pertaining to events and personalities between
480 and the accession of Anastasius could have featured in the seven books
known to Photius. Just as Eunapius inserted a reference to Pulcheria and
the year 414 (fr. 87) in a work that stopped at 404 (according to Photius),
so Malchus might frequently have looked ahead in his narratives for compara-
tive materials and the ike. This would explain the aforementioned diatribe
against the brother of Zeno. A careless reading of such a work might have led
the Suda's compiler to describe the work as going down to Anastasius.
Speculations tend to be endless, unless decently restrained. Many more
might be advanced. There could have been a second edition of Malchus,
drastically reduced in temporal scope and vastly intensified in detail;36 or the
Constantine referred to was not the great emperor of that name, but Constan-
tine III: that would relate the History of Malchus to the work of Olympio-
dorus; or Constantine is not an emperor at all, but an error for Flavius
Constantine, consul in 457. That would give the accession of Leo as a starting
point, which is far from incredible.
Such notions, mercifully, need play no part in the forthcoming assessments
of the content, style, and value of Malchus' work, although the discrepancy
between Photius and the Suda must be faced, especially as it is not always
noted in standard treatments of the period.37
However, conjecture is not henceforth to be banished from this paper. It is
time to advert to the fragments themselves. Of those printed by Miiller, a
number derive from the Suda in anonymous form. The ascriptions to Malchus
are the work of modern scholars, and various efforts have been made over
the years to augment and diminish their number. This sort of business tends
to be tediously unprofitable. Yet some dividends are to be had in the present
investigation; and there is the bonus of an opportunity to consider some
aspects of Candidus the Isaurian.
36
Though Photius is usually informed on such things. And the last thing we need is another via
EKBoaiTproblem on the scale of the Eunapian one; cf. W. R. Chalmers, in CQ, 3 (1953),
165-70.
37Bury acknowledged the issue in his edition of Gibbon (supra, note 22), but in his LRE of 1923
merely says that "Malchus continued Priscus and embraced in his work either the whole or a part
of the reign of Zeno." A. H. M. Jones in his monumental History of the Later Roman Empire (Oxford,
1964), 217, simply gives Malchus as a source for the years 474-80, with no comment at all.
MALCHUS OF PHILADELPHIA 99
In Muller's collection, the following items from the Suda are credited to
Malchus: fr. 2a (Leo); fr. 5 (Heraclius the general); fr. 6 (Erythrius the pre-
fect); fr. 7 (Basiliscus the usurper); fr. 8 (Harmatus); fr. 9 (Zeno); fr. 20
(Pamprepius); fr. 21 (entries under the words ETrrriia and X7rrpa).
One or two observations are iorder. The name of Malchus is attached to
fragments 2a and 21, but this does not certify them. False ascriptions are
hardly uncommon in the Suda. Miller appended to fragment 21 two items
from the Anabasis of Xenophon wrongly attributed to Malchus. We shall
see later, when scrutinizing the historian's style, how that particular error
might have originated.
Miller entertained some very reasonable doubts about the last two sentences
of fragment 2a. As mentioned earlier, they seem to belong somewhere else,
albeit Malchus can retain the authorship. It suits his outlook to exemplify
the villainy of Leo by the expulsion of a grammarian, as does adverse comment
on the expensiveness of the army. And the verbatim quotation of Leo is very
much in the manner of Malchus, who (details are supplied later) had some taste
for speeches and a marked fondness for quoting the utterances of Zeno.
Fragment 5 was given to Malchus by Valesius: there is nothing decisive to
be said either way. The next fragment is appropriate to Malchus with its
denunciation of the rapacity of Leo and the fatal generosity of Zeno. It is
not something Candidus could have written. One may observe from a Latin
source how the partisans of Zeno defended his openhanded behavior.38
Fragments 7 and 8 have greater import. The latter is really made up of two
(perhaps three) distinct notices of Harmatus and Harmatius; Bury was dis-
posed to accept the view of Shestakov that at least parts of fragments 7 and 8
emanate from Candidus.39A number of scholars40 have assigned the article
on Harmatus to the Isaurian on the grounds of orthography. For this unsavory
character is Harmatus in the Photian paraphrases of Candidus, but Harmatius
in fragment 11 of Malchus.4L
The reasoning is in order, but perhaps not strong. The article on Harmatius
in the Suda (E 3968, Adler) comes before the Harmatus entry, directly following
the item 'ApauTEIlos TpoX6s. The spelling of Harmatius could have been affected
by this proximity. Moreover, in the best manuscript of Photius, Harmatius
is corrected by a marginal hand to Harmatus.42
A passage not printed by Miiller must be summoned to the argument.
A notice in the Suda (L 646, Adler)43 takes the form of an assault on the
38
Anon. Vales., 40: in re publica omnino providentissimus, favens genti suae.
39 See his edition of Gibbon (IV, 511) and the 1923 version of his LRE, I, 392 note 1.
Shestakov's demonstration, which I know only from Bury (and could not read, anyway) is in his
Candid Isauriski (Odessa, 1894). C. D. Gordon, The Age of Attila (Ann Arbor, 1960), 146-47, prints
the Harmatus notice as fr. 8, dividing the Harmatius one into 8a and 8c (the break coming at the
introduction of Onoulph into the narrative), and renumbering Miiller's 8a as 8b. Gordon, however,
simply spells the pertinent name Harmatius throughout. 40 Registered by Miiller, loc. cit.
41 Not fr.
10, as Miiller; cf. John of Antioch, fr. 210, who has Harmatius.
42
According to Henry's apparatus. Incidentally, is it possible that the orthographical vagaries
are at least partly due to the Isaurica of Pamprepius and its metrical requirements?
43 Adler did not observe that one sentence from this extract recurs in the
entry P 1436, sand-
wiched between phrases from Polybius and the Emperor Julian.
100 BARRY BALDWIN
rapacity and lust of Longinus and Conon, brothers of Zeno. Bernhardy credited
the sequence to Malchus; Bury thought that was probably right; and it has
more recently been adduced without any argument as a piece of Malchus.44
This is most likely so. Candidus will not have so denounced the brothers
of Zeno.45 Stylistic analysis strongly suggests that the same hand produced
fragment 8, if not fragment 7, and also fragment 9. Sexual lust is a common
theme to the three sequences. In fragment 9, the son of Zeno is the target;
in the new extract, it is the Emperor's brothers. Another common feature is
the arrogance of these sex-mad grandees.
Details of vocabulary accumulate. The adverb EKT-rcos,for instance, occurs
in erotic contexts in fragments 8 and 9. Striking hapax legomenaare on parade.
Fragment 8 exhibits wTrapo6huTos in an erotic sequence;46 the Longinus notice
offers yvvalKolipagin a similar context;47 fragment 9 boasts one unique usage
(the adverb aupapTlrKts)in an anttack on sexual excess. Carnal themes also
evoke literary parody. In fragment 8, the Harmatus section contains a chunk
of Plutarch, with slight variations including a hapax legomenon;48 the Longinus
passage discloses the proverbial treSav&yKiin the context of seduction.
Fragment 7 contains two graphic and rare epithets: SeieriTUKTOS and ppabi*vouS.
It also mingles unvarnished Christian terminology and the objective conven-
(twice) sharing a sentence with TCOV?eyoivbcov (iovaXC-v.This
tion, with Trriaoroiros
is typical of Malchus.
Linguistic statistics rarely prove anything. However, it would seem reason-
able to believe that fragments 8 and 9, and the Longinus notice, are from the
same pen. Fragment 9 is certainly by Malchus. Thus, the Harmatus and
Longinus passages may be credited to him. The recurring presence of hapax
legomena is compelling: Photius records that neologisms are a feature of
Malchus' style.
In addition to the assault on Longinus, nine other anonymous items in the
Suda have been tentatively credited to Malchus, in most cases by Bern-
hardy.49 The majority of these are brief notices of particular words; only
rarely is speculation worthwhile.50 Two, however, are fairly substantial notices
of individuals: the Patriarch Acacius and the prefect Epinicus.
The entry on Acacius is probably too elaborate for Malchus, who seems not
to have been given to theological minutiae and the fortunes of ecclesiastics.
The notice is more suited to Candidus, an orthodox Christian, who, according
to Photius, spread himself on such matters. A reference to Leo the "Butcher,"
44 Gordon, op. cit., 155.
45 Nor is it likely that Capito the Lycian would have been so scathing. Pamprepius is ruled out
by the fact that his Isaurica was in verse (on this, see Alan Cameron, op. cit., 481), a venal per-
formance in honor of Zeno's restoration. It is true that the eminence of Longinus came after 480;
but (as earlier argued) Malchus is not precluded from treating events after that date, and the follies
of Longinus will have been grist to his anti-Zeno mill.
46 The notice also contains the unparalleled epithet ipuSpoTrp6CwTcrroS.
47 Notice also the employment of TrspiK&prna in the rare sense of "bracelets," a usage certified by
Pollux, 5. 99; Gordon mistranslates as "nut-shells."
48 See infra, for details.
49 The items are (in
Adler): A 783; B 134; E 226; E 566; E 2369; E 2494; I 324; K 693; T 513.
50 B 134 is
possible, since the word in question is the hapax legomenon papurrp.rris.
MALCHUS OF PHILADELPHIA 101
however, would come more naturally from Malchus. It may be that the Suda
has conflated accounts.
By contrast, the assault on Epinicus looks very much like an extract from
Malchus.51 In content and tone, it is very similar to the diatribe against
Sebastian in fragment 9. Vignettes of erring officials are congenial to Malchus.
Two linguistic details may be suggestive. The verb KaTrrrqEico is employed of
both villains (in the present participle on both occasions), and their profits
are summed up in both notices as nKAEhisaTa.
We may now proceed to consider the History of Malchus in terms of its
content and attitudes. The details singled out by Photius should be set along-
side the surviving fragments. It may be observed that the Patriarch does not
enlighten us as to the main contents of each book, as he does in the case of
Candidus. Since Photius attempted to reproduce the flavor and style of his
authors,52it is legitimate to believe that we are close to what Malchus actually
wrote.
The Byzantiaca began with the fatal illness of Leo in 474. It is probable
that the historian indulged ini a gloating account of this. The Photian phrase
is suggestive; Malchus loathed Leo; and the unpleasant details
v6aoS eTTiELe
given in fragment 9 concerning the death of Zeno's depraved son indicate
a liking for such descriptions on the part of Malchus.
Singled out next are the predictable themes of Zeno's proclamation, the
Basiliscus interlude, Zeno's return, and the liquidation of the usurper and his
family Trapavocp Kpiaeia.Is this last phrase the historian's or the Patriarch's ?
Probably the former's: Photius will have had scant sympathy for the Mono-
physite usurper. Fragment 8a and the first part of fragment 9 preserve some
of Malchus' account of these transactions. The execution of Harmatus by
Onulph is then mentioned. The latter is not named in Photius' resume of
Candidus, which would seem to guarantee the final section of fragment 8
as attributable to Malchus.
Photius then adduces the accounts of the two Theodorics, which constitute
the fullest surviving fragments. The machinations of Verina against Illus are
mentioned next. Malchus may well have taken the opportunity to tell much or
all of the story of Illus, into which narrative his account of Pamprepius could
well be fitted. The revolt and suppression of Marcian follows. Malchus brings
his seventh and last book to an end with the death of Nepos.
The resume by Photius and the fragments largely confirm each other. Only
fragment 1, the fascinating account of the visit to Constantinople by Amor-
kesos, the renegade Persian, in 473, falls outside the Patriarch's given limits
for the History. There is no cause for alarm. The episode caters to two of
Malchus' predilections: accounts of embassies and objurgation of Leo.
51 It is
generally accepted that this notice is from Malchus or Candidus. The passage contains
at least one error: Epinicus was clearly praetorian prefect, not urban, to judge by the account of
his provincial depredations. Gordon also thinks that Epinicus' tenure cannot relate to Basiliscus'
reign, and that he was followed by Sebastian, not Laurentius.
52 See the Introduction to
Henry's Bude, xxiv.
102 BARRY BALDWIN
great one (fr. 20: -TOT-Eiyilcrra 6uvarEvr)).58 No epigrams on female wiles occur
in these sequences. In the case of Zenonis (fr. 8), however, the historian's
language plainly condemns her affair with Harmatus.
The surviving portraits of individuals indicate that Malchus, like many
historians, found abuse more congenial than praise. Apart from the sequence
on Pamprepius, the only59 full-scale laudation is on the prefect Erythrius,
who resigned under Zeno rather than inflict suffering on the taxpayers. It has
been shown by Alan Cameron60that this encomium is part of some literary
and political infighting; Malchus is on the other side than that of the poet
Panolbius, whose distinguished targets included our good prefect.
It would be naive to take Malchus on such characters as Sebastian as
gospel. One is encouraged, however, by indications that the historian portrays
his subjects in colors other than black and white. This has already been
observed in the cases of even Leo and Zeno. Similar treatments are those
allotted to Heraclius (fr. 5), Basiliscus (fr. 7), and Harmatus (fr. 8)-this last
had been kind to his executioner Onulph.
The main features of Malchus as historian have come to light in the fore-
going accounts. Some recapitulation and supplement is in order. It will
naturally be understood that there may be built-in distortion of the true
picture, thanks to the fragmented survivals and their provenance.
Malchus treated Western, as well as Eastern, affairs in some detail. He has
a penchant for elaborate accounts of embassies and delegations. Military set
pieces are strikingly absent. Nowhere is there overt mention of personal
involvement on the historian's part.
The biographical approach is marked. Prejudice is overt. Unfairness and
inconsistency are discernible in the accounts of Leo and Zeno. Yet balance
is achieved in the accounts of these rulers, and of other villains. The relatively
rare exercises in eulogy are reasoned, as in the case of Pamprepius, or reflect
a parti-pris as in the matter of Erythrius.
Religious matters are kept to a minimum. Christian phraseologies coexist
with the commendations of Proclus and Pamprepius, but enough has been said
on this question above.
Some of Malchus' personality shows through. He is severe on sexual "excess"
(frs. 8 and 9, and the notice of Longinus). Homosexuality is particularly
abhorred and is branded as a "foreign" vice (fr. 9); which attitudes, of
course, do not confirm Malchus as a Christian. We have seen that he was
disposed to nasty generalizations about the barbarian character (frs. 8a, 19),
though this did not prevent him from taking their part in the matter of
complaints against Zeno (fr. 19) or from accepting the claims made for the
acumen of Odovacar (fr. 10). It is hardly surprising for a sophist-historian to
display partiality toward men of letters and their profession (frs. 2a, 20).
58 It
may be worth nothing that Pamprepius is p4yil-rov fjT 8uvvapi&vcp in the Suda's entry for
Salustius (S 63).
59 Apart, that is, from the good press accorded to the senator Severus in fr. 3.
60 Op. cit., 506-7.
MALCHUS OF PHILADELPHIA 105
Contempt for the mob is equally predictable (frs. 8, 20), as is the implied
scorn of banausic arts (fr. 7).
Malchus is clearly not objective, but to what extent he is factually reliable
is hard to determine, since he is the basic (frequently the only) source for
what he describes. He may be in error in saying that Pamprepius came from
Egyptian Thebes. Other sources, when they specify his origins, assign him
to Panopolis.61 Obviously, Thebes could simply be a mistake for Thebaid.
Yet Pamprepius was a well-known figure, clearly studied by Malchus with
sympathetic attention. If he is wrong, it is both surprising and disappoint-
ing.
Other possible mistakes were considered earlier.62Yet, although not a unique
compliment from the Patriarch, it is significant that Photius, who was clearly
wary of Malchus' religion (or lack of it), as opposed to the orthodox Candidus,
regarded him as a fine historian, a veritable Kavcovfor emulation.63 He is
nowhere accused of error or bias in religious or secular matters, and is lauded
for his style, to which topic I now advert, as a fitting end to this paper.
Photius asserts that Malchus was a successful sophist. Thus, we can expect
a conscious and competent stylist. From what is known of Photius' literary
criticism,64 Malchus must have avoided digressions, eschewed any excess of
poeticisms and the like, and kept bothwclear and relevant. Bury thought
him "clear and unaffected." To judge by the Photian notice, that was not
true of Candidus, which is something to bear in mind when pondering the
authorship of anonymous fragments.
It has been shown that Malchus does not appear to have indulged in ela-
borate and suspect military set pieces to the degree that Priscus did, frag-
ment lb. It seems, however, that he did not follow the apparent disdain for
speeches which has been ascribed to Olympiodorus. Verbatim extracts, both
short and substantial are present in a number of passages. Zeno predominates
in these (frs. 8a, 9, 10, 18), but we also have a short speech by Gaiseric (fr. 3),
two outbursts by Theodoric Strabo (fr. 15), another speech by the same
(fr. 18), and the actual words of the senators in a debate with Zeno (fr. 11).
Some of these will be genuine, perhaps reflecting Malchus' researches into
documents and conversations with witnesses: items such as Strabo's out-
pourings were surely literary confections.
Some simple Latinisms are employed: oivAEvTlapios (fr. 2); pa&yicrrpos (fr. 11);
-TrarpiKios(frs. 10, 18); and Trov rplpC-acov (fr. 11). On other occasions, Greek
equivalentsare preferred:we find .oOaSocp6poi OiKE0oifor bucellarii (fr. 18); &apXEiov
for praetorium (fr. 18); and (foolishly) pkbitvosfor modius (fr. 15).65
61 Panopolis is the
provenance given in John of Antioch, fr. 211. 2, and in the Suda in two notices
other than the fragment of Malchus it preserves on Pamprepius (the section of P 137 that comes from
Damascius, and S 63). It is accepted by Bury, Stein, and Alan Cameron, op. cit., 472.
62 See note 51.
63 Herodotus is the canon of Ionic dialect (Bibl., cod.
60) and Thucydides of Attic (cods. 60, 71).
64 See La Rue van Hook, "The
Literary Criticism in the Bibliotheca of Photius," CPh, 4 (1909),
178-89; G. L. Kustas, "The Literary Criticism of Photius," Hellenika, 17 (1962), 132-69.
65 Note also for exactor (fr. 1) and TrriTpo-rro
for procurator (fr. 13); cf. H. J. Mason,
SEKorrAoyoS
Greek Terms for Roman Institutions (Toronto, 1974), 143-44.
106 BARRY BALDWIN
JOHNW. NESBITT
M\ 'OST large collections of Byzantine lead seals contain a fairly high
percentage of specimens dating from the early period. In view of the
paucity of archival materials from the seventh and eighth centuries,
this fact is of some significance for the study of administrative and social
history of the early Empire. Recently, Zacos and Veglery have published a
catalogue of approximately 4,000 seals, of which the vast majority date before
900.1 Other publications of a substantial character may be expected; for
example, Dumbarton Oaks is preparing a catalogue of the Harvard Collec-
tions, a combined total of some 17,000 seals. In light of the importance of
seals and plans for publication of major collections, the time has come, I
believe, to observe that seals of the early centuries present to their editors
certain technical difficulties. The problems are not of a minor order, but involve
the reading and interpretation of whole categories of seals. The purpose of
this paper is to delineate some of these problems and to consider possible
solutions. At issue are seals bearing double names. Examples are mainly
drawn from the Zacos/Veglery catalogue. This essay, in certain respects, is a
review article of their volume. No doubt the general reader has only a nodding
acquaintance with Byzantine seals. To grasp the technical side of matters,
a brief description of seal types will be helpful.
1 G. Zacos and A.
Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals (Basel, 1972) (hereafter, Byzantine Lead Seals).
2
Ibid., nos. 766 (= D.O. 55.1.1942 and 1943), 787 (= D.O. 55.1.1953), and 940. A number of
seals published by Zacos and Veglery belong to Dumbarton Oaks. In citing entries from their cata-
logue, notation is made, wherever appropriate, of the Dumbarton Oaks accession number. In instances
where it has been necessary to use seals which are not at Dumbarton Oaks I have been careful to
select for presentation seals which can be read from photographs with some certainty.
3 Ibid., no. 911 (= D.O. 55.1.2039).
112 JOHN W. NESBITT
KoV.4Name and title, appearing either in the genitive or dative case, may be
preceded by an invocative formula: for example, OETO6KE poiSE3i Y-rEqavoVOliEv-
rTiapiou KcI pacoatKovpciviropos; 0 Op9iraZEpy?icpaCathKi
OEO'O6KE oa-rsraapicp.5 In
instances where an invocative formula is not employed and only name and
title appear, as a rule they are expressed in the genitive case; typical inscrip-
tions are 'Avrt6Xou KOITi-roS,rpryopioucTparaTLov, 'lcoavvoviMaouopiov,and Napaovi
The nominative and dative cases, however, are also found: for
TrlcTiaKoou.6
example, Ocltis treTlKorro(s) and iapTou.7 A likely explanation
e[i]l[v]vicy K6OhnTiTOU
of the use of the dative is that it stems from an implied expression of piety
(e.g., E0OTOKEPo?iSE1).
It often happens that a seal bears two names. Frequently, the same name
appears on both sides of the seal, usually in the genitive case. A common
feature is a Greek inscription opposite a legend in Latin characters; examples
are Thalassiu/OaXiaaadol, Asteri/'AarEpiov, and Anastasiu/'AvaaTraoiou.8Although
genitive combinations predominate, on occasion we encounter other combina-
tions, such as nominative/genitive and dative/genitive: for example, Georgius/
or Carello/Kapi7Aou.9Sometimes a seal bears two different names,
Froopyiou
customarily in the genitive, such as OaXh7Xa=oul/?o5oa1iouor Ioannu/Theodoru.10
We have, then, two groups of seals with double names, Group 1 being seals
imprinted with the same name on each face, and Group 2 the seals bearing
a different name on each face. Among Group 1 are found, as noted, varying
case combinations. Editors have not paid much attention to these variances,
but it is a peculiar feature which merits closer scrutiny. However, editors are
by no means certain how Group 2 should be interpreted. At issue is the ques-
tion whether we are dealing with one person or two individuals. Confronted
with a seal bearing the name OEou0pou on one side and the name Aacapou on
the other, Laurent unhesitatingly read "Theodore and Lazaros," adding the
explanation "sceau collectif."'l The interpretation is arbitrary since no con-
junction is present. On the whole, Zacos and Veglery shun interpretation;
headings of their entries are based on simple translation. For example, for
entry no. 750, a seal imprinted with the name 'AVTIO6XOU on one face and the
name $ilaypiou on the other, the caption reads "Antiochos Philagrios." This
phrase is without meaning, and Zacos and Veglery leave interpretation of the
phrase to the discretion of the reader.12
a. Obverse a. Obverse
a. Obverse
a. Obverse
b. Reverse
9. D.O. 55.1.624 10. Zacos 11. D.O. 58.106.1169 12. Fogg 2380 13. Fogg 156
Collection, no. 829A
14. D.O. 55.1.272 15. D.O. 58.106.873 16. Fogg 3197 17. D.O. 55.1.6
DOUBLE NAMES ON EARLY BYZANTINE LEAD SEALS 113
Byzantine seals can be classified into five types according to the arrangement
of their inscriptions:
II.
18 Byzantine Lead Seals (= D.O. 58.106.1098). The two might have been, of course,
simply
business partners.
19Ibid., no. 216 (= D.O. 58.106.686). Other collective seals of this type are nos. 135, 145, 152,
153, 161, 165, 176-80, 205-9, 214-19, 221, 222, and 2764 bis.
20 The fundamental studies of
general kommerkiarioi are G. Millet, "Sur les sceaux des commer-
ciaires," Mdlanges G. Schlumberger, II (Paris, 1924), 303-27; and H. Antoniadis-Bibicou, Recherches
sur les douanes d Byzance (Paris, 1963), 157-91. Millet sought to maintain that prior to the tenth
century general kommerkiarioi were not tax collectors. In his view, the duties of the kommerkiarios
were confined to the supervision of warehouses and the inspection of merchandise for contraband.
Millet characterized the kommerkiarios of the early period as a minor official, the subordinate of
another dignitary of higher rank but unknown title. Bibicou has argued against Millet, and I think
quite rightly, that based on the evidence of sigillography the kommerkiarioi collected customs from
the time of the office's inception. A feature of seals dating from the sixth and early seventh centuries
is that the reverse is blank. The obverse carries a bust of the reigning emperor. Below are the name
and titles of the kommerkiarios to whom the seal belonged. Similar seals are found dating from the
later seventh and eighth centuries. All bear on the reverse the imprint of burlap, indicating that
these seals certainly were attached to sacks of merchandise. It is difficult to believe that such seals
116 JOHN W. NESBITT
served merely to attest the inspection of merchandise. A more likely explanation, it seems to me, is
that their principal function was to mark the payment of imposts. Millet's view relegates kommer-
kiarioi to the position of subordinate, petty functionaries. The seals wholly contradict such a notion.
The kommerkiarioi were men of prominence, as attested by the eighth-century seal of the kommer-
kiarios Thomas, which reads: patricios, general logothete, and kommerkiarios of the warehouse of
Mesembria. See Byzantine Lead Seals, no. 232 (= D.O. 58.106.692). It is quite unthinkable that the
patricios Thomas was at once a general logotheteand a mere inspector of baggage. If a kommerkiarios
was responsible to a higher official within his bureau, one who collected customs, then who was this
official? The great weakness of the Millet argument, as Bibicou has pointed out, is the necessity to
postulate an unknown title. At present, it is possible to survey some 20,000 seals. Amidst such a
mass of evidence, it is almost impossible that we should not have a record of this mystery official
and be able to identify him.
21
Byzantine Lead Seals, no. 205.
22
Ibid., no. 206 (= D.O. 58.106.658).
23 Ibid., nos. 208 (= D.O. 55.1.4392) and 2764 bis. One must be cautious in using the tables in the
Zacos/Veglery catalogue, since not all the seals cited can be clearly attributed to any one person or
group of individuals.
24
Ibid., no. 219 (= D.O. 58.106.685).
DOUBLE NAMES ON EARLY BYZANTINE LEAD SEALS 117
latter situation points to an interesting anomaly. The simple fact is that
Constantinople and Fourth Armenia do not fit together administratively. This
same circumstance is met in the case of the imperial balnitor Anastasios. In
718/19 Anastasios was general kommerkiariosboth of Constantinople and of
Isauria and Syllaion.25 Obviously, Constantinople and Isauria are at some
distance from one another and do not form a tightly knit unit of administra-
tion. Finally, I should note that the indiction dates on seals point to one
further oddity about the office, that tenure was strictly regulated. Customarily,
a kommerkiariosoccupied a specific post for one year. Such a tightly defined
schedule is unknown with regard to other posts.
The seals suggest that the office of kommerkiariosfunctioned in a different
manner from other posts. In my opinion, the key to defining this difference
is the joint seals. There is in the activities of George and Theophylaktos and
of Synetos and Nicetas a distinctindicatitn of partnership: joint occupation
of office, joint movement from one office to another, and joint accumulation
of charges. If partnership is involved, there remains the question of the basis
for this partnership. This, I should think, relates to the main function of the
office, namely, the collection of customs. On the basis of geographical groupings
and tenure in office, I suggest that George and Theophylaktos and Synetos
and Nicetas were business partners and their business was the collection of
taxes. An accumulation of charges at geographically distant points is in
keeping with a system whereby warehouses were allocated on a basis of
auction bids, as opposed to structuring by a central authority. Within a
system of tax farming we might well expect to, and indeed do, find a strict
limitation on tenure in office and an annual shuffle of personnel. This aspect
is well attested by the dated seals of kommerkiarioi. Since the purpose of this
paper is to inquire into double names, space necessitates that this discussion
of the office of general kommerkiarioscome to a close.
I have presented a number of examples of inscriptions on silver objects
and seals, focusing on inscriptions which contain the names of two or more
persons. As a rule, expression tends to be orderly and precise. Where the
names of two or more individuals are involved, the names are regularly
separated by the conjunction kai, which is a feature of inscriptions on chalices
and patens and on the seals of business partners.26The use of the conjunction
is not a point which we need belabor, but it should be stressed. For it has
considerable bearing on the question of seals with double names. In instances
where we encounter seals which bear a different name on each side, uncon-
25Ibid., no. 223 (= D.O. 58.106.684) and Table 13. See also Laurent, Les sceaux
byzantins du
M6daillier Vatican (note 8 supra), no. 116 (with discussion of the dates of Anastasios' seals).
26 To keep discussion within bounds, I have limited the
scope of inquiry and focused on one
general category of objects. I should say that I see nothing contradictory among stone inscriptions.
J. Creaghan and A. Raubitschek comment on kai and its regular presence as a connective between
names in Christian tomb inscriptions at Athens. See their study and edition of inscriptions, "Early
Christian Epitaphs from Athens," Hesperia, 16 (1947), 6-7. Among the many silver objects on which
kai appears as a connective between two names, see Cruickshank Dodd, Byzantine Silver Treasures
(note 14 supra), nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7; idem, Byzantine Silver Stamps (note 15 supra), nos. 18, 20,
25, 27, 29, 34, and 80; and Jalabert and Mouterde, op. cit. (note 15 supra), V, nos. 2027, 2033, 2034,
2035, and 2046.
118 JOHN W. NESBITT
nected by kai, the conclusion that such specimens are "collective seals" is
unwarranted.
MonogrammaticSeals
In this survey of name formulae, I have touched upon several points which
bear on the reading of monogrammatic seals. One of the most important is
the matter of case endings. In attempting to resolve the reading of a mono-
grammatic seal, one should keep in mind that not only the genitive but also
the dative may terminate the name of a seal's owner. Failing to resolve a
reading in the genitive, one should give thought to the dative. Let us consider
an example (fig. 14), on which the obverse presents a beardless saint while
the reverse (fig. 14b) bears a cruciform monogram (fig. III). The name is
not difficultto resolve. One has only to recognizethat the owner pre-
;c
J sents his name in the dative case: E*Aoyicp.42 One might object to this
reading on the basis of the OV ligature at top, arguing that the reading
III- should resolve in the genitive case. My response is that there is no
HENRY MAGUIRE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . p. 125
1. Violent Gestures ... . . p. 126
2. The Hand Raised to the Head: Sitting Figures ... . . p. 132
3. The Hand Raised to the Head: Standing Figures ... . . p. 140
4. The Hand Clasped to the Mouth . ... . . p. 151
5. The Hands Clasped Together ... . . p. 153
6. The Veiling of the Head ... . . p. 156
7. The Arms Thrown Upward. ... . . p. 158
8. The Embrace ... . . p. 160
9. Facial Expression ... . . p. 166
CONCLUSION ~... . . p. 171
INTRODUCTION*
* This study is based on my Ph.D. thesis on "Truth and Topos: The Depiction of Sorrow in
Middle Byzantine Art in the Light of Ekphrastic Literature," which was submitted to Harvard Uni-
versity in 1973.
1 Is omnium primus animum pinxit et sensus hominis expressit, quae vocant Graeci -iwT.... Naturalis
historia, XXXV, 98.
2 See my previous article, "Truth and Convention in
Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art,"
DOP, 28 (1974), 113f., 132ff.
3 For a
general discussion of the depiction of emotion in Byzantine art, see E. Kitzinger, "The
Hellenistic Heritage in Byzantine Art," DOP, 17 (1963), 95ff., esp. 109ff.
4 Brief discussions of the role of
gestures in Byzantine art are found in K. Onasch, Die Ikonen-
malerei. Grundziigeeiner systematischen Darstellung (Leipzig, 1968), 74ff.; and in K. Wessel, "Gesten,"
RBK, II (1971), col. 766ff.
126 HENRY MAGUIRE
singled out two periods in the history of Byzantine art, the Macedonian of
the tenth century and the Late Comnene of the second half of the twelfth,
when Byzantine artists showed a new interest in pathos and human feelings.5
This paper will attempt to assess the relative contributions of these phases
by tracing the formulae through which artists conveyed sorrow from antiquity
to the end of the twelfth century, with particular emphasis on Middle Byzan-
tine art from 843 to 1204.
The procedures which made up the Byzantine language of sentiment were
essentially simple and easy to copy. Their stereotyped nature raises the
question of the sincerity of Byzantine artists when they used these formulae.
Byzantine writers have been accused of the mindless repetition of topoi derived
from classical antiquity. The same charge might be brought against Byzantine
artists. Thus, my third purpose will be to explore the function of emotive
imagery in narrative art, in an attempt to discover how far the constantly
recurring formulae were devoid of content and how far they were more deeply
grounded in sentiment or in doctrine.
1. Violent Gestures
The gestures which denoted sorrow in Byzantine art can be divided into
three broad categories: those which constituted a violent display of suffering;
those which conveyed an inner contemplative grief; and those gestures which
were ambivalent in their meaning, so that they could also signify emotions
other than sorrow, such as joy or fear. In this section I shall consider gestures
of the first type, through which sufferers gave full vent to their feelings.5a
Both classical and Byzantine writers frequently described actions of this
nature, so that they are, in effect, literary topoi. Already in Homer, at the
opening of book 18 of the Iliad, we hear how Achilles receives the news of
the death of Patroclus, strewing his head and face with dust and tearing
his hair, while his servant girls run around him beating their breasts with
their hands.6 We frequently come across such displays of sorrow in the Greek
Romances; thus, in the Ethiopics by Heliodorus, we read of Theagenes
mourning for his beloved Charicleia, "striking his head and tearing his hair."7
So, too, in the twelfth-century Rhodantheand Dosicles, by the Byzantine poet
Prodromus, a father grieves for his daughter, "...rending his robe, cutting
the hair of his head, sprinkling the top of his head with ashes, and tearing
8 Kai
youv 6 rraorfp
-rTvoaro7Xvipprlyvpvos
KaOiT-rt KEEqafjS. T^V K6pi1v KEKappiEOS
KOa Tt^V KOpU(pV Ti K6VE1 'TTETraC(O'IVOS
Kal TlV TTapElavyKCaTEcTrapa1ypvos....
Book I, line 206ff., ed. R. Hercher, Erotici scriptores graeci, II (Leipzig, 1859).
9 Homilia VI, 8 and 10, ed. G. Rossi Taibbi,
Filagato da Cerami, Omelie per i vangeli domenicali e
le feste di tutto l'anno, I (Palermo, 1969); PG, 132, cols. 224D-228A. A similar description of the
Widow is found in a sermon spuriously attributed to St. John Chrysostom, PG, 61, col. 792.
loAlexiad, XI.12,2; XV.11,17; XV.11,20.
1' M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, 1974), 41; T. P. Vukanovid,
"Lamentation dans la peinture a fresque chez les Slaves du Sud au Moyen Age," Vranjski glasnik,
8 (1972), 79ff., esp. 87f.
12 H. Muller, "Darstellungen von Gebarden auf Denkmalern des Alten Reiches," MDIK, 7 (1937),
57ff., esp. lllf., figs. 49-51.
13 G. Neumann, Gesten und Gebdrdenin der
griechischen Kunst (Berlin, 1965), 86, fig. 42; H. Kenner,
Weinen und Lachen in der griechischen Kunst, SBOsterr, Phil.-hist.Kl., 234 (Vienna, 1960), 8ff., fig. 4.
14 C. Robert, Die antiken
Sarkophag-Reliefs, 111,2 (Berlin, 1904), 297f. no. 230, fig. 78; see also
the Meleager sarcophagi, nos. 281, fig. 93, and 293, fig. 97.
15
J. de Wit, Die Miniaturen des Vergilius Vaticanus (Amsterdam, 1959), 90, pictura 27.
128 HENRY MAGUIRE
beating of the breasts, the thighs, and the head."'6 Christian writers, for
whom such behavior showed not only lack of decorum but also lack of faith,
also spoke against excessive demonstrations of mourning. St. John Chrysostom
was particularly insistent in his condemnation of unrestrained lamentation.
In a sermon on the Raising of Lazarus he compared the restraint of Mary
and Martha with the abandon of the women of his own time: "But now, along
with the other evils, this female affliction also prevails. For in lamenting and
wailing they make a display, baring their arms, tearing their hair, making
gullies down their cheeks. And they do this, some from grief, others for
display, from a desire to emulate, and from prodigality. And they bare their
arms-this under the eyes of men."" But it was not only on account of
immodesty that these actions were evil. John Chrysostom asks, "Will not
the Pagans laugh? Will they not consider our beliefs to be myths? For they
will say: 'There is no resurrection."'"1 The Church Father, however, does not
condemn grief altogether, for he recommends that Christians grieve for their
misdeeds: "The Lord says: 'Blessed are those who mourn,' meaning those
who mourn their sins."19 He also recognizes that sorrow is in human nature,
which Christ Himself shared: "[Weeping] I do not forbid, but I forbid beating
oneself and immoderate weeping.... It is impossible not to mourn. Christ too
showed this; for he wept over Lazarus. You also do this. Weep, but gently,
but with decorum, but with the fear of God. If you were to weep thus, you
would not weep as one who distrusts the Resurrection, but as one who cannot
bear being separated."20
The conviction that excessive displays of grief were incompatible with a
faith in the Resurrection appears in the works of later Byzantine writers.
The eighth-century treatises on images by John of Damascus contrast the
attitudes toward death proper to the old order and the new: "In the old
[dispensation]..., the race of men was under a curse, and death was a penalty,
and was therefore mourned.... But now, since the Godhead has mingled with
our nature, as a vivifying and saving remedy, as it were, our nature has
become glorified and has been transformed into immortality."2' Elsewhere
16 Ex hac
opinione sunt illa varia et detestabilia genera lugendi: Paedores, muliebres lacerationes
genarum, pectoris, /eminum, capitis percussiones. Tusculanae disputationes, III, 62.
17 'ANN& viiv pE-rTa TCV &?.cov KxKmOV KadTrOUTrO TrCVywat(KCOV TO v6oi"ia Kpa-rdi. 'ErriSegiv yap iv -rois
9pivo= T-rroloivraiKad7075 KCKAJTO15, yVpivoCaI PpaXiovacs, a-rracprTovaacxTppX(x, XaapaSpacs 'rroio0aati Kcfl7a
b
TOUTOTrroloaiv, catpdv 6-rr rrkvSovS,
-r65v-rrapsi6v. Kcxai cal Si OIrn6 KaX9l1o-tlnfa(S,at S~CiTO6
kTn8eigEcOa &(aCOTrCias
Kxa-roTC pcaXiovas yvpvooiv, &v6pecri Kaci-raocrTa &vvpSpv.In Joannem homilia LXII, PG, 59, col. 346.
18 &p' oC/yF?X&aov-rai 'EXnvvs; &p'o*ipC/$Sovs -r&hpfEpa d-Tvaivopi'aovaiv;'EpoOiaiy&p*OK, la-rivw &v&c-rra-
ont. Ibid.
19 Kai 6 plyEKc'pi6s 0
(rpoiaMayKPotol TrEV,OVTE5, TOvs Ta'apap-riypa-ra -rmvSofhorocS 7EycYvvIbid., col. 347.
20 O/81 TOrTO WNX& KCA&71TC/CA KOaTrtEOat, T6 d(pfTpws)57ro.TO iTOEiPT.... 01./KEiVEwalphI ?v-
~ycb (CAo)XO, TO?
-rrEiaSai.ToOrroKCai6 XptaOr6s 8ESEVE &6gev p.pva y&p hTrri -ro0 Aaclpov. ToC/-roKacd or-roi)oaov- 5&cKpvoov,&7XV
Tijp4pa,dcAN& E*iXxioa1jiovrvS,
VIETar &X& peTra70o. 966ov -roTC)Eo0G."Av SaKp*arljsorcTo)S, Oi)XcbS-ri evao-r6caEt
6iaiTia-rCav-ro01/o TroEi5, &X?N' cbs o/ <pipcov-r6v xcopoiapov. Ibid. Similar passages condemning excessive
lamentation are to be found in sermons by St. Basil of Caesarea (PG, 31, col. 2290) and St. Gregory
of Nazianzus (PG, 35, col. 928A-B). See Alexiou, op. cit., 28ff.
21 Kai i-rrivy -1)5 rTaXat&s.... 'E-n y'ap OirboKarC6cpacv 9C,oat,Kai 6 S&vaTroSKaTcKplcrlS
? v f -rCv d&v3pc6-rrcow
?Iv, Sib Kai hTVILESETTO.... Nihi 5S, &q' oCf SE6-rrl5-rii f peipq qXlaEv avvav_EKp&3f,ol6v TriLoiTroibVKai aco-rrpiov
q&ppai'ov, Oog5o&aSij fhT*ais ftp&$v, Kai wrpb66qi$apaiav pea-rroiXet6,91$TDe imaginibus oratio II, PG, 94,
col. 1296A.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 129
we read: "Now the remembrances of the saints are kept as festivals. The
dead body of Jacob was bewailed, but the death of Stephen is celebrated."22
These passages help us understand the distribution of gestures of grief in
Middle Byzantine art. The violent gestures of tearing the hair and clothes
and of beating the head and chest, which existed in classical art, also survived
to some extent in Christian art, but they appeared in restricted contexts.
As we are led to expect by John of Damascus, they occur primarily in Old
Testament scenes. In the New Testament we find them repeatedly in only
one episode, the Massacre of the Innocents, and here their presence will be
explicable in the light of the teaching of the writers we have quoted. Violent
gestures were also employed in depictions of penitents, a context in which
lamentation was specifically commended by St. John Chrysostom.
In Old Testament illustration we find extreme gestures of mourning both
in Early and in Middle Byzantine art. For example, an ivory on the sixth-
century chair of Maximian at Ravenna depicts the grief of Jacob when pre-
sented with Joseph's blood-stained coat (fig. 3).23The Patriarch's robe is torn
in front, exposing his chest. This directly illustrates the Biblical text (Gen.
37:34): "Jacob rent his clothes, put on sack cloth, and mourned his son for
a long time." Jacob also shows his sorrow in the ivory carving by laying
both hands on the crown of his head, a gesture which may either indicate the
action of pulling his hair or of sprinkling himself with ashes. An eleventh-
century Octateuch manuscript in the Vatican, gr. 747, clearly shows the
old man tugging at his hair (fol. 59r). Here the gesture is unambiguous, as
Jacob holds a strand in each hand and pulls them down on either side of his
face (fig. 4). In the sixth century, the action of tearing the hair also charac-
terized the grief of mourners in death-bed scenes of the Vienna Genesis. In
the miniature of the death of Deborah a woman tears at her hair, with one
hand on each side of her face (fig. 5); in addition, she has rent her garment
at her neck.24 The gesture of pulling the hair recurs in the mourning scenes
of the Vatican Octateuch such as the death of Jacob on folio 71v (fig. 6).25
In his description of the Crucifixion, St. Luke (23:48) tells us that ".. .the
crowds that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were
done, smote their breasts...." But in the iconography of the death and burial
of Christ in Early and Middle Byzantine art, we rarely, if ever, find mourners
beating themselves or tearing at their hair and garments, and this is also the
case for the death of the Virgin and for miracles involving the healing of the
22
Nvv 8i TCOV&Dyicov9op-rLe-rai -rT gvri6auva. 'E-rrTEVSSl6OveKp6STOU'IoKcb, &MW'6 TaEq6vov -rravryu-
pieL-raiBoavroS. Ibid. I, PG, 94, col. 1253A.
23
J. Natanson, Early Christian Ivories (London, 1953) (hereafter Natanson, Ivories), 31, fig. 40;
W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spdtantike und des friihen Mittelalters (Mainz, 1976) (hereafter
Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten), 93, no. 140.
24 H.
Gerstinger, Die Wiener Genesis (Vienna, 1931), 96, fol. 13v; see also fols. 14r (death of Isaac)
and 24V (death of Jacob).
25 This gesture also occurs in the illustrations of the
ninth-century Job manuscripts on Patmos,
MS 171, page 43, and in the Vatican, gr. 749, fol. 21r, as well as in the early tenth-century codex
in Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, gr. 538, fol. 18r. See G. Jacobi, "Le miniature dei codici di Patmo,"
Clara Rhodos, 6-7, pt. 3 (1932-33), fig. 101; K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des 9. und
10. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1935), figs. 531, 342.
9
130 HENRY MAGUIRE
sick and the raising of the dead. In these scenes, sorrow was shown by means
of inactive, restrained gestures, as if in accord with the precept of St. John
Chrysostom that weeping was permissible, but only in moderation. There are
few exceptions to this rule. One is the Raising of
theng Son of the Widow of
Nain, a scene in which Middle Byzantine artists occasionally went so far as
to show the women mouing with their hair unbound and falling over their
shoulders.26This indulgence corresponded to a long literary tradition of the
Widow's lament in Byzantine sermons, from which an example has been cited
above.27 A more important and more general exception to this rule of New
Testament iconography was the Massacre of the Innocents. The abandoned
gestures of the mothers in this scene were repeatedly described in the literature
and also, in a more restricted manner, depicted in works of art. Thus, a sermon
on the Massacre attributed spuriously to St. John Chrysostom declares:
"Under the impact of these and similar [occurrences] the mothers weakened,
and in the intoxication of their suffering they did not heed decorum. They
tore apart their tunics, they shook their locks in the air, they publicly exposed
their breasts which should have been concealed, they lacerated their chests
with stones, they rent their cheeks like executioners."28 This anonymous
author goes on to explain that the mothers abandoned themselves to despair
because they did not have the consoling knowledge of the death and Resurrec-
tion of Christ: "It is probable that the mothers, stung by their suffering,
cried thus, as they did not know what would profit their children. Who is
more blessed than those who are plotted against on account of the Lord Christ ?
Who is more blessed than these children, because they were not slain by them-
selves only, but also as Christ himself was killed?" 29 Philagathus portrayed
the same gestures in a description of a painting of the Massacre, which he
inserted into a sermon on the Holy Innocents. He opens his ekphrasis with
the following statement: "I saw this [scene of] suffering depicted in colors
on a panel, and I was moved to pity and tears."30 Since this opening is a topos,
which was also used by Gregory of Nyssa to introduce an ekphrasis on paintings
of the Sacrifice of Isaac, one may wonder whether Philagathus was describing
a real or an imagined picture.31 His portrayal of the lamenting mothers
certainly owes much to the literary tradition: "The painter depicted the
26 See the miniature
in the eleventh-century Gospels in Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 74, fol. 121r: H. Omont,
Evangiles avec peintures byzantines du XIe sicle (Paris [n.d.]), pi. 107,2.
27 See note 9 supra.
28 'Eirr Kai-rToISrrapa7TrAloiols at l.TipES f$a9EvoUV, Kal TC 1raTS9E1
TroiTOisofiv tEl Jovrai TfjS errrpe-rreiaS
OUK Trp &pi SlipplnTov, T-roi 6qE6iXOpiVOuS
i<pp6rvnov. To*s XiT6ovas StippIyvuov, T-roSrTXoKd&pOus
T
KpOtrrtr-Sai
jacyroUS8ntCTooaiEuov, TT arfS0Sos Ai$oiS K pa apei&S cb Sifitoi Ka-rTgov. In Herodem et infan-
tes, PG, 61, col. 702. For a more toned-down description, see the sermon by the fifth-century writer
Basil of Seleucia, PG, 85, col. 389C.
29 'A7A KO5
,Kv TaS Troroa po@v, phEi6uias Tr6b ovppov TOIScOrr6v
uivTspa(s vrr6rTOV wrraovUS cKvopEvas
veoTToit. Ti 6BPotapirTpovv T-COV Si&cTOVAeo-Tr6mnvXpior6v TlnpovXUvopvcov; TipaKaplicbTppov -rorrcov TCOV
Traiscov, 6Tt oO Si' gaurTv ioCp&lovro i6vov, &(Aa?Kai ebSaorros 6 Xpio-r6s(povIe?TO; Ibid.
30 ElSov T6b 19Sos Xpp.aali yeypappivov kviTivaKi, Kal rrp6S olIrov 9KIV#STlV Kait6Spva.
yco TOUiTO
Homilia XXIV.9, ed. Rossi Taibbi (note 9 supra); PG, 132, col. 924A-B.
31
Gregory's ekphrasis is in De deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti, PG, 46, col. 572C; cf. also Ephraem
See
Syrus, Sermo in Abraham et Isaac, ed. S. I. Mercati, S. Ephraem Syri opera, I (Rome, 1915), 75.
R. Stichel's review of C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453, in BZ, 68 (1975), 129f.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 131
unhappy mothers given to a piteous lament and mixing tears with blood.
And one tore her hair, another scraped her cheeks with her nails, another
tore apart her robe, and baring her chest, showed her breast, deprived of the
feeding baby."32 Of these actions, the only gesture which Byzantine artists
chose to illustrate was the tearing of the hair. A pyx in the Louvre, which
probably dates to the sixth century, depicts one of the mothers with her hair
loosed and her hands clasped to the crown of her head (fig. 7).33 A fresco of
the tenth century in the Old Church at Tokali Kilise depicts the action of
pulling the hair more distinctly, for here one of the women tugs down on
a strand of hair with each hand.34The action is repeated by one of the mothers
in a miniature of the Massacre in the eleventh-century Gospel Book in Paris,
Bibl. Nat., gr. 74, folio 5r (fig. 8).35In none of these portrayals of the scene,
however, do we find the mothers scratching their cheeks or tearing open their
garments, in the manner described by Philagathus.
According to St. John Chrysostom, lamentation was permissible if it was
over one's own sins, and it is in portrayals of penitents that we find the most
violent gestures of grief in Middle Byzantine art. In the ninth-century Gregory
manuscript in Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 510, folio 3r, the painter of the Jonah
story showed the repentant King of Nineveh tearing his robe from his chest,
while behind him a weeping official lifts his mantle to his face (fig. 9).36 We
can find further examples of such gestures in illustrations of the Heavenly
Ladder which depict the visit of the author, John Climacus, to the prison of
the penitent monks. In an eleventh-century manuscript in the Vatican, gr. 394,
the text, "[I saw] others continually beating their breasts and restoring their
life and soul," corresponds to a miniature which shows five monks raising
their clenched fists to strike themselves (fol. 42v).37 The violent grief of sinners
is dramatized further in miniatures of the Penitential Canon. This curious
poem, ascribed to Andrew of Crete, was composed to celebrate the "Holy
Criminals," whose prison is described in the Heavenly Ladder. The finest
surviving copy of the Penitential Canon is a manuscript in the Vatican, gr. 1754,
which dates to the twelfth or early thirteenth century. In this manuscript,
each verse of the canon appears on a separate page, together with a miniature
and a descriptive legend. The pictures and the legends detail the various
trials undergone by the penitent monks. It is a catalogue of self-inflicted pain
and suffering. One of the pictures in the manuscript, folio 6r (fig. 10), shows
32
"EypaOev 6 IcoypqpxOSKai TOS e9Afas iil-ripas olcrKTpvcuvitcTrbocas SpTfVOVKal TOlS alaalt KipvooaaS T&a
6S?Kpva.Kal 1'hLv gTtAXET'as K6pac, i 65 TOTS5vUi TCaS &AXTsitppiT)oE TOV irrrrAov,Kai
-rrapEias TrrEp5pq>Cp6EV
Tr&ao-rpva irapayvupvovca TOV paa-r6ov -rrTE8SiK Korra1epS6vra TOV STaI&LovTros Epr1pov- Loc. cit.
33 G. Bovini and L. B. Ottolenghi,
Catalogo della mostra degli avori (Ravenna, 1956), no. 38,
fig. 59.
34 M. Restle,
Byzantine Wall Painting in Asia Minor (Shannon, 1969), I, llff.; II, fig. 85.
35 Omont, Evangiles, pl. 7,2. The same gesture occurs in a miniature of a
lectionary in the Vatican,
gr. 1156, fol. 280V (photograph in the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University).
36Idem, Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothgque Nationale (Paris, 1929),
13, fig. 20.
37 [cbpOKca] fTipous Tr6ar$oS ola Sravr6sO TrrrrovTas, Kal -rTv &auracv yvx^v Kal Lcov &vaKaAXoupvovu.
PG, 88, col. 765B; J. R. Martin, The Illustration of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus (Princeton,
1954) (hereafter Martin, Heavenly Ladder), 61, fig. 85.
132 HENRY MAGUIRE
the monks tearing at their hair, under a caption which reads in part: "These,
being at a loss for tears, strike themselves."38
The active gestures of grief which I have discussed in this section appeared
rarely in Middle Byzantine art, and only in specific contexts. They did not
occur in scenes such as the Crucifixion and Burial of Christ, the Koimesis,
and the Raising of Lazarus, in which a too emphatic display of grief would
be contrary to the message of hope brought by the Resurrection. In Old
Testament illustration, however, and in scenes of penitence they were per-
missible.
The artistic tradition was more conservative than the literary tradition with
regard to the deployment of gestures of lamentation. Actions which were
acceptable in description may have been offensive when actually depicted.
Thus, we read in Byzantine texts of mourners scratching their cheeks or of
women exposing their breasts even in New Testament contexts, such as the
Raising of the Widow's son. But in Middle Byzantine art we rarely find
extremes of this kind in any context, let alone in the New Testament. If we
go beyond the Middle Byzantine period, however, into the thirteenth century,
we find artists beginning to abandon the restraint practiced by their pre-
decessors. We find in New Testament contexts not only such gestures as the
pulling of hair, but also extremes of the kind which had earlier only featured
in the homilies, such as the scratching of cheeks. In the famous Koimesis
fresco at Sopocani one mourner pulls her hair while another draws her fingers
down each side of her face, as if to scar her cheeks (fig. 11, center).39 In the
fresco of the Threnos in the Peribleptos Church at Ohrid the mourners tear
at their hair, and even the Virgin has allowed hers to fall unbound over her
shoulders.40Literary license, then, finally affected works of art. We shall find
this pattern repeated in the case of other gestures.
Vatopedi 735, fol. 16r, in which the Virgin pulls her hair: G. Millet, Recherches sur I'iconographie de
l'Evangile (Paris, 1916) (hereafter Millet, Recherches),507, fig. 548. Further examples of violent gestures
in thirteenth-century paintings of the Lamentation have been given by A. K. Orlandos, 'H dpXlTrsK-
TOVIK1 Kmlat pvLavrivalT-oiXoypapi{at rrfsMovfjs-roueEok6you HnTriLou (Athens, 1970), 237ff., fig. 94.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 133
on his thigh (fig. 12).41This type of seated author portrait survived in Middle
Byzantine art in the form of depictions of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark,
and John, who were often illustrated with their chins propped on their
hands.42
In its meaning, therefore, of thought and deliberation, this pose survived
from classical into Byzantine art. Often the gesture denoted a meditation on
the past which was painful or a regret for former deeds-a significance found
in antique art. A red-figured vase in the Metropolitan Museum in New York
depicts Tydeus propping his head up on his arm, as an indication not only
of the exhaustion and injury of battle but also of regret for his crime against
his opponent, Melanippus, which cost him his immortality.43 Christian artists
depicted Adam and Eve in the same pose as they lamented their Fall and
Expulsion from Paradise: the ninth-century Gregory manuscript in Paris,
folio 52v, shows Adam seated with his head supported on one hand and his
elbow resting on his thigh (fig. 13).44 Adam also appears in a similar pose on
two Byzantine ivory caskets of the eleventh or twelfth centuries in the Walters
Art Gallery in Baltimore (fig. 14).45
In New Testament illustration, the gesture served to convey the remorse
of St. Peter, when at the third crow of the cock he was reminded of his denial
of Christ. On a fifth-century ivory plaque in the Louvre, Peter sits resting
his head on the palm of his hand as the cock crows from a city wall, in illustra-
tion of the verse from St. Matthew which records that when the Apostle
heard the sound, "He went out and wept bitterly" (26:75).46 In a miniature
of the eleventh-century Gospel Book in Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 74, folio 159r,
the artist showed Peter weeping in the same pose.47
We can find further examples in Byzantine art of the gesture with the
meaning of remorse or repentance in illustrations of the Heavenly Ladder and
of the Penitential Canon. A miniature of the Penitential Canon in the Vatican,
gr. 1754, folio 7v, depicts a group of monks sitting with their heads propped
up on their arms (fig. 15). The legend describes their pensive grief: "These,
sitting deep in thought on the ground and moving their heads without ceasing,
roar from inside their hearts. 48
There are numerous instances in both classical and Byzantine art in which
the pose characterized the brooding sorrow of bereavement. On Attic grave
reliefs, both the mourners and the deceased were shown sitting with their
41 Natanson, Ivories, 26f., fig. 14; Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 59, no. 71.
42 See A. M. Friend, Jr., "The Portraits of the Evangelists in Greek and Latin Manuscripts,"
Art Studies, 5 (1927), 115ff., esp. 134ff.
43Neumann, Gesten (note 13 supra), 151 f., fig. 77.
44 Omont, Miniatures, 16,
fig. 24.
45 A. Goldschmidt and K.
Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinshulpturen (hereafter Gold-
schmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen), I (Berlin, 1930), no. 82b, pl. 52, no. 90, pi. 55.
46 Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 86, no. 121.
47 Omont, Evangiles (note 26 supra), pl. 137.
48 0i5TO
OC'VVOVSTrr' 856(OUVS KaSCI#pEVOI KaO T&aS aCUTrV 8InVEKOS KEqaXcS KIVOUVTES,
EK pIEOn KapSiaS
PpPXovlv. Martin, Heavenly Ladder, 134, fig. 256. See also Vat. gr. 394, fols. 42v, 43r: ibid., 60f.,
fig. 85f.
134 HENRY MAGUIRE
heads resting on their hands.49 We also find the pose in mythological scenes,
such as the carving of two figures in mourning beside the tomb of Meleager
on the end of a sarcophagus in Ostia (fig. 16).50 In Early Christian and
Byzantine art we can find direct counterparts to the many classical portrayals
of women weeping beside a tomb. On an early fifth-century ivory plaque
in the British Museum, the two Maries sit beside the sepulcher of Christ in
positions similar to those of the mourners of Meleager, the woman on the
right resting her chin on her hand (fig. 17).51Here, the two mourners illustrate
Matt. 27:61, which relates that, after the entombment, "Mary Magdalene and
the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulcher." The tomb itself,
however, with its doors standing open and its guards sleeping, refers to the
first verses of Matt. 28, which describe the opening of the tomb by an angel.
A ninth-century miniature in the Chludov Psalter in Moscow, Historical
Museum, add. gr. 129, folio 44r, shows us the two Maries again sitting beside
the tomb and touching their cheeks with their fingers.52The vigil of the Maries
beside the sepulcher was also illustrated in a miniature of a tenth-century
lectionary in Leningrad, Public Library, MS 21, folio 8v (fig. 18).53 Finally, a
thirteenth-century illumination in a Gospel Book in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,
gr. qu. 66, folio 96r, shows one of the two women in the conventional pose of
sorrow as she grieves beside an open sarcophagus containing the body of Christ
(fig. 19).54
A graphic description of a mosaic of the Holy Women weeping beside the
sepulcher graces the ekphrasis on the church of the Holy Apostles in Constan-
tinople, which was written by Mesarites between 1198 and 1203. The orator
reports that the Maries are "... shown seated over against the tomb... .over-
come as they are by the disaster and robbed of all their intelligence by the
catastrophe, and gazing in complete absorption only at the tomb itself, unable
to be drawn from it."55 This description accords well with the brooding, still
posture of grief which we have found in the Early Christian ivory and in
Byzantine paintings of the scene. One may compare the description particularly
with the miniature in the Leningrad Lectionary, in which both women sit
gazing at the monument in front of them. However, Mesarites also says that
the women give more active expression to their grief, and that they ".. .scar
their cheeks with scratches."56 There is no evidence of this violent gesture
49 Neumann, Gesten, 130, fig. 67; C. W. Clairmont, Gravestone and Epigram (Mainz, 1970), no. 51,
pl. 24.
50 S. Reinach, Rdpertoirede reliefs grecs et romains, III (Paris, 1912), 97, no. 1.
51 Natanson, Ivories, 26, fig. 13; Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 82, no. 116.
52
Photograph in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. See also cod. Pantocrator. 61, fol. 112r: Millet,
Recherches,462f., fig. 484.
53 Ibid., 462f., fig. 485.
54Ibid., 465, fig. 487.
55 ... aX
KCT'vavl TOj- KaT& 8ilaIeTpov I 7TVT&cOV Ka$SflEval KaCraqaivoVraT.... vevlKrlvalt 'rij acOopv
Kca 6,ov rT6vvoOv 6rrr TOo rr&.9oV s aeovuAirlvatl Kal rrpIs arrv p6v6vovTr6vTr5pov 6AooXEpc0SdrrropTrrouvai
TEKal dvaOrr6u ItO Qa. Ed. G. Downey, "Nikolaos Mesarites: Description of the Church of the Holy
Apostles at Constantinople," TAPS, N.S. 47,6 (1957), XXVIII, 3 and 6. I am indebted to Professor
Downey for permission to quote from his translation. On the dating of the mosaics described by
Mesarites, see Maguire, "Truth and Convention" (note 2 supra), 122ff.
56
...Tc& Trrapeloasrals &xUvXaTi.... Kcaragaivovum.Ed. Downey, XXVIII, 5.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 135
57 TOV
86i EUcbvupov TroSa KaltrrrTov Ets TO yowvv, Kai TIrV Aaiav XETpoaiET' &yKovo S pdfScov' ETaTr6
Aonr6v -TfS XEIp6S evaTriVcOV, Kai TwC -7rrAarETTarJTS, &9vCiaS -rXfipT, KaSvrroKxivcovivp1pja TTiV Ke(paXv,
Kai Tas I8iaS ov-rco TUixas rmroK7aalo6ivoSKcal voaXepaivcoov TO-TS&SXolS. Narratio de statuis, PG, 139, col.
1048B.
58 .. .TnrVKEQaX^vCirravrcov UrrO xs-v 'rtiS avr6v T&S av-ro-i -njras 68ppEocSav
papuSuvias 6Ka[Louvaavo
L. Sternbach, "Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte," CiJh, 5 (1902), Beiblatt, col. 75, line 29f.
59 -i ao' ET7rAaaEv
c65 KaTTjq)T
Aaia-rrroS, XaNKC-r'
TyKradpjl' 686Ujvv;
Anthologia Palatina, XVI, no. 103.
60 M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (New York,
1961), 36; K. Weitzmann, Greek
Mythology in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 1951), 161; C. Mango, "Antique Statuary and the Byzantine
Beholder," DOP, 17 (1963), 73.
136 HENRY MAGUIRE
as he could.. .,"61 but in the ivory his right arm is bent. In addition, in the
ivory Hercules is beardless, whereas the original in all probability portrayed
him with a beard.62It is more likely that the carver copied his hero through
the intermediary of a small-scale model. We know that reproductions of
classical sculptures survived in manuscripts of the Middle Byzantine period,63
while the influence of manuscript painting on tenth-century ivory carvings
is well attested, both in the case of Christian and of pagan scenes.64
The attitude of the Hercules of Lysippus expresses a suffering endurance
of virtuous labors, but sometimes in Byzantine art it can show a lassitude
and depression that is vicious. In a miniature of an eleventh-century manuscript
of the Heavenly Ladder in Princeton, Garrett 16, folio 87r, a monk sitting with
his cheek resting on his left hand nd with his left elbow supported on his
thigh illustrates a text on torpor or depression (&nr8i6a).65Another miniature
in the same manuscript (fol. 112r) depicts three monks in a similar attitude
in order to illustrate a chapter discussing the tendency of monks to sleep
during prayer and psalm singing (fig. 21).66In the background of their cave
we can dimly see the lectern which they have slothfully abandoned.
The gesture of sitting with the head resting on one hand also appears in
biblical contexts which combine sleep and sorrow. In the Agony in the Garden
we can trace its occurrence from the fourth century to the twelfth. The
sculptor of a fourth-century sarcophagus from Servanne portrayed Christ in
the garden flanked by two standing apostles, and two sitting apostles resting
their cheeks on their hands with their elbows on their knees.67The sculpture
aptly illustrates the verse in St. Luke (22:45) which records that after Christ
had prayed he found the disciples "sleeping for sorrow." The pose reappears
in an early sixth-century mosaic at Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna.68
Here, all the apostles have e their eyes open, but several Middle Byzantine
versions of the scene make a distinction between St. Peter, who is awake
and to whom Christ addresses His rebuke (Matt. 26:40; Mark 14:37), and the
other apostles, who are asleep with their eyes shut. An example is the miniature
in an eleventh-century lectionary in the Dionysiu monastery on Mount Athos,
MS 587, folio 66r (fig. 22),69 where St. Peter sits listening to Christ's words
61 Xv 8elv PG, 139, col.
&*aa
... T ivv 6p?QtV KiEvcOv Kal?T1V a\v
capanTEp XETipa, Eis 6aov 69nv....
1048A.
62 Bieber, op. cit., 35f.
63 For
example, a miniature in an eleventh-century manuscript of Cosmas Indicopleustes in
Florence, Bibl. Laur., Plut. IX. 28, fol. 272r, illustrates a Hellenistic sculpture group of a horse
devoured by a lion; D. V. Ainalov, The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art (New Brunswick, N.J.,
1961), 25f., figs. 9, 10.
64 Weitzmann, Greek
Mythology, 12f., 154, figs. 2, 167; and idem, The Joshua Roll (Princeton,
1948), 35.
65 Martin,
Heavenly Ladder, 31, fig. 43.
66
Ibid., 34, fig. 49.
J. Wilpert, I sarcofagi cristiani antichi, I (Rome, 1929), pl. 15.
67
68 F.W. Deichmann,Fruhchristliche Bauten undMosaiken von Ravenna (Baden-Baden, 1958), fig. 184.
69 K.
Weitzmann, "The Narrative and Liturgical Gospel Illustrations," New Testament Manuscript
Studies, ed. M. M. Parvis and A. P. Wikgren (Chicago, 1950), 159f., fig. 17; reprinted in Studies in
Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination, ed. H. L. Kessler (Chicago, 1971), 255, fig. 242.
For other examples, see G. and M. Soteriou, EIK6VES TijS Movijssiv& (Athens, 1956), I, pl. 67; and
0. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London, 1949), fig. 69B (Monreale).
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 137
with his chin propped on one hand and his elbow resting on his thigh, while
the other apostles sleep behind him.
The gesture also occurs in an Old Testament scene which is thematically
related to Christ's Agony in the New Testament. On folio 359r of the twelfth-
century Octateuch in the Seraglio Library there is an illustration of Moses
setting up the bronze serpent, which in some respects seems to echo Byzantine
scenes of the Agony in the Garden (fig. 23)0 he right, Moses raises the
serpent as a standard, so that it forms the straight transverse bar of a cross;
at the lower left a group of Israelites suffer from the snake bites which they
have received. One, at the far left, sits resting his chin on his hand, while
others recline, propping themselves up on their elbows and supporting their
heads on their hands. We can find parallels for these figures among the apostles
in portrayals of the Agony. The Israelite sitting at the left in the Octateuch
resembles the apostle at the left of the group depicted in the
inDionysiu Lec-
tionary (fig. 22), and an apostle lying in the foreground of the New Testament
miniature echoes the reclining Israelites in the Old Testament scene.
These visual parallels may have been intentional, for the bronze serpent
which Moses set up to cure the Israelites' snake wounds was, of course, a type
of the cross, as is stated in John 3:14: "This son of Man must be lifted up as
the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, so that everyone who
has faith in him may in him possess eternal life." A twelfth-century poem
on the Brazen Serpent by Theodorus Prodromus visualizes the appearance
of the standard as a cross in the same manner as the illuminator of the Octa-
teuch: "The bronze serpent was stretched crosswise on the erect wood, opposed
to evil living serpents."71 It is, therefore, not unlikely that the formal parallels
between the dying Israelites and the apostles who slept before the Crucifixion
were intended to be a visual reminder of the typological link between the two
scenes.
The pose of the Lysippan Hercules often served to convey the suffering
of Job. The earliest recorded example occurred in a fresco adorning a catacomb
chamber near the tomb of the Scipiones in Rome. A restoration drawing by
J. Wilpert was published in 1886, showing the prophet sitting on a mound,
the fingers of his right hand touching his forehead.72 Of the many Middle
Byzantine examples, the most striking is a full-page miniature in the tenth-
century Leo Bible in the Vatican, Regin. gr. 1, folio 461v (fig. 24), which
shows an emaciated Job sitting on the dung heap with his right leg bent,
his right elbow resting on his raised knee, and his chin resting on his right
hand. An uncial inscription in the border explains the significance of his
attitude: "The painter has shown to us Job naked, covered with boils, his
flesh wasting away; for he had no pity for his many groans, but he created
the man's sufferings even in the picture."73
Another context in which we find the gesture of sitting with the head
supported on one hand is in the depiction of captives, whom both classical
and Byzantine artists portrayed in the same attitude of sorrow. There is a
striking parallel between Judaea capta on coins of Vespasian and Titus
(fig. 25)74 and the Hebrews weeping under a tree by the Waters of Babylon
in Byzantine psalters of the monastic recension (Ps. 137:1). The classical
formula was reproduced in the miniatures of the ninth-century Chludov
Psalter, folio 135r (fig. 26),75 and of the eleventh-century Bristol Psalter in
the British Museum, add. 40731, folio 223r.76
In the course of this inquiry, we have found that the same pose could
signify sleep, meditation, and sorrow. In the examples which I have discussed
the meaning has been clear from the contexts, but in one important scene its
significance is not immediately obvious. In many Byzantine portrayals of the
Nativity, Joseph sits resting his head on his hand; we do not begin to find
him in this pose until the fifth or sixth century, but in subsequent centuries
it became the general rule.77 In the Nativity miniature of the Menologium of
Basil II in the Vatican, gr. 1613, page 271, which probably dates to the early
eleventh century, the figure of Joseph forms a mirror image of the Lysippan
Hercules on the Xanten ivory (figs. 27, 20).78Modern scholars usually interpret
Joseph's gesture as either simple meditation or an expression of sorrow.79
Byzantine observers, however, consistently saw suffering in Joseph's pose.
This can be demonstrated in the case of a Nativity fresco at Kokar Kilise
in Southern Cappadocia, in which the old man sits holding his left hand up
to his face. An inscription describes him as "Joseph grieving."80The eleventh-
century writer John Mauropous, in an ekphrasis on a painting of the Nativity,
seems to have found the attitude of Joseph at variance with the expected
73 -YMNON TON I(L)BEAPKAE EKTETHKOTA:
EAEIEN HMINO rPADEY2 EAKOYETIAE3)N
OIKTONFAP EIXENOYAAM!UETTOAYETONOY
ANAPO0 nONOYE A' YOHNE KAN TAIE EIKOZI
Collezione Paleografica Vaticana, I (Milan, 1905), 13f., fig. 17. Job was painted in the same pose in the
manuscripts of Patmos, Monastery of St. John, MS 171 (page 42) and of the Vatican, gr. 749 (fol. 20v);
Weitzmann, Die byzantinische Buchmalerei (note 25 supra), 50f., 77f., figs. 333, 529. A related image
is the "Poor Man" of Psalm 102, as depicted in Pantocrator. 61, fol. 141v, and in the eleventh-century
"Bristol Psalter" in the British Museum, add. 40731 (fol. 165v): S. Dufrenne, L'Illustration des psau-
tiers grecs du Moyen Age, I (Paris, 1966), 33, 63, figs. 21, 57.
74 M.
Grant, Roman History from Coins (Cambridge, 1958), 50, pl. 15,2.
75
Photograph in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection.
76 Dufrenne, op. cit., 65,
fig. 59.
77Among the earlier examples are the ivory in Werden Abbey Church (H. Schnitzler, Rheinische
Schatzkammer[Disseldorf, 1959]) pl. 162f.), the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary in the Vatican (K. Weitz-
mann, "Loca Sancta and the Representational Arts of Palestine," DOP, 28 [1974], fig. 6), and phial
no. 2 at Monza (ibid., fig. 5).
78 II Menologio di Basilio
II, Codices e Vaticanis selecti, VIII (Turin, 1907), 73f., fig. 271. On
the date, see I. Sevcenko, "On Pantoleon the Painter," JOBG, 21 (1972), 241ff.
79For brief discussions of the problem, see Wessel, "Gesten" (note 4 supra), 780; G. Schiller,
Iconography of Christian Art, trans. J. Seligman, I (Greenwich, 1971), 62.
80
('Ico)a^p XvTr(o0)pevos. N. and M. Thierry, Nouvelles eglises rupestres de Cappadoce (Paris, 1963),
119, fig. 27.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 139
gladness of the Birth of Christ. He speaks first of the joy evoked by the scene,
but then turns to "... this old man with downcast eyes, for some other hidden
emotion stings him. But having slept a little he will have a release from this,
and he will gladly join us all in applauding."81 Further confirmation of the
meaning of Joseph resting his head on his hand is provided by one portrayal
of the Nativity in which he does not make this gesture, the mosaic at Hosios
Lukas (fig. 28),82 where he sits holding his left wrist in his right hand. As
I shall demonstrate below, in Byzantine art this pose was a sign of grief.
There is ample evidence, then, that in Middle Byzantine art Joseph's
attitude at the Nativity should be seen as one of sorrow. The causes of his
suffering lay both in the past and in the future. The pose referred back to the
first and most obvious reason for Joseph's unhappiness, his initial perplexity
concerning the miraculous conception of Christ. His painful deliberations on
this subject were explicitly stated in the liturgy.83 But Joseph's pose at the
Nativity also refers forward to the forthcoming death of Christ:84Joseph sits
at the crib of Jesus in the same attitude in which the Maries will sit at his tomb
(figs. 27, 19). Several Byzantine texts specifically connect the Nativity with
the death of Christ. In an ecclesiastical history which is sometimes attributed
to Germanus, the eighth-century patriarch of Constantinople, we read: "The
altar is, and is called, the crib and tomb of the Lord."85Again, in the Byzantine
drama Christos paschon, the Virgin links the birth and death of Christ when
she laments over her son's body: "You lie wound in these robes, who were
formerly swathed in swaddling-clothes."86These texts appear to be illustrated
in the early thirteenth-century miniature of the Maries sitting by the Sepulcher
in the Gospel Book in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, gr. qu. 66, for here the corpse
lies exposed to view in an open sarcophagus (fig. 19) and the body is tightly
bound like that of the infant in Byzantine Nativity scenes. The rectangular
stone sarcophagus, with its arched decorations on the front, even echoes the
form of Christ's crib in such Nativity scenes as the late eleventh- or early
81 (&5^ TO6vETOV
Kanriql) TrpEoaprrlv'
6&KVEtyap arr6ov 6A7o -T Kpurrr6v Trr&os.
?1El86 ToroTOUp1Kp6VUTwrvcbacSMOIatV,
-E waotv iikvq6cos.
KCIoaVyKpoT'lE1i
Ed. J. Bollig and P. De Lagarde, Iohannis Euchaitorum Metropolitae quae in Cod. Vat. gr. 676 super-
sunt (Gottingen, 1882), no. 2, line 30ff.
82 E. Diez and 0.
Demus, Byzantine Mosaics in Greece (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), 53, fig. 3.
83 An
example is the Akathistos hymn, in PG, 92, col. 1340A; P. Testini, "Alle origini dell'icono-
grafia di Giuseppe di Nazareth," RACr, 48 (1972), 332. Further citations from the liturgy can be
found in K. Onasch, Das Weihnachtsfest im orthodoxenKirchenjahr, Liturgie und
Ikonographie (Berlin,
1958), 197f., 226, 238. The eleventh-century cycle of ivory carvings on the Salerno Antependium
devotes a separate scene to Joseph's doubts before his reassurance by the angel
(Matt. 1:18-20).
He sits in front of Mary, gazing at her with his head propped up on his right hand: A. Goldschmidt,
Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der romanischen Zeit, IV (Berlin, 1926), no. 126, 26,
84 See R. Stichel, Studien zum Verhdltnis von Text und
pl. 45.
Bild spdt- und nachbyzantinischer Vergdng-
lichkeitsdarstellungen (Vienna, 1971), 65ff.
85 eu-viacrplt6v oTriKcd
XyeTrali(pa6rvrl Kai6 T-r&OS
ToOKupiou.Historia ecclesiastica et mystica con-
templatio, PG, 98, col. 389.
86 KETCal TOTS
yap Cq&apaoLcO 6' ExArypvos,
?voi-rapy&vois rrpiv veo-rrapyavcoivos.
Christus patiens, 1464-65, PG, 38, col. 253. See also the text by Symeon
Metaphrastes, infra, note 221.
140 HENRY MAGUIRE
forms of the gesture according to the precise position of the hand against
the face; some of these variants had distinct shades of meaning, but others
cannot be distinguished from each other in their significance since Byzantine
artists seem to have used them interchangeably in the same contexts. The
more important variations on the basic gesture of raising the hand to the
head can be seen in the famous ouDormition
tenth-century ivory of the of the
Virgin in the Staatsbibliothek of Munich (fig. 32).90On this ivory two of the
apostles grasp their chins between the thumbs and fingers of their right hands,
while a mourner in the right background
ofr rests his chinn the back his hand.
Another apostle, on the right, presses his robe against his cheek with one
hand, while in the far background on the left a woman raises her mantle
with both hands to cover the lower part of her face. We may also observe
that three of the mourners in the ivory make more exaggerated gestures of
grief. On the right an apostle clasps his hands over one side of his face, while
on the left another shields his eyes, at the same time turning his head away
from the main action of the scene, thus giving still greater emphasis to his
sorrow. Finally, we may note that one mourner at the far right has clapped
his hand over his mouth, as if to stifle his cries. I shall reserve my discussion
of this especially emphatic gesture until the end of this section.
These different forms of the gesture of raising the hand to the head were
described, and their significance explained, in classical and Byzantine literature.
For example, an Early Christian writer, Cyprian, refers to a youth as " . . .anx-
ious and rather sad, with a certain indignation, holding his chin in his
hand... ."91 Both antique and medieval authors described weepers lifting their
garments to their faces in order to catch their tears. So in Homer, Telemachus
wept for the absent Odysseus: "He shed tears onto the ground from his eye-
lids, when he heard tell of his father, holding up his purple mantle with both
hands against his eyes."92 And in the Byzantine romance of Digenes Akrites,
a girl abandoned by her lover "...wiped with her linen the rains from her
eyes."93 Classical and Byzantine writers also described the emphatic gesture
of shielding the face or eyes with the hands; again in Homer, the nurse
Eurycleia, when reminded of her old master Odysseus, "...covered her face
with her hands and shed warm tears, speaking words of lamentation."94
Likewise, in the twelfth century the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena reports
90 Ibid., II
(1934), no. 1. J. L. Schrader, "An Ivory Koimesis Plaque of the Macedonian Renais-
sance," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Bulletin, N.S. vol. 3, no. 6 (1972), 71ff., esp. 80ff., discusses
some of the gestures on this ivory.
91 ... iuvenis anxius et cum quadam indignatione subtristis maxillam manu tenens.... Epistulae,
XI, 4.
92
8sKpVu ' aTTrpAEpapcov
CViXairaiS pAS T-raTposd&KocaaS,
XXAavav
aTrop(pvp&riv caVT'6qp9ai.oTlv devaaXcbv
apJ(poT-rEpcrvX6Epi.
Odyssey, IV, 114ff.
93 ..
.TaS T?EPpoxaS T-OV 6pSaAp5v a&paaoarij 636v1). Ed. J. Mavrogordato (Oxford, 1956), line 2215.
94 ...
yprlOs 6E KarT(X)ETOXEpai -Trpo-co7ra,
sn&apua 6' EKpaXE 6Epla', Trros8' 6Aoqpv5v6v gEVrrEV
Odyssey, XIX, 361-62.
142 HENRY MAGUIRE
that, at the death of her father, "I turned my head...stooping and silent
I clasped my hands to my eyes, moved back, and wept."95
In classical and Early Christian art we find that some of the variant forms
of the gesture of resting the head on the hand could indicate thought or
concentration without the connotation of sorrow. The artist of a wall painting
at Pompeii depicted Penelope's hesitant deliberation before she believed the
return of her husband by portraying her standing, holding her chin, as she
gazed at Odysseus.96 On a third-century sarcophagus in the Palazzo San-
severino in Rome, a woman stands touching her cheek, absorbed in the words
of a reading philosopher (fig. 30).97 The carver of a fifth-century ivory in the
British Museum depicted Thekla in the same pose, intent on the reading of
St. Paul (fig. 31).98 In Middle Byzantine art, however, we seldom find that
standing figures who touch their cheeks or their chins occur in contexts of
pensiveness alone; there is usually an overtone of sorrow.
In both classical and Byzantine art the gesture of raising the hand to the
head occurred with the greatest frequency in scenes of mourning for the dead.
Restrained poses of this type are often found in Greek funerary sculptures
of the fourth century. The famous Weepers Sarcophagus from Sidon presents
a gallery of standing female mourners, each in a subtly varied posture of
pensive sorrow; one rests her chin on her hand, another lays her cheek on
her palm, while another, more emphatically, presses her mantle against her
eyes (fig. 33).99 These poses also appear in funerary contexts in Roman art:
the artist of a silver vase from Berthouville decorated with scenes from the
Iliad depicts a group of Trojans mourning as Hector's body is weighed for
ransom (fig. 34). To the right of the scales stands Priam, his right fingers
touching his cheek. Two of his companions prop their chins on their hands,
while another Trojan covers the left side of his face.100
These attitudes of mourning were as frequent in the illustration of the Bible
as of pagan mythology. Christian artists were more willing to accept into
New Testament imagery these essentially passive gestures rather than more
violent acts of lamentation, such as the tearing of hair and clothes or the
beating of the head and chest. The gesture of resting the head on the hand is
found in the most sacred contexts, such as the Crucifixion, and is made by
persons of the greatest sanctity, even by angels. Only Christ himself did not
bend to this expression of human grief. This was the case even in depictions
of the Raising
as os Lazarus, thee one occasion on which the Bible says outright
of
that Christ himself wept (John 11:35-36). This scene is important for our
understanding of the depiction of emotion in Early Christian and Byzantine
95 EyCyE [piETa]{lpvacsarToVKEa^cV aroS Kai &CrUKOSov iV rpos yTjv dToveOC(aaa Kai mL8iv Seyyovivri
KOi T 6 TOiS 56VFaiv&rtpaXouca Kal 6rricaS6rrovSyEvovri i3pfipvovv. Alexiad, XV.11,19.
XETpE
96S. Reinach, Rdpertoire de peintures grecques et romaines (Paris, 1922), 175, no. 2.
97 A. Grabar, The Beginnings of Christian Art (London, 1967), fig. 128.
98 Natanson, Ivories, 27, fig. 16; Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 83, no. 117. The gesture of placing
the hand on the cheek could also be associated with singing: see A. Hermann, "Mit der Hand
Singen. Ein Beitrag zur Erklarung der Trierer Elfenbeintafel," JbAChr, 1 (1958), 105ff.
"9 O. Hamdy Bey and T. Reinach, Une ndcropoleroyale d Sidon (Paris, 1892), 255ff., figs. 4-11.
100E. Babelon, Le trdsor d'argenterie de Berthouville (Paris, 1916), 83, fig. 6.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 143
art, since the expression of feeling in the Raising of Lazarus was the subject
of considerable commentary by the writers of homilies. St. John Chrysostom,
in two sermons devoted to the subject, placed his emphasis on moderation.
As we have seen, he commended Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus,
for their self-control in their bereavement. He adds that Christ was indeed
moved to weep in order that he might exhibit his human nature. But his
grief was restrained: "Having rebuked his emotion...he checked his agita-
tion, and so asks: 'Where have you laid him?'"101 Philagathus, in a mid-
twelfth-century sermon, amplified John Chrysostom's remarks on the restraint
displayed by Christ in his sorrow: "As his sacred flesh is troubled and inclines
toward grief, he does not allow it to become overwhelmed by the emotion
of his grief, but he censures it by the strength of the Holy Spirit, and in a
manner reproves it."102 Another twelfth-century author, Mesarites, in his
description of the mosaic in the church of the Holy Apostles, tells us that
Mary and Martha displayed their sorrow, but on their faces, not through the
violence of their gestures: "...on bent knees they are bowed over the feet
of Jesus, washing them with the tears of their grief for their brother... .The
more vehement of the sisters holds her head high, and by the expression of
her face alone, one might say, seeks to beseech the Lord, presenting her
request to the Savior chiefly by means of her eyes and by the expression of
suffering and grief on her whole face."103Although he saw suffering in the
expressions of the sisters, Mesarites agreed with Philagathus and St. John
Chrysostom that Christ himself checked his grief: "But the Savior is depicted
with a moderately gloomy expression on his face, but his whole bearing is
very kingly and censorious."'04
These written statements correspond with the iconography of the Raising
of Lazarus in art. First, as I have noted, in Early Christian and in Middle
Byzantine art Christ was never shown making a gesture of grief in this scene,
but it was usual to depict him raising his arm in a pose of command as he
ordered Lazarus to leave the tomb. Secondly, although the Gospel also refers
to the weeping of Mary (John 11:33), Byzantine artists were more mindful
of the self-discipline of the two sisters. Usually the women make no gestures
of suffering, but on those rare occasions when Mary shows her grief her action
is restrained. Thus, on a fifth-century ivory pyx in the Hessisches Landes-
museum, Mary holds her left hand against her chin,105and in the fresco of
101
ETra TrlnTcrjaaS T,C wtSEt.. . TrroXETv'V 0OyXvicv, Kal OrcoTS EpcorT, nTo TrESeiKaTE
aCOrv; In Joan-
nem homilia LXIII, PG, 59, col. 350; Millet, Recherches, 244f.
102 T jS&yiaS aUTroUaapK6s, OiK &q)irjotvT-r TrSXirrTr
Tapaoaaopovi;S S8 oiv Kal veuoicrrs wrp6SXu-nrrnv
Tr&CE1yevcrS3al KaTaqopov, Xa. T TOV ayiou nvE1JiparoS SUVapEtl
dA irrTH - Ta'Trr1, Kalt iTrlTrrrXTTelTp6-rrov T-tvc-
Homilia XXV, PG, 132, col. 532A.
103.. .yOVVKXiTOUcC TOTS rTO 'tIc0roi TrpocErmKVAivSoOvTai wrooi, wT^ivouCalT T'roTOVS K TTrS iepi Tr6v
d6&SEp6v avruarraSias TroS 8&Kpucnv.... ij 8e SEppoT?pa T&V &(St6EApovKai UOo0 (ppE?T"r'V KEqpaA)v Kal au"ro-
rpoaTcorrcoS cb v -riS TO eKUpOAEl
KTSErrol -rv v -rrapaKaAeXTv,Trr;keirrTv ooTi K K
'TOU 6q)S9aXphc K&KTrod rrepi
Trrav TO TCr ocTrfipl rrpocryovaoa T-rV
Trp6orov Kai
TeplTraSopKaUS O6uvvipou rrapacpvXrlov. Ed. Downey (note
55 supra), XXVI, 2-3.
104 6 S8
CATOTIPT6OPv TOV wpoocrTrOU e6Ios ?rrITO pETpicoSo-rvyvov, TO 56 cIiprav dv&CTtr)Jra TrirTO paoli-
AlKCbTEp6vT? Kali bTriT-riiiKcrbTepOVX^1aXTI&raTaIv Ibid., XXVI, 4.
105
Schiller, Iconography (note 79 supra), I, 183, fig. 563.
144 HENRY MAGUIRE
1106 at Asinou on Cyprus she supports her cheek (fig. 35).106In both cases her
pose conveys inner sorrow, and can be distinguished from the gesture of the
man opening the tomb in the fresco: as in many other Byzantine portrayals
of the scene, he holds his sleeve up against his nostrils on account of the
corpse's stench (John 11:39). In addition, Middle Byzantine artists expressed
the grief of the sisters through their facial expressions, just as Mesarites
would have us believe. In the painting at Asinou short streaks run down their
cheeks, a convention which, as we shall see below, portrays their tears. But,
on the other hand, Christ's features betray little sign of emotion, as Mesarites
also observed at the Holy Apostles.107
The reserved quality of the gesture of raising one or both hands to the
head made it especially suitable for the depiction of grief in the Crucifixion,
and from the sixth century onward it was an essential element in the icono-
graphy of this scene. The earliest portrayal of the Crucifixion in which the
pose occurs is the miniature in the Rabbula Gospels, written in Syria in 586
(fig. 36).108 The painting is thus somewhat later than the early sixth-century
kontakion, Mary at the Cross, by the Syrian poet Romanos, which contains
one of the earliest descriptions of the Virgin's lament in Greek literature.109
The artist has shown the Virgin, on the left of the three crosses, raising her
draped hands toward her face, in order to dry her tears. Her gesture is com-
pleted by the foremost of the Holy Women standing on the right. St. John
is shown resting his chin on his fingers, in an attitude of pensive sorrow.
In the Crucifixion scenes which have survived from the years immediately
after the end of Iconoclasm we find fewer bystanders in attitudes of mourning,
but in later centuries there was a tendency for the number of subsidiary
weepers to increase, so that by the end of the twelfth century the Crucifixion
was often accompanied by a chorus of repeated gestures reiterating the theme
of solemn sorrow. Thus, in the ninth-century miniatures of the Chludov and
Pantocrator Psalters, the Virgin and St. John stand beneath the cross in
isolated grief,"0 while in the Paris Gregory three women stand to the left of
the cross, but only the Virgin lifts her mantle toward her face (fig. 37).11
By contrast, in an eleventh-century lectionary in the Vatican, gr. 1156,
folio 194v, the painter added two women in the background who weep into
their garments, while the Virgin and St. John rest their cheeks on their
palms (fig. 38).112 Likewise, in eleventh-century mosaics and wall paintings
106D. C. Winfield and E. J. W. Hawkins, "The Church of Our Lady at Asinou, Cyprus," DOP,
21 (1967), 260ff., fig. 2. Mary also makes a gesture of mourning in the eleventh-century fresco at
S. Angelo in Formis (O. Demus and M. Hirmer, Romanesque Mural Painting [London, 1970], 294f.,
pl. 26) and in a twelfth-century icon at Sinai (Soteriou, EIK6vES [note 69 supra], II, 90f., I, pl. 76).
107The sisters' grief is most strikingly conveyed through facial distortion in the fresco at Kurbi-
novo: L. Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo (Brussels, 1975), fig. 181.
108C. Cecchelli, G. Furlani, and M. Salmi, The Rabbula Gospels (Lausanne, 1959), 9f., fol. 13a.
109Alexiou, The Ritual Lament (note 11 supra), 62f.
110J. R. Martin, "The Dead Christ on the Cross in Byzantine Art," Late Classical and Mediaeval
Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (Princeton, 1955), pl. xxIII, 4 (Pantocrator. 61, fol. 98r).
111 Omont, Miniatures (note 36 supra), 13, fig. 21 (Paris. gr. 510, fol. 30V).
112Millet, Recherches, 402ff., fig. 426.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 145
we find the Holy Women echoing the sorrow of the principal mourners.l3
Sometimes the meanings of the gestures were specified in an inscription, as
in the cave church of Elmall Kilise at Goreme, where we are told that the
mother is lamenting and the Disciple weeping.14 Even the angels may come
to show human feelings and, like the mortals, dry their tears. Though lamenting
angels may appear as early as the eleventh century, they more frequently
attend later Crucifixion scenes, such as the fresco of ca. 1200 in the Hermitage
of St. Neophytos near Paphos (fig. 39).115
Thus, Byzantine artists from the tenth to the twelfth centuries introduced
a widening refrain of mourning gestures to the Crucifixion scene. This develop-
ment was noted by contemporaries who wrote on works of art. Constantine
the Rhodian, describing the mosaic of the Holy Apostles in the tenth century,
observes only the sorrow of St. John and the lamenting of the Virgin.16 But
the twelfth-century Greek poet Eugenius of Palermo, in a description of a
Crucifixion scene, draws attention to the sorrow displayed by the Virgin and
her attendant as well as by angels: "The pair of Virgins here stand with
downcast eyes, bearing with pain the Passion, and the rank of angels laments
with them.""' Although the title of the poem does not specifically state it,
the composition was in all probability inspired by a work of art, since the
author declares at the beginning of the poem that he sees the Crucifixion
before him.
By the eleventh century, Byzantine artists had also added a chorus of
attendant weepers to depictions of the Entombment in order to bring extra
pathos to the burial of Christ. Professor Weitzmann has traced the introduc-
tion of subsidiary mourners into the iconography of this scene. In the surviving
ninth-century versions of the Entombment, such as the miniature in the Paris
113See the
mid-eleventh-century mosaic of the Nea Moni on Chios, and the fresco at Karabau
Kilise in Cappadocia, which was painted before 1061: G. Matthiae, I mosaici della Nea Moni a Chios
(Rome, 1964), pls. 21, 23; Restle, Wall Painting (note 34 supra), I, 47ff., III, fig. 463.
114Restle, ibid., II, fig. 183; G. de Jerphanion, Les dglises rupestres de Cappadoce, 1,2 (Paris,
1932), 445f. The date has been placed around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by
several recent writers, including Restle, op. cit., I, 57ff.; but de Jerphanion's old dating to the middle
of the eleventh century still has many arguments in its favor: op. cit., 11,2 (1942), 421f. See also
N. Thierry, "Les peintures de Cappadoce de la fin de l'Iconoclasme a l'invasion turque (843-1082),"
Revue de Universit de Bruxelles, N.S. 19,1-2 (1966-67), 137ff., esp. 160ff.; and the new evidence
presented by A. W. Epstein, "Rock-Cut Chapels in the Goreme Valley, Cappadocia: the Yllanh
Group and the Column Churches," CahArch, 24 (1975), 115ff.
115C. Mango and E. J. W. Hawkins, "The Hermitage of St. Neophytos and its Wall Paintings,"
DOP, 20 (1966), 119ff., fig. 32. Weeping angels also attend the Crucifixion on two icons of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries at Mount Sinai (Soteriou, EIK6VES [note 69 supra], I, pls. 40, 77) and in a lost fresco
of 1199 in the north transept of Nereditsa (V. Lazarev, Old Russian Murals and Mosaics [London,
1966], fig. 103).
116Ed. E. Legrand, "Description des ceuvres d'art et de l'6glise des Saints ApBtres de Constan-
tinople: po6me en vers iambiques par Constantin le Rhodien," REG, 9 (1896), 32ff., line 941 ff. The
date of the mosaic is uncertain; it is possible that it dated from the restoration of the building by
Basil I. See C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 192, 199f.
117 K&V
fi Svvcopls -rrapSvcov -rCV VS&5se
arrMKxomTlrt, Svucpopoiaa-cTCRrd39E1,
KaOCaVoTEV&1nT<&5IS ^ TO-Vd&yyk^cv.
Ed. M. Gigante, Eugenii Panormitani versus iambici (Palermo, 1964), no. 13. John Mauropous also
described the grief of the angels in a painting of the Crucifixion: ed. Bollig and De Lagarde (note 81
supra), no. 7, line 8ff.
10
146 HENRY MAGUIRE
Gregory, folio 30v (fig. 37), the burial of Christ by Joseph and Nicodemus
takes place without onlookers.118But in the eleventh-century miniature of
the Theodore Psalter of 1066 in the British Museum, add. 19352, folio 116r,
the Virgin and two women, all in poses of weeping, follow behind the men
carrying the body (fig. 40).119One is struck by the exaggeration of the women's
actions when they are compared with contemporary Crucifixion scenes. The
Virgin covers the left half of her face with her upraised mantle, the woman
behind her buries her face in her hands, and the third woman clasps her right
hand over her mouth. The gestures of the women standing by the cross in
the lectionary in the Vatican, gr. 1156, appear reserved by contrast (fig. 38).
Already in the ninth century, George of Nicomedia foreshadowed this distinc-
tion between the Virgin's restraint at the Crucifixion and Deposition of Christ
and her more vehement Lamentation over the dead body which followed:
"But consider again the Mother, standing by and enduring, and exposed to
everything. For she was associated with the Passion in a decorous and noble
manner.... But when the most holy body had been taken down and had been
laid upon the ground, she fell upon it and bathed it with the warmest tears."'20
Occasionally, Byzantine artists depicted Mary supporting her head on
her hand in paintings of the Presentation, such as a miniature of an eleventh-
century Gospel Book in Vienna, National Library, theol. gr. 154, folio 143r
(fig. 41).121 Her pose in this scene anticipates her suffering at Christ's death.
St. Luke (2:35) records that when Symeon had taken the Child in his arms
he prophesied to Mary: "A sword will pierce your own soul also." Byzantine
writers imagined that Mary referred to this forecast when she delivered her
lament at her son's burial.122Mary's gesture, then, is a sign of grief, even
though the Presentation might in other respects be considered a scene of joy.
The gesture of resting the head on the hand occurred in many other contexts
besides that of mourners weeping for the dead. It could, for example, convey
the idea of Metanoia, or regret for the past. To convey this meaning, artists
often employed two specific variants of the gesture, those of holding the chin
and of touching the cheek with the bare hand. These variants, as we have
seen above, were associated with pensiveness as well as with sorrow in classical
art, and thus were well suited to conveying the brooding quality of remorse
(figs. 30, 31). On certain antique sculptures, Metanoia appears in person as
the companion of Kairos, the personification of Opportunity. A third- or
118
Weitzmann, "Threnos" (note 5 supra), 476ff., figs. 1 (Pantocrator Psalter, fol. 122r), 2 (Chludov
Psalter, fol. 87r), and 4 (Paris Gregory, fol. 30v).
119Two mourning women also accompany the Entombment in the contemporary Paris. gr. 74,
fol. 208v: ibid., fig. 6f.
120 'Air& rKo6e lI,o ,rTiv -T^VMiTrrpawrrplioTraIvlvKCaiSoaKapT-epoaav, KaXIwrp6s&aravTa rpoKE1IpivTlv'
KO
TCtTEy&pwr39Et KxoaCic Ka oCn<vvios
dye W[rPOOacofhI.... 'Emrd6 KOTTCIIVXSn, r6
KtalTrp6S Tj yj TrCav&yov
d(vKXAiSr TrcEp treouCaa, aOrT6Ipv SeplJo-TroiS Kot-rOVE865<puCi.Homilia VIII, PG, 100, cols.
oaoa, TroiTcp
1485D-1488A; the passage has been cited by Millet, Recherches, 398f.
121 H.
Gerstinger, Die Griechische Buchmalerei (Vienna, 1926), 33f., fig. 13d.
122 Cosmas of
Jerusalem, Hymni, VIII, Pro magno sabbato, PG, 98, col. 488C-D; Germanus,
In Dominici corporis sepulturam, PG, 98, col. 272C; Acta Pilati, B.11,5, ed. C. Tischendorf, Evan-
gelia Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1876). See also the kontakion on the Presentation by Romanos: P. Maas
and C. A. Trypanis, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica Genuina (Oxford, 1963), IV, strophe 13.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 147
In both classical and Byzantine times, the gesture of raising the hand to
the face could indicate the grief of separation.l30 This is clearly the meaning
of the pose in one of the Byzantine mosaics in the cathedral of Monreale,
which was built and decorated by William II, King of Sicily, in the late
twelfth century. Here we see the two disciples at table in a room at Emmaus,
immediately after the risen Christ has vanished from their sight (fig. 46).
The inscription above the scene quotes their words, recorded by St. Luke
(24: 32): "Did not our hearts burn within us on account of Jesus ?" This mosaic
is the third of a series of four at Monreale which depict the journey to
Emmaus, the supper at the vilag, the disciples alone after Christ's departure,
and the disciples informing the apostles. The ird scene, showing the disciples
alone, has no parallel in other cycles, and it has been suggested that it was
inserted for compositional reasons in order to fill up the available wall space.131
In the mosaic, one of the two disciples at the table sits holding his cheek
with his left hand. We find an explanation for his sorrowful gesture, and
perhaps for the inclusion of the scene as a whole among the mosaics at
Monreale, in a sermon by Philagathus, who during his career had preached
in the Royal Palace at Palermo. In his homily he describes at length the bitter
feelings which overtook the disciples at Emmaus following the sudden depar-
ture of Christ, whom they had only just recognized: "And having been seen
he again concealed himself, and a new emotion took hold of the disciples,
divided between joy and tears. Whom they sought, they had, and whom
they had they did not recognize, and whom they found they lost. For having
seen him they rejoiced, for having been deprived of him they wept. They were
distressed not to have known him, they repented their rash discussion."'32
The episode, however, in which we most frequently find the expression of
grief at separation is the Ascension. This emotion is probably portrayed in
one of the earliest versions of the scene, the fifth-century wood panel from
the doors of S. Sabina in Rome (fig. 47). In this carving, one of the four
apostles who witness the Ascension sits in an attitude of complete repose,
resting his head on his hand. His stillness contrasts with the more violent
movements of his three companions. Commentators have variously seen this
apostle as blinded by light,133 as engaged in indifferent meditation,l34 or as
feeling dejected.l35 The proponents of the first interpretation have supported
130 A
Pompeiian painting of the parting of Briseis and Achilles provides a classical example of
the gesture used with this meaning: Reinach, Peintures (note 96 supra), 167, no. 2. See also the
Homeric passages quoted supra, notes 92 and 94.
131 Demus, Mosaics of Norman
Sicily (note 69 supra), 163, 289, fig. 73B.
132 Kal 9avelSCais Kal T&rSoS-ro*S paS-rIT&SKKTaermi1Et 8KcpvoCIppL6iVov.
Kaivov, xap$ KacIl
xTpTEKprrreTO,
"Ov yap LfTrovv,EIXov, Kal 8v EIXOV fyv6ovv, Kal 8v ESpov&=rbXaava?xaipov I86vTsE,KxAaiovoaepT?i$rES,
nVIlCOVTOPIhyvcopiaavres, 1ETaiWeoUVTrolip' oTSrTrpOTTETos
s1EtXyovTo. Homilia XXXII, In quintum Matu-
tinum, PG, 132, col. 656B.
133 J.
Wiegand, Das altchristliche Hauptportal an der Kirche der hi. Sabina (Trier, 1900), 66, fig. 14;
S. H. Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi in der bildenden Kunst (Strasbourg, 1935), 85; G. Schiller,
Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III (Giitersloh, 1971), 147, fig. 457.
134 S.
Tsuji, "Les portes de Sainte-Sabine. Particularites de l'iconographie del'Ascension," CahArch,
13 (1962), 13ff., esp. 25ff.
135 H. Schrade, "Zur
Ikonographie der Himmelfahrt Christi," Vortrdge der Bibliothek Warburg,
1928-29 (Leipzig, 1930), 66ff., esp. 134.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 149
their view with the observation that the apostle's eyes are narrowed or closed,
as if against the brightness of the light. But this could also be a sign of sorrow,
as we shall see below. The gesture made by the apostle is not one of shielding
his eyes; his right hand supports his cheek and his elbow touches his knee,
a pose frequently associated with sorrow in classical and Early Christian art.
In addition, there was in the homilies a strong tradition drawing attention
to the grief felt by the witnesses of the Ascension of Christ. John Chrysostom,
for example, says of the apostles: "They grieved ever at the departure of
Christ.... For if having friends and relatives we cannot bear to be separated
from them, how would the disciples not grieve, seeing separated from them
their Savior, their teacher, their guardian, who was humane, gentle, and
good? How would they not feel pain? Therefore the angel stood by assuaging
the pain arising from the Ascension by referring to the return.' 36 The seated
pose of the apostle on the S. Sabina doors does not recur in Ascension icono-
graphy. But on three sixth-century phials at Monza we find standing apostles
who, as they witness the Ascension, raise their right hands to their chins.
On phial number 11 two apostles, one of whom may be identified as St. Andrew
on account of his wild hair, adopt this pose. On phials 14 and 16 we may
distinguish one apostle on the left of the composition in the same attitude
(fig. 48). His back is turned to the central axis so that, like the seated apostle
on the S. Sabina door, he appears to be completely absorbed in his own
brooding.'137
A mid-ninth-century painting in the lower basilica of S. Clemente in Rome
depicts one apostle at the left of the scene making the stronger gesture of
covering the side of his face with both his hands (fig. 49).138 Since he does
not cover his eyes, his pose probably expresses his grief rather than his blind-
ness at the heavenly light. In the famous late ninth-century mosaic of the dome
of St. Sophia in Salonika, one apostle clasps the lower part of his face between
the thumb and fingers of his right hand, while another rests his cheek on his
right palm (fig. 50).139 It is very likely that the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI
saw a figure holding his hand to his face in the Ascension mosaic in the church
founded at the end of the ninth century by the official Stylianus. He describes
the attitudes of the apostles: "One produces the impression of accompanying
with his whole gaze Him who ascends. Another... appears to have opened his
whole hearing and to be straining to draw in the sense of the words that
resound above. And another, from amazement, is completely given to deep
136
AXyovv &dI rr\i-iT dvaX)(opflce TOi XpioroO.... Et y&p piAovs XoTrESKai auyyevETS XcPIL6tPEVOI
TOTCOV
Orv o po?EV,-rrCosofl IaSTal T6v XCoTpa,T6v 6i56KoaXov, r6v 11SE6va, T6v 9iA5v3pcowTrov,
r6v ^PEpov,
r6v dya36v 6pCovrs XcopitL66VOvaTrcov, rrCosOUK&SVAhAyqav; 1TCOS Ala TOiTO gOrlKEV
oCiK&v obSvvAiSTlaoav;
6 &yyeAoSTrv d(rr6TiS &v68ovyivopiv A'rrl v61i TTS -Trrav68ou Trr&IVv
rrapaCUVSo*UEvos. In Ascensionem
Domini nostri Jesu Christi, PG, 50, col. 449. See also the description of the
apostles' grief in the
kontakion by Romanos: ed. Maas and Trypanis, Sancti Romani, XXXII, strophes 4-7.
137 A. Grabar,
Ampoules de Terre Sainte (Paris, 1958), pls. 19-21 (no. 11), 27 (no. 14), 29
(no. 16).
138 E. W. Anthony,
139Ch. Diehl, M. le
Romanesque Frescoes (Princeton, 1951), 66, fig. 47.
Tourneau, and H. Saladin, Les monuments chretiens de Salonique, Monuments
de l'art byzantin, IV (Paris, 1918), 141 ff., fig. 45f.
150 HENRY MAGUIRE
157
According to Pliny, the discovery was made by Polygnotus: Naturalis historia, XXXV, 58.
158 See infra, note 257.
159
Dufrenne, Psautiers (note 73 supra), I, fig. 3; A. Grabar, Byzantine Painting (Geneva, 1953),
plate on p. 120.
160For this gesture in classical art, see Kenner, Weinen und Lachen
11l Babelon, Berthouville (note 13 supra), 49f.
(note 100 supra), 82f., fig. 6. Further examples in D. C. Shorr, "The
Mourning Virgin and St. John," ArtB, 22 (1940), 61ff.
154 HENRY MAGUIRE
crossed in front of her and her arms held out slightly from her body (fig. 58).162
The meaning of the pose was certainly appreciated by Byzantines at this
period, as we may judge from a sixth-century description by Christodorus of a
statue in the Zeuxippus Gymnasium at Constantinople: "Clytius stood at a
loss; he had his two hands twined together, messengers of hidden sorrow."'63
In ninth- and tenth-century versions of the Crucifixion the gesture was
still used to express the sorrow of the bystanders. The artist of the Paris
Gregory, folio 30v, depicted St. John holding his left wrist with his right hand
(fig. 37),164and the Apostle was shown in the same attitude with the positions
of the hands reversed on a tenth-century ivory of the Crucifixion in the
Louvre.'6 In the eleventh-century fresco at S. Angelo in Formis, which was
painted under strong Byzantine influence, the gesture again portrayed the
grief of Mary.16 It survived in the iconography of the Crucifixion until the late
thirteenth century, when we once more find St. John crossing his hands in
the fine mosaic icon of the Crucifixion at Berlin.l67
In the twelfth century we discover the gesture for the first time in a number
of other scenes of mourning, and it is very possible that the pose was transferred
into these new subjects from the iconography of the Crucifixion. The painter
of the church of St. George at Kurbinovo, for example, made use of the
gesture twice, once for St. John in the Deposition, and a second time in the
Koimesis for an apostle whose hunched shoulders intensify the effect of the
pose (fig. 59).168
The gesture also served to convey the grief of captives, both in classical
and in Christian art. On a Roman battle sarcophagus in the Museo Nazionale
in Rome, a male prisoner stands to one side of the composition holding his
left wrist in his right hand, while a woman on the other side stands with her
hands lowered and her fingers intertwined (fig. 60).169On several fourth-century
Christian sarcophagi showing the arrest of St. Peter, of which the best known
is that of Junius Bassus in the Vatican,170we find the captive Apostle standing
between two soldiers with his hands lowered and joined before him. On another
sarcophagus in the Museo Pio Cristiano (formerly Lateran Museum, no. 171)
we find Christ himself making this gesture in a scene which appears to represent
the crowning with thorns (fig. 61). Christ stands with his arms lowered and
his right hand clasping his left wrist; in his left hand he holds a scroll. A
162 Grabar, Ampoules
(note 137 supra), 25f., figs. 16 (no. 10), 18 (no. 11).
163 ElarnKlI KAvrtos XVv&ajXCaVOs'ElXE 6 80oias
XETpaS6volTrA6Kas, KPVTiqsKX1pKcasd5virns.
Anthologia Palataina, II, line 254f.; Kenner, Weinen und Lachen, 50.
164 Omont, Miniatures
(note 36 supra), 13, fig. 21.
165 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, II, no. 99, pl. 38. See also the later ivory
Joseph sits clasping her hands around her right knee in the ivory panel on
the Throne of Maximian which depicts Joseph's brothers presenting his blood-
stained coat to Jacob (fig. 3).178 After the sixth century the seated pose seems
to have been employed very rarely in Byzantine art, but it was not altogether
forgotten; this is demonstrated by the twelfth-century fresco of the Lamenta-
tion in the Miroz monastery at Pskov, in which a woman sits among a crowd
of mourners with her hands joined together around her knee (fig. 63).179
To sum up, the gesture of clasping the hands together, like that of sup-
porting the head, was indicative of inner sorrow. Its reserved character made
it particularly suitable for sacred figures and scenes, so that even Christ himself
appeared in this pose. The gesture had a classical origin, and in the case of
standing figures it survived into Middle Byzantine art as a result of a continual
process of transmission.
6. The Veiling of the Head
One of the stock tales of ancient art history, which was related by several
writers, concerns the ingenuity of the painter Timanthes when he wished to
convey a sorrow so extreme as to be inexpressible. Here is Quintilian's version
of the anecdote: "When, in the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, he had painted a sad
Calchas, and a sadder Ulysses, and had added to Menelaus the greatest grief
that art could convey, having exhausted the emotions, since he could not
find a worthy means of expressing the face of her father, he veiled his
head.... "180 This trick can be seen in surviving versions of the Sacrifice of
Iphigeneia, such as the well-known painting from Pompeii in which Agamem-
non's mantle is drawn over his head and he covers his face with his right hand.181
Timanthes, however, did not invent the device of veiling the features.
Already in Homer we read of Priam mourning Hector, sitting in his palace
"close-wrapped in his mantle."'82 Odysseus, too, hearing a minstrel sing of
his quarrel with Achilles, "...took his great purple cloak with his strong
hands, and drew it over his head, and covered his handsome face; for he was
ashamed before the Phaeacians as he shed tears from beneath his eye-
brows."183The motif of veiling the head was particularly common in Greek
178 On a
sixth-century ivory pyx in the Louvre, one of the mothers of the murdered Innocents
sits in a similar pose (fig. 7); see supra, note 33. See also the painting of the suffering prophet Jeremiah
in the Rabbula Gospels: Cecchelli et al., The Rabbula Gospels (note 108 supra), 59, fol. 8r.
179 Tolstoi and Kondakov,
Russkija drevnosti (note 146 supra), VI, fig. 222. In the Nativity mosaic
at Hosios Lukas the grieving Joseph sits holding his left wrist in his right hand (fig. 28).
180 Nam cum in
Iphigeniae immolatione pinxisset tristem Calchantem, tristiorem Ulixen, addidisset
Menelao, quem summum poterat ars eficere, maerorem, consumptis adfectibus, non reperiens, quo digne
modo patris vultum posset exprimere, velavit eius caput et suo cuique animo dedit aestimandum. Quin-
tilian, Institutio oratoria, 11.13,13. The same story was quoted by Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac
dictorum memorabilium liber, VIII.11,6; and by Pliny, Naturalis historia, XXXV, 73.
181
Reinach, Peintures (note 96 supra), 169, no. 4. Agamemnon's head is also veiled in the relief
on the circular altar at Florence: idem, Reliefs (note 50 supra), III, 31, no. 2.
182 VTCBV XvXaivnlKicauvpi^vos- Iliad, XXIV, 163.
183
cOtl'&p '06UvaaES
ueya 9&pos cwv XEpol o-rT1apfcla
wropqOpEov
K&KKEqCM1isEtpuraE, K6awe8i KOm. 'rrp6acToyra'
aTSeToyap cfairKas rrr'
6qppirol &K6puaEipcov.
Odyssey, VIII, 83ff.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 157
and Roman funerary art. Sculptors of the fourth century often showed the
beginning of the action rather than its accomplishment: the mourners or the
deceased pull tentatively at their mantles, as if they are about to draw them
across their faces, though their features remain uncovered. Thus, on the stele
of Kalliarista from Rhodes, the dead woman sits with her mantle drawn up
over the back of her head. She raises her right hand to her shoulder, and pulls
at the drapery.184Several of the women represented on the Weepers Sarco-
phagus from Sidon also hold their mantles at their shoulders (fig. 33).185
This tentative gesture of veiling survived in Early Christian and Byzantine
art. We find it on the early fifth-century ivory plaque in the British Museum
which shows the two Maries sitting by the tomb. The women have their
mantles drawn over the tops of their heads, and the one on the left clasps
the edge of her garment with her left hand, as if to pull it across her face
(fig. 17). A particularly suggestive Early Christian example is found on a sarco-
phagus from the church of St.-Orens in Auch, now in the Musee des Augustins
at Toulouse.186In the scene of the Sacrifice of Isaac, the
hsculptor has depicted
Sarah, standing behind her son, with the top and back of her head covered
by her robe (fig. 64).187She raises her left hand and holds the cloth by her
neck, as if she were about to hide her face. This may be interpreted as a sign
of Sarah's grief, for a contemporary writer, St. Gregory of Nyssa, imagined
her lament on the impending sacrifice of her son.'88 The use of the veiling
motif here evokes the parallels between this Biblical episode and the myth of
Agamemnon and his daughter Iphigeneia. A Byzantine writer of the sixth cen-
tury, Christodorus of Thebes, still appreciated the significance of the action,
for he describes it twice. He says of a statue of Hecuba: "Your cloak over-
hanging your face indicates your miseries.... 189 And of another statue, of
Creusa, he explains: "She drew her veil over both her cheeks, and covered
her whole body with a long gown, as if she were weeping."90
184 Clairmont, Gravestone and Epigram (note 49 supra), no. 32, pl. 16. See also the
gravestone of
Polyxena in the National Museum at Athens: ibid., no. 50, pi. 23.
185Hamdy Bey and Reinach, Sidon (note 99 supra), 255ff., figs. 4-11. This gesture could take
one of two forms. In the first variant the left hand holds the left edge of the mantle, or the right
hand the right edge, so that the elbow is sharply bent. In the second variant, the arm crosses the body,
so that the left hand holds the right side of the cloth, or vice versa. The first variant was more common
in classical art, and can be seen on the Weepers Sarcophagus (fig. 33), while the second was more
frequent in Byzantine art, e.g., Mary in the Crucifixion mosaic at Hosios Lukas (fig. 65). However,
the second version was known in Antiquity (e.g., on an Attic grave relief, no. 1156 in the Athens
National Museum) and the first also survived into the Middle Ages (fig. 66).
186
Wilpert, Sarcofagi (note 67 supra), text vol. II, 234, plate vol. II, pl. 182,1.
187 The
appearance of Sarah in this scene is rare but not unique; she was included in a painting of
the Sacrifice of Isaac in Chapel 80 at El-Bagawat, and identified there by an inscription: A. Fakhry,
The Necropolis of El-Bagawdt in Kharga Oasis (Cairo, 1951), 72, fig. 63.
188 Oratio de deitate Filii et
Spiritus Sancti, PG, 46, col. 569.
189
&(poS yap irrlKpePS&p9li-TTpoacbTrrc
riarocTa PJ&v8eiK1aiv....
Anthologia palatina, II, line 183f.
190
&9pl yap auTrats
a irapEIat,I
&IpIOTipals KpfE6PVOV ^ EXKioCaaao
Tr&vTa 1Tkpi &K&AuVYE xp6a TirAcp,
TrO85TjVEKEi
old TE PtUpopVTy
Ibid., line 149ff.
158 HENRY MAGUIRE
In Middle Byzantine art the gesture of pulling at the robe in order to veil
the face survived in the iconography of the Crucifixion. On a late tenth-
century ivory at Quedlinburg, the Virgin stands by the cross holding her
maphorion at the right side of her neck with her left hand.l19 In the eleventh-
century mosaic at Hosios Lukas, Mary subtly alludes to her grief by grasping
her mantle in her fingers, just below her neck, as a prelude to covering her
head (fig. 65).192 We find the gesture repeated in the mosaic of St. Mark's
in Venice.193But the most expressive example of the gesture in a Byzantine
Crucifixion scene is undoubtedly a fourteenth-century icon in the Byzantine
Museum at Athens.l94 Here the Virgin, wrapped in a deep blue maphorion,
draws it taut across her face, a quiet signal of her intense sorrow (fig. 66).
The passive gesture of pulling at the mantle in order to cover the head was,
therefore, also inherited by Byzantine artists from antique art. Furthermore,
its classical source and literary associations seem to have been understood
in the
tiMiddle
by the Byzantines Ages, or at least by their scholars. This is
confirmed by the twelfth-century writer Eustathius, commenting on the
passage of the Iliad in which Priam sits wrapped in his mantle, mourning
his son: "The poet, not being able to confer on the old man the appropriate
extremity of grief, covers him, and not only makes him silent, but not even
visible. Hence, they say, the painter Timanthes of Sicyon, painting the sacrifice
of Iphigeneia in Aulis, covered Agamemnon.... 8l95
The gesture also occasionally conveyed the grief of the mothers of the
Innocents. The earliest and most convincing example is to be found on a
fifth-century ivory plaque in Berlin (fig. 71).206Here the mother stands, looking
up with an agonized expression at her child which a soldier is about to dash
to the ground; by holding up her empty hands she stresses her inability to
intervene. In an eleventh-century miniature of a Gospel Book in Paris, gr. 74,
folio 5r, we find that the gesture conveys the lamentation of a mother whose
child has already been murdered, so that now she looks down at the infant
lying dead on her lap (fig. 8).207
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Byzantine artists introduced the
gesture into two other scenes of mourning, the Threnos and the Koimesis.
Presumably they borrowed it from episodes such as the Massacre of the
Innocents and the deathbed scenes of the Old Testament, in which the gesture
already had a longer history. We find that in the mid-eleventh-century Koi-
mesis in the church of St. Sophia at Ohrid an apostle standing on the left of
the Virgin's bed raises his hands above his shoulders.28 The same gesture is
made by an apostle standing behind the Virgin's couch in a miniature of a
Gospel Book in the British Museum, Harley 1810, folio 174r.209 However, it
was less frequent in the Koimesis than in the Threnos, in which, by the twelfth
century, a mourner throwing up her arms often appeared in the background
of the scene, for instance, in the frescoes at Pskov (fig. 63) and at Kurbinovo
(fig. 72).210In each of these paintings this figure contrasts with one of her
more passive companions, at Pskov with a mourner who sits clasping her
hands around her knee, and at Kurbinovo with a seated weeper who dries her
tears. Miniaturists also portrayed these opposing styles of grief among the
mourners in order to heighten the drama of the Threnos.21
Thus, the same gesture could portray an abandon of joy, surprise, or sorrow,
depending on the context. Both the pose itself and its flexibility of meaning
had been inherited by the Byzantines from the traditions of classical art.
8. The Embrace
A significant innovation of Middle Byzantine artists was to expand the
cycle of Christ's Passion with the addition of the Deposition and the Lamenta-
tion. In both these scenes the focus of the composition came to be Mary's
action of clasping her son's body, often so that their faces were pressed together
206 Natanson, Ivories, 26, fig. 12; Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 80, no. 112. See also the late fifth-
into
century ivory book cover in Milan Cathedral, where one of the mothers incorporates the gesture
a dance of grief: Kitzinger, op. cit., 113, fig. 32.
207 The restored mosaic of the Massacre at Monreale also preserves this gesture. Originally there
was an inscription reading Rachel plorat filios suos: Demus, Mosaics of Norman Sicily (note 69 supra),
273f., fig. 66A. See also the miniature in the Karahissar Gospels in Leningrad, Public Library, gr. 105,
fol. 13r: Millet, Recherches, 160f., fig. 114.
208 Hamann-Mac Lean and Hallensleben, Die Monumentalmalerei (note 39 supra), 15ff., fig. 26.
209
Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (note 123 supra), 265, fig. 161.
210 Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo, 155, figs. 74-75.
211
See, for example, the miniatures of the lectionary in the Vatican, gr. 1156, fol. 194V (fig. 38),
and of the gospels in Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, 5, fol. 90v (Millet, Recherches,fig. 531).
1. Rome, Palazzo Sciarra. Sarcophagus, The Death of Meleager
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Istanbul, Archaeological Musu. W ers Sarcopus, detai
33. Istanbul, Archaeological Museum. The Weepers Sarcophagus, detail
34. Paris, Cabinet des M6dailles. Silver Vase, detail, The Death of Patroclus
and The Weighing of Hector's Body
35. Asinou, Church of Our Lady. Fresco, The Raising of Lazarus
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38. Bibl. Vat., gr. 1156, fol. 194v, The Passion and The Anastasis
Ip.a
40. London, British Library, add. 19352, fol. 116r, The Entombment
?10
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42. Cairo. Relief of Kairos
43. Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 139, fol. 136v, David's Penitence
44. Brescia, Museo Civico. Ivory Casket, detail 45. Mt. Athos, Pantocrator, gr. 61, fol. 48r
Peter's Denial
..
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53. Stuttgart, Schlossmuseum. Ivory Casket, detail, The Ascension
-.t."a a
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54. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, theol. gr. 31, fol. 24v, The Death and Burial of Jacob
54. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, theol. gr. 31, fol. 24v, The Death and Burial of Jacob
-INL f<f*
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A' M.I
68. Paris, Bibl. Nat., gr. 1208, fol. 173v, The Annunciation
69. Trebizond, St. Sophia. Fresco, The Feeding of the Five Thousand
i.
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71. Berlin, Staatliche Museen. Ivory, detail, The Massacreof the Innocents
72. Kurbinovo, St. George. Fresco, The Lamentation
74. Ravenna. The Chair of Maximianus, detail, Joseph and Jacob
Reunited at Goshen
.. t
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75. Bib. Vat., gr. 746, fol. 139v, The Death of Jacob
75. Bibl. Vat., gr. 746, fol. 139v, The Death of Jacob
76. Tokall Kilise, Old Church. Fresco
The Deposition
78. Nerezi, St. Pantaleimon. Fresco, The Deposition
78. Nerezi, St. Pantaleimon. Fresco, The Deposition
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212 See
Grabar, Ampoules (note 137 supra), pl. 47 (Bobbio, no. 18); R. Forrer, R6mische und byzan-
tinische Seiden-textilien aus dem Grdber-felde von Achmim-Panopolis (Strasbourg, 1891), pl. 14,5;
A. F. Kendrick, Victoria and Albert Museum. Catalogue of Textiles from Burying-Grounds in
Egypt,
III (London, 1922), 57, no. 777, pl. 18. The embrace of the cousins was also observed by Choricius
in the mosaic of St. Sergius at Gaza: Laudatio Marciani, I, 50.
213 Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo, 103ff.,
fig. 42. At Kurbinovo an embrace also conveys the
fear of the Maries at the empty tomb: ibid, fig. 78.
214
Natanson, Ivories, 31, fig. 42.
215 Goldschmidt and
Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, I, no. 6A, pl. 2 (rosette casket at La Cava,
Badia della S. Trinita), and no. 95, pl. 56 (casket in Berlin).
216
Gerstinger, Die Wiener Genesis (note 24 supra), 116, pl. 20, fig. 108. See also Hesseling, L'Octa-
teuque grec de Smyrne (note 149 supra), fig. 147, fol. 62v; Ouspensky, L'Octateuquede la bibliothgque
du Sirail (note 70 supra), figs. 86-87, fol. 153v.
11
162 HENRY MAGUIRE
217Martin, "The Dead Christ on the Cross" (note 110 supra), 189ff., esp. 194. The earliest extant
portrayal of the dead Christ on the cross now seems to be the eighth-century icon at Sinai, which
can be connected with the arguments of Anastasios Sinaites against the Monophysites: H. Belting
and C. Belting-Ihm, "Das Kreuzbild im 'Hodegos' des Anastasios Sinaites," Tortulae. Studien zu
altchristlichen und byzantitnischenMonumenten, ed. W. N. Schumacher (Rome, 1966), 30ff.
218 See especially Antirrheticus III adversus Constantinum Copronymum, PG, 100, cols. 425C,
428A, 432B-C.
219'18ovT^Ti S tAoy&ySovu otKovopias.... 'Arrvovsy&p vuv acofarriKsW,6 irrtns
vov -rrpas &rreiAoqpKv
rvofis Xopry6S dvanAivi. "Airvouv KoiKX)caKal eptrrnnaacrovaiacoia TroUTljS lcois TrV 6Acov STinovpyoYO
fv TrrepKporTovTOSTTVO V.... 'AKiVLTa vov TOOTo& dvlrpurTa
TOVT-r1V lyKaT 6TporpCavrlpva KCoraTCpIo
Aorl,
T-rfs9paecos 4licOlvOV Tponricrra.... "Apcovov vGv or6pa xal XeArjl TnauvX(ELovra mptlrprfraopc1a , TOO Tn5o'xav
AoylKiKv 8qiptovpyiaaviros q*aiv .... MOVTOra 6pSa^oS Kaiao &tLoptiai, TOU T?^v 6T,IKviv 6vipyrlav nti-
vooaavTros' Oratio VIII, PG, 100, col. 1488A-B; Millet, Recherches, 490. Here olKovogia (dispensation)
is used with reference to the Incarnation. See A. Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, II (Leip-
zig, 1908), 47 note 1; Theodoret, Dialogus II, PG, 83, col. 129C, rn\v1vav3pc6wnaiv v 86 TOr9Seo A6you
Ka?oOiev oIKovoiLav.
220 "A-rvovv vGvKCTXCO,Ov cbSOiKEiOVV1yKaWil6ntvipV
-rrpcbTlv (piTarov' Loc. cit.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 163
221
M6vos NiK6o8Ios ... .aT ts yK&XalS -Wrrco86vcoS
'VTrSEiKe, a! Co?KaCTrpcb&v6vTa 3p(p9os XapPoCaOvcos
p3&vu
iaoav.... Kal wi6aCAaa0E&dpl Tr&ppEqIK& SiaKovlaraa OTcrYpyava, KCalirpl T-r vKpiKa aOU TvupPloioal.
XXmapois1Aouva&JTrv l
0e v6&llacnv,KcalSepo'0Tpois pTi KaTraVTXACo VEKOO-
aE -'iros Kpuoviv.'lOX)ValSI1rTpilKaOis
Ka Karr vrl7iouS &dU6pV.ov. 'AvoaKouvpi[co o
qpt[ov, dAAad OaK1pTCovrTaKc Kal vUv -rTao a-TaTS, d&A' a&vouv, Kal
Kcrr&VEKpOIS 'Evipa-Trr6v pov T6-rE
d&vaKcEiHEvov. i
TOr XEiAtI)roTS iXpols aOo Kal SpooCbSEoiOOUXEiEoi.....
Iol OAAxoKis
BpEpoTrnpeTrrcs ?v 'roTS Kal vOVVeKpo'TpeCrrCos
o-rPpvoisd&TrVvcooas, VTroUTOtS Oratio in
KEKOiCnrOal.
lugubrem lamentationem sanctissimae Deiparae pretiosum corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi amplexantis,
PG, 114, col. 216B-C; Millet, Recherches, 490.
222 See supra, notes 52 and 118.
223 Weitzmann, "Threnos"
(note 5 supra), 479f., fig. 4.
224Millet, Recherches, 474,
fig. 497.
225 OOrTCO T& 86 &rroAvo61iva I ril TrEptrnTU'COILEvrl
TOS lV &VEAKOiiUVOVSfAOVSJK671TrOIS 0IWES?XETO, KoTEq)i-
AE' Kal ayKCAaiS iTrlTIErISCa,p16vrTfi dnTr6TOUoravpoU KaTaptCaE1 SiaKOvetv 1TrpOESUIEITO.Oratio VIII, PG,
100, col. 1488A; Millet, Recherches, 467.
226 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann,
Elfenbeinskulpturen, II, no. 40, pl. 17. A very similar composition
was found in the New Church at Tokah Kilise, which can be dated between ca. 920 and 969: Jer-
phanion, Les dglises rupestres (note 114 supra), I, pt. 2, p. 348, pl. 85,3. On the date, see R. Cormack,
"Byzantine Cappadocia: The Archaic Group of Wall-Paintings," JBAA, 30 (1967), 24.
227 K. Weitzmann, "The
Constantinopolitan Lectionary Morgan 639," Studies in Art and Literature
for Belle da Costa Greene, ed. D. Miner (Princeton, 1954), 358ff., fig. 318.
11*
164 HENRY MAGUIRE
securely dated example is the fresco of 1164 at Nerezi (fig. 78).228In this
painting Mary helps support Christ's body with her right arm, and putting
her left arm around his neck, draws his face to her own.
The embrace was to become an even more prominent element in the
iconography of the Entombment and Lamentation, where, too, the motif was
probably introduced by the tenth century. This can be deduced from a Western
ivory book cover, now in the Louvre, which was produced by the Metz school
around the year 1000.229The ivory incorporates a strip of three scenes, the
Deposition, the Entombment, and the Women at the Tomb, which, as Weitz-
mann has shown, derive from a Middle Byzantine model.230In the Entomb-
ment, Joseph and Nicodemus carry Christ feet first into the Sepulcher while
Mary follows, holding Christ's body in such a way that their heads are drawn
close together (fig. 79). This last motif echoes the entombment of Rachel in
the Vienna Genesis (fig. 5). The embrace of mother and son receives more
emphasis in the Lamentation scenes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
such as the famous wall painting of 1164 at Nerezi and the somewhat later
version at Kurbinovo, in which the Virgin kneels or crouches nearest the
tomb, clasping Christ's head and shoulders in her arms and pressing her cheek
against his (figs. 72, 80). St. John holds and sometimes kisses Christ's left
hand, while Joseph and Nicodemus move to the subordinate role of carrying
the feet.231 At Nerezi, as in some other portrayals of the scene, the body
appears stretched out horizontally with a cloth suspended underneath it, as
if both body and cloth were resting on an invisible couch (fig. 80).232 Weitz-
mann has shown that this arrangement, as well as certain other features of
the scene, suggest that the Koimesis could have served as a model.233 It is
also possible that the odd suspension of Christ's body, and in particular the
Virgin's position in relation to Christ as she leans down to kiss him, could
have been derived from the miniatures of Joseph embracing his father Jacob
on his deathbed in the Vienna Genesis and the Octateuchs (figs. 54, 75),
a source suggested by Velmans.234It is not unlikely that the Old Testament
illustration, which has a textual basis in the Bible, had some influence on
the creation of the Lamentation.
We have seen that the post-iconoclastic writers linked the embraces of
mother and Child at birth and death as common indicators of Christ's human-
ity. From the tenth century onward, Byzantine Nativity scenes began with
increasing frequency to show Mary turning toward her infant to hold him as
228 Hamann-Mac Lean and Hallensleben, Die Monumentalmalerei (note 39 supra), 17f., fig. 38.
See also the frescoes in the crypt of Aquileia Cathedral (L. Magnani, Gli affreschi della Basilica di
Aquileia [Turin, 1960], pl. 3) and at MileSevo (Hamann-Mac Lean and Hallensleben, op. cit., 22f.,
fig. 85).
229 A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der Karolingischen und Sdchsischen Kaiser,
I (Berlin, 1914), no. 80, pl. 33.
230 Weitzmann, "Threnos"
(note 5 supra), 482f., fig. 9. On the development of the Entombment
and the Threnos, see also M. Soteriou, in AAET.XPior.'Apx.'ET., Ser. 4,7 (1973-74), 139-48.
231
Weitzmann, "Threnos," 483 ff., fig. 10ff.
232 Hamann-Mac Lean and Hallensleben, Die Monumentalmalerei, 17f., fig. 39.
233 "Threnos," 484f.
234
Velmans, "Les valeurs affectives" (note 5 supra), 49.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 165
he lay in his crib. In the well-known mosaic at Hosios Lukas, for example,
the Virgin places her left hand on the Child's shoulder and her other hand under
his head, while she nods gently toward her baby (fig. 28).235 This gesture was
very rare in pre-iconoclastic illustrations of the Birth of Christ, and, like the
embrace which Mary gives her son at his death, it is to be read as evidence
of Christ's mortal nature. Millet interpreted Mary's gesture as part of her
preparations to receive the Magi. He saw her as lifting the Child out of the
manger so that she could hold him on her lap for the adoration of the three
kings, who are sseen approaching on the left.236 However, it can be shown
that for the Byzantine observer Mary's action also had a deeper significance.
In the twelfth-century mosaic in the Martorana at Palermo, Mary is shown
clasping her Child, as at Hosios Lukas, but the approaching Magi are nowhere
to be seen. Instead, on the facing side of the same barrel vault, there is a
mosaic of the Koimesis (fig. 81).237 Two texts help to explain this pairing of
scenes and, at the same time, the meaning of the Virgin's gesture. In a sermon
on the Assumption, Leo VI declares of Mary: "Because you held God when
he was invested with flesh, you are held in the hands of God when you are
divested of flesh."238 And a poet of the tenth century, John Kyriotes, writes:
"Formerly, Virgin, you embraced me in your arms; I sucked the mother's
milk from your breast. Now I myself, having embraced your spirit, send your
body to the place of delight."239 Thus, in the Nativity the holding of the
Christ Child is a reference to his incarnation. To stress this point, the artist
at the Martorana made the very confrontation which had been proposed by
Leo VI and John Kyriotes. In the mosaic Mary holds her Child as he lies
in his crib, just as Christ carries his mother's soul, which is tightly bound
like a baby. The two events are attended by juxtaposed pairs of angels. Thus,
the image makes a play of mortal body and immortal soul, a visual pun.
The same confrontation of gestures at the Nativity and at the Koimesis was
made by Middle Byzantine wall painters and ivory carvers.240In a similar
manner, Byzantine artists linked together images of Christ's Nativity and his
Passion. In the late twelfth-century paintings of the church of the Hagioi
235 See also the tenth-century ivory in Quedlinburg: Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbein-
skulpturen, II, no. 25, pi. 8.
236 Recherches, 146ff.
237 Demus, Mosaics of Norman
Sicily (note 69 supra), 80f., figs. 55, 56.
238 OT1 paiu
icuaas Se6v dcpKxa fjI4EaLVOV , paao-r&Li SEoG -raX&aiaiswtap1iaoaaptvl -rv a&pKa. Oratio
XIV, In BeataeMariae assumptionem,PG, 107, col. 164A.
239
EaTs AiyKafiCou rrpiv (IEXEpoi, napSivE,
STAfijS6Uafjs &uouu-a 11tTpiK6V y&Aa.
T6 -rrveiL&aovu vvairr6shfyKal?avos,
T6 a&pa Trrio 1Tp6s Tp1JppfVs r6 Xwcpiov.
PG, 106, col. 907.
240 For
example, in Sakh Kilise at G6reme the Nativity fresco, with Mary holding her child, was
placed next to the Koimesis (respectively at the west end of the south wall, and the south end of the
west wall); Restle, Wall Painting (note 34 supra), II, figs. 26, 27. See also the evident juxtaposition
of the Koimesis and the Hodegetria on two Byzantine ivory triptychs, now incorporated into an
eleventh-century portable altar in the treasury of the Liebfrauenkirche at Trier. The Hodegetria is
even flanked by flying angels similar to those which on the Koimesis plaque wait to receive the soul:
Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, II, 58f., no. 116, pl. 43.
166 HENRY MAGUIRE
9. Facial Expression
The preceding pages have stressed the importance of bodily gestures for
the portrayal of emotion in both classical and Byzantine art. In this last
section I shall consider the extent to which Byzantine artists were able to
convey feeling by means of facial expression. In the introduction to his
Imagines, the classical critic Philostratus the Younger explained how the
painter should be able to read the features of the face, so as "...to discern
the signs of people's dispositions, even when they are silent, and what is
revealed in the condition of the cheeks, in the expression of the eyes, in the
disposition of the eyebrows, and, in short, whatever concerns the mind."
Thus the painter should be able to characterize a man who is "...mad, or
angry, or thoughtful, or glad, or impetuous, or in love, and, in a word, will
paint for each the appropriate characteristics."241 This passage reflects the
achievements of Hellenistic artists, who were able to convey a full range of
emotions through facial expression, from the agony of Laocon to the laughter
of small children. The classical ekphraseis abounded with references to the
depiction of emotion on the face, and they were no less frequent in Byzantine
descriptions of works of art. Medieval writers continued to use the classical
topoi, particularly that which described the mingling of contrary feelings on
one countenance.242 In the Byzantine ekphraseis we find described the full
range of emotions that we associate with Hellenistic art. In the sixth century
Choricius, in his ekphrasis on the mosaics in the church of St. Sergius at
240a S. Pelekanidis,
Kaarropia,I, Bvlavsrval
rotXoypa.9iat (Salonika, 1953), pls. 15b, 17b; on the date
of the paintings, see Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo, 563ff. The juxtapositions made by Symeon
Metaphrastes (see supra, note 221) suggest that those icons of the Eleousa in which the Virgin tenderly
holds her child and touches her cheek against his may have expressed an ambivalence between joy
at the birth of her son and sadness foreshadowing her last embraces after his death. In either case,
the sentiment in the image would strengthen the Virgin's role as intercessor on behalf of humanity:
see A. Grabar, "L'Hodigitria et 1'El6ousa," Zbornik za likovne umetnosti, 10 (1974), 3ff., esp. 10.
Ts
241 T?
..X. p yapT6V 6pS3&s rrpoorarEacrovra TXXvilSSp<aiv dvSpcowrrEav,ei StlEaKd9SalKal fKav6v
ElvaXyvcotaTCrecai W
AtS3v gr*ppoAaKalalcorrcbv-rcovKal?Xpv Ti iv irapsEtovKaru t&u6t,-ri8i V 6v5pSa1ckv KpccaE1,
Ti Si gv
6q6ptcov f$EO KEtTat Kal lveA16vTn
eltrrTv, 6rr6aa yvcb&rv Teivat. 66 tKavcos Xcov Suvapfaeit
ToCrrcov
f1Tr&-ra KaCI
^ dpiara *troKpivETTal Tr6 oIKEToV
A XElP &KtaOV 1pi6rv6Ta
Sp&pa^a, ^
ElTr1IXo A 6pytiL6pievov gvvouv
^ &
Xaipovra 6p|trTv gp$v-ra Kal Ka$<5rra
7T6 &pp68tov ip' 5rrcp yp5c6t. Imagines, prooemium, 3.
242 For a discussion of this topos, see Maguire, "Truth and Convention" (note 2 supra), 132ff.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 167
Gaza, tells us of the sorrow of the centurion whose servant has fallen ill:
"But who is this man with a sad countenance? What suffering brings him in
supplication ?"243While in the mosaic of the Miracle at the Marriage of Cana,
Choricius finds the expression of good humor: "It seems that the wine has
a very fine bouquet. The man who has just drunk proves his pleasure by the
redness of his face."244Twelfth-century art critics also visualized the expres-
sion of a wide variety of feelings by means of facial features. Mesarites, in a
passage quoted above, vividly depicted Mary's look of suffering in the mosaic
of the Raising of Lazarus in the Holy Apostles.245 Elsewhere he described
the frightened appearance of the Maries when confronted by the angel at the
opened tomb: ".. .a great pallor descended on the aspect of their faces, the
redness of their blood having run away to the heart...."246 Another twelfth-
century writer, John Phocas, was able to see joy in the features of the Virgin
in a mosaic of the Nativity at Bethlehem. He observed that the mother was
"...looking toward the Babe, and displaying her inner discretion in her
smiling form, and in the color in her cheeks."247
These statements in the ekphraseis may cause us to wonder how far they
reflected the true abilities of Byzantine artists to portray differing emotions
on the face. David Winfield has studied this problem, showing that in Middle
Byzantine wall paintings artists were able to produce only two generalized
effects, one of tranquility and the other of emotional disturbance.248Here
I shall try to demonstrate, first, that Winfield's observations hold true for
other media besides wall painting, and second, that Middle Byzantine artists
owed much of their limited skill in depicting facial expressions to the lingering
traditions of classical art. The topoi which survived in literature were, to a
lesser extent, accompanied by the continuation of appropriate formulae in art.
An examination of the famous portrayals of suffering in Hellenistic sculpture
clearly shows the classical origins of many of the devices later used, in a less
subtle and more schematic fashion, by Byzantine painters. Taking a famous
example, we may distinguish some of these techniques on the head of Alcyoneus
from the Pergamene altar (fig. 82). The curves of the eyebrows are distorted
and drawn up into an inverted V, and the forehead is deeply lined.249 In
addition, the victim opens his mouth, as if imploring for release from his
243 'AXXi& Ti
ri 6 Kcu$porr6s oOTroi; 6 rErrovScbS IKErTEEii;Laudatio Marciani, I, 61.
244 ?OlKE6S Afav &vSoafJaS
OrrIpXE1tv 6 y&p
dpT-ri iri&bv y)eyXtiT^v f6ovi1vTrc Trfs 69yecos lpuvSpanr
Ibid., I, 58. See also Procopius, De aedificiis, I, 10, 17-19, where we read of a smiling Roman Senate
in a mosaic of Justinian's triumph over the Vandals and the Goths.
245 See
supra, note 103.
246 .
.c&Xpi Te arroMafi-mpi Tiv tCOVWrrpoabTrcvaTrEK&SitEv MtnTpcdvEiaV ,
T2rS alIarripas 6pv3p6TrTiroS
1rrEp2
-TrvBiproerraSovaav &wrropaorvois KapSiav.. Ed. Downey (note 55 supra), XXVIII, 16.
^
247 ... Kal rrp6s Pp os 6pGoaa, Kal Tt'v r
vr6s por1\,vr(vIv TrC TOr oaCTlaO S Kol T1VTO-r
Tsi16i6iSIXCirn,
-rrapElGv
EUXpof^(Pqafvovua. Descriptio terrae sanctae, PG, 133, col. 957D. This is one of the few obser-
vations in his ekphrasis that John Phocas did not copy verbatim from Choricius, Laudatio Marciani,
I, 51ff.; Maguire, op. cit., 116. Mesarites had a very different perception of the Nativity mosaic in the
Holy Apostles, for he said that the Virgin's face showed pain: ed. Downey, XXIII, 1. See Kitzinger,
"Hellenistic Heritage" (note 3 supra), 104.
248 "Middle and Later
Byzantine Wall Painting Methods," DOP, 22 (1968), 61ff., esp. 128.
249Bieber,
Sculpture (note 60 supra), 113ff., fig. 462.
168 HENRY MAGUIRE
captor. The same features are found on the Laocoon sculpture in the Vatican.25
Ancient writers often referred to these facial characteristics as indicators of
emotion, particularly of suffering. For example, the second-century novelist
Achilles Tatius, in an ekphrasis on a painting by the artist Euanthes, gives
the following description of the bound Prometheus: "Yet other features show
his suffering. His eyebrows are bent, his lips are contracted, he shows his
teeth. You have pity as if the painting itself were in pain."251
Roman frescoes provide us with further illustrations of these classical
techniques for conveying facial expressions. In Pompeiian paintings the most
frequent indicator of sorrow is the contraction of the brows. Two striking
examples are the paintings of Iphigeneia carried to her sacrifice from the
Casa del Poeta Tragico, and of Dirce trampled under the bull from the Casa
dei Vettii.252 Occasionally in Roman painting we find mourners with their
eyes entirely closed from weeping. In a fresco from the Casa del Sacerdos
Amandus at Pompeii tthe third tr of three Hesperides shuts her eyes, holding
her garment over her face and turning her head away from Hercules as he
leaves with his prize.253But figures with their eyes closed from grief were
rare in classical art, just as they were in the Byzantine period.
The Campanian painters could also portray laughing figures, such as the
young Pan in the fresco of Hercules finding Telephos from the Basilica at
Herculaneum (fig. 83).254 Here the opened lips, the upturned sides of the
mouth, the rounded cheeks, and the half-closed eyes all contribute to the
effect of gaiety. This was an aspect of classical art which did not continue
into the Byzantine tradition.
The classical techniques for the depiction of sorrow, however, survived in
Early Christian and Early Byzantine art. Our best examples from this period
are in small-scale works of art, in miniatures and ivories. In spite of the
physical limitations imposed by these media, Early Christian artists managed
to convey a surprising degree of emotional intensity through facial expression.
This is demonstrated by the two early fifth-century ivory plaques from a
diptych, now in Paris and Berlin. In the panel of the Massacre of the Innocents
the mother's eyebrows contract and their mouths open wide in lamentation
(fig. 71). A similar expression characterizes the lunatic in the panel showing
the Miracle of the Gadarene Swine.255
Manuscript painters also exploited these classical devices for showing sorrow.
Some of the most striking illustrations occur in the sixth-century miniatures
of the Vienna Genesis. In the deathbed scenes the faces of the mourners
assume a mask-like appearance, with chalky complexions contrasting with
250
Ibid., 134f., fig. 531.
251
T6 61 67o acXflia BeKvucnr6v rTr6vov. T&S 6<ppiS, auvorarTari r6 XETAoS,
KEKfp-rTCOra pafvE TOSro
686vraS. 'H&aacrts&vcbsdAyoviaavAnvypacpIv.Leucippe and Clitophon, III, 8.
252 P. Herrmann, Denkmaler der Malerei des Altertums, I (Munich, 1904), pls. 15, 43.
253 A. Maiuri, Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia, sezione terza, Pompei, fasc. II
256
Cecchelli et al., The Rabbula Gospels (note 108 supra), folios 13r, 13v, 4V. Early Christian
mosaicists, no less than miniaturists, could vividly portray suffering, particularly through the contrac-
tion of the brows. See, for example, L. Budde, Antike Mosaiken in Kilikien. I, Friihchristliche Mosaiken
in Misis-Mopsuhestia (Recklinghausen, 1969), figs. 155, 157 (Samson pulls down the temple on the
Philistines); K. Weitzmann, "The Classical in Byzantine Art as a Mode of Individual Expression,"
Byzantine Art an European Art (Athens, 1966), 172, fig. 132; repr. in idem, Studies, ed. Kessler (note 69
supra), 172, fig. 153 (medallion bust of John the Baptist at Sinai).
257
Among the few examples are an illustration of penitent monks in the manuscript of the Heavenly
Ladder in the Vatican, gr. 394, fol. 42V(Martin, Heavenly Ladder, 61, fig. 85), and the fresco of the Last
Judgment in the Panagia Mavriotissa at Castoria (N. K. Moutsopoulos, The Monastery of the Virgin
Mary Mavriotissa at Castoria [Athens, 1967], pl. 48).
170 HENRY MAGUIRE
streaks descending from the corners of her eyes and disfiguringher cheeks,
a device which we have observed in the Vienna Genesis.25
In the course of the twelfth century these techniques of facial expression
tended to be exaggeratedfurtherby Byzantine artists, though they were not
essentially changed. A similar elaboration affected drapery patterns at this
time. The results of this developmentcan be seen, for example, in the early
thirteenth-centuryminiature of the Maries by the tomb in the Gospels in
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,gr. qu. 66, folio 96r (fig. 19). Instead of the narrow
lines on the cheeks which expressedweeping in the miniature of the Menolo-
gium, here there are deep triangular stains under the eyes of the two women.
Looking at this miniature, we are ready to believe that Mesaritesdid not
overstate the expressiveness of the mosaic in the Holy Apostles when he
described the Maries watching the grave of Christ: "...the tears gush from
their eyes like springs, and... their faces are downcast and dejected and gloomy
and full of grief."259Another manuscript in which we find faces intensely
dramatized is the Penitential Canon in the Vatican. On folio 6r, for example,
the monks are describedin the caption as feeling despair, an emotion which
they express not only in their gestures but also in their tightly compressed
brows and deeply furrowed foreheads (fig. 10).26 One of the monks, standing
on the right, appears to have closed his eyes completely, an expression of
weeping which MiddleByzantine artists employed sparingly.261
But if this manuscript illustrates how effectively Byzantine artists could
portray faces striken with grief, it also shows up their inability to convey
good cheer. For although most of the PenitentialCanoncalls for illustrations
which express suffering, the last four verses of the poem speak of gladness as
the monks reach the end of their trials. According to the verse written at the
top of folio 17r, the Virgin Mary, appearingin Heaven, instructs the monks
to "...throw your dejection far aside, and all take up joy and gladness"
(fig. 86).262The caption at the bottom of the poem describesthe supposed
reaction of the monks: "These, cheerfullygazing at the Motherof God, joy-
258 I
Menologio di Basilio II (note 78 supra), 73f., 77, figs. 271, 281. Sorrow was also expressed
through thin streaks descending from the eyes in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics at Nea Moni:
Matthiae, I mosaici delta Nea Moni (note 113 supra), pls. 21 (a woman at the Crucifixion), 12 (a sister
of Lazarus).
259 ... Kpouv686V TId 8&Kpva TCOV6Sa3cXiov KaT)(fovaiv... a.trEnTcoK6Kra TonhTali T& Trrp6acorraKai
KaCTWfi Kal a-ruyv& Kal mwpiAuTra. Ed. Downey (note 55 supra), XXVIII, 5.
260See supra, note 38. These exaggerated facial distortions can be matched in late twelfth-century
wall paintings. See, for example, Mary and John in the well-known fresco of the Threnos at Nerezi
(fig. 80), and their still more intensely dramatized portraits at Kurbinovo (fig. 72): P. Miljkovi6-
Pepek, Nerezi (Belgrade, 1966), pls. 36, 37; A. Nikolovski, The Frescoes of Kurbinovo (Belgrade,
1961), pls. 45, 47. In the fresco of the Koimesis at Kurbinovo even the countenance of Christ is
sharply distorted to show his grief, a dramatization which must be considered an extreme rarity in
this context: Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo, 182, fig. 179.
261 Another striking example is an apostle in the wall painting of the Koimesis at Lagoudera:
D. C. Winfield, "Reports on Work at Monagri, Lagoudera, and Hagios Neophytos, Cyprus, 1969-70,"
DOP, 25 (1971), 259ff., fig. 16.
262 ...r
Kvtorrq iav
rmopao6vrSq n'6ppcoOpOv,
Xapv TEKia T-ip[tv &vAcxtpeE TrrVTes'
Martin, Heavenly Ladder, 142f., fig. 273.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 171
fully receive the good tidings from her."263But in the painting the faces of
the brethren are contracted and furrowed; indeed, they can barely be distin-
guished from those of the suffering penitents on the preceding pages (figs. 10,
86). The Byzantine artist might almost be illustrating the observation of the
Renaissance theorist Alberti: "Who would ever believe, if he is not trying it,
that it is so difficult for anyone wishing to paint a laughing face to avoid
making it more weeping than joyful."264 It is, indeed, hard to find any
laughing or even smiling faces in Middle Byzantine art, but this does not
mean that there was no depiction of joy.265As we have seen, it was not through
facial expression that this emotion was conveyed, but through gestures, such
as the embrace of Mary and Elizabeth in the Visitation or the gyrations of
the angels in the Annunciation (figs. 73, 68).
To sum up, Hellenistic artitistshad been capable of distinguishing many
nuances of facial expression, from sadness to joy, but Byzantine artists
retained only the ability to portray emotion in general and misery in particular.
The wider scope of Hellenistic art was preserved, however, in the conventions
of the ekphraseis, which credited Byzantine artists with all the skills of their
ancient forerunners. The comparative poverty of Byzantine art with respect
to facial expression increased the importance of gesture as a means of com-
municating emotion.
CONCLUSION
We have seen in the course of this study that Middle Byzantine artists
depicted sorrow both through gestures and through facial expression. But
whereas there were few variations in facial expression,
thereiont e was a broader
range of gestures, each with a different shade of meaning. The meanings
ranged from the pensive resignation of resting the head on the hand to the
violent despair of tearing the hair and clothes. It is true that, compared to
post-medieval artists, the Byzantines had restricted means at their disposal
for conveying emotion. But it could be argued that precisely because the
Byzantines knew of a narrower range of techniques than we do each formula
carried a proportionately greater meaning for them.266We should not expect
a Byzantine to share a twentieth-century perspective of art history.
For the most part, the gestures and techniques of facial expression found
in Byzantine art survived from Antiquity into the Middle Ages as the result
of a continual process of transmission. Genuine instances of revivals are rare.
263Oihroi
wrp6sTriV e(E0T6)KOViXapos 5rroPprrov(TEs), Epq>pocr*vcos -rrap' aTrrfs T& E*ayyWia 8OVTari.
Ibid.
264"Et chi mai credesse, se non
provando, tanto essere difficile volendo dipigniere uno viso che rida,
schifare di non lo fare piu tosto piangioso che lieto?" Della pittura, II, ed. H. Janitschek (Vienna,
1877), 121. Even at Kurbinovo it is hard to claim that the artist could do more than achieve a general
effect of emotional intensity. Similar distortions of the eyes and cheeks served to express the grief
of the Virgin and St. John in the Threnos, the fear of the Maries at the Sepulcher, and the expectant
age of Adam and Eve in the Anastasis: Hadermann-Misguich, Kurbinovo, 350, 353, figs. 75, 78, 170.
265 See the observations
by Kitzinger, "Hellenistic Heritage" (note 3 supra), 110.
266See E. H. Gombrich,
"Expression and Communication," in Meditations on a Hobby Horse
(London, 1965), 56ff., esp. 62ff.
172 HENRY MAGUIRE
267 Discourse IV
(London, 1771). The Byzantines also expected their dignitaries in real life to curb
their expression of emotion; see, for example, Anna Comnena's descriptions of Alexius and Irene
in the Alexiad, XIII.1,1, and XV.2,2.
268 W.
Deonna, L'expression des sentiments dans l'art grec (Paris, 1914), 184f., 196.
SORROW IN MIDDLE BYZANTINE ART 173
The interchange of gestures between different scenes was not always just
a matter of artistic convenience, nor of poverty of invention. Sometimes
Byzantine artists intentionally used the same pose in two different contexts
in order to create a visual link which would correspond with one in theme or
subject matter. Thus, the afflicted Israelites in the scene of the Brazen Serpent
reflect in their poses the sleeping apostles of the Agony in the Garden (figs.23,
22), and in the Nativity the holding of the Child by Mary refers forward to
the Dormition and he holding of her soul by Christ (fig. 81). The pose of
Joseph in the Nativity echoes the attitude of a mourner, and suggests a
reference to Christ's death and burial (figs. 29, 19). In the Presentation, the
Virgin may already be weeping in anticipation of the Crucifixion (figs. 41,
38). And, as I have shown elsewhere, in scenes of the Incredulity of Thomas
Christ's posture may refer back to his suffering on the cross.269In certain
instances artists underlined these parallels by juxtaposing the appropriate
scenes.
In making such visual and thematic links, Byzantine artists demonstrated
that they were purposeful in their use of gestures of suffering, even if these
were stereotyped. The depiction of sorrow in Byzantine art was more than a
fossilized remnant of antique culture; it was also a living expression of Byzan-
tine theology. The showing of human feeling in scenes of Christ's life and
death was a vivid reminder of his incarnation, a point often made in Byzantine
Church literature.270The embrace was the gesture which most emphatically
conveyed Christ's physical humanity, but other expressions of emotion could
make the same point.271
Throughout this study I have shown that the Byzantine traditions of
homilies and church poetry can illuminate the depiction of sentiment in art.
Often the artists seem to have followed the writers' lead when they introduced
emotive imagery into the Gospel story. In the case of the Threnos, the theme
of the mother's embrace was elaborated in a ninth-century sermon before it
appeared in works of art, and the introduction of violent gestures into New
Testament paintings in the thirteenth century was a license which had also
been anticipated in the literature. However, in one genre of composition, the
ekphrasis, the Byzantine artist was supposed to have provided the cues for
the writer. In fact, these descriptions have been shown to be a mixture of
accurate observation and elaboration inspired by the literary tradition. In
some places, the ekphraseis have been demonstrated to be strikingly apt when
they describe the depiction of emotion in Byzantine art, but in other places
they plainly distort and exaggerate for the sake of rhetorical effect.
269
Maguire, "Truth and Convention" (note 2 supra), 125ff.
270 St. John Chrysostom and Philagathus, for example, said that Christ wept at the death of Lazarus
only sufficiently to display his human nature: see supra, notes 101 and 102. See also Romanos' konta-
kion, On the Raising of Lazarus II, ed. Maas and Trypanis (note 122 supra), XV, strophe 2. Germanus
stated that Mary wept over her son's tomb because she was really the mother of Christ: In Dominici
corporis sepulturam, PG, 98, col. 277C.
271 Weitzmann has
suggested that in the apse mosaic at Sinai the expressions of pathos on the
faces of Elijah and St. John the Baptist were intended to express pictorially the difference between
the human and the divine: "The Classical in Byzantine Art" (note 256 supra), 172.
174 HENRY MAGUIRE
LOCATION OF ROOMS
The suite of rooms decorated with mosaics can today be entered only
through the doorway at the south end of the west gallery of St. Sophia
a ndii). This door opens directly into a long and relatively low room
(figs. ieon
(fig. 26), which is the largest room of the suite and lies immediately above
the entrance vestibule to the inner narthex at the southwest corner of the
church, the present means of access for the public. The dimensions of the room
above the southwest vestibule nearly coincide with it in length and breadth.
In this report we shall refer to it as the Room Over the Vestibule.9 Smaller
rooms lie to the east and west of it, but the three to the west lack decoration
and their structure was disturbed when Sinan raised the southwest minaret
(around 1573), not to mention alterations undertaken during the Fossati
restorations.10 Present access to these rooms is through a marble doorway at
the south end of the Room Over the Vestibule. Facing this Byzantine door-
9 This is designated "salle des pretres" by F. Dirimtekin, in "Le local du Patriarcat a Sainte
Sophie," IstMitt, 13-14 (1963-64), 113-27, and fig. 1; in the description of A. Pasadaios, 'O TTarpiap-
XIK6SOIKOS Tro OIKOVevIKOV OTKOS),
OP6vo (Thessaloniki, 1976) (hereafter Pasadaios, 'O TTaTpiapX1K6S 54
and fig. 2, this room is j, and the Room Over the Ramp is v.
10W. Emerson and R. L. Van Nice, "Hagia Sophia and the First Minaret Erected after the Con-
quest of Constantinople," AJA, 54 (1950), 28-40. The restoration work of Gaspare and Guisseppe
Fossati in St. Sophia in 1847-49 is described in Mango, Materials; he publishes their drawings, water-
colors, and other records which are now kept in boxes or bound in the Album in the Archivio Can-
tonale at Bellinzona.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 179
way, in the east wall of the Room Over the Vestibule, is a crude rectangular
opening, which has become the only entrance to a high room, nearly square
in plan, and surmounting the southwest ramp that climbs from ground level
to the gallery of St. Sophia. We shall call this the Room Over the Ramp.
A small square room is now reached only through an archway at the north-
west corner of the Room Over the Ramp. Since we must distinguish this space
as a separate architectural unit, we shall refer to it as the Alcove." These
three units are important because in them mosaic decoration has survived
in a fragmentary state.
It is difficult for the viewer of these mosaics to recreate their original
setting, not the least because of the deterioration in the conditions of lighting.
The two large rooms are each lit today only by a pair of small rectangular
windows in their south walls. These clumsy windows are visible on the exterior
to the visitor who approaches St. Sophia from the south, and our illustrations
of this view were photographed in the winter of 1936-37 when parts of the
wall of the church were being stripped of plaster (figs. 2 and 3). These small
windows were made up of the marble plaques of the former Byzantine windows,
and were already in position by 1786, when a view of St. Sophia was made
for Sir Richard Worseley.12The various changes to the structure of the rooms
are the result of remodeling and maintenance work during the Byzantine period
and of later consolidation during the Ottoman period. Due to settlement or
other movement the structure of the southwest ramp tower seems to have
caused continual trouble. At the time of the Fossati restoration of the mosque
the rooms were in use for storage and were inaccessible to visitors (a circum-
stance which has not changed).l3 Antoniades, for instance, had to derive his
11 It is our conclusion that a Byzantine writer (for example, Constantine
Porphyrogenitos in the
tenth century) would describe the Room Over the Vestibule as the Large Sekreton of the Patriarchate,
and t the Room Over the Ramp as the Small Sekreton. The identification of the Alcove is uncertain.
12
Reproduced in Mango, Brazen House, fig. 27; see pp. 159-63.
13
Idem, Materials, 44-46, 139, for a translation of the relevant section from a letter by A. N.
Murav'ev dated 6 July 1849. On pp. 45-46 and 132-33, Mango presents the information of Otto
Vestiaris, derived from a visit in 1847 to a room off the South
ot sRoomthe
Gallery, possibly Over the
Vestibule. If these are the mosaics he describes, which is open to doubt, the only real information
would be that tthe fure
figure of
otoSt. John the Baptist was at this time visible in the Deesis. Mango (ibid.,
45, 132) records the information of a former chaplain to the Levant Company at Istanbul, James
Dallaway (Constantinople Ancient and Modern [London, 1797], 53), that ca. 1795 the vault of a chapel,
probably the Room Over the Vestibule, was the source of small fragments of mosaics sold to visitors.
A visit to the Rooms not described in Mateials
iaters recorded in the unpublished notes of Rev. Joseph
Dacre Carlyle, Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, who visited a magazine in St. Sophia in
search of manuscripts on 29 December 1799; cf. W. St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles (London,
1967), esp. 9-10, 63-78, on Carlyle and the circumstances
stafft of his appointment to the
heLord of Elgin's
embassy as the scholar responsible for discovering classical manuscripts. In his account (British Library,
MS Add. 27604, fols. 123-129), Carlyle locates the room behind twoo largere doors at the end of the right-
hand gallery from the stairs (his guides told him the story of the priest, celebrating here at the time
of the fall of Constantinople, who was sealed in by an earthquake which blocked the door;
Carlyle
was entirely skeptical since only a rusty hinge slowed his entrance). The room he describes cannot
be that in the southwest buttress, for it is too large. He claims that the room, formerly a
chapel,
had chambers of almost equal size on either side of it, and that the three preserved the remnants of
a mosaic decoration of fine workmanship. He was told that the mosaics showed the effects of heat
and smoke through damage from lightning. He says the figures were about life-size, and consisted of
emperors (but no saints) wearing sacerdotal paraphernalia. He wondered if Constantine the Great
was among them. His account, like that of all the early visitors to the Rooms, offers little information
and not a few anomalies.
12*
180 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
description and plan from Salzenberg (hence their agreements in error con-
cerning the form of the vaulting of the Room Over the Vestibule and on the
placing of doors).14 Salzenberg gained his information during his observations
of the Fossati operations while he was on the spot between January and
May 1848. If his record is reliable, marble revetment was then still in position,
at least on the walls of the Room Over the Vestibule. Undoubtedly the vertical
walls of the rooms were originally faced with marble revetment, for the
attachments remain visible. Perhaps the squalid appearance of the rooms at
that time (graphically described by Murav'ev in 1849) had induced the Fossati
to ransack the marble; this may partly explain their success in replacing
missing slabs in the lateral aisles and galleries of St. Sophia without the
supply of any new marble.15This suggestion seems to be supported by their
drawing of the south wall of the Room Over the Ramp (Fossati Album,
p. 38).16On the left of this sheet is a careful watercolor copy of part of the vault
mosaic which can be seen to have been more fully preserved at that time
than it is now. On the right side of the sheet the drawing of the south wall
is admittedly a less careful rendering of the evidence. However, since a record
could at that time be made of the capital and column shaft between the central
and western pointed arches and since both column and shaft were entirely
submerged in a rubble fill by 1950 (fig. 18), the obvious deduction is that it
was the Fossati who reinforced this opening. Moreover, in this fill, at a height
heast corner, we found the
of 2.25 m. in the southeast tdate 1849 incised with a
trowel point into the mortar (fig. 4). Similar untidy pink mortar is visible
in the extensive areas of repointing in the rooms, and can therefore be
attributed to a campaign of consolidation undertaken after the removal of
the marble revetment and carried out in the last months of the Fossati
restoration, which was substantially completed by 13 July 1849.
This removal of the revetment no doubt revealed alarming cracks and
deterioration in the brickwork. One area of particular concern, to judge from
the quantity of pink mortar, was the south section of the party wall which
divides the Room Over the Ramp from the Room Over the Vestibule. The
trouble here was caused by the movement outward of the south wall of the
Room Over the Ramp. Remedial repairs were carried out in the brickwork
of the party wall in the area of the present rectangular door opening between
the two rooms. The brick lintel of this doorway, bound in position by metal
struts, may be attributed to Fossati activity. To judge from the lines of
cracking in the brickwork above this opening (on both the east and west
faces of the wall), the Fossati replaced a brick arch here over the doorway;
this would have had an extrados at the same height as that above the
Byzantine door opposite in the west wall of the Room Over the Vestibule.
We suggest that there was a doorway in the south section of the party wall
14 E. M. Antoniades, "EKqpaoit (Leipzig-Athens, 1907-9), esp. II, 292ff.; W. Sal-
T-iS 'Ayias 2Xo<piaS
zenberg, Alt-christliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel vom V. bis XII. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1855),
esp. 18, 32, and pl. xxxi,7 and 8.
15 Mango, Materials, 13.
16Ibid., fig. 48 reproduces the Fossati watercolor.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 181
between the rooms from the time of their original construction. The existence
of a door here from the beginning is supported by another observation: we
found a broken piece of marble revetment low down on the south reveal
of the doorway (on the east side). For these reasons we feel bound to postulate
the existence during the Byzantine period of a grander doorway in this posi-
tion, possibly with a socle or a molded marble enframement and with its
supporting archway concealed under a marble revetment. An assumption that
this access into the Room Over the Ramp was punched through in modern
times is unjustified, and our understanding of the structural sequence of
the rooms depends on its having been there from the begninig of their history.
The drawings made in these rooms in the mid-nineteenth century by the
Fossati and Salzenberg demonstrate that although the mosaics were even
then considerably mutilated, deterioration has since gone much further. The
earthquake of 10 July 1894 no doubt took its toll. In 1937 the floor of the
Room Over the Vestibule was, we have been told, littered with tesserae, and
the truth of this report is easily recognized.
SOUTHWEST RAMP
5 10o
0Io
III. Heads of Southwest and Northwest Ramps, Plans and Sections (after Underwood)
184 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
ramp could enter its tower by one of two available doors (in this respect the
northwest ramp was different, for it seems to have had only one entrance,
at the north end of its western face). The main doorway into the southwest
ramp was in its western face; this still exists and its enframement is visible
from within the ramp, although on the side now seen in the southwest vestibule
the space has been filled to form a niche.7 To enter this door from the original
ground level it must have been necessary to mount a few steps or a short
sloping ramp, which gave access to what is strictly the second n flight of the
ramp. The first flight of the ramp, which is scarcely inclined, lay in the eastern
half of the tower and was entered by the door in its south side.18
The northwest ramp has lost its Justinianic paving slabs, but it preserves
its original ascent and its climb follows a regular turning pattern. The south-
west ramp has preserved some of its Justinianic paving slabs, but in its upper
parts the climb is no longer regular and it is clear that alterations have been
made here to its original pattern. Starting the climb from the side door at
ground level, the first six flights are regular (from the main west entrance
door, there would be five regular flights): the first, third, and fifth run one
above the other in a northerly direction on the east side of the tower, and the
second, fourth, and sixth run in a southerly direction on the west side. The
regularity of the ascent ends at the completion of these three circuits of the
spiral. From the end of the sixth flight at its southern turn there begins a long
flight of stairs, broken at three short landings (fig. III). Except for the first
four risers, which occur within the turning of the ramp, the stairs run steeply
upward without turning within the east side of the tower. The flight consists
of twenty-five risers, which arrive at gallery level in a awkward manner
about three meters beyond the entrance doorway.
This final ascent by means of a long flight of stairs was not the original
Justinianic system, but represents an alteration carried out in the Byzantine
period. This can be proved from a number of observations, which show that
the original scheme on this side of the church was as regular as that on the
northwest side, and that the original southwest ramp was composed of nine
runs. The original final ninth run finished at the summit of the ramp in a short
flight of steps of not more than seven risers which terminated at the threshold
of the entrance door into the gallery. The present long flight is a Byzantine
replacement for the seventh and ninth runs of the ramp, which lay on the
east side of the tower. When the alterations were made, the eighth run, on
the west side, became redundant; it was not, however, eliminated, but simply
left isolated and disused. This eighth run still remains, with its vaults retaining
the original Justinianic fresco decoration of the ramp. It is accessible today
through a door from one of the landings in the long flight of stairs.
17Van Nice, Saint Sophia in Istanbul (note 1 supra), pl. 13, cf. pls. 16, 20; see also the discussion
by C. Strube, Die westliche Eingangsseite der Kirchen von Konstantinopel in Justinianischer Zeit
(Wiesbaden, 1973) (hereafter Strube, Die westliche Eingangsseite), esp. 53. In our opinion the south-
west ramp had two entrance doors from the beginning.
18 It is suggested below (p. 200 and note 42) that this south door was regarded as a side door in
the Byzantine period.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 185
The evidence for the original form of the southwest ramp must be given
in detail, for it indicates that the alterations occurred at a time early in the
history of St. Sophia. We believe that the first mosaics in this area of the
building date from this structural alteration. The indications that there once
existed a final short flight of steps leading up to the threshold of the entrance
door and thattt his flight was earlier than the present stairway are no longer
visible, but were fortunately photographed in 1954 (fig. 5) and are recorded
in the survey of Van Nice. The stumps of three ancient stair treads projected
slightly through the plaster. These stumps must have remained embedded
when an earlier flight was cut out to introduce the new long flight of stairs
(the top of the lowest of these treads was 1.30 m. below the level of the gallery
and 1.85 m. short of the line of the exterior wall of the church where the ramp
tower adjoins it). If there were five or six treads in this original flight, it can
be estimated that the top step reached gallery level precisely at the wall of
the church. The head of this staircase was marked by the monumental marble
doorway built in the thickness of this south wall of St. Sophia. The termination
of the ascent by thee southwest ramp to the gallery of the church by a short
steep climb up to the threshold of the door must, through the lack of a landing
in front of this door, have felt a little awkward; it certainly contrasts with the
well-lit final landing of the northwest ramp. When the original system of the
southwest ramp was altered, the new stairway and the door were narrowed.
The threshold of the door had to be cut away, as the new stairway was lower,
to provide passage under the Room Over the Ramp. To give this headroom,
the new stairs had to encroach into the south gallery of the church.
In addition to the evidence of the stairs and the doorway, further informa-
tion about the alterations to the ramp is available through investigation of the
masonry of the Room Over the Ramp. The clue to a dating of this work is
offered by this masonry. In order to reestablish the original course of the
final ninth run of the ramp, Underwood prepared a measured drawing and
duly connected the (estimated) bottom of the original (destroyed) stairway
with the still existent floor at the southern turning of the eighth run (fig. III).
The angle of inclination for the floor so obtained is similar to that of other
runs in this ramp. Furthermore, if the ninth run was vaulted along the same
height as the others, then its vault would have been higher than the present
floor level of the Room Over the Ramp. One can be more precise than this,
for since the average vertical dimension of the other runs was, from floor to
floor, approximately 3.20 m., it follows that one would expect the springing
of the vault of the ninth run to have lain at a height of about 1.30 m. above
the present floor of the Room Over the Ramp at its northeast corner. An
examination of the surviving sections of Byzantine masonry of the east wall
of the Room Over the Ramp confirms that the ninth run of the ramp did
once exist, but that its vault was sliced away when the Room Over the
Ramp
was built. The walls of the Room Over the Ramp are a vertical continuation
of the original exterior walls of the ramp tower. All that now remains of the
east side of the upper parts of the ninth run of the ramp is the indistinct scar
186 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
of an inclined vault at the anticipated height on the east wall of the Room
Over the Ramp and, in addition, the indication of the skewback of its domical
vault when the run turned at the southeast comer of the ramp tower.
The implications of this evidence are quite unambiguous, and the conclusion
that at some time the original superstructure of the southwest ramp was taken
off in order to accommodate the present Room Over the Ramp as a kind of
penthouse can be stated with certainty. It is relevant to note the other informa-
tion to be derived from an examination of the walls of this Room, for it helps
in reconstructing the Justinianic appearance of the ramp and in reaching
a decision about the date of the remodeling. Such an examination is simplified
by the present bare state of the walls-for the lost marble revetment was the
sole Byzantine covering of the masonry-but is complicated by the extensive
(and essential) Turkish repairs.
The sloping scar on the east wall of the Room Over the Ramp has already
been mentioned, but the indications on its west wall are considerably more
distinctive (figs. III and 10). Along this wall a clearly visible scar slopes down-
ward from north to south. It is interrupted only by the rectangular door
(leading into the Room Over the Vestibule) which cuts off the north side of
the scar of a domical vault whose skewback can be discerned at the southwest
corner of the room (fig. 6). As is the case on the east side of the room, this scar
must represent the remains of the vaulting of a run in the ramp. The scar is
90 cm. in thickness; its lower edge would represent the internal springing of a
segmental barrel vault whose apex would have lain roughly midway between
the two edges. The highest level at which the upper edge can be seen, in the
northwest corner of the room, is at about 2.65 m. (fig. III). This scar on the
west wall (possibly a little higher than that on the east wall-the exact point
is not certain) shows that there existed a barrel-vaulted passage on the west
half of the ramp tower which ran above the eighth (penultimate) run. In other
words, there was a tenth section in the ramp tower, with its vault running
parallel to that of the ninth run which gave the final ascent to the gallery.
The central pier on which both of these vaults rested in common was removed
when the floor of the Room Over the Ramp was laid. The function of this
tenth run needs some explanation. One purpose must have been to facilitate
the roofing of the ramp tower by equalizing the levels of the vaults over the
passages. It probably also had some value as a tunnel between a window in
the south wall of the ramp tower and the structures at the head of the ramp,
which have at least partially survived. The small room, which now opens off
the northwest corner of the Room Over the Ramp and which we have termed
the Alcove, seems, unlike the Room Over the Ramp, to be a part of the original
Justinianic structure of the ramp tower. It is with this Alcove that the vault
of the tenth run of the ramp communicated. Since the Alcove is decorated
with mosaics, it is at least feasible to consider them as belonging to the original
decoration of the church, although it must be noted that the decoration of
the ramp runs which survives (in the eighth and tenth runs) was executed
in fresco.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 187
It will be impossible to understand the architectural changes in this area
of St. Sophia without attempting to visualize the appearance of the southwest
ramp tower in its original state (before the Room Over the Ramp and the other
rooms were added). We visualize the exterior faCade of the ramp, as viewed
from the south to have en roofed over aawestern
pair of arches, of which the
certainly, and the eastern probably, enframed a window. The roofing would
have sloped upward from above these two arches toward the main south wall
of the church. This roof is unlikely to have been a simple lean-to affair. Some
assistance in reconstructing this superstructure is gained by moving around the
church to observe the roof of the northwest ramp, for this has survived in
somewhat nearer its original form (fig. 1). The northwest ramp was never
surmounted by rooms at gallery level. There are, of course, certain differences
between these two ramps which exted from the beginning (figs. I and iv).
The northwest ramp tower is equal in width to ours, and is attached to the
church in an equivalent, but reversed, position. However, the two towers are
of different lengths, with the consequence that the pattern of the ascent has
some differences. Whereas the southwest ramp tower extends to a length of
9.25 m. beyond the wall of the church and originally made the ascent in nine
runs (cunting from the sie door) with a small flight of steps at its summit,
the northwest ramp tower is longer and extends about one meter farther out
from the wall. The ascent on this side of the church is achieved in only seven
runs of ramp with four steps at the summit. The essential differences between
the ramps occur at the final stage before entrance is made into the gallery
of the church. The ultimate run of the northwest ramp rises on the west side
of the tower, but for structural reasons (as noted above) the door into the
gallery had to be on the east side. This problem was solved by making a
landing in front of the entrance so that the visitor could make the transition
from the west to the east side of the ramp tower. This landing was well lighted
by means of a large triple window, facing north, which was presumably
contained within a semicircular tympanum, for its lights were divided by
two mullions discernible under plaster from inside and clearly visible from
the exterior (fig. 1).
The roofing of the northwest ramp tower was carried out in two levels.
The outer (northern) section covers the sixth and seventh runs of the ramp,
and it slopes upward toward the church. In making this section the builders
had to resolve one difficulty; the vault of the final seventh run sloped as a
matter of course upward toward the church, but the floor of the penultimate
sixth run rose upward in the contrary direction (toward the north). The solu-
tion was to raise the vault of the sixth run so that it too rose toward the
church and parallel to the seventh run. This treatment, which allowed the
roofing to be laid regularly across the outer section of the tower, differs from
the solution of the problem of the southwest ramp (where the supernumerary
vault was built), but it would have resulted in the same effect externally.
The outer section of the roof of the northwest ramp ran upward until it met
the transverse window wall through which the landing in front of the gallery
:saA uupi[ooI'uo!po3s 'dumi q4 a190 uooa 'AI
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 189
door was lit. This transverse wall supported a high barrel vault which spanned
the complete width of the ramp over the landing. This vault was roofed and
so completed at a higher level the roofing of the northwest ramp with a second
inner section.
Applying to the southwest ramp this information about Justinianic building
practice acquired from consideration of the superstructure of the northwest
ramp, it seems clear that here also the roofing was arranged in two sections.
The lower outer roof was similar in appearance to that on the northwest
tower, but at the higher roof level in front of the gallery door the clerestory
system was handled differently. As on the northwest tower, the lower section
was terminated at a transverse wall, for this still survives as the lower part
of the north wall of the Room Over the Ramp. The pair of roofed barrel
vaults of the ninth and tenth runs of the ramp met and pierced this transverse
wall (as is the case in the northwest ramp), and this rose vertically above their
roof level. In our interpretation of the masonry, this transverse wall enclosed
clerestory windows facing south, and so this member had the same function
as its equivalent on the other side of the church. The windows do not seem,
however, to have been of the same style-with mullions-as those in the
northwest ramp. If it is correct to interpret the vertical grooves in the east
and west walls of the Room Over the Ramp which align with the south face
of this transverse wall as fittings for window frames, then it would mean
that the Justinianic transverse wall contained two separate arched windows
in these positions (figs. 13 and 19). Whether or not the transverse wall continued
vertically upward beyond these windows is now impossible to observe, for any
such extension would have been taken down when the present north tympanum
of the Room Over the Ramp was built. To determine how the final section of
the ramp tower in front of the church was roofed is therefore a matter of
speculation.
The fact that the circumstances at the head of the northwest ramp in front
of the gallery door differ from those in our ramp best explains the apparent
divergences in treatment of the final stage. The space between the transverse
wall and the south wall of the church did not require the landing and transverse
barrel vault of the northwest ramp because the final ninth run of the ramp
was on the east side of the tower and so led directly to the gallery door
(fig. II). The final area of the ramp was divided into two nearly equal squares;
the one at the west being the space covered by the square domical vault,
which we have termed the Alcove. Probably this vault belongs to the original
ramp superstructure. The space it covers would not have been traversed in
the course of the ascent to the gallery. It lay to the left of the final, short
stairway, and as there is no landing on this stairway, the space must have
been difficult of access, and perhaps divided by a balustrade. Unless a porter
was stationed in it,19 its only function would have been as a lantern tower
19 For reference to the
doorkeepers of St. Sophia, see T. F. Mathews, The Early Churches of
Constantinople. Architecture and Liturgy (University Park, Pa., 1971) (hereafter Mathews, Early
Churches), 154, note 110.
190 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
Some surfaces of the parts of this ramp which we have attributed to the
Justinianic period have retained their Byzantine decoration. There are mosaics
in the vault of the Alcove, and frescoes in the eighth (disused) run and on the
west vertical wall of the tenth (extra) run (now the west wall of the Room
Over the Ramp below the scar of the springing of its vault).
The mosaic scheme of rinceaux and crosses in medallions (figs. 22-25) was
dated to the original Justinianic decoration by Underwood on the parallel of
the soffits of the smaller arches inside the church.20 Recent studies invite
caution in dating the ornamental mosaics of St. Sophia, for the unity of its
interior decoration was maintained over the Byzantine period by the imitation
of Justinianic designs in successive periods of restoration. These periods are
best distinguished by their differences of technique and of materials rather
than by the indications of style.21 Such considerations lead us to attribute
the mosaics of the Alcove to one such later period of restoration in which
the forms used were traditional (see infra, pp. 309-10).
The wall paintings can only have been designed to decorate the ramp at
the beginning of its history (532-37). Their iconographic function was to help
the transit of a spectator moving between the church and the world outside.
Across the vault of the eighth run was a large floral cross within a medallion
(figs. 7 and 8). On each side of the medallion, growing out of a double leaf orna-
ment, a line of similar flowers runs along the apex of the segmental barrel vault.
A border lies along the inclined springing of this vault, and consists of indented
lines, like a running chevron. On the vertical wall below this border, at least
in one fragment on the east wall, was a small plain cross with flared arms.
Other patches on the vertical walls are indistinct (for example, on the west
wall of the tenth run, fig. 6), but seem mostly to have floral motifs.
20 Underwood, "Notes," 294.
21Progress in the distinction of techniques and materials is made by C. Mango and E. J. W. Haw-
kins, "The Apse Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul," DOP, 19 (1965) (hereafter Mango and Hawkins,
"Apse Mosaics"), 115-51, esp. 148; and idem, "Church Fathers," esp. 32-35.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 191
These wall paintings have not been cleaned. The background of the medal-
lion was probably in the natural white of lime plaster. The lines of the concentric
circles and radiating beams are drawn in dark earth red, as are also the semi-
circles in its border. The rest of the outlines are drawn in black (flowers,
rosette at center, jewels in segments at the end of the arms of the cross, and
the [twenty] trefoil border motifs). The flowers in the cross seem to have
been alternatively red with yellow spots, and yellow with red spots. The
concentric circles around the cross were in three colors, yellow, white, and
blue-grey. In all, a limited palette was used, and a linear style.22 It is a routine
decoration, yet shows that attention was given to details of finish in even
the ramps of St. Sophia.
The completion of the wall paintings in the runs of the ramp seems con-
clusive evidence that the structure was in use in its original form before the
alterations were made to this tower. The failure to finish off some details of
the fittings (such as the groove for a ramming rod on the church side of the
gallery door), is better explained as an anomaly rather than taken as support
for the idea that the alterations happened during one virtually continuous
and pragmatic campaign of building. On our interpretation, the construction
of the Room Over the Ramp was part of a substantial new enterprise in the
southwest corner of St. Sophia in the later sixth century. The belief that
changes were made to this ramp tower, which had until this time been an
isolated structure, and that these changes occurred quite soon after the church
had been completed, depend on a number of structural features which must
now be described.23
The Room Over the Ramp fills the east-west width of the ramp tower
(4.65 m.), and lies in the southern two-thirds of the tower (6 m.). It is covered
22 A similar type of wallpainting is found in the chapel in the south wall of the Sinai
monastery;
see G. A. Soteriou, ToiXoypaqfiai T-rlScaKriv TOU Map-tplov Eis napEKK1aQi(a TOi TreiXouSTriisMovrs Eiva,
Studi Bizantini, 9 (1957), 389-91; and G. H. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint
Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor [1973]), plate vol.,
pls. cxxxiv-cxxxv, cxciv-cxcvIIi.
23 Our interpretation differs from the conclusion of Underwood in his Draft Report, in which he
decided that the south wall of the Room Over the Ramp belongs to a later phase than the other
three walls. He therefore made suggestions about its possible appearance when the Room was built.
He also concluded that this original Room, as reconstructed by him, had a mosaic decoration which
was entirely removed to make way for our phase one scheme. Our opposition to this
theory and our
contention that the present south wall is original to the Room derives from an examination of the
antae: they are bonded to the side walls but not to the Turkish fill (see figs. 2, 14). The
problem
needs to be mentioned, since our dating of phase one in this paper has received criticism from D. H.
Wright in a letter dated 25 August 1974, and in "The Shape of the Seventh Century in Byzantine
Art," First Annual Byzantine Studies Conference. Abstracts of Papers (Cleveland, 1975), 9ff. Wright
is prepared to ascribe the original construction of the Room Over the
Ramp to the reign of Justin II,
but proposes that our phase one is later, belonging to the period of Justinian II. We
reject Wright's
suggestion, which is also in line with the second thoughts of Underwood.
192 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
by a groin vault (to a height of 7.60 m.) (figs. I and iv for plan and section;
and figs. 11, 12, and 13). Each wall is surmounted by a semicircular tympanum
with a central window (about 2.70 m. in height), though none of these windows
is now open to the light. The northern wall is pierced by two arches, whose
common pier is a vertical continuation of the central supporting and dividing
wall of the ramp beneath. In the original ramp tower the upper parts of these
two arches had enclosed the clerestory windows in front of the gallery door,
but they were adapted to new functions. The Room Over the Ramp was
originally floored with marble slabs, for we found traces of these in the south-
west corner about 10 cm. below the present floor level (fig. 6). The original
floor therefore lay at roughly the level of that of the west gallery of the
church. Since we believe that the Room Over the Vestibule, which communi-
cates directly into the west gallery, was built at the same time as the Room
Over the Ramp, we infer that the levels of these rooms were determined by
the floor of the west gallery. (Before the present wooden flooring of the Room
Over the Vestibule was laid, outlines of former floor slabs could be seen in
the mortar.)
The decision to convert the top of the southwest ramp into rooms at gallery
level initiated a number of operations. To understand these, it is again best
to refer to the evidence on the west wall of the Room Over the Ramp (figs. iv
and 10). Reading from the floor upward, the diagonal scar and the wall below
it is all that survives of the previous summit of the tower (the tenth run).
The sharpest feature is the inclined line of bricks on which the springing of
the barrel vault lay. The upper level of the scar marks the roof line, but now
appears somewhat irregular. The new west wall of the room was built upward
on this preexisting base, and so became the upward continuation of the wall
which at ground level forms the eastern partition of the present southwest
vestibule. At the upper level, however, this wall is thinner on its western side
by the breadth of one brick.24
Since the brickwork on this wall belongs to two separate operations, a
comparison should help to decide their difference, if any, in date. We measured
bricks in this wall, measured, where possible, ten courses (from top of brick
to top of course), and observed the technique of pointing. Other surfaces were
examined where accessible. This information can be tabulated as follows:
The pointing was done with shallow concave curves; in the mortar at the
end of some bricks there occur random oblique slashes, slanting to left
or right.
b. Below the scar on the west wall in the Room Overthe Ramp
measurements of bricks average 0.37 by 0.05 m.
notional measurements 0.90 m. (i.e., 0.36 m. for four courses)
of ten courses and
1.00 m. (i.e., 0.80 m. for eight courses)
The pointing is identical with that in the eighth run.
26
Texier, who planned St. Sophia between 1833 and 1835 (cf. C. Mango, "Constantinopolitana,"
JdI, 80 [1965], 305-36), gained access to the Room Over the Ramp. In his drawings, now in the
Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, he marked an opening at this point
on the east wall. He, too, may have been guessing, unless at that time there was a revetment which
offered clues now lost.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 195
Over the Ramp depended from the beginning on the existence beside it of
the Room Over the Vestibule. The point must be pursued later.
To return to the Alcove, it underwent another adjustment-caused by the
construction of the Room Over the Ramp-which rendered its function as a
lantern tower at the head of the ramp obsolete. It was probably at this stage
that its Justinianic floor was removed, but evidence of this change can be
observed now only from below. In the eighth run of the ramp, which lies
underneath the Alcove and the west side of the Room Overthe Ramp, we
observed a narrow inserted staircase (fig. 7).27 To accommodate this, the
previous flooring of the Alcove must have been removed and the domical
vault below it cut away to the skewback,, the remnants of which can be
discerned. The new stairway rose in the northwest corner of the eighth ramp
with a flight of ten treads and turned to the right when it met the exterior
wall of the church; the eleventh tread is observed in the jog here. It therefore
formed a small spiral staircase, turning within the space of the Alcove and lit
by its high east window. The squae doorway from the eighth run onto the
long flight of stairs of the converted ramp was presumably knocked through
when this new spiral staircase was built. These arrangements gave access
from the Room Over the Vestibule through the Alcove down into the eighth
run of the ramp, and, if desired, to the exterior of the church without passing
through the gallery. This private stairway offered a use for the eighth run of
the ramp. Possibly the Alcove could also have acted in the nature of a dia-
conicon for the small oratory beside its entrance archway from the Room
Over the Vestibule. It should be mentioned that at some later date the Alcove
was refloored, rendering the stairway unusable, and that this new floor was
supported by a brick packing which rests on the stair treads. Whether the
new floor was Byzantine or Turkish could be investigated by removal of the
packing. Perhaps it belonged to the ninth-century redecoration of the rooms,
as is suggested later.
The elements mentioned so far witness the kind of adjustments made to the
existing structure of the ramp tower. We can now turn to the positive new
features of the architecture. That there are indeed two phases of construction
can be confirmed once more by looking at the vaulting. For example, in the
northeast corner of the Room, in the zone between the springing of the arch
of the cupboard and its apex, the north and east walls are not bonded together,
generally a clue in vertical members to a difference in time of construction
(figs. 13 and 19). Let us now look at the south wall (fig. 12). As it now exists,
this wall is a jumble of repairs. Two anta piers, bonded to their lateral walls,
form the southeast and southwest corners.28The rubble masonry between these
two antae is a late fill, belonging in its present state to Fossati work in 1849.
The antae rise to a height of about 4.15 m. and have thin marble cappings
that return into the thickness of the fill. Above this level is a zone of brick
masonry, about 1.20 m. in height, in which three pointed arches open. Their
27 Planned by Van Nice, Saint Sophia in Istanbul, pl. 16.
28 On this point, see supra, note 23.
13*
196 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
shape is indisputable, since their soffits are carefully revetted with sheets of
marble, in the same manner as in the nave arcades of the mid-fifth-century
church of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki. The use of pointed arches might have
been an esthetic device to increasenthe impression of height in the Room,
but it seems more likely that the demands of swift and sound workmanship
were predominant. The two free arches rest on impost capitals and columns.
The partially visible capital on the east column (fig. 18) is decorated on its
north face with a crossin relief, its arms flare at the ends. The columns were
joined by tie-beams. Probably the columns were seated on a base of heavy
stone slabs; such a course penetrates the thickness of the wall at about 0.85 m.
above floor level, and its molded projection on the exterior is still visible
(fig. 2).
The zone of the pointed arches continues upward, without any change in
materials or technique, to form the south tympanum. Remnants of an applied
marble molding mask the line of division between these two upper zones-it
is not a cornice embedded in the wall, but is held in place by metal clamps.
The window in the center of the tympanum is filled with rubble. This south
tympanum, along with the other three and, indeed, with all comparable
tympana in St. Sophia, is not bonded to the walls or arch, but is conceived
as a thick curtain wall. In all, the south wall was composed of four zones:
a base of solid masonry, a zone with three openings, a zone of pointed arches,
and a semicircular tympanum.
Underwood's conclusion that the south wall was different in date from the
other walls depended partly on his observation that this one is exceptional
in being devoid of pointing. We interpret all the walls as coeval, and would
explain this particular difference as due to the different function of this window
wall and to later maintenance work. We visualize from the beginning a high
triple window looking out to the south of the church, producing a kind of
high-level portico through which spectators in the Augustaion could see into
the room or its occupants could display themselves. Perhaps there is some
parallel in the Loggia of Old St. Peter's in the Vatican. This south window,
together with the high windows of the three other tympana, would have
ensured the good lighting of the Room and especially of its vault mosaics.
The Room Over the Ramp was a construction of some architectural merit,
though its chief quality is its decoration. It is clear, as shown above, that it
was only one part of a larger scheme of work, though the structural relation-
ships of the set of rooms now needs further clarification. If the doorway at
the southern end of the west wall of the Room Over the Ramp is an original
element, it follows that the Room Over the Vestibule was either earlier than
or coeval with the Room Over the Ramp. Our conclusion is that all the gallery-
level rooms and other upper apartments attached to the southwest corner of
St. Sophia are later additions to the Justinianic church and were built in a
single operation. Mathews and Strube have discussed the evidence for sup-
posing that on the northwest side of the church the entrance to the ramp
lay in an open area outside the inner narthex, and they reached the natural
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 197
conclusion that on the southwest, too, the vestibule was not original.29 The
consequence is that any structures supported by this vestibule must be later
than the original church, though not later, in our opinion, than the building
of the Room Over the Ramp. Before the erection of the vestibule, the south-
west ramp tower would have been an isolated feature at this corner of the
church.
The only buildings at ground level in this area which might be of Justinianic
construction are the Baptistery and the Horologion.30This Baptistery is tradi-
tionally ascribed to Justinian.31 It could perhaps be ascertained that the
Horologion was the foundation of Justinian in 536 only if it were demonstrated
that the ground-level structure usually identified with it is bonded into the
narthex wall, for its "characteristic" masonry of brick and greenstone is found
also in the northwest corner of the Room Over the Vestibule.32 In reality,
the dating of the Horologion is not crucial to the issue, since the west wall
of the vestibule is not integral with it. The east wall of the Horologion is
aligned roughly with the partition between the inner and outer narthex of
St. Sophia, and its eastern door is set back about three meters behind the
present west wall of the vestibule. There is no structural difficulty in dating
the vestibule later than the Horologion. In the Byzantine period there must
have been a bay opening beneath the stucco comice the ecenter of the west
side and giving access to the Horologion. If the area at the southwest corner
of St. Sophia was at first open to the sky, and entrance to the ramp or the
inner narthex were made from outside, obviously neither the stucco cornices
nor the ornamental mosaics of the vestibule can be Justinianic.
We date the vestibule and its upper storeys to the same building campaign
as the Room Over the Ramp, with thee corollary that the work is unlikely to be
later than the sixth century. The vestibule is, like the Room Over the Ramp,
29
Mathews, Early Churches, 91-93, 129; and Strube, Die westliche Eingangsseite, esp. 34, 40ff.,
87ff., and pi. 1, facing p. 32. Mathews argues that the primary use of the galleries was to house cate-
chumens, who needed to enter their places from outside the church, and who had to make their exit
after the first part of the liturgy without disturbin
thsartee faithful. In her review of Early Churches
(see BZ, 67 [1974], 408-13), Strube discusses the problems and doubts whether the galleries were
ever conceived in terms of one single function. Apart from the indecisiveness of the written sources,
she points out that the procedures of St. Sophia are a special case, and that on special Festivals
there must have been more variety to the congregation than at other services. If women were present
in the galleries and wished to take communion, was provision made in the gallery, or did they go
downstairs? If so, where did they go afterward? Strube thinks it possible that both women and
catechumens were housed in the galleries in the sixth century; by the ninth century the latter group
was insignificant. This discussion is relevant to the use of the southwest ramp tower in its original
form, but it is a possibility that after its conversion it was closed to public use.
30 A. M. Schneider, Die
Grabung im Westhof der Sophienkirche zu Istanbul, IstForsch, XII (Berlin,
1941), and Dirimtekin, "Le local du Patriarcat a Sainte Sophie" (note 9 supra), give the archeological
evidence. Sinan's minaret obscures some of the evidence. The Survey of Van Nice (note 1 supra)
is more accurate and less certain than predecessors in this area (see pl. 13, location S 40, W 50).
Mathews, Early Churches, 93, discusses this area.
31 The textual tradition is not the most
reliable; see Aifyiiais rEpit riS 'Ayias Xoqpias,ed. T. Preger,
Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, I (Leipzig, 1901), 82, lines 2-12, 87, lines 5-6; and
F. Dirimtekin, "Ayasofya Baptisteri," TurkArkDerg, 12,2 (1963-65), 54-87.
32 The date is from
Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1883-85), I, 216, which
refers to the Horologion of the Milion. Mango, Brazen House, 75 note 13, documents the use of the
Milion to refer loosely to the area around it.
198 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
vaulted with groins (fig. 9). Its division into three unequal bays does, at
first sight, seem irregular, but it bears a relation to the space which it covers.
The width of the central bay correlates with the width of the entrance into
the Horologion, which is evidence in favor of the earlier dating of the Horolo-
gion. Another feature which seems to predate the vestibule is the deep semi-
circular archway sheltering the door into the inner narthex and the window
above it. To the right of this door a low molded opening leads into a closet,
which now has bench seats hacked into its brickwork, as if adapted for use as
a porter's lodge. This corner space is a shaft which continues vertically upward
through the corner of the Room Over e the Vestibule, and was adapted for an
important function there.33 The shaft existed not so much as a planned ele-
ment of the architecture of the church but as a space which resulted at the
southwest corner between the south wall of the inner narthex and the ramp
tower (the similar space at the northwest corner is now filled with masonry).
When he examined the stucco cornices, Hawkins saw evidence in the north-
west corner of the vestibule that on this side it was built up on a constructional
shelf of bricks; he could not investigate this point on the east wall, where we
expect the indications to differ.34This suggests that the cornice was planned
with the building of this wall of the vestibule.
The height of the vault of the vestibule was determined, if we are correct,
by the decision to lay the marble paving slabs of the Room Over the Vestibule
at about the same level as the floor of the west gallery. The position of the
entrance doorway of the vestibule was determined by the decision to align
this, and the south wall of the Room Over the Vestibule, with the south wall
of the ramp tower and the Room Over the Ramp.35 The Room Over the
Vestibule was made the largest of the suite, and from it entrance was made
into the church. The opening to accommodate the monumental marble door-
way at the south end of the west gallery would have been punched through
during this building program (a layer of greenstone had to be cut through)
(fig. 27). Immediately inside this Room, to the east, is a recess (fig. II); it
represents the vertical extension of the present closet space beside the narthex
door below. This recess was adapted to form a square chapel, with niches in
its entrance archway, by hacking into the depth of the brick wall of the church
33The ground-floor space was identified by Antoniades as the metatorium of the "Beautiful Door";
Trii 'AyiaS lopiaS (note 14 supra), I, 151-52. No examination has been made of the higher
see 'EiKppaaCRS
levels of the masonry of this "chimney" in the vestibule, in particular at the points where the archway
over the narthex door meets the northeast corner of the vestibule. If, for example, it were discovered
that the archway was in fact constructed as a bridge between rooms above the Horologion and the
ramp tower, then perhaps an additional phase in the history of the conversion of this area from open
space to enclosed vestibule would need consideration.
34 E. J. W. Hawkins, "Plaster and Stucco Cornices in Haghia Sophia, Istanbul," Actes du XII6
Congrks International des Etudes Byzantines, III (Belgrade, 1964), 131-35. The cornice predates the
lunette mosaic.
35 The present bronze doors had to be enlarged to fit the opening. Their original decoration suggests
a date before the Justinianic St. Sophia, and they could have belonged to an earlier phase of the
church; cf. E. H. Swift, Hagia Sophia (New York, 1940), esp. 55-60. For the date of the enlargement
and addition of new bronze ornaments, and the engraving of the inscriptions on the bronze plates
inlaid with silver by Theophilos in 838/39, with the addition of the name of Michael III in 840/41,
see, most recently, C. Mango, "When Was Michael III Born?", DOP, 21 (1967), 253-58.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 199
to enlarge the space to about twice its previous size. A window in its apse,
now blocked, looked out eastward directly into the south gallery of St. Sophia,
over the final stairs of the ramp. This recess was still recognizable as an oratory
in 1849.36Oratories in the galleries of St. Sophia figure in several texts.37 To
the right of the recess was the entrance to the Alcove, which possibly had the
function of a diaconicon.
The ceiling of the Room Over the Vestibule is now divided longitudinally
into three bays (shown incorrectly in previous literature) (fig. v). Only the
north bay appears to belong to the original construction. The south window,
now blocked up with Turldsh rubble, is also an alteration, belonging with
the two southern vault bays (fig. 26). The evidence is that when the Room Over
the Vestibule was constructed, its window system was similar to that of the
Room Over the Ramp. It too had antae; in the brickwork rising from the anta
in the southwest corner of the Room Over the Vestibule are hints of the
springing of an arch, now truncated. The natural reconstruction of the original
south window is therefore with three lights between arches whose columns
would rest on a low zone of masonry. This reconstruction of the original
window is supported by the existence on the exterior of this Room of a molded
projection, though at a slightly lower level than that of the Room Over the
Ramp (fig. 2). The alteration to this window dates to the Middle Byzantine
period (see infra, pp. 212-13). As for the original vaulting, most likely the method
of the present north bay was applied to the whole Room. This vault is seen
on its eastern side to be not a simple barrel vault but two arches of different
widths with a concave fill between them (fig. 27). The bay is therefore tri-
partite, and for clarity we denote each member, starting from the north wall,
as A, B, and C. Our measurements suggest the original division of the ceiling
into four repeats of this vaulting: the pattern A B C B C B C B A would
bring the vaulting up to the face of the antae. A final point to be made about
the appearance of the Rooms is that the marble door frames, as, for example,
in the south end of the west wall of the Room Over the Vestibule and in the
entrance to the gallery, were presumably made at the time of the conversion.
DATE OF ROOMS
The building of the southwest vestibule and the suite of rooms above it was
a major alteration to this corner of St. Sophia. It probably caused the change
in function of the Augustaion from that of an agora in the time of Justinian
36
Mango, Materials, 139.
37 Mathews, Early Churches, 129 (and references), documents the existence of Ei*KTritpio in the
galleries of St. Sophia as well as in other churches in the capital, but his account needs correction:
Patriarch Nikephoros faced exile, not death, in 815; the adduced passage of TH6rpiaKcova-ravTvovTw6-
AEcos,III, in Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed. Preger, II (Leipzig, 1907), 280 (chap.
208), does not refer to oratories at St. George at Chalcedon. The key sentence (lines 13-16) tells us
that Patriarch Sergios, whose correct dates are 610-38, also founded all the oratories of St. Sophia
which are in the galleries and gave them the specified donations. The text confirms the existence of
these oratories, but its historical accuracy is debatable.
200 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
dI
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43 The identification made in Mango, Brazen House, 53, derives from the Book of Ceremonies and
the chroniclers, and will be discussed below.
44
Mango, Brazen House, 52; John of Ephesus, 11.26, 27, and 34, trans. R. Payne Smith, The
Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus (Oxford, 1860), 145.
Nikephoros
Gregoras commends the high quality of the architecture of the Patriarchate, though its fabric was
deteriorating by the fourteenth century; for an account with references, see R. Janin, Constantinople
byzantine (Paris, 1964), 177-80.
45
Mango, Brazen House, 52; Pasadaios, 'O nHarplapXiK6S OKOS,chaps. 2 and 3.
46 One text states that the church of St.
Agathonikos was used as the cathedral by seven patriarchs,
but this is probably an unacceptable solution since the text is the unreliable
eighth-century UTapao-r-
cass oi,vropot XpoviKai,in Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed. Preger, I, 20 (chap. 2).
This states that the church was restored by Justinian (confirmed
by Procopius, De Aedificiis, 1.4)
and was used by seven patriarchs for fifty years. These figures are not
strictly compatible with the
interim between 532 and the new Patriarchate. The reference to
emperors is ambiguous; the verb
could mean emperors "were crowned there" or "wore crowns there." A
palace near this church is
described as in ruins in the reign of Tiberius (578-82), if the emendation to the text
by Lambeck is
accepted. According to R. Janin, La gdographie eccldsiastique de l'Empire byzantin: les dglises et les
monastWres,2nd ed. (Paris, 1969), 7-8, the church is at Kainoupolis, the quarter on the hill sloping
down toward the Propontis between the Forum Tauri and the Forum of Constantine. Cf.
Pasadaios,
'O rTarrpiapXtK6SOIKOS,43.
47F.-X.
Murphy and P. Sherwood, Constantinople II et Constantinople III (Paris, 1974), 86.
48
Published and its authenticity discussed by E. Baluze, Nova collectio conciliorum (Paris, 1683),
1475-1581.
49Mansi, IX, 173. The emendation venerabilis
seems desirable.
50 Pasadaios, '0 OKOS, chap. 1.
aTTrpiaPXIKoS
51
Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. de Boor, 240; Cedrenus, Bonn ed. (1838-39), I, 679; and A. M.
Schneider, "Brinde in Konstantinopel," BZ, 41 (1941), 382-403, esp. 385.
202 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
532 by Justinian), houses in front of it, the atrium (i.EaiauAov)near the Great
Church known as the rapaovooTr&aov, the two monasteries near St. Eirene, and
the atrium (PecaiauXov)of St. Eirene and part of its narthex.51The main objec-
tion to this hypothesis is the silence in these sources about patriarchal
buildings, which could be explained if they were indeed very limited in extent
or, alternatively, simply omitted. Perhaps it is simpler to suppose the Patri-
archate was elsewhere. In either case, the large fire of 563, shortly before the
election of John III Scholasticus, was the most likely justification for the
aggrandizement of the Patriarchate.
Financial support for an architectural addition to St. Sophia from the
Emperor to the Patriarch seems likely, and the adornment of St. Sophia by
Justin II (565-78), recorded by Theophanes, may refer to the building of the
new Patriarchate.52 This text gives Justin's motive as piety, and if by this
is meant filial piety, or the need for Justin to legitimize his succession, by
means of the maintenance of Justinian's foundations, then a date early in
his reign is indicated.53A relatively early time in the period of office of John III
Scholasticus could be entertained on different grounds. According to Payne
Smith, the patriarchal court used by John Scholasticus during the persecu-
tion of Monophysite bishops was described by John of Ephesus as the Sekre-
ton.54This persecution began about three years before the Patriarch's death
on 31 August 577, and so the Palace was in use at least by 574. In summary,
the archeological evidence of a substantial alteration at the southwest corner
of St. Sophia at some period in the sixth century may be correlated with
documentary records of the erection of the Patriarchal Palace between 565
and 577.
The mosaics of this Room will now be described, and then we shall reach a
conclusion on their dating and on the identification of the Small Sekreton.
Mosaics occurred above the level of the marble cornice, which no doubt
originally skirted the four walls of the Room. Above the cornice lay the
ornamental border which framed the four tympana and their central windows,
and served to separate the mosaics of the vault from those in the tympana.
Each of the four groins of the vault was designed as a unit (figs. 11 and 16)
in which two rinceaux, originating from a cusp in the corner of the Room,
52 Theophanes, Chronographia, I, 241-42, trans. Mango, Art, 124. Some scholars since Heisenberg
have connected this statement with a passage of Corippus and have postulated the addition by
Justin II of a festival cycle of mosaics to the decoration of St. Sophia. This suggestion is decisively
In Laudem
rejected in a new edition of the poem by A. Cameron, in Flavius Cresconius Corippus,
Iustini Augusti minoris (London, 1976). The controversial passage is IV.264-325; see commentary,
actual
pp. 206-7; the phrase internis oculis (line 292) indicates that the poet is not referring to decree
representations. Cameron judges the purpose of the passage to be a complement to Justin's
on the creed of 566/67 which proclaimed his Chalcedonian orthodoxy: his edict ordered the Creed of
Constantinople to be recited in all churches.
53 Pius is one of the most common words in Corippus' poem, and the range of its meanings is
discussed by Cameron, e.g., pp. 125, 130, 177-78.
54Ecclesiastical History (note 44 supra), 36, and footnote n.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 203
coil their way upward and branch out to fill the two faces of the groin. The
vault has two axes of symmetry, but it is treated as if it had four. The same
design is repeated eight times, but it had to be reduced in size on the east-
west vault. The rinceaux did not meet at the apex of the vault but encircled
a large central medallion. Its outer rim is now discernible only in one fragment
near the top of the southeast groin (fig. 16). Perhaps more was visible at the
time of the Fossati restoration, to judge from their watercolor of (presumably)
the southwest groin.55
In the soffit of the vault that frames the south window is a band of ornament
about 40 cm. wide, which has the function of filling the elongated space at
this end of the Room.
The windows separate the tympana into two triangular areas, each of which
contained a large medallion. Though only the south tympanum is now in a
reasonably complete form (fig. 12), it can confidently be deduced that this
was the regular scheme for each tympanum. The fragment of mosaic on the
right side of the north tympanum shows that there was an unbroken transition
from medallion to vault mosaic, and this may be taken as proof that the
mosaics of the tympana and the vault were all executed in a single campaign
of work (fig. 13). The distinctive decorative border running along the angles
between the walls and the vault can be picked out at a few other points,
but in general it has fallen off. In the north and south tympana parts of the
mosaic medallions are still in position; their original existence on the east
and west tympana is indicated by circular "ghosts" on the masonry (fig. 17).
The border (fig. 15) which framed all the major areas of mosaic was about
18 cm. wide, and had a ground of dark blue glass tesserae, outlined at each
sideseby a single row of black glass. It contained a set of alternating diamond
and rosette motifs.56The diamonds are made of light green glass with a smaller
central diamond core of white stone; at the sides are two rows of gold tesserae
with a square gold attachment at the center of each. The simplified rosettes
consist of four petals in Proconnesian grey marble around a circle of white
stone, which usually has a central spot of red glass or pink marble. The
rosette is outlined in white stone tesserae.
The band in the soffit of the arch around the south tympanum (fig. 15)
contained a vertical series of lotus-shaped plants out of which grow pairs of
flowers. The motif is probably to be regarded as a variation of the winged
palmette found elsewhere in St. Sophia.57 Except for the lowest, which is
lighter in color (only that in the southwest corner survives), each motif is in
dark green glass, with its internal rib structure in gold outlined by black or
dark blue.
Between the ornamental border and the background of the vault mosaics
is a single trim of Proconnesian grey marble. The same stone, in a single row,
follows the contours of all the decorative forms in this Room, so that a contrast
in color defines the forms, yet blends with the background. The background
material is white limestone, not gold. This is not immediately apparent
because in the course of time the tesserae have deepened irregularly in color.
The dominant color of the acanthus rinceaux is green. The scrolls rise from
green foliate cusps in the four corners of the Room in two stems which develop
into three whorls. The first element of each stem, surviving most completely in
the southwest groin, is a trumpet-like sheath out of which the three scrolls
spring. This sheath, or cornucopia, is gold, shaded with brown and green along
the right side. It is outlined in black glass at the top and along the right side,
and in blue glass along the left. The clusters of leaves which now develop upward
are alternately green or gold. The green clusters are highlighted with white
limestone and shaded with black glass, ribbed with blue and dark green glass,
and their inner faces, when turned over, are in reds. The gold clusters are
highlighted with silver outlined in black glass, and shaded in brown and green;
when their leaves are turned over, these are also in red. The final cluster in
each of the three scrolls becomes more blue than green by the greater use of
blue and blue-green glass. At the center of each of the scrolls is a flower or a
leaf. In the lowest scroll is a flower with four petals, each divided by a black
line into a green and a red half. The next scroll has a sprig of pointed green
leaves outlined in black and highlighted with Proconnesian grey marble. The
third scroll has a trefoil blossom, also green and red like the quatrefoil.
The south tympanum (fig. 14) still contains its two medallions, about one
meter in diameter. The background of each triangular field is in the same
discolored white limestone as the vault. The medallions contain large gold
crosses with widely flared tips to their arms, which terminate in pairs of
tear-drop serifs. The medallions are colored so that the center of the cross
is set off against a bright light which turns progressively darker. The medallion
encloses five or six eccentric zones, with the center of each shifting upward
so that the innermost radiates from the center of the cross at 11 cm. above
the center of the medallion. The central zone is yellow-green glass; the other
zones progress through several tones of blue. The rim is formed of two rows
of red glass.
In his preliminary report, Underwood remarked on the fact that the mosaic
area within the red rim belongs to an alteration to the decoration, for it is
encompassed by a circular suture.58The bare surfaces of the brickwork in the
other tympana have visible tool marks where the original contents of the medal-
lions were also hacked out. Another indication of a remodeling of the original
decoration is the area of disturbance below the surviving medallions of the
south tympanum. It is clear that the letters of an inscription have been taken
out. These letters were removed in two different ways; some were cut out in
patches, others were chipped out letter by letter. Afterward, the area formerly
occupied by the inscription was reset in the same color as the rest of the
ground. Where the tesserae were replaced one by one and the trim was not
58 Underwood, "Notes," 292-93.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 205
removed it is possible to make out a few of the original letters. In the name
below the left medallion (fig. 21) two tesserae of one letter were left in place,
and these show that black glass had been used for the inscriptions. Examina-
tion of this area, and also that below the right medallion (fig. 20), reveals
the nature of the inscriptions. They consisted of a small cross followed by two
words, obviously the names of saints. The last three letters of the name of the
saint on the left were: iota, omicron, and sigma. According to Underwood,
the previous letter was either kappa or chi. To judge from their size, the
medallions would have originally held bust representations of the saints named
in the inscriptions below them.
The fact of two periods of mosaic work in the Room Over the Ramp is the
key to an understanding of this area of St. Sophia. For clarity, we shall define
the work in two phases. Phase one consisted of eight medallions in pairs on the
walls, surmounted by a ninth medallion at the apex of the vault set in the midst
of luxuriant acanthus rinceaux. Thpepurpose of the medallions was to enclose
figurative representations. Phase two was an adjustment to this program, and
is characterized by the substitution of crosses for figures in the medallions.
The mosaics of phase one were attributed by Underwood to the reign of
Justin II,59 and by Mango and Hawkins to the sponsorship of Patriarch
John III Scholasticus during this same reign.60In support of the sixth-century
date, Mango and Hawkins noted that the ornamental mosaics of phase one
fell into a pattern which could be characterized as the combination of more
traditional "Hellenistic" forms, like the acanthus rinceau, with more pre-
dominant "Near Eastern" motifs, like the diamond, rosette, and winged
palmette. This pattern may be a distinctive development in sixth-century
art. As for phase two, Mango recognized in this work the activity of the
iconoclastic Patriarch Nicetas in St. Sophia in 768/69.61 This substitution of
crosses for figures is quite certainly to be dated to Iconoclasm, and this supplies
us with a terminus ante quem for phase one.
Phase One
Since we concluded on architectural grounds that the Room Over the Ramp
was part of the Patriarchal Palace and was built between 565 and
en577, the
question is whether the iconography and style of the mosaics of phase one
59 Ibid., 293. He supposed that our phase one mosaics confirmed the deductions of Heisenberg
from literary sources; but see supra, note 52, for a rebuttal of Heisenberg's use of Corippus. Kitzinger
was reluctant to accept a precise dating, and instead saw the mosaics as "probably from the latter
half of the sixth or the seventh century"; cf. "Byzantine Art" (note 4 supra), esp. 11, 43. Wright,
"The Shape of the Seventh Century" (note 23 supra), 9-28, esp. 25, dates our phase one to the reign
of Justinian II. His statement that the images in medallions are made dea separate and prominent
feature at a lower height, as at S. Maria Antiqua, is not acceptable as fact. The bases of the medallions
are at a level of about six meters from the floor.
60 Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 33-35 and notes 85-86.
They compare our phase one
ornament with the borders of the Samson mosaic at Mopsuestia, of the apse mosaic of the Koimesis
church at Nicaea, and of the apse mosaic at Kiti. The closest parallel is with Nicaea, which they
attribute to the sixth or seventh century. The most recent investigation of this church does not
reconsider the evidence for the date of its foundation; see U. Peschlow, "Neue Beobachtungen zur
Architektur und Ausstattung der Koimesiskirche in Iznik," IstMitt, 22 (1972), 145-87.
61Implicitly in Brazen House, 53, and
explicitly in Materials, 94.
206 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
the discovery from under plaster of a part of the ornamental mosaics of the eastern bay; the "umbrella"
motif is directly comparable to a similar form in phase three of the mosaics around the Alexander
portrait, to be dated between ca. 895 and 913; see Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 36.
A derivation of the type of the Christ Pantokrator from the portrayal of the visions of Prophets is
proposed by M. Restle, Kunst und byzantinische Miinzprdgung von Justinian I. bis zum Bilderstreit
(Athens, 1964), esp. 118ff.
69 P. Grierson,
Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whitte-
more Collection, III (Washington, D.C., 1973), esp. 164-68.
70 See K. Weitzmann, The
Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Icons, I (Princeton,
1976), esp. 13-15, for a publication of the Christ icon with brief comments on its iconography. Weitz-
mann mentions, but indecisively, the hypothesis that this icon is a copy of the pre-iconoclastic icon
of Christ on the Chalke Gate. If this is accepted, the date in the first half of the sixth century proposed
by Weitzmann poses new difficulties, for Mango (Brazen House, esp. 108ff.) dates the icon not earlier
than the late sixth century and perhaps into the seventh. The hypothetical relation between the Sinai
icon and the Chalke image was proposed by M. Chatzidakis, "An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai,"
ArtB, 49 (1967), 197-208, but without taking into account the study of Mango.
71 For New Testament references, see J. D. Breckenridge, The Numismatic Iconography of Justin-
ian II (New York, 1959), esp. 51. The concept, with its implications for artistic and imperial theory,
is stated in Corippus, 11.248: ille est omnipotens, hic omnipotentis imago; see Corippus, ed. Cameron
(note 52 supra).
72 Cf.
H.-J. Schulz, Die byzantinische Liturgie (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1964), 69-70; Cedrenus,
Bonn ed., 684-85; and Breckenridge, op. cit., esp. 51ff. Grierson, op. cit., 164ff., rejects the identifi-
cation made by Breckenridge for the model of his Christ-type A as the apse of the pre-iconoclastic
Chrysotriklinos. Instead, Grierson says that the Book is held in such a way that its model must be
of a standing Christ, not a seated figure. His argument would presumably also exclude a vault model
(cf. p. 148 for his discussion about the position of the Book). It is a principle of Grierson's approach
that changes in coin types represent influences from newly executed icons, and so it is justified to
look for such influential models. Chatzidakis, op. cit., decided in favor of the Chalke icon as the model
for Christ-type A on the coins of Justinian II, as well as for the Sinai icon, and also rejected Brecken-
ridge's suggestion (pp. 98-100) that the model for Christ-type B was the Camuliana icon. Chatzidakis
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 209
The iconography of phase one does not exclude a date during the third quarter
of the sixth century, nor does it offer any very precise hints. The style ought to
give more decisive information, even allowing for the scarcity of dated sur-
vivals.73 The analogy with the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock (691-92),
suggested by Kitzinger, is valid with respect to certain forms, such as fruits
and flowers, the spikiness of the leaves, and the modeling techniques, but all
these similarities are of a general nature. Stern follows Kitzinger's sugges-
tion that these analogies are proof of a Constantinopolitan provenance for the
mosaicists, but he nonetheless finds the work at Jerusalem stereotyped in
comparison, and is prepared to accept a gap of a century between the monu-
ments, an unpromising interval when deciding the place of traininig of the
later workshop.
The characteristic features of the rinceaux of the Room Over the Ramp are
their vigorous and luxuriant growth and the subtlety
s ley of the ir coloring. The
closest parallel is to be found in Constantinople itself, in the acanthus border
of the Great Palace
P mosaics.74 This border is also a positive analogy for the
rinceaux of the stucco cornices of the southwest vestibule, if allowance is made
for the change in medium (fig. 9). Both the Great Palace border and the two
cornices (14 m. long) develop horizontally and enclose a rich variety of forms.
The analogy with the Great Palace floor does not tempt us to date our
phase one mosaics and the stucco cornices as late as the reign of Justinian II,
despite recent support for this view.75Even the one study to take full account
of the historical circumstances and published archeological material, which
decided on the late sixth century, probably in the reign of Tiberius II (578-82),76
would now seem to put the floor too late, although the dating would be
appropriate for our comparison. A new basis for dating the Great Palace
mosaics is offered by the findings of Hayes, who examined the pottery frag-
ments in the building fills under the floor mosaics and checked their find
records in the excavation notebooks.77 His conclusion that the sherds are of
late fifth- and early sixth-century types, with a probable terminal date of
reckoned that by the reign of Justinian II this particular Acheiropoietos image had lost its earlier fame,
but he thought it may have been an influence on a representation of Christ on the Cross of Justin II,
for the image came to Constantinople (to St. Sophia?) in 574. The Sinai icon may be very close in
date to our phase one mosaics.
73 For the
problems, see Kitzinger, "Byzantine Art" (note 4 supra); and for some proposed solu-
tions on the basis of a too rigid use of stylistic criticism, see Wright, "The Shape of the Seventh
Century" (note 23 supra), 9-28. See also Stern, "Notes sur les mosaiques" (note 4 supra), 201-32.
74 The Great
Palace, Second Report, ed. Talbot Rice (note 25 supra), pls. 48-50.
75 P. J. Nordhagen, "The Mosaics of the Great Palace of the
Byzantine Emperors," BZ, 56 (1963),
53-68. This attribution has convinced Wright (op. cit., 24-25), who refers also to a consideration of
this date not used by us: see E. A. Defouloy (M.A. thesis, Berkeley, Calif., 1966).
76 Cf. C. Mango and I. Lavin,
reviewing the Second Report, ed. Talbot Rice, in ArtB, 42 (1960),
67-73.
77 J. W. Hayes, Late Roman Pottery (London,
1972), esp. 418. Still unresolved is the date and
relation to the Great Palace floor of the hunting floor at Apamea, modern Qal'at-el-Mudiq in Syria.
J. Balty, La Grande mosaique de chasse du Triclinos (Brussels, 1969), refers the inscription of 539
to a restoration of the room it decorates and uses it as a terminus ante quem. Kitzinger, "Author's
Postscripts," in The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West (note 4 supra), 390, records his mis-
givings against a dating in the late fourth century. Kitzinger, in a paper read in 1963, had accepted
539 as the date of this floor; see ibid., 69.
14
210 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
about 520-40, points to a time for the laying of the Great Palace floor in the
first half of the sixth century. This is perhaps as reasonablea comparative
date as their stylistic relation permits. Another work of the period, the silver
cross in the Vatican attributed to Justin II, has on one face rinceaux in
repoussework.78The scrolls on the horizontalarms spring out of the familiar
trumpet-like sheath, but in the case of this work, which may be very close
in date to our phase one, a stringent stylistic comparisonis excluded by the
differencesin scale.
Though such sixth-century parallelsneed to be treated with caution, their
indications seem to vindicate the dating of phase one to the period of the
construction of the Room Over the Ramp.79These mosaics belong to the
"magnificentdecoration" of the new Patriarchal Palace of John III Scho-
lasticus, erected between 565 and 577. The scheme of saints in medallions is
also appropriate to this period, in which the religious dependence of Justin II
and Sophia on the intermediary of icons is documented in the description by
Corippus of their prayers on the morning of the coronation in 565.80
Phase Two
The original mosaics of the Room Over the Ramp remained intact until
Iconoclasm. The only report of iconoclastic destruction of pictures in the
Great Churchis of the activities of PatriarchNicetas in 768/69.81The event
is described in three chronicles, in slightly different terms.82Nicetas is recorded
in this year to have restored certain structures of St. Sophia which had been
damaged by the passage of time; presumablythe earthquakeof 740, which
devastated St. Eirene, had left its mark on St. Sophia.83 In the "reception
cept of the emperor as the servus Christi is already developed in the reign of Justin II, as in this
section of Corippus and elsewhere; the place of Justinian II's coinage tends to be exaggerated. For
an interpretation of the distinctive stage of art in this reign, see also idem, "Corippus's Poem on
Justin II: A Terminus of Antique Art?", AnnPisa, ser. 3, 1 (1975), 129-65.
81 No traces of iconoclastic activity were found in the apse semidome, despite the ninth-century
verses around it; see Mango and Hawkins, "Apse Mosaics," 125, 147-48.
82 Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. de Boor, I, 443; Nikephoros, Historia syntomos (Breviarium),
ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1880), 76, trans. Mango, Art, 153; Cedrenus, Bonn ed., II, 16, derives from
Theophanes.
83 The extensive restoration of St. Eirene would seem to date from the reign of Constantine V,
to judge from the monogram on the plaque lying below columns of the north aisle; see T. Ulbert,
"Untersuchungen zu den byzantinischen Reliefplattern des 6 bis 8 Jahrhunderts," IstMitt, 19-20
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 211
rooms which are there," according to Nikephoros, or, in other words, "in the
Patriarchate," according to Theophanes, Nicetas removed all the figurative
pictures. The primary texts describe his act in a slightly differing way, though
they seem compatible and precise. Nikephoros says that in the Sekreta, both
in the small building and in the large one, he scraped off the representations
of Christ and the saints made of golden mosaic and, literally, "wax-molded
wood." Theophanes says that Nicetas took out the icons of the Small Sekreton
made of mosaic; and he took down from the Large Sekretonthe icons made of
painted wood and smeared the faces of the rest of the icons (and he did like-
wise in the Abramiaion)84Combini this information, the reter-
reasonable in
pretation is that the Small Sekreton was decorated with mosaics of Christ
and the saints, but that the Large Sekretonwas less preciously adorned, having
a figurative decoration probably consisting of encaustic icons and frescoes.
This prominent act of Iconoclasm in the Patriarchate indicates a date of
768/69 for the phase two non-figurative mosaics of the Room Over the Ramp.
Scarcely less certain is the conclusion that the Small Sekreton with its mosaic
decoration of Christ and the saints is none other than the Room Over the
Ramp. Since its scheme was offensive to the Iconoclasts, the interpretation
that all nine medallions, including the central image of Christ, previously
contained figurative representations is vindicated.
The inserted plain gold crosses with large teardrop serifs, which have survived
in the south tympanum (fig. 14) and which no doubt appeared in the other
tympana (the large central medallion may have received a more complicated
design), may easily be paralleled, as in the apse of St. Eirene in the reign of
Constantine V (740-75) or in the sanctuary mosaics of St. Sophia in Thessa-
loniki, erected and decorated with a non-figurative decoration by Constan-
tine VI and Eirene (780-97).
The historical context of this act of Iconoclasm in the Patriarchate was
one of the most violent persecutions of the period: the martyrdom of Stephen
the Younger and Petert the Stylite,
ti and the murder of the previous Patriarch,
Constantine II. In 768 several important monasteries in the capital were
either secularized or destroyed; the secular clergy hardly put up a resistance.85
These acts of violence and the official proscription of images made at the
(1969-70), 339-57. R. J. Mainstone, "The Reconstruction of the Tympana of St. Sophia at Istanbul,"
DOP, 23-24 (1969-70), 355-68, esp. 366-67, decided against the possibility that the tympana were
rebuilt after this earthquake of 740.
84 Mango, Materials, 94, interprets the
procedure of Nicetas in the Large Sekreton as taking down
the icons in paint (eI uioypaifaS) from the vault (-rTijTpoirKijS),and smearing the faces of the other
icons; this interpretation follows the passage of Theophanes. Nikephoros is more precise in referring
to the icons in the Large Sekreton as KIlPOXi5TOU 0AlS. It does not seem legitimate to conclude from
these two parallel passages that i75oypapieSmust in other cases mean encaustic; this is the deduction
of S. Vryonis, Jr., "The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059)," DOP, 11 (1957),
263-77, esp. 268 note 30. However, the suggestion of Vryonis that the encaustic medium for panels
was abandoned during Iconoclasm conforms with the findings of Weitzmann in the Sinai Collection
(The Icons [note 70 supra], esp. 8-9). We would like to suggest the possibility that in the Large
Sekreton encaustic panels were taken down from the apse (TriS-Tpo-TTKfis) of the oratory, and that
frescoes in the Room Over the Vestibule were whitewashed.
85 Cf. C. Mango, "Historical Introduction," in Iconoclasm, ed. A. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham,
1977), 1-6.
14*
212 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
Council of 754 would hardly encourage the new Patriarch Nicetas (766-80)
to tolerate the continued existence of figurative icons in the Patriarchate.
He must, of course, have supported iconoclastic thinking, but his motivation
to overt action may have been the need to ensure his position.8 Another
development of this time was the "prohibition" of prayers to the Virgin or
saints, proclaimed in the first year of office of Nicetas.87
The pictorial decoration of phase one of the Room Over the Ramp initiated
a period of religious art which was stimulated by the personal piety of Justin II
and Sophia, as evinced most aptly by Corippus in his account of their prayers
in front of icons on the morning of the coronation in 565. The Room Over
the Ramp was reserved from the beginning for special mosaic treatment. Its
decoration must have been planned by John III Scholasticus at the time of
his campaign to use all means to convert the Monophysites to Orthodoxy.
The phase two substitution of crosses for figures terminates this period in the
history of religious art, but reflects an identical concept of the role of art
in the war against heresy.
The Room Over the Vestibule has lost all traces of its original decoration.
Its present mosaics, which survive only in a few fragmentary areas, are the
product of a single campaign (fig.v). A description of their architectural
setting was published by Underwood,88but needs a brief comment. The two
south bays have rebuilt vaults. While these give the same effect of a barrel
vault as in the original north bay, they are slightly domed along their ridge,
and the bricks are laid in the manner of groin vaults with the groins flattened
out. Where these vaults meet the walls a concave lunette is formed on each
side of the bay, and the mosaicists took account of these four lunettes in
planning the cycle.
The south window was remodeled at the same time as the vaults, but the
structural antae of the earlier opening were left in position (fig. 26). The new
window was apparently modeled on the type found in the west gallery, but
the details are now obscured by the Turkish fill of rubble. Probably it consisted
of a screen of two orders of superimposed mullions, the spaces in between
being filled by glazed grilles and marble balustrades. The two mullions of the
upper zone are visible (the right one is rough and cracked), and in the left
window a fragment of an oak grille was found with mortices for horizontal
and vertical struts. The new window was not aligned with the faces of the
antae, but was set back, and the side windows are not of the same size and
shape. No continuous horizontal element between the two zones can at present
be observed, but perhaps tie beams were used. From the lower zones the marble
86 On the motivations of iconoclastic acts in the
army, see W. E. Kaegi, "The Byzantine Armies
and Iconoclasm," Byzantinoslavica, 27 (1966), 48-70.
87
Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. de Boor, 439.
88 Underwood, "Preliminary Report."
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 213
The panel above the door was semicircular, and about two-thirds of the
mosaic surface or painted setting-bed remains. Only the first layer of rendering
remains in the third at the right and in a smaller triangle at the extreme left.
Those tesserae which have been scraped off were mainly in the areas of gold.
Despite these losses, it was possible during conservation to reconstruct the
mosaic field from the traces of the painting of the setting-bed (figs. 29 and 31).
It was normal practice in Constantinople for mosaicists to paint this third
layer of plaster with a fully developed design in various colors.89 What is
apparently unusual in this Room, but which is found in all the fragments, is
the mixture of short lengths of hay or straw in the setting-bed as well as in
other layers. A vertical line can be traced in the plaster between the figures,
which indicates that each of the three figures in the panel was set separately.
In the center, Christ sits enthroned on a lyre-shaped throne with the left
thigh supporting a closed Gospel Book, or Book of Life, clasped in the left
hand. His right hand is held vertically in a gesture of blessing, rather than
speech. The suppliant Virgin stands to the spectator's left, while to the right
the third figure of the group, of whom only the tips of the fingers remain beside
89
Idem, The Kariye Djami (note 3 supra), I, 172-83.
214 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
the red cushion against which Christ sits, may be presumed to have been
John the Baptist. The panel was enclosed by a semicircular border containing
a liturgical inscription. There was no cornice between the panel and the marble
lintel of the door below it.
cubes and then a row of mat brown glass casting this side of the nose into
shadow. On the left the row beside the ridge is light pink; then follows a row
of clear brown. The rows of brown on each side of the nose sweep out to form
the curves of the outer edges of the nostrils, which were indicated by a single
black tessera. Between the nose and cheeks the shading is achieved by two
rows of yellow-green. The ears are indicated by single curved rows of pink
marble. The lips are lost. The contours of the neck are in yellow-green, the
flesh in pink with a few whites. The neck is particularly broad and short.
The Hand: His right hand is large and heavy; the index and middle
fingers and thumb are raised, and the little and ring fingers bend to cross the
end of the thumb. The fingers are outlined in red glass, but the outlines of
wrist and thumb are in purple-brown. The flesh tones are in two shades of
pink, and the shadows in two tones of yellow-green.
The Book: This must be reconstructed mainly from the setting-bed clues.
It was a closed book, with the pages to the left held closed by clasps. The
setting-bed colors are yellow-ochre, reddish brown, and green, and, despite
the disturbances, it is clear that the cover was decorated with a series of
rectangles. This cover must have appeared to be gold decorated with green
and red gems. Some tesserae survive on the right and one red cube on the
left, which suggest an outer border around the cover made of deep red glass
tesserae, in which round white limestone tesserae portrayed pearls.
The Garments: Christ wears the normal two garments, a chiton below a
himation, and both are blue. They are modeled in three tones of dark blue,
with folds and outlines in black glass; there are no light blues. Certain tesserae
are rather large. The line of loss over the right shoulder would correspond
with the path of a clavus. A few cubes from it adhere about the wrist of the
right hand, which indicate it was a mixture of gold and red glass.
The Feet: His left foot is nearly intact (fig. 34), but only the ankle of
the right remains. The thongs of the sandals are in black glass. The toes are
outlined in red and shaded in yellow-green. Marble cubes are used for the flesh,
in various sizes.
The Throne: The reconstruction (figs. 29 and 31) depends on observation
during conservation by Underwood and Hawkins. The type of throne recurs
in the narthex panel, but this version has some elaborations and is even more
massive. This throne is seen from the right and slightly from above, like that
of Christ in the narthex and of the Virgin in the apse, whereas the footstool
contradicts this viewpoint: it is seen from the left, from above, and is in
reversed perspective. The seat is supported on a pair of square legs; above
the front legs was a large knob, visible only at the left (the other knob would
have been covered by the garments). The finial at each side of the back is of
similar shape. The lyre-shaped frame is ornamented like the legs with pairs
of rectangles. The back is surmounted with a rounded cross piece.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 217
The outline of the throne is similar to that of the Book: there are two or
three rows of red glass and, in the wider parts, round white limestone tesserae
representing pearls are inserted, in two rows or one. This border may be seen
at the bottom of the right-hand frame on the outer edge (fig. 33) and at the
top and bottom of the left frame on the inner edges.
The two finials have the same red and white outline and internally are set
with jewels in a gold ground. At their points there seems to be only one
teardrop pearl, rather than a cluster of three as in the narthex throne.
The horizontal rail ends in round knobs. It has a single row of red glass
for its outline and is made of gold regularly studded with small rectangular
green gems. A fringe rises above the rail, only visible now as small spots of
green paint in the setting-bed.
The curved sides are subdivided into three gold panels: on the left, each
is decorated with six rectangular cabochon stones alternately in green and
red; on the right there are only four cabochons in each panel and they were
therefore more elongated.
The stuff of the back, predominantly green, has a diaper pattern created
by a network of gold lines two cubes wide. From the top of each diamond
shape a round white limestone pearl hangs from a thin gold strand (the
narthex throne has a green trefoil leaf). Tesserae adhere in very small numbers
in this area. The reconstruction of the upper parts of the throne is assisted
by an assumption of symmetry.
The seat is surfaced with gold, and its front edges are set with pairs of
rectangular cabochons in panels of gold. It is outlined like the upper frame.
The knob on the left has a red and white outline and into its gold surface
are inserted two white gems, one semicircular and the other triangular. The
end of the seat to the right is subdued in color to indicate shadow. The
vertical and horizontal edges are set in gold tesserae laid on their sides to
give clear brown, and they also have a single row of white limestone pearls.
Below the seat to the right is an area filled with reversed gold cubes to give
mat brown; this is either the inside face of the back leg or a panel across
the end.92The area is bordered by a double row of gold tesserae. On the right
side of the seat are two rectangular cabochons, one in turquoise tesserae and
the other indicated in green paint.
The cushion is set entirely in stone tesserae, except for a few rows of red
glass in its border. The visible areas of the cushion are divided into vertical
bands. The outer bands, rounded at the ends, are white limestone shaded
with Proconnesian grey marble. The inner bands are made of stone cubes
dipped in vermilion paint-the same device for producing a red cushion as in
the narthex panel. Mixed in with these stone cubes are random green and gold
92
Mango and Hawkins, "Apse Mosaics," 133, comment on these effects. We have not considered
it of value to include color charts for the mosaics published in this report, because no panel contains
entirely its original range. We have not been able to check in the Rooms the color of every tessera
described in the original notes, and this must result in some lack of precision in our descriptions of
some colors and materials, e.g., in the browns and in the presence of olive- or
yellow-green, colors
which we distinguish although Underwood did not.
218 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
cubes, also dipped in vermilion paint. The paint has today deteriorated to a
dirty brown.
The inner band is darkened to the right of Christ to indicate shadow. The
surface of the footstool is in plain gold with the familiar border. In its upper
left part are cabochon stones for ornament.
Byzantine Repair (figs. 34 and 35; cf. figs. 29 and 31): The lower part of
the footstool was repaired in the Byzantine period. A horizontal suture runs
at the level of the underside of Christ's left foot, clearly visible in the plaster
at about 20 cm. above the lintel. This lintel is cracked in the center, necessitat-
ing repair work to prevent the masonry of the tympanum from slipping down.
In this remedial work the bricks around the door were hacked out and the
door was shored up with oak beams around its frame. The workmanship was
poor, and there was apparently a shortage of good lengths of wood.
The mosaic which had to be cut out was reset. The setting-bed was prepared
for gold tesserae with red paint, not yellow-ochre. The sides of the footstool
were again ornamented with precious stones, but not in a matching design.
Instead of using white limestone for pearls the repair has round marble
tesserae.
The east side of the dome of St. Sophia has a rather crude repair using
marble tesserae. This dates to the fourteenth century.
brown. The lower lip is lost, but it must have been short and thick, as a single
cube of yellow-green for shading occurs far down. The use of vermilion glass
in the lips is paralleled by the Virgin in the apse. Christ in the narthex panel
has some vermilion glass in his lips. In the north tympanum, John Chrysostom
also has vermilion glass here, but Ignatios the Younger has vermilion paint
on white marble, while Ignatios Theophoros orhas pink marble. The mosaicists
of the Room Over the Vestibule also used these variant techniques.
The Hands: The flesh is in three tones of pink marble with olive and light
olive for shading. Small red glass tesserae are used for outlines.
The Garments: The Virgin wears the maphorion over a stola, and, as in
the case of Christ, both are in dark blue modeled in three tones with black
glass folds. The cuff of the stola is decorated with a lozenge with some gold
tesserae between pairs of gold lines. In the maphorion, lozenges set with four
small gold cubes at each point form the ruciform segmeta in the center
of the hood and on each shoulder. The kerchief over the head is white, but
brightly lit by a crenellation of turquoise and grey marble. The knotted white
kerchief at the waist is executed in white limestone with Proconnesian grey
marble. At the knot and two ends are small crosses (or lozenges) formed by
four red tesserae. At the base of the Virgin's neck is a short row of red tesserae,
possibly belonging to the garments.
The hem of the maphorion has two parallel bands of white limestone, with
grey stone for shadows. It has a fringe of white threads knotted together
in threes to make tassels. This hem with its fringe hangs behind the Virgin
in a cascade of zigzag folds.
MOSAICSIN VAULTS
St. Peter (fig. 38)
Location: In the center of the east spandrel between the north and
central bays. Only a fraction can be deciphered. Like all figures in the lower
zone this is in bust format.
The left side of the mouth is damaged,but those tesserae of the upper and
lower lips which survive are of white limestone dipped into vermilionpaint.
The upper lip has small cubes, shadowed at the parting of the lips by black
glass. The shorter lower lip is entirely preserved and was only three large
cubes.
The flesh of the short, massive neck is treated in the same materials as
the face.
The Hands: The gesture of his right hand is similar to that of Christ.
The fingers are outlined by small red glass cubes, and the flesh is modeled in
pink marble with yellow-green shading. What remains of the left hand is
treated in the same materials.
The Scroll: The tightly-rolledscroll in the left hand is of white limestone
with Proconnesiangrey marble and yellow-greenshading. It is outlined in
yellow.
The Garments:The figure wears two garments, and weight and panache
are given to the himationby the heavy treatment of its folds. Its material,
like those of the apostles in the previouslunette, is understoodto be a heavy
white cloth representedby white limestone cubes. Shading is with Procon-
nesian grey marble, and shadow lines are in purple-greygranite.
The chiton,like that of St. Andrew and his neighbor, is turquoise with a
red clavus.Pale turquoisetesseraesurvive to indicate the method of modeling
lighter areas; silver cubes form the highlights, and the folds, neckline, and
shadows are in dark blue. Of the clavus,only the red paint in the setting-bed
remains.
Identification: Since St. Peter was in the spandrelbetween the first two
bays, followed by three figures in the lunette of the central bay, and then
another spandrelfigure, now lost, this was the sixth and last apostle on the
east side of the Room. St. Simon Zelotes is portrayed as a middle-agedman
with a short dark beard. His figureis forceful,with the heavy draperyechoing
the curve of the lunette. This may be a conscious formal means of bringing
the series of apostles to a full stop. However,he carriesthe apostolictradition
to his companionsin the lunette by turning his large staring eyes toward
the central figureof the trio.
the drooping mustaches and beard is a line of purple-brown glass. The same
color divides the lips.
The lips are made of single rows of white limestone colored with vermilion
paint. One tessera which was examined retained the vermilion paint on its
sides and back, beneath the surface of the plaster. It can therefore be stated
that the cubes were dipped in paint before setting.
The Hand: The right hand is held in a blessing position. It is outlined
around the fingers with red glass and at the palm and wrist with purple-
brown. The shading on the palm is dark brown.
The Gospel Book: The front cover of the Book has a central decoration
of a large circular emerald, bordered in red; four more emeralds, square in
shape and bordered with red, are placed in each corner. The cover itself is
gold, enclosed by a margin of a double row of white limestone cubes repre-
senting pearls set in a red band. This Gospel Book closely resembled that held
by Christ.
The front edges of the covers, to the spectator's left, are fastened by two
clasps, distinguishable as dark blue-grey paint on the setting-bed.
The Garments: The sticharion, phelonion, and omophorion are modeled
in stone tesserae, as in the case of Germanos. The crosses of the omophorion
alternate the two red and two black rows of cubes in each arm, with a black
X across the intersection. The cuffs of the phelonion lend color to the figure
by a series of folds using gold, leaf-green, and red glass tesserae. The figure
is cut across the waist by the horizontal line of red cubes marking the upper
outline of the border.
Identification: Methodios was the Patriarch who from 843 to 847 saw the
final restoration of Orthodoxy after Iconoclasm, and so forms the appropriate
pendant for Nikephoros in the opposite lunette, toward whom he stared with
large eyes. This group of three is apparently not linked together by the two
side figures turning their eyes into the center. Methodios, presumably the
youngest saint in the cycle, forms the point at which the spectator could make
direct optical contact with a figure in the hierarchy.
shoulder, the paint changes to red for a distance of five cubes; this must
represent a clavus, presumably with a red field.
The himation is treated in white limestone and three tones of grey stone.
The darkest shadows seem to be of purple-grey granite and slate-grey (Beykoz)
stone.
ORNAMENTAL BORDERS
An ornamental band lay across the crown of the vaults (fig. 46). It would
have traversed both south bays, but cannot be assumed to have crossed the
north bay, where the scheme of decoration is not preserved. A second lower
band divided the two registers of figures (fig. 38), and was of the same width
and design as the central band (about 35 cm.). A band of identical design framed
the lunettes (fig. 41). Another band lay,under the lower register of figures, but a
space of only about 18 cm. seems to have been available before the marble
revetment began. This would accommodate a border consisting of the upper
half of the same design, assuming there was no cornice, or a very narrow one,
above the marble. Alternatively, a stucco cornice might be conjectured of
the same type as that in the Alcove, which has a height of about 18 cm. The
beveled edge of the plaster of the background, which is now visible where the
border has fallen away from around the lunettes, suggests that the borders
were set as a separate operation. This was characterized as the common
232 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
The upper zone of the triple window is separated from the vault mosaics
by a border enclosing a counterchange ivy-leaf design. This runs horizontally
across the base of the soffit, and turns upward and frames the cappings of
the mullions. The design varies very slightly at the base. Between the mosaic
surface and the wooden grid is a slate-grey plaster fill; one would expect a fill
of this kind to be red. The grid is set in the same plaster as the mosaic and
must be coeval. In the southeast corner of the Room the junction between
the plaster layers of the window and the vault may be observed. It seems
that the under-renderings of the soffit mosaic pass under the ivy-leaf border
and are flanged over the under-bed of the vault. This means that the window
decoration was carried out after that of the south bay.102
The window soffit has a floral decoration on a gold ground, and at the
summit there is a cross in a medallion. The ivy-leaf border has repeats of
dark blue or blue-green leaves against a white ground. The east soffit, the
only one to survive, was set in three sections. The setting-bed of the top
and bottom sections was painted in red, and the middle section in yellow-
ochre. Both the upper sections were set with gold tesserae. The bottom sec-
tion carries a vigorous design of shrubs and flowers on a dark green ground
with a jagged edge. The shrubs are green and brown with foliage of various
greens; the shading is by tones of yellow-green and slate-grey. The small dart
and the four petaled flowers are of white marble. The larger round forms
resembling lilies used red glass, white and pink marble, and apparently terra-
cotta. The latter material was recorded in the north tympanum of St. Sophia,
where it can be regarded as a cheaper substitute in places where in the sixth
century red glass would have been used.103The design of the "garden" is
101Underwood, The Kariye Djami (note 3 supra), I, 178. This border design is found elsewhere
in St. Sophia, e.g., in the surrounds of the niches in the tympana.
102Dirimtekin, "Le local du Patriarcat a Sainte Sophie" (note 9 supra), 113-27, had supposed
this window to be Justinianic. Our examination was visual, without the cutting of test holes.
the Room
103
Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," esp. 8. The tesserae in the Alcove and
Over the Vestibule, which we have identified as terra-cotta, have not been scientifically examined.
According to The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors, First Report, ed. G. Brett, W. J. Macaulay,
and R. B. K. Stevenson (Oxford, 1947), this color was achieved in this floor by the use of cubes of
limestone with foraminifera, presumably baked before use, which supplied the color described as
brick-red.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 233
reminiscent of the garland border in the apse of St. Sophia, but not closely
comparable. It is roughly 75 cm. in height.
On the east and west faces of the cappings of the mullions is a row of
individual vine leaves, three in the complete set, in dark blue and blue-green.
On the north face of the east capping (this face is lost on the west capping)
is an enigmatic disk, 27.5 cm. in diameter, which had a white marble field
with a circular outline of one row of gold.
The cross medallion at the summit was set within a gold rectangle, from
which it is divided by a ring of white marble. The cross is set off by three
concentric rings, of light blue at the center, followed by turquoise and dark
blue. The cross has plain, slightly flared gold arms (40 x 25.5 cm.). The arms
are shaded on the right sides and undersides with clear brown metallic cubes.
The mosaics are described now, because the Alcove seems to communicate
with the Room Over the Vestibule rather than with the Room Over the
Ramp. The space is about 1.50 m. square, and is vaulted by groins above
three tympana and one arched window on the east side. The mosaic fragments
of the vault are in the south and west tympana, around the east window,
and in the arches to the north and south. A stucco cornice about 18 cm. high,
composed of heavily strawed plaster, runs below the mosaics. Its upper edge
shows indications of a bead molding. The cornice was probably laid after the
mosaics. On the west and east walls the plaster rendering which goes with
this cornice terminates beside the vertical slot at the opening of the archway
which seems, as we have already suggested, to have held a partition separating
the Alcove from the Room Over the Ramp. This plaster rendering was presum-
ably the final covering of the walls in the zone below the mosaics when they
lacked a marble revetment. At the northwest corer of the Alcove the render-
ing turns onto the north wall. It must have covered the two now visible peg
holes, which could be indications that previously there was a marble revetment
on the north wall. The plaster fill between the cornice and the mosaic surface
is slate-grey, as in the window of the Room Over the Vestibule.
The north and south arches have preserved fragments of a similar vine scroll
decoration. In the conch at the north the rinceau is bordered by a band con-
taining a twisting ribbon on a black ground running along the cornice (fig. 22).
The edge of the ribbon is one row of white marble tesserae. The red side of
the ribbon is modeled in rows of deep red, terra-cotta (apparently), and pink
marble, and there are occasional highlights of white marble. The green side is
modeled in rows of light blue, light green, and leaf-green, and has white
limestone for its highlights.
The vine scroll in this north conch springs from a foliate cusp supported
on three knobs (fig. 22). The knobs are in deep red glass outlined in dark brown.
The cusp is modeled in light green, leaf-green, yellow-green, and white lime-
234 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
stone, with dark brown outlines. The stems of the plant are brown modeled
with olive shadows and streaked red glass tesserae. The leaves are modeled
in leaf-green and blue-green. The bunches of grapes have streaked red, deep red,
terra-cotta (apparently), and pink marble tesserae. The use of such streaked
tesserae was also observed in the Room Over the Vestibule, and they are
presumably chosen for aesthetic effects.
The scrolls of the conch curl around a small medallion, of which only the
lower segment survives. It was blue, and at its base are a few gold tesserae
which formed part of a circular shape, with two rows on the left and one on
the right. Another gold tessera survives higher in the medallion to the left.
These fragments might represent the ends of two toa arms of cruciform monogram
or of a cross with balls at the tips of its arms. There may have been another
medallion on the facing section of the south arch, for the vine scrolls seem
on this side to curl in the same fashion. This medallion, like those on the
window of the Room oom Over the Vestibule, have lost the
elessential clues for
interpretation.
The ribbon border encloses the mosaics of the Alcove horizontally. It
divides to run vertically up into the four corners of the vault, and then divides
again with a slight fluttering to define the groins. At the center of the vault
was a circular medallion which has left its outline in the setting-bed; it
presumably held a cross.
Each of the three tympana defined by the ribbon was decorated with an
acanthus rinceau. Those on the south and west have preserved their central
medallions and crosses. It seems that the scheme of each tympanum was
identical. Two scrolls spring from a central cusp and enclose a flower. The
rinceau continues on each side of the medallion and expands above it.
The ground color of the vine and acanthus rinceaux in the Alcove is white
limestone, which unifies them with i the vault of the Room Over the Ramp.
But the form and colors in the Alcove are simpler. The foliage is modeled in
two colors of green, light green and leaf-green, with dark blue or black for
shadows, and highlights in white limestone and light blue. The trefoil flowers
are outlined in deep red with pink marble at the center; in between are
apparently terra-cotta cubes. This treatment connects them with the flower
"garden" in the window soffit of the Room Over the Vestibule. No gold
tesserae are used in the rinceaux.
From the outset the medallions (77 cm. in diameter) had crosses with plain
arms of gold tesserae which are flared at the ends (fig. 25). Four rays of light
radiate from the crossing of the arms. Three zones of blue surround the cross,
lightest in the center. The rays of light are white marble in the innermost zone
and blue in the outer zones. The cross is trimmed in dark red along the right
side of the vertical arms and along the upper side of the horizontal arms. The
medallion is trimmed with white limestone.
Around the border of the soffit of the east window (filled with rubble) is a
band of laurel (fig. 25), of which two sections survive. The leaves of the lower
section are in light blue and marble, with red veins; each leaf is outlined with
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 235
turquoise and black. The berries are deep red. This section is terminated with
a short ribbon binding modeled in terra-cotta, pink marble, and limestone,
and outlined with brown. The upper section of the laurel wreath is modeled
with green, yellow, and white limestone with light blue and black outlines.
The stems are brown.
The decoration of the Alcove may be characterized as economical in ma-
terials and coarse in execution.104
The Room Over the Vestibule was decorated in its two southern bays with
representations in the lower zone of the twelve Apostles and four Patriarchs
of Constantinople; the upper zone seems to have the space for about twenty
standing figures.05 The inclusion of St. Methodios in the cycle dates its execu-
tion after his death in 847. The scheme might seem to be a typical example
of the manner of representing the Heavenly Cosmos through portraits of
saints, which has been claimed to be characteristic of the art of the second half
of the ninth century.106It can be doubted, however, whether this is a well-
founded characterization-the evidence for it is meager: literary descriptions of
churches, now lost and of unknown size, may not give full details of the
decoration. St. Sophia is a special case and the church of the Holy Apostles
does not seem to conform. Moreover,ethe cycle of the Room Over the Vestibule
is not strictly a church decoration, so the nature of its program is not a sure
guide to its dating. The perennial theme of decorations in the Patriarchal
Palace was the representation of Orthodoxy. John III Scholasticus, Eutychios,
and Nicetas have already been mentioned as patriarchs who used art to pro-
claim their theological beliefs. The Russian pilgrim Antony of Novgorod
records that around 1200 portraits of all the patriarchs and emperors, accom-
panied by an indication whether they were orthodox or heretical, were dis-
played in St. Sophia na polatah.l07 While the meaning in this passage is possibly
"in the gallery," Antony elsewhere uses the noun indiscriminately to refer to the
gallery or to the Patriarchal Palace. Grabar has speculated that the patriarchs
may have maintained a picture gallery of their predecessors in their Palace.108
In the case of our cycle, its underlying theme is most likely to be the portrayal
of the orthodox theology of its sponsor. If anywhere in Byzantine religious art,
109
Gouillard, "Le Synodikon de l'Orthodoxie" (note 42 supra), 1-316, argues (in agreement with
V. Grumel) the substantial case that the text was compiled in 843 or 844 and subsequently used
annually on the first Sunday in Lent. One major question remains unresolved-why is its earliest
mention in the rites of St. Sophia not until the end of the century (i.e., in 899 in the Kleterologion
of Philotheos)? Recitation of the Synodikon is not mentioned in the Typikon of St. Sophia in cod.
Patmos 266 (datable ca. 880?), nor in the early tenth-century revision in cod. Jerusalem, Hag.
Taphou 43. Its omission from the latter suggests this is not a decisive text. Baumstark believed
that other omissions in the Patmos manuscript indicate that it represented the liturgy before 843.
Grumel saw no particular reason for a notice of the Synodikon to appear in the Typikon, since the
hymnology of the day would be unchanged. Our material is relevant to the discussion if our inter-
would
pretation of an influence of the Synodikon on the planning of the cycle is accepted; this
support a relatively early institution in the ninth century of the festival in St. Sophia. For documenta-
tion, see also Mango, Brazen House, 130-31; Gouillard rejected the suggestion of the institution by
Photios in 867.
110 C. Mango, "The Liquidation of Iconoclasm and the Patriarch Photios," in Iconoclasm, ed.
Bryer and Herrin (note 85 supra), 133-40.
111 For an account of the Council and its politics, see D. Stiernon, Constantinople IV (Paris, 1967);
for the acts, see Mansi, XVI, 397-406.
112S. B. Kougeas, 'O KacIapEias 'ApnSasKai Epyov oCrrou(Athens, 1913), 78; cf. P. Karlin-Hayter,
"Gregory of Syracuse, Ignatios, and Photios," in Iconoclasm, ed. Bryer and Herrin, 141-45, esp. 145.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 237
The implication of the program is, therefore, a dating within a fairly short
period inthe ninth century, not earlier than 847 and not later than the 870's.
Such a date would also limit the sponsoring Patriarch to one of two candi-
dates, either Ignatios or Photios. The question might therefore be approached
through an investigation of the mentality and artistic patronage of these well
documented figures;113but for the present we shall consider the issue through
the art historical evidence. The dating bracket proposed on the basis of the
program is harmonious with the style. Underwood attributed the mosaics to
the second half of the ninth century, while Mango and Hawkins have gone on
record with the suggestion of the 850's or 860's.114
Comparisons with other ninth-century mosaics help to clarify the stylistic
trend of the homogeneous cycle of the Room Over the Ramp. There is little
point of contact with the techniques and coloring used by the mosaicists who
replacedy the sanctuary figures of the church of the Koimesis at Nicaea.1l5
A comparison with the cupola mosaics of the church of St. Sophia in Thessa-
loniki, which can be attributed to 885, produces quite positive results.116
Certain workshop methods of modeling used in the Room Over the Vestibule
can be recognized in Thessaloniki, but in a more extreme and mannered form.
Thus, the pear shapes in the drapery over the knees of Christ and the Virgin
or the hanging zigzag folds of the Virgin's maphorion have become more
emphatic, more schematic, altogether more dominant elements at Thessa-
loniki-signs of a relatively later date of execution. The mask-like face and
the pattern of the drapery
dathe of standing Virgin at Thessaloniki owes a distinct
debt to our Virgin of the Deesis. To devote further attention to the develop-
ments in color and line, through which the impressive impact of the later
cupola figures is made on the spectator with a differentteffectfrom the more
intimate groups of the Room Over the Vestibule, is unnecessary for the
113
Mango, in "The Liquidation of Iconoclasm," has laid the basis for such an approach to these
personalities; while he does not treat here the question of the dating of these mosaics, his charac-
terization may be said to support the sponsorship of Photios. However, he does not discuss the second
period of office of Ignatios, who might have been more inclined after 867 to emulate the artistic
patronage initiated by Photios.
114Underwood, "Notes," 292; Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 36-37, whose remarks on
the epigraphy of the tympana inscriptions are equally apposite for us, but offer little precision in
dating. Mosaicists in this period seemed able to choose whether to inscribe Hagios before a saint's
name or not. It was normal to use it in the Room Over the Vestibule but not in the tympana (a test
case is Methodios). Perhaps the decision was made in the tympana on formal grounds, for the omission
gave more space in which to enlarge the other letters and so to make them more visible from the ground.
115 The precise dating of the restoration of the Nicaean
sanctuary to the ninth century is not
yet resolved. A time between 843 and 13 April 848 is proposed through the suggested identification
of Naukratios by E. E. Lipsic, "Navkratij i Nikejskie Mozaiki," ZVI, 8,2 (1964), 241-46. However,
P. J. Nordhagen, "The Mosaics of John VII (705-7)," ActaIRNorv, 2 (1965), 121-66, esp. 162, on
the grounds of style and technique, associates Nicaea with late ninth-century mosaics, like St. John
Chrysostom in the north tympanum of St. Sophia; on the other hand, he sees that many elements
of the period of John VII are prevalent at Nicaea. It should be noted that one workshop practice of
this period is absent from the Room Over the Vestibule, namely the use of a large and irregularly
shaped tessera at the tip of the nose; this is found at Nicaea, in St. Sophia at Thessaloniki (in the
cupola), and in various faces in St. Sophia at Istanbul.
116 See R. Cormack, Ninth
Century Monumental Painting and Mosaic in Thessaloniki (Diss. London,
1968); in this study, the replacement of the late eighth-century cross in the semidome of the apse
by a Virgin and Child enthroned is dated to the second quarter of the eleventh century. See also
J.-M. Speiser, "Les inscriptions de Thessalonique," TM, 5 (1973), 145-80, esp. 160-61.
238 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
117 S. Der Nersessian, "The Illustrations of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus: Paris. Gr. 510.
A Study of the Connections between Text and Images," DOP, 16 (1962), 197-228, esp. 227-28, states
the case for connecting the supervision of this manuscript to Photios. As for the three ninth-century
"marginal" Psalters (Moscow, State Historical Museum, cod. 129D; Athos, Pantocrator cod. 61;
and cod. Paris. gr. 20), the attribution to the Great Church proposed by N. Malickij ("Le psautier
byzantin a illustrations marginales du type Chludov est-il de provenance monastique ?" L'art byzantin
chez les Slaves, 2me recueil, pt. 2 [Paris, 1932], 235-43) and maintained by, among others, Grabar
(L'iconoclasmnebyzantin [note 5 supra], 196ff.), remains controversial. Rejecting the interpretations
of the liturgical instructions put forward by Malickij and by 0. Strunk ("The Byzantine Office at
Hagia Sophia," DOP, 9-10 [1955-56], 177-202), and maintaining the attribution of the group to
the Studios Monastery criticized by Malickij, R. Stichel ("Zu Fragen der Publikation byzantinischer
illustrierter Psalterhandschriften," Zeitschrift fur Balkanologie, 12 [1976], 78-85) promises a reex-
amination of the textual evidence.
118 Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 35-36. In particular, they invited comparison between
our St. Nikephoros and St. Ignatios Theophoros in the north tympanum.
119C. Mango, The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, DOS, III (Cambridge, Mass.,
1958), esp. 279-96; and Mango and Hawkins, "Apse Mosaics," 142-43.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 239
difficult to account for his words if the Room Over the Vestibule had recently
been redecorated with a figurative cycle. If the assumption is made that at
the time of the homily the Patriarchal rooms lacked this cycle, then the rhetoric
of Photios becomes more credible, and, moreover, it can be presumed that his
reference to the visual mysteries of the church being scraped off had a specific
source in the documentary reports of the iconoclasm of Nicetas in the Patri-
archal Palace.
The relevance of the cycle of the Room Over the Vestibule to the planning
of the tympana also needs comment. Mango and Hawkins correctly state
that the choice of the bishops shows no special emphasis on the suppression
of Iconoclasm, but from this they infer that, at the time of planning, Icono-
clasm had lost much of its urgency. An alternative explanation is that our
cycle was close in time, but earlier, and so it was thought otiose to repeat
its message in the naos. On this line of reasoning the date proposed for the
tympana might be a little too late, and these mosaics may belong to the late
870's. The execution of the lowest register must date after the death of Igna-
tios in 877, but, if the redecoration of the tympana was indeed made necessary
by the earthquake of 869, as argued by Mainstone,l20then it might have been
planned in the 870's.
The decoration of the Room Over the Vestibule is conceivable as an integral
part of a scheme in St. Sophia developed in the decade after 867. A date
fairly close to that of the Church Fathers of the north tympanum is likely,
for the differences between the two groups should not be overstressed. Photo-
graphs of the mosaics of the Room Over the Vestibule exaggerate the harsh-
ness of the modeling and of the transitions from light to shadow. In reality,
these two sets of mosaics are closer to each other than either is to the narthex
panel. No greater contrast in the treatment of heads occurs in the Macedonian
period mosaics of St. Sophia than between the relatively soft modeling of
Christ in the Room Over the Vestibule and the broad manner of the narthex
Christ, where the face is built up on contrasts in groups of colored tesserae.
The major difference between the Room Over the Vestibule and the tympana
is in the handling of color. In extreme contrast to the limited range of colors
of the generally pale and opaque tonality of the Church Fathers, the earlier
figures fill with glittering pools of color a room which must have always been
fairly dark and frequently lit by candles. This interest in color relates the
Room to the apse mosaics of St. Sophia, and it also influenced the later
cupola mosaics of St. Sophia in Thessaloniki.
The mosaics of the Room Over the Vestibule are best regarded as a stylistic
bridge between the apse and tympana of St. Sophia rather than as a separate
mode. The most significant difference is not in style so much as in quality.
The striking homogeneity of the mosaics in the Room is confirmation that
they belong to a single campaign of work, but there is another side to this
conformity. The work is vigorous, yet somehow stereotyped and routine in
120 Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers,"
esp. 4-5 and 37-41; and Mainstone, "The Reconstruc-
tion of the Tympana" (note 83 supra), 355-68.
240 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
121
Mango, Brazen House, 130, documents this sequence.
12aIdem, Materials, 23-24, 77 (for a clarification of the date of the tenth-century earthquake
after which Whittemore dated the vestibule mosaic, i.e., after 26 October 989; the repairs to the
church took six years). Nordhagen, "The Mosaics of John VII (705-7)," 121-66, esp. 162-63, suggests
a late ninth-century date for the vestibule panel.
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or Ignatios on the basis of the whole program. This discrepancy must lead us
to criticize his method, and we notice that Grierson confesses to a lack of
conviction with the remark that if the mosaics of the Room Over the Vestibule
turn out to be late ninth century, the impediments to making the narthex
panel contemporary with the coins of Basil I would vanish.
The fault in Grierson's method may be to scrutinize too closely the details of
the thrones portrayed, and to overemphasize deviations such as the ball shape
in the side frames of the narthex throne. The alternative approach is to treat
the representations of the throne as a series of copies of one model carried out
at various levels of expertise and with the usual medieval variations and
idiosyncrasies. There is then no need to relate the changes in the coins to
their dependence on new icons; instead, these changes represent in this series
a chronological "improvement" of artistic "schemata" in accordance with a
growing visual interest in greater naturalism. From such an interpretation,
we have a period of stylistic advance among die-casters rather than a series of
iconographic changes. The evidence of the coins does not therefore require us
to date the Deesis panel in the Room to a period later than the reign of Basil I.
It follows that there is nothing in the iconography of the throne in the narthex
panel to exclude its attribution also during the reign of Basil I; its date needs
to be assessed on other criteria.
The question remains, of course, of the nature of the prototype of the lyre-
backed throne represented, among other places, in these two mosaics and
in the coins. According to Grierson, the distinctive shape of this type of
throne derives from the copyists' attempts to render in two dimensions a
throne with distinctive arms. The recent full treatment by Cutler of the history
of this type of throne denies that such a piece of furniture ever had a real
existence in Byzantium-for him it is a purely notional throne invented in
art as a visual code to convey the Orpheus element in Christ. 26 For our part,
we find no difficulty in reconstructing an actual throne from these representa-
tions. Its basic material would be wood, though probably overlaid with
precious metals and jewels. Its two main elements would be a broad rectangular
seat and a high flat back. The supports of the back curve outward, and a
horizontal rod is slotted into them; from this rod would hang some precious
ornamented material. The architectural construction of such a throne is
designed to amplify the dimensions of the seated figure-it would convey an
exaggerated impression of his breadth and height, and so enhance his power.
126 A. Cutler,
Transfigurations: Studies in the Dynamics of Byzantine Iconography (University Park,
Pa., 1975), esp. 5-52 (the lyre-backed throne); while acknowledging the breadth of the argument
are
presented in this extensive study, we disagree with its basic premise and so for us its conclusions are
invalid. Some of the points made against the existence of such a throne in the Great Palace
rhetorical; the fact that there is no textual description of a lyre-back throne is most simply explained
as due to a lack of this kind of source-the Book of Ceremonies is intended for users who did not
need descriptions of the ceremonial objects around them. If it is correct to visualize a lyre-backed
throne in the Chrysotriklinos, then it would not have been described by such visitors as Liutprand
of Cremona or Benjamin of Tudela who were not of the status to enter this restricted environment.
One possible explanation for the invention of the type might be offered by the mosaic version in
the apse of the church of the Panagia Kanakaria at Lythrankomi, Cyprus; the curving uprights
tusks?
appear as if made of ivory. Did this type of throne originate from the use of elephant
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 243
One final consideration is archeological. The Room Over the Vestibule was
at some time given a thorough structural restoration with the replacement
129 Gouillard, "Le
Synodikon de l'Orthodoxie" (note 42 supra), 1-316, esp. 169ff. on the doctrine
of images, and 183ff. for the later accretions.
130 For references, see note 111 supra.
131
Grabar, L'iconoclasme byzantin (note 5 supra), esp. 241 f.
132 C. Walter, "Two Notes on the Deesis," REB, 26 (1968), 311-36, esp. 329-30.
133 For the
suggestion of the contrary flow of ideas before Iconoclasm, cf. E. Kitzinger, "The Cult
of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm," DOP, 8 (1954), 85-150.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 245
of the two southern vaults and the south window; the most likely occasion
for this work would have been the adaptation of the surfaces for the present
mosaics. There is also evidence of structural restoration in the Room Over
the Ramp, but this work was relatively minor and seems limited to the blocking
of the west tympanum window (fig. 17). The filling of the other three windows
may be attributed to Turkish repairs-the south window fill is rubble, the east
is integral on the right with the rebuilding of that part of the wall, and the
north has the characteristic
iFossat
pink mortar of thethe otie i. The fll of e west
window is Byzantine brick, and over the lower part of its surface are the
fragmentary remains of a first rendering layer for a decoration now lost.
Obviously there is a case for attributing this fill to the work of Patriarch
Nicetas or to some other phase, but the evidence that the surface received a
decoration encourages us to suggest that the window was filled when the
vaults of the Room Over the Vestibule directly behind it were rebuilt and
decorated with mosaic.
To date this fill of the west window of the Room RRampOver the am too the
same time as the remodeling of the Room Over the Vestibule does not explain
its purpose. Since the new vaults came up no higher than their predecessors,
if our reconstruction of the Room Over the Vestibule in its previous form is
correct, then the window was not closed because its light was blocked. The
explanation suggested by the modern articulation of the exterior roofing is
that during the structural repairs the builders decided to fill in the roof valley
between the two rooms, either because rain water was giving trouble or for
simplicity and economy.
The archeological evidence therefore implies an extensive restoration of the
roof of the Patriarchate at the time of the ninth-century mosaic decoration.
It is tempting to see the cause of this work in the natural disaster of October 870
which is described in the Vita Ignatii.34 A sudden violent gale damaged many
churches and palaces in Constantinople, and, particularly, the lead roof of
the Patriarchate was blown off and thrown to the ground. This event gives a
compelling context for the restoration of the Room Over the Vestibule soon
after October 870.
The indications for a chronology which have been discussed are compatible
with a precise date immediately after October 870. In this case the patriarch
responsible for the decoration must have been Ignatios, and so we have a
point of comparison for works, both miniature and monumental, which have
been associated with the organization of Photios. Only one aspect of this
comparison will be noted here, and that is the quality of the mosaic work
in the Room Over the Vestibule; certain weaknesses in the figure style in
comparison with the naos of St. Sophia have already been the subject of
comment. Can it be that Ignatios, who did not train a team of mosaicists
during his first period of office, was the victim of his own Council of 869-70 ?
According to canon seven, those anathematized by the Council ought not to
134 Nicetas the Paphlagonian, Vita Ignatii, PG, 105, col. 549.
246 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
paint holy images; anyone who admitted these people (e.g., Photianists) into
churches to paint holy images or to teach would have lost his rank if he were
a priest or been excommunicated if a layman.135 Insofar as this decree is
aimed against artists who supported Photios, its formulation reflects on the
status of artists in the ninth century. Of more practical importance, it may
have lost Ignatios the services of an experienced workshop.
The identification of the Room Over the Ramp as the Small Sekreton
implies that the Room Over the Vestibule was the Large Sekreton, for the
evidence of the texts is that these offices were adjacent. From the evidence
of the ceremonial use of the Large Sekreton in the tenth century described
by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, it can be deduced that it was a gracious
triklinos of some size.136
135 See also F. Dvornik, "The Patriarch Photius and Iconoclasm," DOP, 7 (1953) 69-97.
136 For documentation, see notes 142-47 infra.
137 The
ninth-century mosaics of the tympana of St. Sophia are similarly untidy and substitute
cheaper materials; see Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 21-22. At first sight the ribbon border
in the Alcove seems a likely index of sixth-century date, but later parallels are available. A ribbon
occurs in the circular border around a cross in the recently uncovered vaults of the south aisle of
St. Eirene (iconoclastic period?). In the early Macedonian period, both the ribbon and laurel leaf
borders may be paralleled in manuscripts (e.g., Princeton, Univ. Lib. cod. Garrett 6; cod. Vat. gr. 1522;
Leningrad, Publ. Lib. cod. gr. 21; and others).
138
Mango, Materials, 40-42, pls. 39-49. Such drawings are not decisive for stylistic purposes.
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 247
in the south window of the Room Over the Vestibule. Mango suggested that
the decoration of the west gallery belonged to the same period as that of the
Room Over the Vestibule. Perhaps the mosaics of the Alcove are to be attribut-
ed to the same campaign. The great west arch of the church was likewise
decorated in the 870's.139
The position of the Alcove beside the oratory in the Large Sekreton leads
us to suggest its function may have been as a sort of diakonikon or even
metatorion, and we have also speculated whether the present flooring might
belong to the ninth-century alterations of the rooms. It is, however, impossible
to identify the metatorion of the patriarch or that of the emperor in the gallery
with a space of this size or in this position. There is the alternative possibility
that in the ninth century the Alcove was adapted as the ceremonial way
between the two Sekreta.
FUNCTION OF ROOMS
The identification of the Rooms which has been accepted in the course of
this paper depends on the association of a number of factors. This case can
now be briefly restated, and expanded by a consideration of the ceremonial
use of this part of St. Sophia. First, we demonstrated that there was a major
alteration to the southwest corner of St. Sophia after the completion of the
church but within the sixth century. This work was identied as the construc-
tion of the Patriarchal Palace of John III Scholasticus (565-77), since it con-
forms with the date and position of this Palace as documented in primary
texts. The second step was to identify the Room Over the Ramp as the Small
Sekreton of the Patriarchal Palace, because the mosaic decoration in it con-
forms with the description of its state in 768/69. The third step was to identify
the Room Over the Vestibule as the Large Sekretonsince it lies beside the Small
Sekreton. It was also noted that the rebuilding of the ceiling of the Room Over
the Vestibule would correspond with the record that the roof of the Patriarchal
Palace was blown off in October 870. Let us now add some further corrobora-
tion.
Mango, in his translation of the passage of the Breviarium of Patriarch
Nikephoros on the iconoclastic act of Nicetas, characterizes the Sekreta as
reception rooms.140More specifically, the text describes them as the place
where processions were formed. Mathews has pointed out that since the Early
139
Mango and Hawkins, "Church Fathers," 32-35, reject the deductions of C. D. Sheppard,
"A Radiocarbon Date for the Wooden Tie Beams in the West Gallery of St. Sophia, Istanbul,"
DOP, 19 (1965), 237-40, based on (uncalibrated) radiocarbon datings of the casings of these beams;
they date this ornament to the sixth century. The issue extends to the other tie beams and their
evidence in assessing structural changes (e.g., in the gallery vaults behind the tympana) or other
alterations (e.g., the date of the erection of the marble partition in the south gallery, of sixth-century
workmanship, which is surmounted by an ornamented tie beam). In the cupboard of the Room Over
the Ramp, the fresco decoration is conceivably of ninth-century date: the stepped pyramid design
in the border has a parallel in the borders of the Room Over the Vestibule.
140
Mango, Art, 153.
248 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HAWKINS
Byzantine churches like St. Sophia had no diakonikon near the altar for
vesting and devesting, the celebrant needed some place from which to com-
mence the procession into the church and to which he would return.141One
function for the Sekreta, then, from the time of John III Scholasticus, could
have been to provide such a location.
Information on the ceremonial when the emperor participated in the liturgy
is supplied by the Book of Ceremonies: this occurred in the tenth century on
no more than nineteen regular occasions in the year.142This text is supple-
mented by the so-called Kleterologion of Philotheos, which specifies the in-
frequent occasions when great state functions took place in the Sekreta.l43
The patriarch gave the emperor and his court breakfast in the Large Sekreton
on the Tuesday of the last week before Lent (cheese-fare week), the day of
Instruction.44 The second state function here was a week and a half later
on the first Sunday n Lent (sixth Sunday
ndbefore Easter), which was the day
of the Prophets Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. More significant, it was, by the
period of these texts, the Sunday of Othodoxy, the dy on which the
oSyno-
dikon was read. On this day, the Emperor and his suite formed a procession
in the Large Seketo before the liturgy, and were supplied there with candles. 45
After the liturgy, the imperial suite returned to the same room to be given
breakfast by the patriarch.146The third occasion when a state function took
place in tof Sekreta was on the
the
Feastin the Exaltation of the Cross (14 Sep-
tember).141 The preliminaries again took place in the early morning in the
south gallery of St. Sophia and the Patriarchal Palace. From the gallery the
emperor followed the patriarch into the Small Sekreton where they venerated
the relics of the True Cross. They passed from there into the Large Sekreton
to form the candle-lit procession to convey the relics down to the ambo in the
nave of the cchurch.It may be that these three ritesitwere instituted in the
period after Iconoclasm.
The route taken by the procession on the Sunday of Orthodoxy and on the
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is specified stage by stage in the Book of
Ceremonies. Toheprogress of the procession is intelligible on the assumption
that it set out from the Room Over the Vestibule and traveled down the
southwest ramp.148From the Large Sekretonthe procession went down through
141 Mathews, Early Churches, 173.
142 Cf. ibid., 113; and Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, Le livre des cdrtmzonies,I,1, ed. A. Vogt
(Paris, 1935).
143 See J. B. Bury, The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century (London, 1911);
and N. Oikonomides, Les listes de pr6sdance byzantines des IXe et Xe siUcles(Paris, 1972), esp. 65-235.
The nucleus of this text was compiled by September 899, but there are later additions; cf. Der Ner-
sessian, "La fate dee 'exaltation de la Croix," in Etudes byzantines et armdniennes (Louvain, 1973),
109-12.
144 Kleterologion, chap. 760 (Bury, op. cit., 165; Oikonomides, op. cit., 193).
145 De Cerimoniis, ed. Vogt, chap. 37 (28).
146 Kleterologion, chap. 761 (Bury, op. cit., 165-66; Oikonomides, op. cit., 195).
147 De Cerimoniis, ed. Vogt, chap. 31 (22).
148 Strube, Die westliche Eingangsseite, esp. 52-54, who accepts the identification of the Room Over
the Vestibule as the Large Sekreton, interprets the progress of the procession differently. The crux
is the identification of the MWyasKoXXiaS. Our main points of disagreement with Strube's identification
of this as another staircase in the Patriarchal Palace (the one displaced in Turkish times by the
SOUTHWEST ROOMS OF ST. SOPHIA 249
southwest minaret, but whose traces have been noted, e.g., by J. Ebersolt, Sainte-Sophie de Con-
stantinople: etude de topographie d'apres les cdrdmonies[Paris, 1910], 29) are as follows: (a) The fact
that the Book of Ceremonies does not specify that the procession went out into the gallery to gain
access to the top of the southwest ramp should not be pressed as meaning the staircase was inside
the Patriarchal Palace, for the text can hardly be expected to cover every part of the route. (b) There
is a difficulty in accepting the southwest ramp as the Miyas KoXAiaswhen it is the smallest in dimen-
sion of the ramps (as observed by E. M. Antoniades, EKqppaoiS 'AyfaS eloiasr, II [Leipzig-Athens,
-rTiS
1908], 245-47 and fig. 324). There is, however, the possibility that the alternative staircase was even
smaller-we regard this second staircase as the internal private communication between the several
stories in this area. We would resolve the difficulty by taking the term imyasto refer not to its size
but to its importance. (c) In our view, there were two doors leading out of this ramp from the
beginning, but the main one was that on the western side going directly into the vestibule. (d) The
lack of any reference on this route to the cbpata iruril, which Strube identifies as the present south
entrance door into the vestibule, could be explained in two alternative ways without dislodging our
interpretation. Either it was not mentioned because it was not relevant to the ceremonial of this day
or this identification is incorrect. Concerning the first alternative, we leave it an open question whether
the procession on turning left out of the west door of the ramp either bore left and went through the
opening in the center bay of the west side of the vestibule and passed through the ground-floor room(s)
beside the Horologion, or turned at an angle of ninety degrees to make an exit through the south door
of the vestibule. In neither case does it appear that any special stop was made in this area.
Concerning the vexed question of the identity of the Beautiful Gate, opinion has long been polarized
between two candidates (cf. Mango, Materials, 97): the south door of the vestibule or the main west
door of the church. The case for the main west door was argued with full documentation by D. F. Bel-
jaev, Byzantina. O6erki, materialy i zamtkti po vizantijskim drevnostjam, II (St. Petersburg, 1893),
esp. 90ff., and this view was supported by Ebersolt. One point made against this by Strube is that
only post-Justinianic texts mention the Beautiful Gate, and that it should therefore be identified
with some alteration to the church, in which case the bronze doors of Theophilos are an ideal candidate.
This argument can still be balanced against those for the west door of the church. The term might,
for example, refer not to the artistic qualities of the
stdoor, but may have developed out of some kind
of association of the church with the Temple of Solomon. This suggestion raises further difficulties,
for it may depend on the Byzantine exegesis of Acts 3:1-10, where the healing of the lame man at
the beautiful gate is reported. According to J. Shearman, Raphael's Cartoons in the Collection of Her
Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel (London, 1972), 55-57, during Raphael's
life it was thought that this was not the entrance gate to the Temple, but was between two of the
atria around the Temple.
We do not think that our interpretation of the route would invalidate the identification with
the vestibule door, but it may seem to support the case for the main west door.
149 Schneider, Die Grabung im Westhof der Sophienkirche zu Istanbul
(note 30 supra), 43, placed
the didaskaleion to the north of the atrium. This is unacceptable to us, and also to Strube, Die west-
liche Eingangsseite, 34. A. G. Paspates, The Great Palace of Constantinople, trans. W. Metcalfe (London,
1893), 98, appears to identify the didaskaleion with the vestibule. Ebersolt, op. cit., 28, suggests it
was a school for catechumens; he notes that the church of St. Mary Chalkoprateia also had a didaska-
leion. The possibility that the didaskaleion housed a "Patriarchal School" is treated skeptically by
P. Speck, Die Kaiserliche Universitdt von Konstantinopel (Munich, 1974), esp. 67; he accepts its loca-
tion in the southwest area of the church, but prefers to identify it as an office or archive collection.
250 ROBIN CORMACK and ERNEST J. W. HA'WKINS
steps, the procession did not go to the great narthex but turned left to reach
the athyr, where it met a second procession. On this day, the emperor had
come down unaccompanied by the patriarch, and only now did they meet.
The patriarch headed a procession which had come through the streets from
the Vlachernae church, where he had conducted an all-night vigil. Both pro-
cessions now went to the narthex and imperial doors, where further rites are
specified before they entered the naos. Ebersolt located the athyr on the south
side of the atrium.150As we have followed the route, the procession, on
emerging from the west door of the ramp, moved away from the entrance
door of the southwest vestibule into the inner narthex of the church. Instead
of entering the church here, it crossed the area of the Patriarchal Palace at
the southwest corner of the church and descended into the atrium area before
entering the outer narthex through the west ade. This means that in the
first half of the tenth century the southwest vestibule was not the only
ceremonial entrance to the church.151
The Sekreta had other functions apart from their use in the liturgical rites
of St. Sophia, for they must have been the main offices of the patriarch.l52
Episcopal committees met here for the routine business of the Great Church,
for judicial hearings of cases against dissident bishops and heretics, for the
discussion of broad ecclesiastical policy, and for extraordinary business.153To
select only one example of the use of the Large Sekreton, it was here that on
20 July 1054 Michael Kerularios and his partisans met with the imperial
envoys to argue the response to the Papal anathematization which had been
laid on the altar of St. Sophia four days before.
The information implicit in the descriptions of the route of the imperial
processions away from the Large Sekreton is, in our interpretation, further
confirmation for the identification of our rooms. Obviously the Sekreta were in
frequent use by the clergy of the Great Church, but the special state functions
which took place there would explain, at least in part, the content of the
mosaic decorations of the rooms. If the Room Over the Vestibule was the
Large Sekreton, the references to the Synodikon of Orthodoxywhich we have
detected in its cycle receive appropriate and explicit justification. If the Room
Over the Ramp was the Small Sekreton, its use for the display of the True
Cross would account for the preservation of the iconoclastic decoration of
LUBA ELEEN
For Peter Brieger
6 For discussions of this particular phase of influence of Byzantine style on the West, see E. Kitzin-
ger, "The Byzantine Contribution to Western Art of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries," DOP,
20 (1966), 25-48; 0. Demus, Byzantine Art and the West (London, 1970), 133-43; and idem, "Salzburg,
Venedig und Aquileja," Festschrift Karl M. Swoboda zum 28. Januar, 1959 (Vienna, 1959), 75-82.
7 See Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Lat. 39 (fig. 13) and Paul and Silas in the Stocks in
Chigi A.IV.74 (fig. 37) for examples of scenes appearing in only one of the Vatican MSS, but also in
related cycles. The Appendix (following p. 278 infra) lists all of the Acts subjects in the two Vatican
New Testaments.
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 257
this study, located in the Giustiniani Collection in Venice.8 It is also a complete
New Testament, but is composed of two sections taken from codices of
separate origins. The part containing the text and illustrations of Acts exhibits
iconographic, stylistic, codicological, and paleographic affinities with the Vati-
can manuscripts, although most of the illustrations are line drawings rather
than paintings; without doubt it was made in the same Veronese workshop.
Its Acts cycle iss even more extensive than that of the other Verona New
Testaments, comprising-with two exceptions-every episode depicted in the
two Vatican books and five more in addition.
In my opinion, the Giustiniani codex is likely an earlier effort by the
draftsman of Lat. 39, although the overpaintings of the latter are probably
by another hand. The differences between the two manuscripts in the composi-
tions of some of the pages suggest that certain of the awkward experiments
in the Giustiniani manuscript were later resolved in Lat. 39. Yet the earlier
book is unlikely to have been the archetype from which the two later works
derive. The omission of several episodes and the variance in the treatment of
certain motifs point to the Acts section of the Giustiniani New Testament as
an older sister to the other manuscripts, rather than a progenitor. Its pre-
cedence in relation to Lat. 39, togeterevidencere
with the provided by the
paleography, make aaatofdate ca. 1200 appropriate.9
To sum up the differences between these books pertinent to the investigation
of the picture recension: the Giustiniani cycle is the most complete, and it
and the Chigi New Testament are both clearer in their approach to narrative
subject matter than is Lat. 39. There is an element of fantasy in the latter,
which, though appealing, reveals that it is less dependent on the text and,
presumably, on the common model than are the others.
An example that brings out the basic similarity in style and iconography
of the three manuscripts, and at the same time shows their individuality of
interpretation, can be seen in the scene illustrating St. Peter Healing the
Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1-8 [figs. 1, 2, 3]). According to
the text, Peter, accompanied by John, encounters a lame beggar who lies
every day by a temple gate called the Beautiful Gate. Peter commands the
man to walk, and then pulls him up by the right hand. In all three versions
the artist has been careful to show the man's twisted legs, to equip him with
a crutch, and to specify that Peter has grasped his right hand. The Chigi
artist (fig. 2), who is more modest but usually more correct in his approach,
places all three figures in front of a clearly defined gateway topped by two
domes. The artist of Lat. 39 and of the Giustiniani codex (figs. 1, 3), in contrast,
8 I am grateful to Dr. Alberto Falck for his enthusiastic
cooperation in showing me the manuscript
and in providing photographs, and to Mr. Edward Garrison and Dr. Carlo Bertelli for the assistance
they gave me in the discovery and examination of it. See the Appendix for a list of Acts scenes in the
Giustiniani codex.
9 Only one of the scenes in the Giustiniani MS is painted
(the Ascension, fol. 121v), but the result is
similar to the Chigi style, leaving little room for doubt that the drawings in the former were intended
to be colored. Conversely, patches where the paint has flaked in Lat. 39 reveal drawings similar to
those in the Giustiniani manuscript. See note 46 infra and figs. 31, 49 for examples of scenes in the
Giustiniani MS in which standard motifs are lacking.
17
258 LUBA ELEEN
has taken advantage of the two-column width allowed in the larger manuscripts
to create an elaborate structure, a predilection which is exhibited elsewhere;
and he has tried to represent the church and gateway in a frontal view, so
that the figures must stand alongside the building, rather than in the gate-
way. In Lat. 39 he also has arranged the hands of Peter and the lame man
in a very complicated way, another of his idiosyncrasies. The long crutch
held by the man in the Giustiniani version is an anomaly; such departures
from the norm indicate that this book is not itself the model for the others.
Together, the three manuscripts illustrate twenty-seven Acts episodes,
distributed throughout the text and dealing with the activities of Peter and
Paul as well as those of the lesser apostles. There is evidence, however, that
the Acts scenes in the Verona manuscripts go back to an even more extensive
cycle, the existence of which is reflected in the Rotulus in the Cathedral
Archives in Vercelli.l0 This Rotulus, which has been given a certain amount
of attention in recent years, copies scenes painted in the eleventh or twelfth
century on the walls or vault of the church of Sant'Eusebio in Vercelli.
There are in the Roll twenty-seven scenes representing thirty-four episodes.
Some of these are of a striking similarity to the Verona cycle, despite the
vicissitudes undergone by the Vercelli drawings which were copied from
frescoes, possibly in poor condition at the time and themselves probably
based on a manuscript source.
A good example of the affinity between the two cycles can be seen in the
episode already introduced: the Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful
Gate. In a comparison of the Vercelli scene (fig. 4) with that of the Chigi
manuscript (fig. 2), we can see that the relationship of the figures to each
other and to the building is similar. Peter raises the lame man by the latter's
elongated right arm, holding his own garment with his left hand. The lame
man is in the gateway, clearly separate from the rest of the building, as in
the Chigi representation, and there is a comparable domed element on the
right, although it is linked with a basilican structure in the Roll. Several
details-the gesture of Peter in raising the man and of John behind him, the
e gate,
architecture of the e and the placement of the figures near it-are important
in establishing the links between the two monuments and with other Italian
examples and in distinguishing these from comparable Byzantine types. The
placing of the man atop a flight of stairs in the Vercelli version should be noted,
a motif I shall discuss below.
A second piece of evidence connecting the Verona manuscripts with the
Vercelli cycle can be seen in the representations of Philip and the Ethiopian
Eunuch (Acts 8:26-38). The Vercelli Roll (fig. 11) presents an elaborated
sequence of four episodes based on the text: an angel tells Philip to go on a
journey, during which he meets an Ethiopian Eunuch reading Isaiah; Philip
10C. Cipolla, "La Pergamena rappresentante le antiche pitture della Basilica di S. Eusebio in Ver-
celli," Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, 37 (1901), 3-12; R. W. Scheller, A Survey of Medieval Model
Books (Haarlem, 1963), 95-96; and V. Viale, Opere d'arte preromanica e romanica del Duomo di Vercelli
(Vercelli, 1967), 28-29. See the Appendix for a list of Acts scenes in the Vercelli Roll. My gratitude
is due Professor Viale for his help in obtaining information about the Vercelli Roll.
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 259
sits in the carriage with him and explains the text; later Philip baptizes
the Eunuch. The Verona artist has used a similar model for his scenes of
Philip explaining Isaiah: in Lat. 39 (fig. 13) and the Giustiniani manuscript
(fig. 12) the two men sit facing each other in a carriage pulled by a horse,
Philip on the left and the Eunuch on the right-but, in his distinctive manner,
the painter of the later book has lavihed all his attention on the horse trap-
pings and put the beard on the wrong character. The story is continued in
the Giustiniani codex with a representation of Philip baptizing the Eunuch.
Although the details of outdoor setting shown in the Vercelli scene are missing,
it is certain that what is intended is a similar baptism in natural water.
In most of those scenes which are common to both the Vercelli Roll and
the Verona manuscripts the iconography is similar. The main difference is
that the Vercelli cycle has a slight advantage in the number of episodes.
It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that the Vercelli-Verona Acts cycles
go back to a common source, and that the greater range of the Vercelli
illustrations probably reflects the fact that the cycle was denser in its earlier
stages than in the extant New Testament manuscripts, some illustrations
having been lost or eliminated deliberately in the course of transmission. It
should be noted that the earliest Verona manuscript preserves a greater number
of scenes, so that the process of abbreviation in the course of time is demon-
strated further.
Another aspect of the change is the loss of narrative precision. In the early
stage of the recension, certain events were represented by a continuous series
of actions, as in the example of Philip and the Eunuch. There are other
remnants of short multiple-episode sequences in both the Rotulus and the
New Testaments: for example, the double scenes of Peter imprisoned and
then released in the Verona manuscripts (figs. 29, 30), and the series of
episodes telling the story of Peter and Cornelius in the Roll." The general
tendency of the New Testaments, however, is to cut down on the number
of episodes and to choose one toon epitomize the whole.
There is also iconographic evidence pointing to the conclusion that the
Vercelli illustrations reflect an earlier phase in the development of the cycle.
One example of a change in iconography which can be dated fairly precisely
occurs in the representation of the Conversion of Paul (Acts 9:2-25).12 The
artists of the Vercelli Roll and the Verona manuscripts (figs. 16-19) have chosen
different combinations of episodes in what was apparently a continuous
narrative cycle, known in both East (figs. 21, 22) and West (fig. 20),13showing
the career of Paul from his audience with te High Priest in Jerusalem (9:2)
to his experiences in and eventual escape from Damascus (9:25). The high
point of the action in this sequence is the actual moment of conversion, when
Paul is struck down and blinded by rays issuing from heaven. The figure of
Paul as he falls is similar in the Roll and the Chigi manuscript (figs. 19, 17),
taking into account the usual stiffness of the former. The major difference
between the two is the presence of the horse in the Verona manuscript. In
the thirteenth century Paul tends to be represented as a mounted warrior,
struck from his horse by the light from heaven. This motif appears for the
first time n wthelater twelfth century, and the examples in the Verona
manuscripts are transitional forms, since the horse simply has been added
as a background element to one of the traditional schemes of Paul's conver-
sion.14The conversion scene in the Vercelli Roll, in which Paul is a pedestrian,
in contrast, is of the earlier type. Thus,e content of the
onsubject matter as
well as its extent supports the hypothesis that the Vercelli iconography goes
back at least to the middle of the twelfth century, and could even be earlier.
One conclusion that can be drawn from this evidence is that the Vercelli
wall paintings themselves stemmed from an illustrated Acts manuscript. Not
thatroNew Testaments attest
only do the Verona these once existed, but the
detailed attention to the specifications of the text in the Roll also implies an
intimate connection with the written word. Finally, all of the scenes in the Roll
are drawn from the Acts text, and from a balanced reading of Acts, in contrast
to the usual practice in monumental decoration, which tends to be selective.
Of the twenty-seven scenes in the Roll, thirteen are devoted to Paul, nine to
Peter, and five to other Acts subjects. The balance in the Verona New Testa-
ments is similar.15
I shall argue below that the Acts iconography of the Verona New Testa-
ments and the Vercelli Roll derives from a complete Byzantine cycle of Acts
illustrations, imported into Italy in the eleventh or twelfth century where it
became naturalized, partly through the acquisition of certain obviously Western
traits, and partly through the standardization of variant motifs in individual
scenes.
14
Should the common model of the three Verona New Testaments, which would have been made
would
prior to the Giustiniani codex of ca. 1200, also have included a horse in the conversion scene, it
have been one of the earlier monuments to do so. The earliest extant versions of the Conversion of
Paul in which a horse appears seem to be concentrated in the North Italian-South German region.
Some of the prominent examples are: the Admont Bible (Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, cod. Ser. Nov. 2,
702, fol. 199v), possibly made as early as the 1150s (G. Swarzenski, Die Salzburger Malerei [Leipzig,
1913; repr. Stuttgart, 1969], I, 72-83); the Gumpert Bible (Erlangen, Universititsbibliothek, cod. 121,
fol. 387v), made in Salzburg before 1195 (ibid., 129-42, fig. 151); and the relief sculpture attributed to
Benedetto Antelami on the episcopal throne in Parma, made ca. 1180 (G. de Francovich, Benedetto
Antelami [Milan, 1952], 165-66). The stylistic affinities to Salzburg of the Vatican New Testaments
have already been observed (supra, p. 256).
15E. Kitzinger, The Mosaics of Monreale (Palermo, 1960), 44, 128, note 65, has suggested that the
practice of giving equal or near-equal emphasis to Peter and Paul is characteristic of the Byzantine
outlook. The apparent bias in favor of Paul in the works discussed here is probably a reflection of the
situation in the Acts text itself, which devotes more pages to Paul's career than to that of Peter.
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 261
the model and closer to the mainstream of the tradition. For example, in the
depiction of St. Peter HIealing the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate, the
composition of which is reversed at Sessa Aurunca (fig. 8), the two-domed
architectural setting with a separately defined gate is like that in the Chigi
manuscript (fig. 2), and the lame man is crouching similarly in the gate with
a small crutch while Peter pulls him up by the hand.
The New Testaments provide the answer to questions raised by Glass in
connection with the scenes of the Martyrdom of James and of Peter's Libera-
tion from Prison. In all of the Verona manuscripts (figs. 29, 30, 31) the two
episodes appear together as part of a continuous series of events illustrating
the text. Herod's gesture of command motivates the punishment of both
James and Peter: "He [Herod] beheaded James...and then...proceeded to
arrest Peter also" (12:2-3). As the executioner raises his sword over James's
head, Peter is shown in the two Vatican codices being thrust into prison and
later liberateredby an angel. At Sessa Aurunca and in the Giustiniani depic-
tion (fig. 31), in contrast, one of the events-the Arrest of Peter-is omitted,
apparently representing a conflation of the more extended episodic versions.20
Sessa Aurunca's repetition of the combination is another argument in favor
of a textual pictorial cycle ssa major influence on the sculpture, and there is
little doubt that the iconography of the pictorial model was closely related
to that of the Verona New Testaments.
That there were books with this imagery in many parts of Italy is attested
by two additional manuscripts which reflect the Vercelli-Verona Acts cycle,
albeit in abbreviated and sometimes altered form: both are Bibles, one prob-
ably from Bologna, of the mid-thirteenth century, formerly in the collection
of Major J. R. Abbey;21 and the other a Neapolitan work of the third quarter
of the fourteenth century in the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, MS 1191
(Theol. 53).22 Both manuscripts are fully Gothic in style, and therefore incline
toward naturalism and anecdotal detail, and in the case of the fourteenth-
century manuscript toward elaboration of background and settings; these are
features which tend to distort and weaken the purity of the iconographic
tradition. Nevertheless, certain characteristic features can still be identified.
Unlike the Verona New Testaments and the Bible in Vienna, in which the
text of Acts itself is accompanied by illustrations, the Abbey Bible uses Acts
20 See the scene in Vienna 1191 (fig. 32) for another example of the conflated type, indicating its
23 For the
Carolingian Bibles, see note 59 infra. I shall discuss the subsequent history of this com-
bination of text and image in my forthcoming Pauline Epistles.
24 See the
Appendix for a list of the ten Acts scenes in the Abbey Bible. All of them can also be
found in the Verona New Testaments and/or the Vercelli Roll, with the exception of Paul's Escape from
Damascus (fol. 437v). Alexander and de la Mare also identify the illustrations for 2 Thess. (fol. 442v)
and 2 Tim. (fol. 444v) as scenes from Acts, but it is more likely that they represent themes in the letters
themselves.
264 LUBA ELEEN
leaving the upper parts of their bodies are. Although the architectural setting
and the figure of Silas are eliminated in the Abbey Bible marginal illustration,
its affinity with the Verona manuscripts is firmly attested by the figure of
Paul-upright and stripped to the waist, his hands raised to pray-and by
the dress, pose, and gestures of his tormentors. This vertical, as opposed to
prone, type of flogging scene seems to be peculiar to Italian iconography,
as will be shown below.
It is apparent that the Acts iconography in the Abbey Bible is closely related
to that of the Verona New Testaments. Despite its slightly later date it is not
itself a descendent of the New Testaments, since it displays a number of
features which are characteristic of the cycle at an earlier stage.
The fourteenth-century Neapolitan Bible leads us again to the south of
Italy, reinforcing the supposition that the Italian provenance of the iconogra-
phy transcends regionalism. Vienna 1191 is a complete Bible, and there are
eleven framed scenes from Acts comprising thirteen episodes-five of Paul,
four of Peter, and four of others-placed in the lower margins at appropriate
points in the text of Acts.26 This manuscript is in an advanced proto-Renais-
sance style with a concomitant freedom from many of the passive copying
habits of medieval artistic tradition, so that some of its scenes have nothing
in common with corresponding depictions in the Vercelli-Verona cycle, and
there are several illustrations which do not appear at all in the latter. Never-
theless, to a surprising degree, there are echoes of the iconography of the
earlier monuments. Three of the scenes display significant agreement.
The Stoning of Stephen (fig. 51) is of a type similar to that in the Verona
New Testaments and the Abbey Bible (figs. 47-50): Stephen kneels on the
right, and the stoners make their familiar gestures behind him.26 In addition,
the composite scene illustrating the Martyrdom of James and the Release
of Peter (fig. 32) is remarkably like the Giustiniani version (fig. 31): Herod
on the left orders the executions, James is beheaded by an executioner in
the center, and Peter is pulled from prison by a hovering angel on the right.
Finally, the depiction of St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate (fig. 6) is also
similar to the Vercelli-Verona type (figs. 1-4). The lame man kneels in front
of the temple, abandoning his short crutch, and is pulled up by the right
hand of Peter, accompanied by John. As in the Vercelli Roll, the man is at
the top of a flight of stairs, and the building is of a basilican type, although
there is no separate gate in the Neapolitan Bible.
This brief review of some of the important examples of the Italian iconogra-
phy has shown that a unified Acts cycle was transmitted in Italy from at
least the twelfth, and perhaps as early as the eleventh, century, and that it
25 See the
Appendix for a list of the thirteen Acts scenes in Vienna 1191. The episodes not included
in the Verona New Testaments are: Paul and a Disciple in a Ship (fol. 441v); Paul Before the High
Priest (fol. 443r); Storm at Sea (fol. 444r).
26 The
figure of Saul has been replaced by an earlier episode: Stephen arguing with an opponent
(Acts 6:8-10).
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 265
was associated with the text of Acts itself, a factor which tended to strengthen
the cohesiveness of the cycle so that its various components remained recogniz-
able and linked. However, we should not exclude the possibility that new
scenes or variationsons existing themes were invented or imported in the
course of the long history of contact between Italy and Byzantium. Some
of the differences between the members of the Italian group can be accounted
for in this way. The overall impression, nevertheless, is of unity rather than
diversity.
The mosaics with scenes from Acts which decorate the aisles of the Cappella
Palatina in Palermo and the south and north chapels at Monreale27cannot
be placed unreservedly in the Italian recension presented here. Of all the
sequences of Acts subjects, the Sicilian are the mosdiffitdifficult to categorize.
Although undoubtedly the product of an integration Byzantine and Western
of
iconography, neither the mixture nor the resulting synthesis is
ithe same as
that which produced the Vercelli-Verona cycle. Ernst Kitzinger has observed
that the Sicilian subject matter derives from a variety of sources, a situation
particularly true of Monreale which "shows a greater admixture of local
themes and at the same time
tie a fresh draught from the wellspring of Byzantine
iconography."28This characterization aptly sums up the Acts imagery.
Most of the Sicilian scenes are better understood in relation to Byzantine
rather than to Ita n iconography. At this point, however, it is appropriate
to introduce two subjects which establish that there are links, albeit complex
ones, with the Italian group as well.
The first example is a scene already discussed: the Healing of the Lame
Man at the Beautiful Gate. Palermo's representation (fig. 7) is similar but
not identical to those in the Vercelli-Verona group (figs. 1-4); here the lame
man crouches in a doorway holding a short crutch (there is no room for the
rest of the church because of the narrow dimensions of the panel). The
principal difference between the Palermo and other Italian examples is that
Peter gestures instead of raising the man with his hand. This dissimilarity
will prove to be significant, pointing to the affinity of the Sicilian mosaics
with the purely Byzantine sphere rather than with the Italian group. Monreale
is similar (fig. 5). Here there is room to show the entire church, in front of
which the man is begging; it is of the basilican type, and has a separate domed
gate similar to but not as eccentric as the one in the Vercelli Roll. Again,
Peter, with John behind him, merely gestures.
27 0. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (New York, 1950), 294-99, figs. 40-43, 77-79, 81-83;
Kitzinger, Monreale, 36-50, figs. 5-13; and idem, "The Mosaics in the Capella Palatina in Palermo,"
ArtB, 31 (1949), 269-92. See the Appendix for a list of the eleven canonical Acts scenes in the Peter-Paul
cycle. All, with the exception of Paul's Flight from Damascus, are also in the Verona New Testaments
and the Vercelli Roll; there is one additional scene-Paul Handing Letters to Timothy and Silas-
which is present at Monreale alone, and, according to Kitzinger, is probably an ad hoc addition and
not based on the text of Acts (Monreale, 36).
28 Ibid., 28.
266 LUBA ELEEN
The second scene is one which also occurs in the Vercelli Roll and the
Chigi and Giustiniani New Testaments, the Raising of Tabitha (Acts 9:36-41).
According to the text, Peter wakes Tabitha from the dead by commanding
her to rise. She opens her eyes, whereupon Peter gives her his hand to help
her to her feet. Both the Sicilian representations (figs. 45, 46) show the final
incident: Tabitha is sitting up in bed; Peter, accompanied by a disciple and
watched by a group of weeping women, grasps Tabitha's hand with his left29
and blesses her with his right. The Vercelli Roll (fig. 44) records the previous
moment, i.e., Peter gesturing at Tabitha; it includes another episode from
the text depicting a group of people showing Peter the garments made by
Tabitha.
A more striking affinity is revealed by the scene in the Chigi New Testament
(fig. 43), which is almost identical to the Monreale depiction in composition,
pose, gesture, and even in such details as the cloth draped at the head of the
bed and the peculiar rounded head-covering worn by the cured woman. The
main differences are that Peter lifts her with his right rather than his left hand,
and the mourning women have been reduced to one.
The Giustiniani version (fig. 42) seems to represent a transitional stage
between the Vercelli Roll and the Sicilian and.Chigi scenes. As in the Roll
and the Sicilian mosaics, the Giustiniani depiction of the Raising of Tabitha
is juxtaposed to the Raising of Aeneas, although both scenes are simpler
in the Giustiniani and Sicilian examples. The gesture of Peter, who touches
Tabitha's upraised hands in the Giustiniani version, also stands halfway
between the two alternatives of gesturing (Vercelli) and grasping (Sicily and
Chigi).
Is it possible that the sequence Vercelli-Giustiniani-Chigi represents a
natural evolution, independently arrived at in the Sicilian mosaics? Alter-
nately, the Tabitha scene in the Chigi manuscript could be one of the instances
of fresh importation of a newly available Byzantine model similar to that
used by the Sicilian mosaicist, if not based on Monreale itself.30 There is
undoubtedly some connection between the Sicilian mosaics and the Italian
cycle. This connection is probably that of a common derivation from a Byzan-
tine source.
evidence I shall present also supports this likelihood, since the comparison
of the Italian material with Acts scenes in Byzantium leads to the conclusion
that the Italian cycle is based on an extensive, coherent Byzantine cycle,
modified and augmented by Western themes and tendencies and resulting
in a synthesis that can be termed "Italo-Byzantine."
The Byzantine Acts monuments are of two kinds: that is, isolated scenes,
which are found in a number of works-as is true also in the West-and ex-
tended narrative cycles, of which there are relatively few. Four of the latter are
relevant to the present study.
The Rockefeller-McCormickNew Testament in Chicago, of the late twelfth
or early thirteenth century, contains the only densely illustrated text of
Acts.32 Unfortunately, this book tends to fluctuate between narrative and
symbolic approaches to subject matter; those scenes in which the latter
prevails are quite different from our narrative and anecdotal Italian cycle.
For the most part, the iconography is either of a different tradition than those
scenes described above or else so distorted that its origin is obscured. There
are, however, several individual scenes similar to those; in the Vercelli-Verona
group.
A more satisfactory source of comparison can be found in the twelfth-
century Greek manuscript of the Acts and Epistles, Paris, Bibliotheque
Nationale, gr. 102.33 It has only four Acts scenes combined in a full-page
frontispiece (fig. 9), but these few are important for a reconstruction of Byzan-
tine narrative iconography, insofar as they agree with and differ from the
Italian cycle. All four of the scenes in Paris. 102 are present in the Italian
works, and they tend to exhibit a family likeness.
The Acts frescoes in the fourteenth-century church at Decani in Serbia
are worthy of more intensive study than has been accorded them.34 Although
late in date, they undoubtedly reflect material of a much earlier period, and
therefore are useful in the search for a more complete picture of Byzantine
Acts iconography. Of all the Eastern examples, Decani is closest to the
Vercelli-Verona iconography, thus establishing a link between the Italian
and the earlier Byzantine representations of similar subjects.
The final extended Byzantine cycle to be considered here is literary rather
than pictorial. The "Painter's Manual" of Mt. Athos, the best-known of
32 University of Chicago Library, cod. 965; see The
Rockefeller-McCormick New Testament, ed.
E. J. Goodspeed, D. W. Riddle, and H. R. Willoughby (Chicago, 1932); H. R.
Willoughby, "Codex 2400
and its Miniatures," ArtB, 15 (1933), 3-74; and Illuminated Greek Manuscripts from American Collec-
tions, ed. G. Vikan (Princeton, 1973), no. 45 (with bibliography). This MS also has been studied recently
by A. Weil Carr, The Rockefeller-McCormick New Testament: Studies Toward the Reattribution of
Chicago, University Library, MS 965 (Diss. University of Michigan, 1973). There are thirteen Acts
scenes preserved, which are listed in the Appendix, and there must have been four or five additional
scenes on the excised pages (Willoughby, "Codex 2400," 67).
33 Kessler, "Paris. Gr. 102"; and the exhibition
catalogue, Byzance et la France mgdidvale (Paris,
1958), no. 31. The Acts scenes are: Peter Healing a Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate; the Martyrdom
of James; Peter's Liberation from Prison; and the Stoning of Stephen.
34 V. R. Petkovitch, "Un cycle desdspeintures e l'eglise de Decani" [in Serbian with a French
summary], Bulletin de la Societd Scientifique de Skoplje, 7-8, Section des Sciences Humaines, 3-4 (1930),
83-88. Petkovitch listed twenty-one scenes, although some of them were in ruinous condition and
the identifications are problematic. See the Appendix for the subject matter.
268 LUBA ELEEN
several Byzantine artists' manuals, was evidently written by Dionysius of
Fourna in the eighteenth century, but it is thought by its editors and inter-
preters to reflect medieval subject mattere. The eleven canonical scenes from
the lives of Peter and Paul described in it are germane to the present study, in
that they, too, help to isolate similarities and differences between the Byzan-
tine and Italo-Byzantine cycles. In fact, the evidence of the Italian scenes
helps to affirm the authenticity of the "Painter's Manual," which has often
been questioned.
Another lengthy cycle is found in the ninth-century edition of the Sacra
Parallela of John of Damascus, now in Paris.36Although its seventeen scenes
from Acts often represent the same subjects as those in other Byzantine works
and in the Italian cycle, the iconography tends to be imprecise in setting and
action.37While of undoubted value for the reconstruction of the tradition of Acts
illustration in Byzantium, the Sacra Parallela is not included in the present
study, which concentrates on Byzantine material related to the Italian cycle.
Of the manuscripts with isolated scenes from Acts, several are key wit-
nesses to the history of Acts illustration. They include three versions of the
Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, one from the ninth century
in the Vatican Library, and two from the eleventh century at Mt. Sinai and
in the Laurentian Library in Florence;38 the tenth-century Menologion of
Basil II, in the Vatican Library;39 and Codex Ebnerianus, a twelfth-century
edition of the New Testament in Oxford.40
35 The "Painter's Manual" of Dionysius of Fourna, ed. P. Hetherington (London, 1974), 66-67, s.v.
"The Miracles of the Apostle Peter" (five canonical and two apocryphal scenes): "Peter curing the
man lame from his birth"; "Peter killing Ananias and Sapphira"; "Peter raising Tabitha"; "Peter
baptising Cornelius and those with him"; "Peter saved from prison by the angel"; "Peter killing
Simon Magus"; "Peter, crucified head downward, dies"; and "The Miracles of the Apostle Paul" (six
canonical and one apocryphal scene): "Paul called by the Lord on the road"; "Paul baptised by
Ananias"; "Paul, lowered from the walls in a basket, flees from the hands of the Jews"; "Paul blind-
ing the magician Bar-Jesus"; "Paul healing the woman with the spirit Python"; "Paul, having shaken
off the viper that bit him into the fire, burns it"; "St. Paul dies by the sword." For an appraisal of the
text tradition of the Painter's Manual, see V. Grecu, "Byzantinische Handbiicher der Kirchenmalerei,"
Byzantion, 9 (1934), 675-701.
36
Paris, Biblioth6que Nationale, cod. gr. 923; see K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des
9. und 10. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1935), 80; and also Kessler, "Paris. Gr. 102," notes 6 and 7 for recent
information on the Sacra Parallela. A full consideration of the Acts material in this important MS
awaits Kurt Weitzmann's forthcoming publication.
37 See, e.g., the depiction of Peter Healing the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate (Kessler, ibid.,
fig. 2), in which Peter gestures at the man, already standing, who gestures in return; the scene lacks
the particularity of the imagery in most of the works discussed here.
38 Vatican Library, cod. gr. 699; Mt. Sinai, St. Catherine's Monastery, cod. 1186 (Weitzmann,
Buchmalerei, 4, 38, 58-59, figs. 16, 388); and Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana, cod. Plut. 9, 28
(in Byzantine Art, an European Art [Athens, 1964], no. 366). The Acts episodes in the Cosmas MSS are
the Stoning of Stephen, Saul Receives Letters from the High Priest, the Conversion of Paul, and Paul
Led to Damascus.
39 Vatican Library, cod. gr. 1613. See II Menologio di Basilio II, Codices e Vaticanis Selecti, VIII
(Turin, 1907). The Acts scenes in the Menologion are Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (p. 107), the
Stoning of Stephen (p. 275), and the Martyrdom of James (p. 185).
40 Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Auct. T. infra 1.10 (misc. 136), which has three scenes from Acts
used as headpieces: the Ascension (fol. 231v), introducing the Gospel of Luke; Peter's Liberation from
Prison (fol. 292v), with the Epistles of Peter; and the Conversion of Paul (fol. 312V), with the Pauline
of
Epistles. See C. Meredith, "Illustrations of Codex Ebnerianus: A Study in Liturgical Illustration
the Comnenian Period," JWarb, 29 (1966), 419-24. Buchthal, in "Some Representations" (note 12
supra), discusses the Conversion of Paul in this and other Greek MSS.
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 269
that Peter asks the mourning women to leave the room before he performs
the miracle. The consistent nonadherence to this specification indicates even
more strongly the possibility of a common model for Sicily, the Chigi scene,
and the description in the "Painter's Manual." In the Chicago New Testament
(fol. 116v), in contrast, the episode is reduced to its barest essentials: Peter
gestures at Tabitha who is sitting up in bed. The Verona and Sicilian examples
apparently perpetuate a Byzantine type which has not survived in any Eastern
works of art.43
Another category of imagery consists of subjects which, in the process of
translation into Western idiom, have undergone changes in accordance with
Romanesque stylisticlimitations and Western iconographic practice. An exami-
nation of the depictions of the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
(Acts 8:26-38) in the Menologion of Basil II and at Decani (figs. 15, 14)
reveals the Decani iconography as accurately reflecting earlier Byzantine
tradition; the Vercelli-Verona scenes (figs. 11, 12, 13) also inherit this tradi-
tion, but adapt it in a characteristic manner. In the Menologion and at
Decani the Ethiopian is shown driving a carriage pulled by a team of horses
(four horses in the Menologion, two at Decani). Philip, nimbed and beardless,
sits at the Ethiopian's left, holding the text of Isaiah in his right hand and
speaking into the Ethiopian's left ear. Some understanding of perspective was
required to convey successfully the positions of each of a team of horses,
arranged in depth, as well as the complex relationship between the two charac-
ters, with Philip situated in a deeper plane and partially obscured by his
companion. Similar skills were required to depict the landscape setting. There
is little doubt that the fourteenth-century fresco derives from an earlier model
resembling the picture in the Menologion.
In its conversion into a less sophisticated Western pictorial language, as
exemplified by the Vercelli Roll (fig. 11), Lat. 39 (fig. 13), and the Giustiniani
New Testament (fig. 12), the problem of space is solved by reducing the
number of horses to one and flattening out the figure composition so that the
two men face each other on the same plane, the Ethiopian neglectfully turning
his back on his driving. One motif reveals that the Vercelli version is closer to
a Byzantine model than are the Verona miniatures: the carriage in the former
can be recognized as a two-wheeled currus similar to that at Decani and in
the Menologion, whereas in the more evolved Verona versions it has been
turned into a four-wheeled cart.
The Philip narrative continues with a scene which forms a further link
between the Byzantine and Italian representations: at De6ani (fig. 24), in the
Roll (fig. 11), and-by implication-in the Giustiniani codex (fig. 12), Philip is
shown baptizing the Ethiopian in a running spring set in a mountainous land-
scape.43aIt is clear, therefore, that the Eastern and Western Philip sequences
are related; the evidence presented here also points to the possibility that the
43 See the Appendix for episodes included in the "Painter's Manual" and the Italo-Byzantine
iconography, but absent in existing Byzantine art.
43a Baptism outdoors, rather than in the usual font, is implied by the poses in fig. 12 (see p. 259 supra).
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 271
the Italian versions apparently preserve material older than that in most
extant Byzantine monuments.
There are several topics which are central to this inquiry, in that the
comparison between Byzantine and Western examples not only brings out
the underlying kinship between the two groups but also establishes certain
criteria by which the Italo-Byzantine variation can be defined. One is a scene
which has already been emphasized in this article: St. Peter Healing the Lame
Man at the Beautiful Gate. As described above (p. 257f.), the Vercelli Roll
and the Verona New Testaments (figs. 1-4) follow the text closely in showing
Peter pulling the man to his feet, as do the scenes in two associated Italian
monuments, Sessa Aurunca and Vienna 1191 (figs. 8, 6). Two of the Byzantine
examples-Paris. 102 and De6ani (figs. 9, 10)-are similar in composition,
showing the lame man in front of a building on the right and Peter accompanied
by John on the left. They are different in that Peter is not shown physically
pulling up the man. What is actually depicted is the previous moment in the
narrative, "And Peter said, '...in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
walk"' (Acts 3:6), rather than, "Then he grasped him by the right hand and
pulled him up" (3:7). The Sicilian mosaics (figs. 5, 7) are like the two Byzantine
examples cited here. That there was a tradition in the East for a representa-
tion of Peter curing the man with a gesture is reinforced by the "Painter's
Manual": "A temple with steps; in front of the doorway of the temple, at
the top of the steps, a man is sitting with his head covered with a veil; a
wallet hangs from his shoulder, and he raises his hands and eyes to Peter.
On either side of him two crutches lean against the temple wall, and Peter
stands before him blessing with one hand, and holding a closed scroll in the
other hand. John the Divine, a beardless young man, is behind him."47
The insistence in many of the examples on placing the action at the top of a
flight of steps is important. It should be noted that the Bible text does not
call for the steps, and therefore the perpetuation of this feature is evidence
of a tradition of copying. The steps occur not only in the "Painter's Manual"
but also in Paris. 102, the Vercelli Roll, and Vienna 1191. The presence
of the steps points to an early origin of this iconography, since it possibly
reflects a correct understanding of the forms of antique temple architecture.
Linked to the steps is the depiction of the temple as a basilican structure in
Paris. 102, the Vercelli Roll, Vienna 1191, and Monreale. The steps and the
basilica must therefore be regarded as features of Byzantine iconography
retained at Vercelli, albeit awkwardly. They have disappeared in the more
evolved Verona manuscripts, although the motif of the joined hands used at
Vercelli is continued.
As far as the joining of the hands of Peter and the lame man is concerned,
this might represent an alternate, and subsequently lost, Byzantine type, or
perhaps it is an improvement devised in the West to give the scene greater
contrast with the Pauline Miracle of the Lame Man (Acts 14:7-9), where the
cure is accomplished by means of a gesture. A third possibility is that originally
47 "Painter's Manual," ed. Hetherington, 66.
ACTS ILLUSTRATION IN ITALY AND BYZANTIUM 273
it was a two-episode miracle scene, as are many others in this cycle. In any case,
this feature represents a clear distinction between the Italo-Byzantine and
Byzantine types.
Another characteristic apparently peculiar to the Italo-Byzantine Acts
iconography alone is the tendency for certain of the subjects to be reorganized
into vertical compositions. This inclination is visible particularly in the scene
representing Peter's Liberation from Prison (Acts 12:6-10), combined in the
Verona New Testaments with the depiction of James's Martyrdom and, in the
two Vatican manuscripts, Peter's Arrest (12:2-3 [figs. 29, 30, 31]). The freeing
of Peter is among the most frequently illustrated Acts subjects in both East
West, and a number of variations exist. There are enough examples in
andand
which at least two related episodes are shown to suggest that originally this
was one of the sections of Acts accorded an expanded sequential treatment.
In the usual combination of episodes the first scene shows Peter seated or
reclining in the midst of sleeping guards in prison, occasionally with his feet
in chains; he is visited by an angel, who is either inside (figs. 9, 33)48 or out-
side (figs. 34, 35)49 the prison. Kessler has observed that the text does not call
for the guards to be asleep, and suggests that the many pictorial interpre-
tations which include this motif are affiliated.50 In the second episode Peter,
already free, is led away by an angel holding his hand.51 In those Byzantine
examples in which the two liberation scenes are combined into one, Peter is
seated in the prison and the angel reaches through the prison walls to grasp
his hand (fig. 35).52
The Verona New Testaments (figs. 30, 31) show their kinship with the
Byzantine examples in the reiterated motif of the sleeping guards. All
of the Verona codices and Vienna 1191 have a composite scene of Peter in
prison and simultaneously led out of it by an angel, in the manner of the
scene in the Chicago New Testament. In these examples Peter is shown
standing rather than seated, the element that sets apart the Italo-Byzantine
from other representations of the same subject. It is possible that this compo-
sitional solution was in response to technical problems. There must have been
difficulty in fitting four episodes into two column spaces, since Peter's Libera-
tion is combined with the scenes of Herod Ordering the Persecution of James
and Peter and the Martyrdom of James. Each manuscript presents a different
solution, but always the final scene of Peter and the angel is crowded into and
beyond the available space. There is not enough room for a seated figure of
Peter, so he is made to stand in the narrow space allotted to the prison. The
spatial problem no longer existed for the artist of Vienna 1191 (fig. 32) where
the panels did not have to be fitted into the columns of text, but nevertheless
48 See,
e.g., Paris gr. 102, Decani, Codex Ebnerianus (Meredith, op. cit., fig. b), and Sessa Aurunca
(Glass, op. cit. [note 16 supra], fig. 9).
49 See,
e.g., the Sicilian mosaics (Demus, Norman Sicily [note 27 supra], figs. 41B, 82B, 82C).
50 "Paris. Gr. 102," 213; see Paris.
gr. 102, the Sicilian mosaics, Chigi A.IV.74, the Giustiniani
codex, and Sessa Aurunca.
51 At
Palermo, Monreale, and Decani.
52E.g., in the Rockefeller-McCormick New Testament, fol. 119v.
18
274 LUBA ELEEN
The evidence presented here strongly reinforces the possibility that the
Italo-Byzantine iconography descended from an Eastern cycle of Acts scenes
wider in scope than that in extant Byzantine manuscripts. This cycle is
likely to have been more extensive, not only in the number of subjects chosen
for illustration but also in the continuous sequential treatment accorded
individual episodes.
The analogy of the Italo-Byzantine iconography has raised into prominence
a related group of Byzantine works, of which De6ani is the most complete.
Other monuments repeating major themes of the Decani Acts cycle are:
Paris. gr. 102, the Menologion of Basil II, and Codex Ebnerianus.54 The
Rockefeller-McCormick New Testament and the Sacra Parallela fall into a
different category, although there is obviously some intermingling of iconogra-
phic themes.
A high degree of correspondence between the Italian iconography and that
of the De6ani frescoes suggests that both descend from the same archetype,
and as integrated cycles, not merely as individual scenes.55Like the Vercelli
Roll, Decani is exempt from the selective principle usually characteristic of
monumental schemes; it reflects a reliance on the entire text of Acts and is
Healing: Ananias is shown approaching Paul); and the Hortus Deliciarum (Herrad von Landsberg,
Hortus Deliciarum, ed. A. Straub and G. Keller [Strasbourg, 1879-99]), fol. 189V.
65 Kohler, Schule von Tours, pl. 74.
278 LUBA ELEEN
It should be noted that the Sicilian mosaics are strongly Byzantine in their
Pauline sequences, particularly in the use of proskynesis for the Conversion.
The Western elements here are more problematic.66
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. 126r fol. 128v fol. 436r fol. 435v x x x
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Cornelius Greets Peter x x
Cornelius Visited by Angel x
Peter Baptizes Converts x
Peter-James Sequence (12:1-10):
Herod Orders Persecutions fol. 94r fol. 130r fol. 131v x fol. 43'
Beheading of James fol. 94r fol. 130r fol. 131v x fol. 43'
Arrest of Peter fol. 94r fol. 130r
Peter Visited in Prison by an Angel x
Liberation of Peter fol. 94r fol. 130r fol. 131v x fol. 43'
Herod Struck Down (12:21-23) fol. 132r
Blinding of Elymas (13:8-12)
Paul in the Synagogue (13:14-41) fol. 95v fol. 133r x
Paul Heals a Lame Man at
Lystra (14:8-10) fol. 96r fol. 132v fol. 133v fol. 439r
(Phil.)
Phillippi Sequence (16:16-33):
Miracle of the Evil Spirit fol. 97v fol. 135r x fol. 440r
(Col.)
Paul and Silas Flogged and
Imprisoned fol. 98r fol. 135r fol. 135v x fol. 440r
(Col.)
Paul and Silas in the Stocks fol. 135r fol. 135v x
Baptism of the Jailer's Family x
Paul Led to Gallio (18:12-17) fol. 137v
Paul in a Boat with Priscilla
and Aquila (18:18) fol. 137v fol. 138v
Raising of Eutychus (20:9-12) x
Paul and Luke in a Ship (21:1-8) fol. 44
Prophecy of Agabus (21:11-13) x
Paul Beaten in Jerusalem (21:27-33) x
Paul Before the High Priest
(24:1-22) fol. 44
Storm at Sea (27:14-20) fol. 44
Malta Sequence (28:3-8):
Miracle of the Viper fol. 143r fol. 423r fol. 44
(Rom.)
Paul Heals the Father of Publius fol. 143v
x x
x
x
fol. 138V
x
fol. 441v
x
fol. 443r
fol. 444r
SUZANNE SPAIN
A grant from the Penrose Fund of the American Philoso-
phical Society helped meet the expenses incurred in the
preparation of this article; I gratefully acknowledge the
support of the American Philosophical Society.
'T HE ivory plaque depicting a Translationof Relics, in the Cathedral
Treasury at Trier, is one of the enigmas of Early Byzantine art (fig. 1).
Specific though it is in its portrayal of setting and participants, the
identity of the event has not yet been satisfactorily determined. Imperial
couples from Constantine and Helena to Justinian II and Theodora, spanning
more than 350 years, have been proposed as the protagonists; the date and
provenance of the ivory have been equally elusive to modern scholarship.
Although current opinion favors a sixth-century date and a Constantinopolitan
locale for the event and a sixth-century Constantinopolitan provenance for the
ivory, Egypt has been suggested more than once as the place of origin. Typical
of the reactions to the ivory is that of Beckwith: "The scene remains an enigma,
the style is baffling, but Volbach is probably correct in settling for Constan-
tinople in the sixth century."' In this study I hope to demonstrate that such
apparently safe remarks about the ivory are incorrect; the scene can be
determined, the style identified, an nd the date and place of origin shown to
be other than Constantinople or even Egypt in the sixth century.
Acquired by the Trier Cathedral in 1844, the ivory is in very good condition.
Only its upper right corner, small pieces along the left edge, and the heads
of some secondary figures are missing. It measures 13.1 x 26.1 x 2.3 cm. and
has been cut to a depth of 2 cm.2 The translation takes place against a
precisely noted architectural background. At the left, rising on an elevation
obscured by the cart, is a two-storied building, each story flanked by columns.
The lower story of the fa9ade is pierced by three windows; in a lunette in
the upper story a bust of a cruciform-nimbed, short-bearded Christ appears.
Arched openings are visible on the sides of the building. The second structure,
occupying more than three-quarters of the width of the plaque, is three-
storied and inhabited by spectators. Where it abuts the first structure its
horizontals recede into the depth of the relief, suggesting a hemicyclical plan.
Its first story is comprised of piers from which arches spring; circular orna-
ments fill the spandrels. On the second story columns carry an entablature,
and in the rectangular openings of the wall behind the columns half-length
figures appear swinging censers in their right hands and gesturing plaintively
with their left hands. The uppermost story presents a miniature arcuated
colonnade before which a series of busts is set. The translation procession
moves from left to right led by a figure in Byzantine imperial garb. The
emperor wears a short tunic marked with pellets, a long chlamys fastened
by a fibula, and a diadem with short double pendilia; he carries a large lit
candle. Accompanying him are seventeen figures, some in tunic and chlamys,
others in tunic and paenula, who cluster around and behind, three deep.
Three in the front row with the emperor carry lit candles. Following them are
two plump, short-legged horses drawing a cart, upon which sit a driver and,
above and behind on a sausage-shaped cushion, two ecclesiastics in bishops'
vestments who hold a reliquary on their knees. The side of the cart bears a
sculpted relief of three small togate figures. The procession is met by an
empress, a short woman in a pearl-bordered chlamys and long-sleeved dalmatic.
Wearing a crown bordered in pearls with softened pyramidal projections and
shoulder-length pendilia, she holds a long cross staff in her left hand and
reaches out with her right arm toward the emperor. Behind her is a basilical
church with three men working on its roof. A fourth figure maintains a pre-
carious perch on the flank of the basilica between a small two-storied, rotunda-
like building and a two-storied, pitched-roof structure. Crosses are affixed to
the two peaks of the basilica's roof.
Attempts to identify the subject of the ivory have been based primarily on
iconographical features. Delbrueck argued in behalf of a late seventh-century
date on the basis of hairstyle, the absence of a particular fibula form, the
short tunic of the emperor, his beardlessness, and the type of Christ in relation
to the coinage of Justinian II.3 His arguments are, however, quite weak, as
Wessel has shown, and need not be repeated.4 The participation of two high
ecclesiastics has encouraged scholars to seek instances in which two patriarchs
figured in the translation of relics to a new church in Constantinople. Thus,
the ivory has been linked with the translation of the girdle of the Virgin in 464
to the church of the Theotokos in Chalkoprateia, with Patriarchs Gennadius
of Constantinople and Martyrios of Antioch; and, more often, with the trans-
lation of relics of the Forty Martyrs from Hagia Sophia to Hagia Eirene at
Sycae, with Menas of Constantinople and Apollinarus of Alexandria in 552.5
The translation of the relics of Joseph and Zacchariah to Hagia Sophia II
in 415 by Patriarch Atticus of Constantinople and Moses, bishop of Antardus
in Phoenicia, with the Exarch Ursus and Pulcheria at the head of the pro-
cession, has also been proposed.6 One architectural historian, who did not
attempt to identify the event, believed the Chalke and a colonnaded court
("salone ipetrale") of the Great Palace were represented in the background.7
This view was dismissed by another scholar, who doubts the Chalke is repre-
sented and who believes the larger structure in the background is the interior
of a basilical church "in flattened-out perspective."8 The curvature of the three-
storied building would seem to suggest a hippodrome or coliseum; alas, the
church bordering the hippodrome in Constantinople, Hagia Euphemia, was
octagonal in plan.9 Other Constantinopolitan basilical churches with flanking
chapels of the Early Byzantine period could surely be considered as the
"model" for the church on the Trier ivory, so common was the type.10 Hence,
in order to determine the identity of the translation, aspects other than the
number of ecclesiastics or the architectural background must be explored.
Some iconographical details, heretofore ignored, offer significant evidence
in the dating of the ivory. To begin, the emperor's headdress is comprised of
a plain diadem with half-roundels suspended from it and, above it, five short,
scallop-like projections increasing in size toward the center. Short double
pendilia hang from the diadem. I have not been able to find anything compar-
able to this type of headdress. It is quite distinct from a type popular in the
sixth century with three slender plume-like forms rising from the diadem,
which is worn along with a helmet, the latter often plumed. Anastasius,
Justinian, Justinn I, and Maurice wear such a crown on their coinage, on the
control stamps of silver objects, and in portraits on ivories and silver (figs. 2,
10, 12).11 Compared to the stability of crown forms throughout most of the
sixth century, the last decades of the sixth century and the seventh century
were a period of changing fashions. In the coinage of Tiberius II and Maurice
a cross or raised circular ornament rises above the diadem (figs. 3, 4); the
raised circular ornament is often surmounted by a cross or combined with
the trefoil.12On silver control stamps Heraclius wears crowns with and without
pendilia, with raised circular ornaments, sometimes surmounted by a cross,
or, in an archaizing mood, with the three projections.l3 The coin portraits of
Heraclius present even more variety.14 Thus, on the evidence of the crown
worn by the emperor on the Trier ivory, it is not possible to affirm the com-
monly held sixth-century date; rather, on the basis of the evolution of the
imperial crown in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, the possibility
that the emperor on the ivory may be Tiberius, Maurice, Phocas, or even
Heraclius should be considered.
The emperor wears a fibula comprised of a round brooch from which two
tear-shaped gems are suspended. This, too, is anomalous. In the Early Byzan-
tine period imperial fibulae were comprised of circular brooches with three
chains or beaded wires ending in large pearls, as, for example, Theodosius
and his corulers on the silver missorium in Madrid (fig. 8), Justinian in
S. Vitale, and Justinian on a gold medallion once in Paris (fig. 9).15 Two
pendant fibulae are found on some seventh-century gold solidi worn, for
example, by Heraclius Constantine on two issues of his father, dated 616-26,
12For earlier examples of the crown with raised circular ornament: a coin of Anastasius, in Bellinger,
D.O. Coins, I, no. 6, pl. i; and on the Barberini diptych (fig. 13), in Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 36,
no. 48. The profile portrait of Anastasius wearing a diadem with a cross was common; cf. Bellinger,
op. cit., pls. I-vI, and no. 4, pl. I, an exceptional bust representation of this headdress.
The crown with the raised circular ornament may have been reintroduced by Justin II based on
the evidence of control stamps on a recently discovered silver cup, in the Abegg-Stiftung in Bern, which
E. C. Dodd places in "a transitional period close to the reign of Justin II but actually in the short reign
of Tiberius..."; cf. "Byzantine Silver Stamps: Supplement II," DOP, 22 (1968), 144, no. 27.1. The
author would like to see this type on the round stamp on the Stuma paten (Stamps, no. 27), but I doubt
it. For examples on the silver stamps of Tiberius and Maurice, see ibid., nos. 28, 30f.; see also "Supple-
ment II," 145f., nos. 31.1, 31.2. For the crown with raised circular ornament on coins, see Bellinger,
op. cit.: Maurice, nos. 5-8, 30b.2, 30e.1, 51a.2, 54a, 82.2, 85, 88, 91b.1, 125b.2, 130, 134b, 140b.2,
149-51, 217, 220, 257, 258, 285a.1, pls. LxvIf., LxIxf., LXXII-LXXIV,LXXVII-LXXIX.For the crown
with raised circular ornament and cross, cf. Dodd, Stamps, no. 29; Bellinger, op. cit.: Tiberius, nos. 2-4,
11-15, 20a.1, 20b.3, 62a.2, 62a.3, pls. LX-LXII, LXV; Maurice, nos. 33d, 41f, 56b.1, 58b, 216, 238, 240,
pls. LxvIIIf., LXXVII;Zacos and Veglery, op. cit., 1,1, 10, no. 7, variety 2. For the crown with trefoil
and raised circular ornament, see Bellinger, op. cit.: Maurice, nos. 154.1, 159b.2, 159c.3, 161.2, 163b.3,
169a, 169c, 172d, 173, 176.1, 179, 185.3, 187.2, 189, 196.2, 197.1, 207, 210.1, 222, 233, pls. LXXIV-
LXXVII.
13For a brief discussion of sixth- and seventh-century headdresses, with further references, see
P. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore
Collection (Washington, D.C., 1968) (hereafter Grierson, D.O. Coins), II, pt. 1, 74f., 80-84. For Hera-
cleian silver, see Dodd, Stamps, 135-211, nos. 37-74, table i. A variant that may offer a parallel to
the crown type on the Trier ivory appears on the round and long stamps of a plain silver dish in the
Dumbarton Oaks Collection, no. 51.24. A short-haired, beardless Heraclius wears a diadem comprised
of small circles; above are feather- or scallop-shaped forms that increase in size toward the center.
On the long stamp the crown appears to be surmounted by a cross, its arms suggested by four dots.
Neither crown on these stamps has pendilia. Thanks to the kindness of Susan Boyd, Associate Curator
of the Byzantine Collection at Dumbarton Oaks, I was able to examine this and other silver plates
under a binocular microscope. On this plate, see M. C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early
Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, I. Metalwork, Ceramics, Glass, Glyptics, Painting
(Washington, D.C., 1962), 21f., no. 16.3, pl. xx; also Dodd, Stamps, no. 44.
14 See Grierson, D.O. Coins, II,1, 216-383, pls. vmii-xxn, where one finds, in addition to the variants
on the silver stamps, plumed helmets (e.g., nos. 1-6), simple diadems (nos. 51-54), high crowns
(no. 188), and rounded crowns (no. 189).
15The most thorough study of the fibula remains that of N. M. Bl6jaev, "Ocerki po vizantijskoj
arheologii. I. Fibula v' Vizantii," SeniKond, 3 (1929), 49-114; see also Grierson, D.O. Coins, II,1, 77f.,
with further references. For illustrations of the examples mentioned above, see W. F. Volbach, Early
Christian Art (New York, 1961), pls. 53, 166, 244.
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 285
and by Constans II on issues spanning the years 651-68 (figs. 5, 6).16 The
fibula form thus supports the evidence provided by the crown and pushes the
dating of the ivory into the seventh century.
Byzantine coins also provide parallels for the cross-carrying empress. Sophia,
Constantina, and Leontia, wives respectively of Justin II, Maurice, and Phocas,
appear on their husbands' coinage holding the cross staff. Sophia is depicted
enthroned, and in most cases she cradles a short cross staff against her right
arm and rests it on her lap (fig. 7). Constantina and Leontia stand and hold
the cross across their bodies so that it rises over their right shoulders.17Later,
especially in coins dated 629/30 or later, a long staff surmounted by a cross
is carried by Heraclius and Constans II on some of their issues.18 Imperial
insignia therefore suggest a date for the Trier ivory no earlier than the late
sixth or early seventh century.
Turning from imperial insignia to imperial ceremonial, a remarkable feature
of the ivory is the importance of the empress. She greets the procession as it
reaches the church, and the emperor seems about to hand her his candle. Our
main source on Byzantine imperial ceremonial, however, does not record a
single occasion on which the empress receives and greets the emperor outside
a church. Aside from noting her movements in the instances of acclamation,
coronation, and marriage, the De Ceremoniis mentions the empress' presence
during Pentecost observances in the mitatorion of Hagia Sophia and her exit
from it to receive the wives of dignitaries.19 On Palm Sunday she receives
in the Chrysotriklinos, "taking the crosses of those who enter following the
ceremonial of the emperor which is also her own."20 On Easter Monday, an
16Grierson, D.O. Coins, II,1, 250f., nos. 13, 16,
pl. viII. On Constans' coins the gems are suspended
on long chains. Grierson suggests Constans' beard hides the third pendant, an assumption I question:
op. cit., 11,2, 424-35, nos. 19-43, 155, pls. xxivf., xxx. Bl1jaev had noted the comparison between
the fibula of the emperor on the Trier ivory and one on a Heracleian coin: op. cit., 96, 113.
17 For illustrated examples of coins with Sophia, see Bellinger, D.O. Coins, I, nos. 22a.2,
23c, 24b.2,
24c, 25c.3, 27b, 29a, 30, 31, 32e.1, 33b.1, 34a, 36e.4, 37d, 38e.1, 39c, 40e, 42c, 44a, 46, 47a, 47d, 49c,
50, 51a, 52a, 53, 66.1, 67.1, 67.2, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74.2, 75.2, 77, 78.1, 79, 81.1, 82.1, 85.3, 92a, 93a, 94a.1
95b.2, 99a, 99b.1, 100b.3, 100d.3, 101c, 102a.2, 103b, 104.1, 105.1, 106.2, 110.1, 117a, 117c, 121d'
122d, 123a.4, 123a.5, 123b, 124b.1, 125a.1, 126a, 130.1, 132.1, 133.3, 133.7, 135, 205.2, 206.2, pls. L-LVI,
LIX. The exceptions to the description are Antiochene issues in which the staff rises over the left
shoulder: nos. 150c, 152c.1, 153, 156.1, 157a.2, 157b.3, 159, 162.1, 163, 166, 167b.2, 175.3, 176, 179a.2,
183.2, pl. LVIf. For coins with Constantina: ibid., nos. 297-303, pl. LXXX; with Leontia: Grierson,
D.O. Coins, II,1, nos. 24b, 35a, 51.1, 51.3, 53a.2, 53b.2, 69a.2, 69b.3, 78b.1, 86.1, 88.1, 91b, 92.1, 95.1,
98, 103, pls. II-V. Anastasia appears with Tiberius on four Thessalonikan half-folles, where it is not
possible to discern whether she has a cross staff in her arms; cf. Bellinger, D.O. Coins, I, nos. 23-26,
pi. LXIII. Non-imperial cross-carrying females are rare in Early Byzantine art; for examples, see the
personified Ecclesia in a late sixth-early seventh-century Syriac Old Testament, Paris, Bibliotheque
Nationale, MS Syr. 341, fol. 118r, in Beckwith, E.C. and Byz. Art, pl. 115; and the personified Sophia
on a seal of the late sixth-early seventh century, in V. Laurent, Le Corpus des sceaux de l'empire
byzantin, V, pt. 1 (Paris, 1963), 43f., no. 49.
18 Forillustrated examples of Heraclius, see Grierson, D.O.
Coins, II,1, nos. 77b, 78.1, 105a.3, 105b.1,
105c.5, 108b, 109a, 112c, 117a.3, 117b.1, 117c.4, 118a.4, 118c.1, 123b, 124a, 125a.1, 125e, 126a, 127a.1,
152, pls. xi-xv. Except for nos. 77 and 78, overstruck folles of Phocas dated 613, the other examples
date to 629/30 or later. For Constans II the cross staff is plainly visible on the following coins: ibid.,
11,2, nos. 59, 60a.2, 60b, 60d, 61c.1, 61d, 64c.3, 64e.1, 65a.1, 66d.3, 67.1, 69a, 70a, 72a, 75c.1, 75c.3,
76c.1, 77b, 81c, 84b, 84d, 85b, 86c, 87b.2, pl. xxvIf.
19Constantine Porphyrogenitos, De Ceremoniis, 1.9, ed. and trans. A.
Vogt, Constantine Porphyro-
gdnete, Le Livre des cdremonies,I, pt. 1 (repr. Paris, 1967), 61.
20 Ibid., 1.41
(32), ed. Vogt, 164.
286 SUZANNE SPAIN
occasion in which the emperor carried a candle and headed the long procession
to the Holy Apostles, he was not met byess the empress at th church.2 The
De Ceremoniis thus fails to help in the identification of the occasion and locale
depicted on the Trier ivory. Although it may be overly optimistic to seek in a
tenth-century text the description of a pre-iconoclastic ceremony, the failure
to find any parallel for the key role of the empress may indicate that the ivory
records a singular event rather than one traditional in the imperial ceremonial
of the capital.
A final iconographic aspect helpful in establishing the ivory's date is the
bust of Christ. This Christ has a short beard, long wavy hair which falls behind
his shoulders, and a cruciform nimbus. This type became ascendant after 550,
as its appearance on a number of objects in a wide range of media testifies.
Some examples are: a. the apse mosaic in the church of the Theotokos,
St. Catherine's monastery, Mt. Sinai; b. an icon of Christ and c. a medallion
portrait of Christ on the St. Peter icon, both at Mt. Sinai; d. medallions on
the icons of SS. Sergius and Bacchus and e. of John the Baptist, both in
Kiev; f. the Hermitage reliquary; g. the Cross of Justin II in the Treasury
of St. Peter's, Rome (fig. 10); h. the Riha paten in the Archaeological Museum,
Istanbul; i. the Stuma paten in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection; and j. a censer
in the British Museum (fig. 11).22Thus, on the basis of iconographical evidence
introduced here-the crown, the fibula, the cross staff, and the Christ type-
I propose that the Trier Translation of Relics ivory is a post-Justinianic work.
24 For the
Ariadnes, see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 38, no. 51 f., pl. 13; for the Barberini diptych,
ibid., 36f., no. 48, pl. 12.
25
Ibid., 28, no. 21, pl. 5.
26
Illustrating one section of Hagios Georgios, and with further references, cf. Volbach and Lafon-
taine-Dosogne, Byzanz, pl. 1. On the St. Mark ivory, see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 71, no. 144;
K. Weitzmann, "The Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair," DOP, 26 (1972) (hereafter Weitzmann,
"So-Called Grado Chair"), 53f., fig. 15; and infra, p. 288f.
27
Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 57, no. 109, pl. 32; Beckwith, E. C. and Byz. Art, 37, pl. 68.
288 SUZANNE SPAIN
the Translation has not been carved out of ivory but executed in dough.
The carver possessed great skill in suggesting the corporeality of his figures,
even when working on such a small scale and stacking the figures four deep.
His composition, which draws on the Roman adventus, is complex but
legible.28Despite the movement of the action from left to right, the observer's
eye does not pause at the empress as the procession has, but moves back to
the left, following the ascent of the spectators' heads, taking in the details
of the background architecture and the genre-like incidents on the roof of
the church. The artist has reconciled movement and stability: whereas the
emperor and his guard are depicted standing still, having reached their
destination, the wagon carrying the bishops is still in movement. The driver
appears to be reining in his horses while the bishops rock about on their seat,
keeping their hold on the reliquary.
No other ivory survives that displays a similar set of stylistic qualities,
but a number of ivories do present one or more of the characteristics noted.
Such examples as the Ariadnes display a clarity of architectural and costume
detailing and depth of carving, but the figure style is quite different (fig. 12).
Other ivory groups, represented by the diptychs in Berlin, showing Christ and
Mary have pudgy, round-headed figures but are carved in far lower relief
and provide decorative and symbolic settings rather than "real" ones.29 The
carving styles of the throne of Archbishop Maximianus in Ravenna fail to pro-
vide any analogies, nor does the beautiful classicism of the Michael diptych.30
The large staring eyes of the figures on the consular diptych of Magnus in the
Cabinet des Medailles, Paris, and the swept back, wavy hair of the personifica-
tions provide parallels to two features characteristic of the Trier ivory, but
again the basic figure style and carving technique are different.31 On the
testimony of these ivories, Constantinople would seem to have to be eliminated
as the provenance of the Trier ivory. On the other hand, these ivories are pri-
marily Justinianic in date; their negative testimony may therefore merely support
the iconographic findings, that is, that the ivory is post-Justinianic. Before
claiming the Trier ivory as a unique example of post-Justinianic Constantino-
politan carving,32let us see if it might not have originated outside the capital.
Strzygowski hypothesized an Egyptian provenance and sixth-century date,
alleging similarities between the Trier ivory and the ivory in the Louvre
which he identified as St. Mark enthroned amidst his successors (fig. 14). On
28 For the historical and
literary precedents for the adventus-influenced translation, see N. Gussone,
"Adventus-Zeremoniell und Translation von Reliquien. Victricius von Rouen, De laude sanctorum,"
Frihmittelalterliche Studien, 10 (1976), 125-33.
29 Volbach,
Elfenbeinarbeiten, 67f., no. 137, pl. 42; Beckwith, E.C. and Byz. Art, 37, pl. 67.
30 On the
throne, see Volbach, op. cit., 68f., no. 140, pl. 43; but settling on a Constantinopolitan
provenance, see Volbach and Lafontaine-Dosogne, Byzanz, 199, pl. 87. For the Michael ivory, see
supra, note 27.
31
Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 29, no. 24, pl. 5.
32 In "The Andrews
Diptych and Some Related Ivories," ArtB, 36 (1954), 255-61, E. Rosenbaum
proposes a seventh-century (Heracleian) date for the Andrews diptych, the Venatio ivory in Liverpool,
and plaques with apostles in the Victoria and Albert and Louvre museums (cf. Volbach, Elfenbein-
arbeiten, nos. 59, 122f., 233). Her hypothesis has not met with critical acceptance; see J. Beckwith,
The Andrews Diptych, Victoria and Albert Museum Monographs, XII (London, 1958), 21f.; idem,
E.C. and Byz. Art, 21.
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 289
the basis of this subject choice, he dated the latter ivory 607-9 and provided
it with an Alexandrian origin.33The Egyptian provenance of both ivories was
based on comparisons with a wooden sculpture, in the Staatliche Museen in
Berlin, depicting the Siege of a City, an object having more certain Egyptian
origin.34 The relationship of the Trier ivory to either of these sculptures is
very limited indeed, amounting to shared compositional and technical tours-
de-force. The three objects display crows or clusters of figures against an
architectural background inhabited by smaller figures. But such fundamental
aspects as figure style and
slepatial relations differ entirely. In contrast to the
compact, fleshy figures of the Trier ivory master, the Berlin sculptor uses
stiff, fairly well-proportioned figures, and the St. Mark master tall, emaciated,
almost cylindrical ones. The Trier ivory master varied his figures and set them
off against one another to suggest corporeality, autonomy, and existence in
space. Each figure on the St. Mark ivory and the Berlin sculpture is finely and
distinctly carved but lacks individuality and autonomy. Mark's disciples form
a sort of human wreath around him, while the soldiers on the Berlin sculpture
are packed together in isocephalic in
rinstandardized
isocehaic groupings battle motifs.
Both the St. Mark ivory and the Berlin sculpture display an interest in rich
surface detail (note the garments, the patterns on shields and armor, the stone-
work of the city walls), a quality which is alien to the Trier ivory. The interest
of the master of that ivory was in the event, in reportage,
r in clarity of struc-
ture of the figures, architecture, and composition. Thus, their exploitation of
the media-wood and ivory-constitute the sole grounds for comparing these
three works.35
To the monuments used by Strzygowski to substantiate a sixth-century
Egyptian provenance for the Trier ivory, Wessel added the six ivory plaques
incorporated in the chancel of Aachen Cathedral and a plaque with the
Dioscuri and Europa in Trieste.36 The grounds for his comparison between
the Aachen and Trier ivories are secondary figures, e.g., putti on the Aachen
ivories and roofers on the Trier ivory, and such minor details as human eyes
("Menschenaugen") of the horses. Wessel admits the style of the main figures
on the Aachen reliefs "weicht ... von dem der Trierer Tafel nicht unerheblich
ab."37 Even a superficial inspection of equine eyes in Early Christian and
Byzantine art reveals that most horses share this apparent human form.38
33 Strzygowski, op. cit. (note 5 supra), 71-89.
34 Ibid., 65-71. The Berlin sculpture is from Ashmunein; cf. J. Beckwith, Coptic Sculpture, 300-1300
(London, 1963), 15, pl. 46.
35 It
might be rewarding to reconsider the St. Mark ivory in relation to certain plaques belonging
to the "so-called Grado chair": features such as hair, facial structure, body shapes, and the decorative
treatment of surfaces have parallels among certain ivories of the later group; see Weitzmann, "So-
Called Grado Chair," 43-91, esp. 70-73.
36 Wessel,
op. cit. (note 4 supra), 12-15; on the Aachen ivories, Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 45f.,
nos. 72-77, pl. 24f.; on the Trieste plaque, ibid., 48, no. 82, pl. 26.
37
Wessel, op. cit., 13.
38 E.g., the Barberini
diptych, the Anastasius diptych, the lid of an ivory chest with a heraldic
composition of equestrian emperors, and the Bobbio pyx; for illustrations, see Volbach and Lafon-
taine-Dosogne, Byzanz, pls. 89, 91, 97; and Volbach, Early Christian Art (note 15 supra), pl. 84. Other
horses appear in the mosaic pavement of the Great Palace; see G. Brett, W. J. Macaulay, R. B. K. Ste-
venson, eds., The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors ... First Report (Oxford, 1947), pls. 30, 48.
290 SUZANNE SPAIN
Proportions are Wessel's basis for comparison between the Trieste and Trier
ivories; here again he errs, for the Trieste figures are far dumpier, with larger
heads, than the figures on te Trier ivory. In both sets of comparisons Wessel
fails to take into consideration the fundamental character of each work-the
order and harmony of the composition of the Trier ivory versus extreme
horror vacui and a disjunction between figures and settings in the Aachen
and Trieste panels.39
The Syro-Palestine region has never been considered as the place of origin
of the Trier ivory, though it did have a continuous tradition of ivory carving
in the Early Christian and Early Byzantine periods. In a recent series of
articles, Weitzmann has focused on the pictorial arts of this region, establishing
the existence of a long-lived school of ivory manufacture, schools of icon
painting, and independent iconographic traditions associated with the loca
sancta.40He has reaffirmed the vitality and the creativity of a region all but
written off for the post-Justinianic period.41 Although a study of Syro-
Palestinian ivory sculpture of the Early Christian-Early Byzantine periods
has yet to be written, some ivories, albeit of widely differing dates, display
qualities which are worth considering in relation to the Trier ivory. The ivory
pyxis in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, a Syro-Palestinian work of the fifth
century, is notable for the monumental grace of its Hellenistic-looking figures
(fig. 15).42Abraham, a tall, handsome, contrapposto figure, is seen interrupted
in the moment and movement of sacrifice. Christ, enthroned on the opposite
face of the pyxis in majestic authority, flanked by apostles and disciples,
has comparable broad, easy movements and a convincing structure beneath
his draperies. The artist has set his figures comfortably on the surface of
the pyxis, provided a plausible spatial setting, overlapped some figures with-
out minimizing their volumes, and included the locus sanctus of the sacrifice.
The noble Hellenism of the Berlin pyxis was not frequently repeated in
Syro-Palestinian ivQries. Very little of the production of this area, however,
reached the artistic level of the Berlin pyxis. In some sixth-century Syro-
Palestinian works, as, for example, the Werden pyxis, one finds echoes of
ein pyxis
the Berln in a figure
iestyle that is significantly different from the tooth-
pick limbs, angular movements, and beetle-like bodies of the contemporary,
39 A. Hermann, in "Mit der Hand singen. Ein Beitrag zur Erklarung der Trierer Elfenbeintafel,"
JbAChr, 1 (1958), 105-8, studied the gesture of the figures in the windows of the colonnaded building.
Although it persisted in Egypt to modern times the gesture was not limited to Egypt; therefore it can-
not be used to support an Egyptian provenance for the ivory to the exclusion of other possibilities.
40 Weitzmann, "So-Called Grado Chair," 43-91; and idem, "Loca Sancta and the Representational
Arts of Palestine," DOP, 28 (1974), 31-55; see also idem, "The Jephthah Panel in the Bema of the
Church of St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai," DOP, 18 (1964), 341-52; and idem, Icons (note 22
supra), 6f. and passim.
41 E.
Kitzinger's review of the arts of Syro-Palestine in the sixth and seventh centuries is fleeting
and negative ("a backwater"): "Byzantine Art in the Period between Justinian and Iconoclasm,"
Berichte zum XI. Internationalen-Byzantinisten-Kongress (Munich, 1958), 33-38. In two lengthy
articles, G. de Frankovich fails to come to grips with the region: "L'Arte siriaca e il suo influsso sulla
and
pittura medioevale nell'oriente e nell'occidente," Commentari, 2 (1951), 3-16, 75-92, 143-51;
"L'Egitto, la Siria e Costantinopoli: Problemi e metodo," RIASA, N.S. 11-12 (1963), 83-229.
42 Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 77, no. 161, pl. 53; Weitzmann, "Loca Sancta," 46f., fig. 37.
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 291
but better known, Murano diptych in Ravenna and its relatives.43The Nativity
on the Werden pyxis is a lively composition, inhabited by large, mobile figures;
the shepherd, for example, has strong limbs and a dense heaviness. The vitality
and intensity of this figure continue up into his hair, which seems to have been
combed back from the forehead with the fingers, a hair style similar to that of
some of the secondary figures on the Trier ivory. In the earliest plaques of the
"so-called Grado chair," particularly the Annunciation in the Castello Sforzesco
in Milan and the Nativity in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (fig. 16), dated by
Weitzmann to the late seventh or early eighth centuries,44 the figures retain
suggestive reminiscences of corporeality. See, for example, the hip, shoulder,
and lower arm of Gabriel, or the major part of the figures of Joseph and Mary
in the Nativity. But the emphasis on plasticity has been replaced by an em-
phasis on decorative surface effects, prominent in the architectural background
and the clothing. The notation of space and setting has changed; instead of
a simple and logical spatial distribution of figures and setting, the space is
negated, the architecture unbuildable. The rejection of classical principles of
composition is apparent in the Nativity, where a recently delivered Mary
seems to float together with her raft-like bed within the conscientiously noted
elements of the Bethlehem locus sanctus. Despite their differences, certain
qualities common to the Berlin and Werden pyxides and the Annunciation
and Nativity plaques permit us to extrapolate some basic elements of Syro-
Palestinian style: the classical tradition persists-albeit only vestigially in the
later ivories-in the depiction of the human body in terms of corporeality,
plasticity, recognizable anatomy, mobility, and existence in space. A logical
relationship exists between figures and setting in terms of space and content;
settings function with the figures as carriers of meaning. These qualities are
also basic to the Trier ivory, and although they are too general to hypothesize
a Syro-Palestinian provenance for the ivory solely on their witness, they do
encourage a further look into Syro-Palestinian art, at painting and metalwork
of the sixth and seventh centuries, for parallels to the ivory.
In the Rossano and Sinope Gospels and in the Vienna Genesis figures are
generally compact, organically built, autonomous, mobile, and intense.45 The
several styles and hands of the artists responsible for these miniatures provide
parallels to the various physical types that appear on the Trier ivory. For
example, the imperial couple might be juxtaposed to Salome and Herod in
the Sinope Gospels (fig. 17); the men, in particular, seem to belong to a common
43 For the Werden pyxis, see Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 80, no. 169,
pl. 54; and Weitzmann, Icons,
47; for the Murano diptych, Volbach, op. cit., 64, no. 125, pl. 39.
44 Weitzmann, "So-Called Grado Chair," 65-67, fig. If., and for the
dating and provenance, 73-91;
and on the Nativity plaque, see idem, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in
the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, III. Ivories and Steatites (Washington, D.C., 1972), 37-42, no. 20.
45 Subscribing to a Syro-Palestinian
provenance for these MSS, see Kitzinger, op. cit., 35f.; and
K. Weitzmann, The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria in Castelseprio (Princeton, 1951), 66. But see Beckwith,
E.C. and Byz. Art, 58f. For facsimiles, see Rossano Gospels, Rossano, Palazzo Arcivescovile, Museo
Diocesano: A. Muinoz, II Codice purpureo di Rossano ed il frammento Sinopense (Rome, 1907); Sinope
Gospels, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, suppl. gr. 1286: A. Grabar, Les Peintures de l'Evangdliaire de
Sinope (Paris, 1948); Vienna Genesis, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, Vindob. theol. cod. 31: H. Gerstin-
ger, Die Wiener Genesis (Vienna, 1931).
292 SUZANNE SPAIN
(imperial ?) type, with their large heads, full heads of hair, and clean-shaven
round faces. One need only take into account the different figure and facial
types in tthe healing scenes in the Sinope Gospels to be struck by the similarity
between the Herod in the manuscript and the emperor on the Trier ivory.
The full-page illustrations of the Crucifixion and Ascension in the Rabbula
Gospels have figures that display the same coarse physicality as the Trier
ivory figures (fig. 18).46 The illuminator was concerned with expressing the
corporeality and solidity of his figures. Thus, the figures, particularly in the
Ascension, display small waists, wide hips, big buttocks, and, in the case of
Mary, large breasts. Although the illuminators were copying standardized com-
positions, they did not fail to animate their figures by the use of postures,
gestures, and glances. The physical reactions of the figures on the Translation
ivory are limited by their ceremonial context; nonetheless, as observed above,
the artist has balanced movement and stasis and kept the scene vital by
varying the expressions of his figures.
The painted lid of a wooden reliquary in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican,
of the late sixth-early seventh century, provides another glimpse at Syro-
Palestinian miniature painting (fig. 19).47 Small, eager figures enact five scenes
in the life of Christ in an animated manner. The compositions are traditional,
but the figures convey through their stance, gesture, and expression the lasting
significance of the events in which they are involved. Once again, the physical
type approaches that of the Trier ivory, although in comparison to the ivory
and the manuscripts just mentioned the figure proportions have changed;
the bodies are shorter, but still well-fleshed, the heads large. Two icons of
Syro-Palestinian provenance at Mt. Sinai offer points of comparison to the
Trier ivory.48 The surviving wing of a lost Nativity diptych of the late
sixth or seventh century, showing a praying monk and shepherds pointing
to the star of Bethlehem, provides further examples of the anatomical auto-
nomy and spatial existence characteristic of figures in Syro-Palestinian art.
The monk, a short, sturdy figure, the particulars of whose habit are carefully
noted, appears fully capable of movement. The three shepherds, depicted in
active, gesturing postures, coherently overlap one another without uncom-
fortable crowding. The four figures on the well-preserved icon of the Three
Youths in the Fiery Furnace, a seventh-century work (fig. 20), have round,
full faces and prominent cheeks and eyes. These features and their free
coiffures offer a significant parallel to the style of the figures on the Trier
ivory. In addition, on the ivory and the two icons the conscientious presen-
tation of clothing, rendered in such detail that one could easily make copies,
is comparable. On the icons, however, a linear system has begun to break up
the solid forms of the drapery, a harbinger of the direction Syro-Palestinian
art will take when plastic effects are gradually eliminated in favor of linear
46 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Plut. I, cod. 56; see C. Cecchelli, J. Furlani, M. Salmi, The
Rabbula Gospels (Lausanne-Olten, 1959), fols. 13r, 13v.
47 C. R. Morey, "The Painted Panel from the Sancta Sanctorum," Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag
von Paul Clemen, ed. W. Worringer (Diisseldorf-Bonn, 1926), 151-67.
48 Weitzmann, Icons, 47, 56, pls. xxII, LXXf., LXXXIIf.
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 293
of Isaac makes reference to the stepped altar set up to memorialize this event
in Jerusalem.55Likewise, the translation of relics depicted on the Trier ivory
takes place in a specifically rendered setting, giving the viewer the impres-
sion of looking at the pictorial record of an historical incident as unique and
as important as a Biblical event, and as recognizable by its setting as it is by
the actions of its protagonists. In the post-Justinianic era in the Syro-
Palestinian region there was one translation of relics of supreme importance:
that is, the return to Jerusalem of the rediscovered True Cross by the Emperor
Heraclius.56
In 614 Jerusalem was captured by the Persians, its churches and monas-
teries were burned, its treasures taken as spoils, and large numbers of its
populace were murdered or taken into captivity. In 622, following an inex-
plicable delay, Byzantine armies took to the field against the enemy. By
early 628 the Persians had succumbed to a combination of internal discord
and Byzantine strength.57 At the end of the year Heraclius celebrated his
triumph in Constantinople. He then spent the greater part of 629 traveling
in Asia Minor, meeting with the Persians for treaty writing purposes. Late
that year or early in 630 the Persians surrended the True Cross to Heraclius.58
Then, according to a contemporary witness, Antiochus Strategos:
...King Heraclius took [the life-giving tree, the Cross of Christ] to
Jerusalem on the occasion of his going there with Martina, who was
daughter of his father's brother; and he had married her against
the law, and therefore was very much afraid that the high priests
would rebuke him on the score of that indecent action. And when he
had entered Jerusalem, he on the 21st of.. March re-established in
its own place the glorious and precious tree of the Cross, sealed as
before in a chest, just as it had been carried away. And it was set up
altogether unopened; for just as the ark of the covenant was left
unopened among strangers, so was left the life-giving tree of the
Cross, which had vanquished death and trampled on Hell. Then King
Heraclius, seeing the glorious event-namely, the restoration of the
holy places, which had been rebuilt by the blessed Modestus, was
much rejoiced and ordered him to be consecrated patriarch over
Jerusalem....59
55On the iconography of the Nativity and the Sacrifice of Isaac, see Weitzmann, "Loca Sancta"
(note 40 supra), 36-39, 46f.
56 A. Frolow, "La Vraie Croix et les expeditions d'H6raclius en Perse," REB, 11 (1953) (hereafter
Frolow, "Vraie Croix"), 88-105; P. Lemerle, "Quelques remarques sur le regne d'H6raclius," StM,
ser. 3, 1,2 (1960), 347-53; S. Spain Alexander, "Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the
David Plates," Speculum, 52 (1977) (hereafter Spain Alexander, "Heraclius"), 217-37.
57 On the Persian War, see the works cited in note 56, with further references; and C. Foss, "The
Persians in Asia Minor and the End of Antiquity," EHR, 90 (1975), 721-47.
58 On the chronology of events immediately after the war, see Frolow, "Vraie Croix," 93-105;
Giorgio di Pisidia: Poemi, I. Panegirici epici, ed. A. Pertusi (hereafter ed. Pertusi, Poemi), StPB, VII
(Ettal, 1959), 230-37.
59 F. C. Conybeare, trans., "Antiochus Strategos' Account of the Sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 614,"
EHR, 25 (1910), 516.
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 295
The Armenian Bishop Sebeos, writing in the 660s, described how Heraclius,
having received the Cross, returned to Jerusalem with his royal staff:
...arriving at the city with all the ecclesiastical pomp which had
escaped the hands of the enemy... there was much joy that day...
the noise of crying and sighs, copious tears, an immense flame in all
hearts, a rending of the bowels of the king, the princes, all the sol-
diers, and residents of the city. No one was able to chant the divine
hymns because of the deep and poignant emotion of the king and the
multitudes. He set [the Cross] up again in its place and put back all
the ecclesiastical objects, each in its place. He gave blessings to all
the churches and residents and took money for incense.60
To begin with, the setting of the Translation: the procession heads toward
a basilical church, against one flank of which are a two-storeyed structure and
a rotunda-like structure. Although physically juxtaposed, the three structures
are not proportionally related. Does this architecture correspond to what we
know of the Holy Sepulcher complex in the Early Byzantine period, particu-
larly as its monuments appeared in art? Founded by Constantine the Great,
the walled rectangular complex comprised, from east to west, a propylon;
an atrium; the ecclesia maiore, or martyrium, a basilical church; a second
atrium, in which the site of the Crucifixion was marked by a monumental
cross erected later, and, nearby, a church in which the relics of the True Cross
were kept; at the western end of the atrium the Anastasis, the grotto where
Christ was buried, over which a rotunda was built by the end of the fourth
century; to the south of the Anastasis a baptistery; and edging the precinct
walls apartments and service buildings.61 The basilica and rotunda depicted
on the Trier ivory may well be the martyrium and rotunda, both repaired
at the conclusion of the Persian War by Modestus.62The famous Early Christian
mosaic in S. Pudenziana in Rome (fig. 23) shows Christ enthroned amidst His
apostles against a background of the heavenly Jerusalem.63Behind the throne
rises the mound of Golgotha, surmounted by a large, gemmed cross; to the
60 Histoire d'Hdraclius
par l'Eveque Sebeos, ed. and trans. F. Macler (Paris, 1904), 90f. For the dates,
see G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed., trans. J. M. Hussey (New Brunswick,
N.J., 1969), 89.
61 The basic work on the
complex remains H. Vincent and F.-M. Abel, Jerusalem: Recherches de
topographie, d'archdologieet d'histoire, II. Jdrusalem nouvelle (Paris, 1914), 89-300, esp. 154-217; more
recently, C. Coiiasnon, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, The Schweich Lectures of the
British Academy, 1972 (London, 1974).
62For Modestus' works, see Coiiasnon,
ibid., passim; the author does not summarize Modestus'
activities. Also documenting seventh-century repairs, cf. J. T. Milik, "Notes d'6pigraphie et de
topo-
graphie palestiniennes. IX. Sanctuaires chr6tiens de Jerusalem a l'epoque arabe (VIIe-Xe s.)," RBibl,
67 (1960), 358f.
63 G.
Matthiae, Mosaici Medioevale delle Chiese di Roma (Rome, 1967), I, 55-76, II, pls. 36, 38-48.
296 SUZANNE SPAIN
complex, the ecclesia maiore and the Anastasis rotunda, without, however,
representing them in their actual spatial and proportional relationships. The
two-storeyed pitch-roofed structure next to the rotunda on the basilica's flank
may be its narthex. A more intriguing prospect is that it is the edifice built
near the actual site of the Crucifixion, the church of Golgotha, where the
relics of the True Cross were housed and seen by pilgrims since the days of
Egeria.69The fact that the doors of this structure are open may suggest that
it is the destination of the translation procession. To my knowledge, there
are no representations of this chapel other than on Arculf's plan of the complex,
where a rectangular outline is marked golgathai + eccta.70
If these identifications are correct, then the three-storeyed structure behind
the basilica and the gate-like edifice in the background of the Trier ivory
should also represent buildings in contemporary Jerusalem. One possibility
for the former is the cardo maximus of the city, the major north-south avenue.
Flanked by monumental colonnades, the cardo maximus provided the main
access to the Holy Sepulcher complex. A section of its west colonnade was
transformed to serve as the propylon of the complex, as documented in the
plan of the city of Jerusalem on the map of the Holy Land in a sixth-century
mosaic pavement from Madaba.71 I wonder, too, if the arcade behind Christ and
His apostles in the S. Pudenziana mosaic (fig. 23) may not depict this same
feature. The difficulty in this hypothesis is the transformation of a colonnaded
(Madaba mosaic) to an arcaded (Trier ivory, Cleveland bread mold, S. Puden-
ziana mosaic) form and the addition of extra storeys on the Trier ivory. The
structure at the left on the ivory may be the Damascus Gate or the Tetrapylon.72
69 For a
hypothesis on the location of the church of Golgotha, see Coiiasnon, op. cit., 50-53, pls. vn f.,
xv. Egeria records services in this church for Holy Thursday, when offerings were made and com-
munion given (Itinerarium, 35), and on Good Friday, when the relics of the True Cross were displayed
for veneration (ibid., 37), ed. and trans. H. Petre, Eth6rie. Journal de voyage, SC, XXI (Paris, 1948),
226f., 232-37. Egeria's terminology is often ambiguous: she refers to this church as ad crucem (e.g.,
Itinerarium, 25, 39, ed. Petr6, pp. 204, 242), post crucem (ibid., 35, p. 226), and in Golgothapost crucem
(ibid., 37, p. 232), terms also used as points of reference for the area around the site of the Crucifixion
and for the martyrium (ibid., 25, 27, 30, pp. 200, 202, 204, 208, 220). Documenting Modestus' repairs
of the Church of Golgotha, see Milik, op. cit., 359.
70 The plan of Arculf, who was in
Jerusalem ca. 680, is in Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS 458,
fol. 4v, in Adamnanus' De Locis Sanctis, a text edited by P. Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymitana. Saeculi
III-VIII, CSEL, XXXIX (Prague-Vienna-Leipzig, 1898), 219-37. For a reproduction of the plan, see
Vincent and Abel, op. cit., 223, fig. 122.
L. Palustre thought the Trier ivory was a fifth-century Latin work on the basis of architecture and
depth of carving; he postulated that the female was Helena and the basilica the Holy Sepulcher, from
which the relic of the holy nail was sent to Trier in a coffer of which the ivory formed a part; cf. Le
Trdsor de TrYves(Paris [1886]), If.
71 On the
propylon and access to the Holy Sepulcher, see S. Spain Alexander, "Studies in Con-
stantinian Church Architecture. I," RACr, 67 (1971), 307-10, fig. 17; Coiiasnon,
op. cit., 44-46,
pls. vIII, xv. On the Madaba pavement, see M. Avi-Yonah, The Madaba Mosaic Map (Jerusalem, 1954);
A. Grabar, The Golden Age of Justinian (New York, 1967), fig. 117.
72
Coiiasnon, op. cit., 12. The spatial telescoping on the Trier ivory, which permits the juxtaposition
of the city gate and the colonnades of the cardo maximus, has its parallel in S.
Apollinare Nuovo in
Ravenna, where the fa9ade of Theodoric's palace abuts the city gate; see Volbach, Early Christian Art
(note 15 supra), pl. 152. Note that both gates have figural decoration in the lunettes, thus establishing
other precedents than the Chalke for the appearance of Christ on the city
gate on the Trier ivory.
Against the generally held notion that the gate on the ivory is the Chalke, see Mango, loc. cit. (note 8
supra). K. Holum and G. Vikan endorse the Chalke identification in a forthcoming study of the Trier
ivory.
298 SUZANNE SPAIN
The central role of the empress in the Translation of Relics ivory can also
be explained by the historical context of the return of the True Cross. If my
identification of the event is correct, she is Martina, Heraclius' niece and
second wife. Mother of nine or eleven of his children, Martina was Heraclius'
constant companion. Their marriage was uncanonical, however, and had been
discouraged by Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople. Bowing to Heraclius'
pressure, Sergius wed the couple in 614, but ecclesiastical and popular criticism
continued to plague them, even after their deaths; hence the remarks of
Antiochus Strategos concerning the illegality of the union and the emperor's
fear of rebuke by the high priests.88According to Lemerle, Heraclius' trium-
phant return of the reinvented Cross to Jerusalem may have been designed
to counter that censure.89The prominent position of the empress on the Trier
ivory may reflect Martina's role in the actual translation: the couple may
have attempted to overcome condemnation by according Martina a key and
htoric occasion which the ivory documents. Heraclius
public role on this his
and Martina are both cleansed, as it were, of their sin by contact with the
Cross. Furthermore, Martina may have played, both in the translation and
on the ivory, the role of the new Helena. Constantine's mother had journeyed
to the Holy Land to visit the loca sancta. According to Ambrose, she was in
Jerusalem while the Holy Sepulcher area was being cleared for construction.
There she witnessed the discovery of wooden fragments which she proved
to be relics of the True Cross.90In Constantinople, Constantine honored his
mother by erecting her statue in the Augusteon, a square that was named
after her.91 An eighth-century guidebook to Constantinople, the Trapacrracoels
C5vronoiXpoviKai,records that in the vaulting of the Milion Constantine and
Helena were depicted holding a cross between them.92 I suggest that the attri-
bute of the empress on the Trier ivory not only reflects the contemporary
practice as witnessed in coinage93 but also is intended to recall Helena, who
discovered the True Cross on the very spot where Martina stands. Martina may
thus be seen as the new Helena, partner to Heraclius, the new Constantine.94
88 On the
patriarch's objection to the marriage, see V. Grumel, Les Regestes des Actes du patriarcat
de Constantinople, I, fasc. 1. Les Regestes de 381 a 715 (Paris, 1932), 114, no. 284; J. L. van Dieten,
Geschichteder griechischen Patriarchen von Konstantinopel, IV. Geschichteder Patriarchen von Sergios I.
bis Johannes VI. (610-715), Enzyklopadie der Byzantinistik, XXIV (Amsterdam, 1972), 5f. On
Heraclius' offspring, see Spain Alexander, "Heraclius," 230; van Dieten, op. cit., 2-6; Grierson, D.O.
Coins, II,1, 216; 11,2, 385f., 389f.; V. Grumel, Traite des etudes byzantines, I. La Chronologie (Paris,
1958), 362; A. Pernice, L'Imperatore Eraclio. Saggio di Storia Bizantina (Florence, 1905), 293f.; A. N.
Stratos, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, trans. M. Ogilvie-Grant, I (Amsterdam, 1968), 94-96, 358.
89 ". .. en se purifiant en quelque sorte a leurs yeux de son mariage incestueux, dans l'6clat d'une
c6r6monie extraordinaire qu'il presida avec Martine, et qui montrait 'a tous sans contestation possible
que le Ciel avait et6 avec lui": Lemerle, op. cit. (note 56 supra), 352f.; Frolow, "Vraie Croix," 101-5;
and idem, "La D6viation de la 4e croisade vers Constantinople. Note additionelle: La Croisade et les
guerres persanes d'H6raclius," RHR, 147 (1955), 50-61.
90 S.v. "Helena," RE, VII, cols. 2820-22; Ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii, PL, 16, cols. 1462-66.
91 Chronicon Paschale, I, ed. Dindorf
(note 6 supra), 529.
92 "AvcoSevTrS Xa?Kijs (v TCrMiAicp TCRj rpO KCOvcro?v Kova-ravrrivov Kad 'EMvin &avcoSEv -rTj Kappas.
EvSaKal Ax TX , pcraov
acrapb6S <Kaol -roTo-raupoOT-rfsir6ecos, in T. Preger, Scriptores originum Constantin-
opolitanarum, 11.29, ibid., II, 166.
I, Teubner (1901), 38. See also TT&rpiaKcovoravTlvovTr6AEcos,
93See supra, p. 285.
94 0. Wulff suggested that the imperial couple on the ivory were Constantine and Helena and the
ocale Constantinople, in Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst, I. Die altchristliche Kunst, Handbuch
TRANSLATION OF RELICS IVORY, TRIER 301
On the Trier ivory the two ecclesiastics who hold the reliquary on their
knees are identifiable by their vestments-the tunic, chasuble, and omopho-
rion-as bishops. The sources, however, do not mention which bishops parti-
cipated in the translation of the True Cross in 630. One may well have been
Modestus, who was elevated to the patriarchate of Jerusalem later on the
same day.100The second figure might have been a bishop of the see of Jerusalem
or Antioch who would have joined the imperial procession as it made its way
from Hierapolis, where the True Cross was surrendered to the Byzantines,
through Berrhoe, Emesa, Damascus, and Tiberias to Jerusalem.101
in turn, recovered the True Cross from its humiliating captivity and restored
it to its proper place in Jerusalem.103The ivory celebrates the Cross and emperor
alike, for the one by the power of the other conquered the enemy of his people
and of his God.04 The ivory also celebrates Heraclius apart from the Cross.
It records his presence in Jerusalem as the first reigning emperor to visit the
Holy City and the Holy Land. By entering Jerusalem, Heraclius becomes
like the Old Testament king and prophet David, who brought the sacred ark
of the covenant to the village that was to become the capital of his kingdom
and to be known by his name. Heraclius enters the city of David with the
Cross of the son of David as the new David.105His victorious presence in Jerusa-
lem also recalls that of Christ, the source of Byzantine imperial authority, who,
having entered Jerusalem for the last time, triumphed over death on the
Cross. Furthermore, Heraclius' presence gives physical expression, in a sense,
to an official act of the previous year: in 629 Heraclius adopted as hishofficial
title the formula TrilTorSev XpicarT paalAEus, thus epitomizing his belief in the
Davidic heritage of the Byzantine imperial office as well as the sovereignty of
Christ.106Whereas these aspects of imperial ideology are implicit in the ivory's
documentation of Heraclius' journey to Jerusalem, an explicit aspect, as we
have seen, is Heraclius as the new Constantine. In having fought an enemy
under the sign of the Cross, in victory, in reinventing the Cross, Heraclius
acted out and earned the traditional epithet of the emperor as the new Con-
stantine. I have suggested that the beardless portrayal of the emperor on the
ivory may, in part, reflect the influence of Constantinian portraiture. Further-
more, the Empress Martina, who plays a prominent role on the ivory, stands
as the new Helena, pious partner to her spouse, the new Constantine.
The Trier ivory is generally assumed to be the remaining panel of a long-
lost ivory chest.107 Possibly the chest was a reliquary for a fragment of the
True Cross. We know that Heraclius distributed fragments after having
regained possession of the Cross from the Persians.108 What more fitting way
to send forth some of these fragments than in an ivory chest on which were
depicted key events in the history of the Cross? Thus, one can imagine that
other faces of the reliquary may have depicted the Crucifixion; or the Cross
on Golgotha; or a Cross between cypresses symbolizing victory over death,
paradise, and salvation; or the Cross in Byzantine history, as, for example,
Constantine's vision of the Cross, the battle at the Milvian Bridge, the Inven-
tion of the True Cross by Helena, or Constantine and Helena with the Cross.109
In such a way the entire reliquary would have made explicit the references
implicit in the surviving panel and would have epitomized the significance
of the relic contained within for the Empire it protected. Moreover, it would
have accordedto Heraclius, ltc-ros6v Xpi-cpr paa1iEs, the last word-to date-in
the history of the True Cross. In conclusion, a passage from the Liturgy of the
Exaltation of the Cross by Anatolios, a seventh-century hymnographer,110
may be read as a commentary on the Translation of Relics ivory, particularly
if one reads Heraclius and Martina for [Constantine] and Helena:
O Cross, sign radiant with light among the stars, thou hast in proph-
ecy revealed a trophy of victory to the godly King; and when
his mother Helena found thee, she displayed thee in the sight of
all the world. And today the choirs of the faithful shout aloud as
they raise thee up on high: Enlighten us by thy brightness, O life-
giving and all-venerable Cross: make us holy by thy might, and
lifted on high before the battle line, strengthen us through thine
Exaltation."1
Paris Gr. 510. A Study of the Connections between Text and Image," DOP, 16 (1962), 219-21, fig. 15.
Miss Der Nersessian does not postulate any pre iconoclastic sources for the miniatures, but she notes
the reference to the one sure pre iconoclastic cycle of events in the life of Constantine in the capital,
sponsored by Juliana Anicia at Hagios Polyeuktos; cf. The Palatine Anthology, ed. W. R. Paton, Loeb
(London-New York, 1927), I, 11. For other images of Constantine in the capital, see A. Grabar,
L'Empereur dans I'art byzantin (Paris, 1936), s.v. Constantin I and H61ne. In the Latin West, the
historical decoration of Charlemagne's palace at Ingelheim included Constantine's founding of his new
capital; Ermoldus Nigellus, In Honorem Hludowici, IV.183-283, esp. v. 270f., ed E. Duemmler, MGH,
Poetae, II (Berlin, 1884), 63-66; trans. C. Davis-Weyer, Early Medieval Art. 300-1150, ed. H. W. Jan-
son, Sources and Documents in the History of Art (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), 84-88.
110H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologischeLiteratur im byzantinischen Reich, Handbuch der Altertums-
wissenschaft, XII.2.1 (Munich, 1959), 472.
11 The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware, The Service Books of the Orthodox
Church (London, 1969), 139. For a second contemporary celebration of the Return of the True Cross,
see Sophronius, Anacreontica, PG, 87,3, cols. 3805-12.
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IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
I would like to thank Professor Hugo Buchthal and
Professor Dimitri Obolensky who were kind enough to read
this paper in manuscript and who have given me much helpful
advice.
HE difficulties encountered in establishing the dates and origins of
Byzantine ivories are well known. Objective evidence, both historical
and archeological, is almost entirely lacking. One of the few Byzantine
carvings with an inscription identifying the historical figures it depicts is the
ivory plaque, in the Cabinet des Medailles in Paris, known as the Romanos
ivory after the emperor represented on it (fig. 1). The plaque portrays Christ
standing on a high pedestal between two imperial figures. He places His hands
on the crowns and heads of the royal couple, who hold their hands in a gesture
of reverence or respect. FCXC is carved about the head of Christ, and the
inscriptions above the heads of the imperial couple read Pl)MANOCBACIAEYC
PW)MAIA)N and EVAOKIA BACIAICP)MAION. It is not surprising that this piece,
with such precise identifications, occupies a central place in the corpus of
Adolph Goldschmidt and Kurt Weitzmann, who first organized the surviving
Byzantine ivories.' Goldschmidt and Weitzmann believed that the ivory por-
trayed Romanos II and could be dated between 945 and 949; I shall argue
that it portrays Romanos IV and should be dated between 1068 and 1071.
Since Romanos IV Diogenes (1068-71) and his wife Eudokia Makremboli-
tissa were the only couple ever to rule as Romanos and Eudokia, the eleventh-
century date had been assumed to be correct at least since the time of Du
Cange.2 However, the modern connoisseurs of Byzantine ivories, Hayford
Peirce and Royall Tyler, began to express doubts.3 They found the dating
aesthetically disturbing, since it then became necessary, they believed, to
separate by more than a century the Palazzo Venezia triptych (fig. 15) and
the Romanos ivory, "two masterpieces so closely related in style."4 It also
complicated the relationship between the Romanos ivory and a well-known
Ottonian ivory, the tenth-century plaque now in the Cluny Museum which
represents Otto II and his wife, the Byzantine princess Theophano, crowned
by Christ (fig. 13). While of inferior quality, the Cluny plaque's iconography,
which has struck most observers as thoroughly Byzantine, is exactly the same
as that of the Romanos ivory. It seemed unlikely to Peirce and Tyler that
the theme of an emperor and an empress crowned or blessed together by Christ
would make its first appearance in the West; they wondered "comment un
tel chef-d'oeuvre, plein de fraicheur et d'original, pourrait-il etre de 1067, alors
qu'une imitation faible de ce meme chef-d'oeuvre se trouve etre datee, de
l'avenement d'Othon II, en 973, un siecle plus tot ?"5
Peirce and Tyler consequently proposed a date earlier by more than a
century for the Romanos ivory. They noted that since the eighth century the
1 Die
byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.-XIII. Jahrhunderts, II (Berlin, 1934) (hereafter
Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen).
2 C. Du Fresne Du
Cange, Historia Byzantina duplici commentario illustrata (Paris, 1680), 162.
3 "Deux mouvements dans l'art
byzantin du Xe siecle," Arethuse, fasc. 16 (July, 1927), 129-36.
4Idem, "Three Byzantine Works of Art: An Ivory of the Xth Century," DOP, 2 (1941), 15.
5 Idem, "Deux mouvements," 128.
20*
308 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
reigning emperor was always shown bearded, "a moins qu'il ne s'agisse d'un
enfant en tutelle," and that the sons of the emperor were always portrayed
beardless.6 Since the Romanos on the ivory was without a beard, he must be
an emperor's son. One candidate met this requirement, Romanos II, the son
of Constantine Porphyrogennetos, who had been made co-emperor by his
father on Easter Day of 945.7 At that time Romanos was six years old, and
he had just been given in marriage the four-year-old daughter of Hugh of
Provence. Her name was Bertha, but upon her arrival at the Byzantine court
she was given, as was customary, a Greek name,8 Eudokia. Peirce and Tyler
argued that the Romanos ivory could therefore be dated between 945 and
949, the year of her death at the age of eight. Goldschmidt and Weitzmann,
"nach manchen Zweifeln" and after a point-by-point examination of the
arguments, accepted the earlier date in their corpus.9
For Peirce and Tyler, redating the Romanos ivory made it possible to
ascribe a Byzantine model for the Ottonian ivory. Goldschmidt and Weitz-
mann found the hypothesis of a tenth-century date useful to their entire view
of ivory production, enabling them to see the period beginning with the reign
of Constantine Porphyrogennetos as the period of intense creativity, a flores-
cence of an art which had declined in the late antique period. Goldschmidt
and Weitzmann attributed almost all Byzantine ivories to a handful of work-
shops. The Romanos ivory both lent its name to and anchored the date of
the most "aristocratic" group of ivories, wherein the plastic relief style was
achieved, and the Romanos group was used in turn to help define the style
of the Nicephoros and Triptych groups. According to this theory, the "wirklich
schopferische Zeit"'0 was restricted to the thirty years between 940 and 970,
when the various workshops were in competition with one another. By the
eleventh century ivory production was waning, recorded only by a few mostly
provincial pieces. The restriction of most of the major pieces of Byzantine
ivory carving to the Macedonian period is such a long-held tenet of Byzantine
art history that any attempt to overturn it must proceed with great caution."
6
Ibid., 130.
7 Joannes Scylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, ed. J. Thurn (Berlin, 1973), 237.3; G. de Jerphanion,
"La date du couronnement de Romain II," OCP, 1 (1935), 490-95.
8 Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis, V.20, MGH, 55, III (Hannover, 1839), 332; Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins, DOT, I (Washing-
ton, D.C., 1967), 113.26.
9 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, 15.
10 Ibid., 10; see esp. the discussion, pp. 10-21. Weitzmann summarizes his views in Byzantine Art,
An European Art (Athens, 1964), 141-45. Recently, Weitzmann has modified his view of the relation-
of
ship of ivory production between the Early and Middle Byzantine periods; cf. "Ivory Sculpture
the Macedonian Renaissance," Kolloquium uber spdtantike und friihmittelalterliche Skulptur, 2 (1970),
1-12; idem, Catalogueof the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the DumbartonOaks Collection,
III, Ivories and Steatites (Washington, D.C., 1972), 1-3 and passim.
11Several ivories have, however, been dated later than the tenth century. A. Grabar, "Une pyxide
en ivoire a Dumbarton Oaks," DOP, 14 (1960), 121-46, has dated a small pyxis to the fourteenth
century. Weitzmann reexamines the pyxis and associates with it two pieces in the Walters Art Gallery
as works of the fourteenth century; cf. Ivories and Steatites, 77-82. K. Wessel, "Das byzantinische
Elfenbeinkastchen in Stuttgart," Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Wiirttemberg,
11 (1974), 7-20, assigns a date around 1300 to the Stuttgart casket. Although the date adopted by
Goldschmidt and Weitzmann for the Romanos ivory has been generally accepted, there have been
DATING THE ROMANOS IVORY 309
Documentary Evidence
Scholars who have attempted to date the Romanos ivory have started by
inquiring which Romanos is represented. I think it is more useful to ask which
Eudokia is represented: the daughter of Hugh of Provence or Eudokia Makrem-
bolitissa, the powerful empress of the mid-eleventh century. The clue that
might reveal the historical circumstances behind the Romanos ivory is the
inscription above the head of Eudokia (fig. 1). While grammatically BACIAIC
PWMAIONis the feminine counterpart to BACIAEYC P6)MAI)N,it is not simply
the counterpart of the masculine title, but an unusual designation which calls
for an explanation.
During the seventh and eighth centuries basileus replaced the Roman
augustus as the normal appellation for the emperor.12The longer title basileus
romaion occurs as early as the first half of the seventh century, but does not
appear on coinage until the miliaresia of Michael I (811-13).13 It has been
argued that Michael's employment of the title was meant to make clear the
limits of the imperial title granted to Charlemagne, for only the emperor
of the Romans could lay claim to the universal empire.14 The plural forms
basileis and basileis romaion refer to both the reigning emperor and his junior
colleagues. Basilis is the Attic feminine form of basileus, and consequently is
found, as S. Maslev points out, infrequently in everyday speech and more
often in the work of stylisticians such as Psellos.l5 The Koine form basilissa
occurs along with augusta and despoina as a form of address. But basilis(sa),
especially in its Attic form, is applied only rarely as an official title. On coins,
for example, it is used by only three empresses:16 Irene, who also issued
several dissenters, most notably A. S. Keck and C. R. Morey, review of Die byzantinischen Elfenbein-
skulpturen, in ArtB, 17 (1935), 397-406, esp. 398-400; C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di Avorio e di Osso
del Museo Sacro Vaticano (Vatican, 1936), 23-24. See also M. Bonicatti, "Per una introduzione alle
cultura medio bizantina di Constantinopoli," RIA SA, N.S. 9 (1960), 238-39 and esp. 262-63; A. Christ-
ophilopoulou, 'H dv-rpaloiAa Els TO'BvuLnrov, in JplLKToca,2 (1970), 75. F. D6lger," Zum Elfenbein
des Romanos und der Eudokia im Cabinet des M6dailles in Paris," Siidostforschungen,18 (1959), 387 and
note 10, accepts the tenth-century date and lists those who, by oversight or mistake, have misattributed
the ivory to Romanos IV.
12 G.
Ostrogorsky, "Das Mitkaisertum im mittelalterlichen Byzanz," in E. Kornemann, Doppel-
prinzipat und Reichsteilung im Imperium Romanum (Leipzig, 1930), 171. On imperial titles, see L. Bre-
hier, "L'origine des titres imperiaux a Byzance: pacainEset EC7T6rroTS," BZ, 15 (1906), 161-78; Ostro-
gorsky, op. cit., 166-78, reviewed by F. D6lger, in BZ, 33 (1933), 136-44; G. Ostrogorsky, "Autokrator
i Samodrzac. Prilog za istorju vladalacke titulature u Vizantiji i u juznih Slovena," Srpska
kraljevska
Akademija, Glas, 84 (1935), 95-187; V. Laurent, "BAMIAEYX PCOMAICN: L'histoire d'un titre et le
t6moignage de la numismatique," CNA, 15 (1940), 192-217; F. Dolger, "Die Entwicklung der byzan-
tinischen Kaisertitulatur und die Datierung von Kaiserdarstellungen in der byzantinischen Klein-
kunst," Byzantinische Diplomatik (Ettal, 1956), 130-51; P. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins
in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, III,1
(Washington, D.C., 1973)
(hereafter Grierson, DOC, III,1 and 111,2), 176-83.
13Grierson, DOC, III,1, 178.
14 This topic has been discussed often, most
recently by C. N. Tsirpanlis, "Byzantine Reaction to
the Coronation of Charlemagne (780-813)," Byzantina, 6 (1974), 345-60; earlier
G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans. J. Hussey (New Brunswick, bibliography in
15 "Die staatsrechtliche N.J., 1969), 182-83.
Stellung der byzantinischen Kaiserinnen," Byzantinoslavica, 27 (1966),
310. The most complete treatment of the official position of the empress is in ibid., 308-43; see also
Ch. Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1st ser., 11th ed. (Paris, 1930); L. Brehier, Le monde byzantin, II
(Paris,
1949), 27-32; Grierson, DOC, III,1, 10-13.
16Grierson, DOC,
III,1, 181.
310 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
There is, on the other hand, ample evidence that Eudokia Makrembolitissa
used the title basilis and also resorted to the relatively uncommon iconography
found on the Romanos ivory. Eudokia, the niece of the Patriarch Michael
Keroularios, was married first to Constantine X Doukas and later to Roma-
nos IV; between their reigns she herself sat on the throne.23Constantine came
to the throne from the presidency of the Senate after Isaac Komnenos' abdica-
tion in November 1059. After his accession and coronation, he had Eudokia
acclaimed augusta.24 Eudokia played an important role in Constantine's
attempt to secure dynastic succession for his sons, a role which suggests that
she was an empress of more than ordinary influence.
Although Constantine had raised his two sons, Michael and Constantios, to
the rank of co-emperors, it is Eudokia who appears with him on both his
copper and silver coinage. Both the absence of his sons and the presence of
his wife are unusual; Maslev has counted no more than a half-dozen empresses
after the sixth century who appear on their husbands' coinage.25 Placing
imperial portraits on copper issues breaks the practice of more than three-
quarters of a century, during which time only anonymous folles had been
issued.26Constantine and Eudokia are depicted on a follis standing and holding
the labarum between them (fig. 2). The figure of Eudokia has taken the tradi-
tional place of honor, to the spectator's left, but her hand is placed beneath
the hand of Romanos on the labarum, perhaps indicating her subordina-
tion.2 On Constantine's miliaresion, Eudokia has taken the place to the
spectator's right (fig. 3), which is traditionally given to the co-emperor and
successor to the throne.28 Eudokia and her husband are here called pistoi
basileis romaion.
There are also two representations of the double coronation of Constantine
and Eudokia that have been preserved. One is in a manuscript, a Parallela
Patrum (Paris. gr. 922, fol. 6r) which belonged to Eudokia (fig. 11).29On folio 6
the Virgin is depicted as a full-length figure placing her hands on the heads of
Constantine X on the left and Eudokia on the right. On either side stand
the two sons who had been elevated as co-emperors, Michael on the left, some-
what larger in size, and Constantios on the right. Both sons receive crowns
23
On Eudokia generally, see N. Oikonomides, "Le serment de l'imperatrice Eudocie (1067): un
episode de l'histoire dynastique de Byzance," REB, 21 (1963), 101-28. See also J. L. M. Flach, Die
Kaiserin Eudocie Macrembolitissa (Tiibingen, 1876); A. Christophilopoulou, 'EK`oyfi, 'AvayOpEvoulsKai
TryIS rTOUBvlavT-rvo ATrrOKparopoS(Athens, 1956), 118-20; idem, 'H &vTIpaaXliCAa siS T-O BvLavnIov
(note 11 supra), 65-75; D. Polemis, The Doukai: A Contribution to Byzantine Prosopography (London,
1968), 29, 34 note 48; Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (note 14 supra), 341, 344ff.; Grierson,
DOC, 111,2, 764-66, 779-82, 785-88.
24
Zonaras, Bonn ed. (1897), 681.
25
Maslev, op. cit. (note 15 supra), 317-19.
28 Grierson, DOC, 111,2, 765.
27 Morrisson, CMB, II,
pi. LXXXIX, AE/27; Grierson, DOC, 111,2, pi. LXIV, 8.10.
28 Morrisson, CMB, II, 644, pi. LXXXVIII,
AR/01, AR/02; Grierson, DOC, III,2, 771, pi. LXIV,
AR/4.
29
Descriptions in H. Bordier, Description des peintures et autres ornements contenus dans les ma-
nuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris, 1883), 126-28; and Byzance et la France m6didvale.
Manuscrits d peintures du IIe au XVIe siecle (Paris, 1958), 18, no. 28. Reproduction in K. Wessel,
Die Kultur von Byzanz (Frankfurt, 1970), 343, fig. 199.
312 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
on their heads from angels descending from the upper corners of the miniature.
Closer to the Romanos ivory, however, is a scene on the lower zone of rect-
angular panels of the silver octagonal reliquary in Moscow (fig. 12). It shows
a half-figure of Christ crowning or blessing an emperor and empress who are
identified by full inscriptions. Next to the emperor the inscription reads:
K()N(CTANTINOC) EN X(PICT)O) TL) O(E)O)TTICTOC BACIA(EVC) AVTLOKRAT()P)
P(ME(LON) 0 A8KAC, and next to the empress: + EVAOKIA EN X(PICT)6O TO
G(E)) M(E)F(AAH)BACI(AIC)POME6N. Here Eudokia is accompanied by a
number of accoutrements of power which, when used together, are unusual for
an empress. She holds the orb in her hand, and she is given the full title basilis
romaion, as well as the epithet the great," which generally, as Dolger has
explained, means the senior emperor;30 here, however, its use cannot make
Eudokia equal in status to Constantine, the autokrator.Thus, it would seem
that the imperial portrait on the reliquary, although of inferior quality, reflects,
as Grabar has pointed out, "une iconographie courante et officielle."31 Eudo-
kia's prominence suggests that her status was not unlike that of a co-emperor
or successor to the throne; at the very least the evidence indicates that
Eudokia was or had become a major figure in the imperial dynasty of Con-
stantine X.
It is not exactly clear just how or why Eudokia came to achieve this posi-
tion during her husband's reign. Perhaps Constantine sensed that his health
was failing and recognized his wife's ability to maintain their family on the
throne. For when Constantine Doukas fell seriously ill in the fall of 1066,
he "entrusted," as Psellos tells us, "all his duties to his wife, Eudocia. In his
opinion, she was the wisest woman of her time, and he thought that no one
was better qualified to educate his sons and daughters."32 Constantine even
went so far as to ask Eudokia to promise, in the form of an official oath sworn
before her husband, the patriarch, the senate, and the synod, never to marry
again.33 In this oath, Eudokia declared that in case her husband should die
before her, she would not try to contract a second marriage and would endeavor
to guard their children from all obstacles that might endanger their reign.
She further promised not to introduce her relatives into the government nor
to remove the Caesar, the brother of the emperor, from imperial favor. In a
study of the oath, Nicolas Oikonomides points out that if Constantine were
unable to prevent a second marriage, such an event might well take place
and endanger the succession of his sons.34
When Constantine died in May 1067, the Empire passed into Eudokia's
hands. All historical sources agree that she was in complete control of the
government. Attaliates states succinctly that "after the emperor died, the
30
Dolger, "Europas Gestaltung" (note 17 supra), 311-12. See also Gy. Moravcsik, "Sagen und
Legenden iiber Kaiser Basileos I.," DOP, 15 (1961), 61-63.
31
Grabar, "Quelques reliquaires" (note 21 supra), 25.
32 Michael Psellos, Chronographia, trans. E. Sewter (London, 1953), 262; ed. and trans. E. Renauld,
II (Paris, 1928), 151.
33 Oikonomides, op. cit. (note 23 supra), 105-8.
34 Ibid., 120-21.
DATING THE ROMANOS IVORY 313
augusta embraced for herself the power like an emperor."35Psellos praises her
administration and her loyalty to her sons:
When the Empress Eudocia, in accordance with the wishes of her
husband, succeeded him as supreme ruler, she did not hand over the
government to others. Far from choosing to spend most of her life
in idleness at home, while the magistrates had charge of public
affairs, she assumed control of the whole administration in per-
son.... She made herself conversant with all her duties, and wherever
it was practicable, she took part in all the processes of government,
the choice of magistrates, civil affairs, revenues and taxes. Her
pronouncements had the note of authority which one associates
with an emperor. Nor was this surprising, for she was an exceedingly
clever woman.36
Though her rule as senior emperor was to last only seven months, during
that time she strictly observed Constantine's wishes. The gold coinage of the
period, for example, represents Eudokia in the center wth her son Michael
on the left and her younger son Constantios on the right (fig. 4).37 Psellos, his
language perhaps reflecting the public iconography of the coinage, says that
"on either side of her were the two sons, both of whom stood almost rooted
to the spot, quite overcome with awe and reverence for their mother."38
However, the decision was made that Eudokia should marry again. Because
of the Turkish incursions in Asia Minor a competent military man was needed
to take charge of affairs; this was the reason Eudokia gave Psellos for her
decision to marry Romanos Diogenes, a distinguished member of the Cappa-
docian military aristocracy.39 Eudokia also believed that she would be able
to maintain the upper hand over Romanos and to protect the status of her
sons. Psellos says that Eudokia, who earlier had spared Romanos from execu-
tion, thought "that her own supremacy would be assured if she made him
emperor. He would, she believe, never again oppose her wishes. It was a
reasonable conjecture, but her plans went astray."40 He also reports that the
night before Romanos' coronation, which took place on January 1, 1068,
Eudokia wento to the chamber of her eldest son, Michael, where she explained
the approaching event to him: "'Rise up,' she said, 'and receive your step-
father. Although he takes the place of your father, he will be a subject, not
a ruler. I, your mother, have bound him in writing to observe this arrange-
ment.' "41 The historians do not make clear what these constraints were,
although they attest to their existence and also to Romanos' evasion of them.
Zonaras says that "when Romanos Diogenes took hold of the rule of the
Romans, he succeeded in establishing himself against the expectations of the
ruling Eudokia."42 Such constraints were not without precedent. Michael V,
for example, entered his brief reign with a position subordinate to that of
Zoe; he seems to have promised to be emperor in name only.43 The coinage
struck during the period from Romanos' accession until his defeat at Manzikert
reflects his at least officially subordinate position.
On the histamenon (fig. 6), the most valuable denomination of the realm,
the obverse or convex side is not occupied, as would be expected, by Christ,
but by the standing figures of the three sons of Constantine X: Michael,
Andronikos, and Constantios.44Andronikos was made co-emperor by Romanos
after his own coronation, a fact which would be difficult to explain unless
Eudokia pressed to secure the succession of her sons. Romanos and Eudokia
are portrayed on the reverse of the coin. The reason for this unusual placing
of the emperor is, I think, that Romanos is to be ranked after Eudokia's
children by her first marriage. Michael and Constantios were crowned earlier
than Romanos, and the coin is, as Grierson observes, "technically not [Roma-
nos'] at all," but belongs to Michael and his brothers.45It is the iconography
of the reverse which is most important for my argument, for it is almost
identical to the iconography of the Romanos ivory: the full-length figure of
Christ is shown crowning Romanos and Eudokia. Both hold the orb. Grierson
notes that this histamenon belongs, "so far as the type is concerned, to the
class of marriage solidi, a form of coin that had not been seen since the end
of the fifth century, though examples of that period had been ceremonial
issues struck in minute quantities while their eleventh-century counterpart
formed the main coinage of Romanus IV's reign."46I shall explain shortly why
this coin, as well as the Romanos ivory, does not commemorate the event of
Romanos' marriage; here I would like to mention that this iconography
appears on coinage for the first time. The same pair of scenes as on the
histamenon also appears on imperial seals of their reign, often with the legend
Romanos kai Eudokia basileis romaion (fig. 7).47 There is an exceptional seal
which shows on one side Christ crowning Romanos and Eudokia, and on the
other side the Virgin crowning Michael and Constantios (fig. 5).48 Andronikos'
absence suggests that he had not yet been crowned. After he became co-emperor
this iconography could no longer be used; the three sons standing together,
as on the histamenon and the seals, may be considered its replacement. It may
also be inferred from this seal that a double coronation was not tied to the
theme of marriage. Since depictions of the coronation of the co-emperors are
42 Zonaras, 687-88.
43 Chronographia, trans. Sewter, 86-87; ed. Renauld, II, 87-88.
4Morrisson, CMB, II, pls. LXXXIX-XC, AV/01-AV/07; Grierson, DOC, 111,2, pl. LXV, AV/1.1,
1.2, 2.1, 2.4.
45Grierson, DOC, 111,2, 786.
46Ibid.
47 G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I (Basel, 1972), 83-84, nos. 93a-d; plate vol. I,
pl. 24.
48
Ibid., 82, no. 92; plate vol. I, pl. 24.
DATING THE ROMANOS IVORY 315
rare and since this particular juxtaposition of scenes is unique, this seal with
its two double coronations displays the extent of experimentation undertaken
to emphasize the position of Eudokia's sons as rightful successors to the
throne.
There is other evidence from the coinage suggesting the special place held
by Eudokia. A pattern for a tetarteron in the Bibliotheque Nationale, of
which no coins were struck, depicts frontal busts of Eudokia on the obverse,
holding the labarum and the globus,the, and
a Romanoss on th reverse, holding
the akakia and the globus (fig. 8).49 Since Eudokia's scepter and title of
basilis outrank Romanos' akakia and title of despotes, the implicit contrast
in favor of the empress would perhaps have claimed too much. Such a coin
was struck only once, and under different circumstances: at the end of the
eighth century Irene usurped the obverse for herself and left the reverse for
her son, the titular emperor.50The tetarteron actually struck dilutes the state-
ment implicit in the pattern. It shows the Virgin on the obverse and Romanos
and Eudokia onthe therereverse, holding between m the globe with a long
a
cross, gesture symbolizing that they rule the world together (fig. 9).51 It is
only on the one-third miliaresion, a small silver coin, that the bust of Romanos
occupies the reverse alone; the
nVirgin appears on the obverse (fig. 10).52
Iconography
There is thus a more than adequate historical context to explain why
Eudokia Makrembolitissa is depicted on the Romanos ivory. The theme of
the ivory further supports the identification of the figures as Romanos IV and
Eudokia. It might be supposed, however, that the iconography represents not
the coronation of an imperial couple but the blessing of their marriage by
Christ. Obviously the notion of marriage is there, as it is with all coronations
of couples, but it can be shown that marriage is less important as a theme in
these representations than the imperial legal status conferred by the corona-
tion. I would like to develop this idea briefly in the context of a few remarks
about the Otto and Theophano ivory mentioned above (p. 307).
It has always been assumed that the Ottonian work can only have been
based on a Byzantine model. If this was not the Romanos ivory, as my argu-
ments suggest, then it must be admitted that no such object has survived
from the tenth century. However, since the style and iconography of the
Ottonian ivory are thoroughly Byzantine, there must have been an earlier
model similar to the Romanos ivory. The close connections between the
Ottonians and the Byzantines would have made such a model available. As
P. E. Schramm has pointed out, the likely donor of the plaque is the figure
in the left corner portrayed in a posture of proskynesis, who calls himself
53 "Kaiser, Basileus und Papst in der Zeit der Ottonen," Kaiser, Konige und Pdpste, III (Stutt-
gart, 1969), 214. Much has been written on the inscription of this ivory. All scholars agree that the
inscriptions above the heads of the couple contain a mixture of Latin and Greek letters. F. Dolger,
"Die Ottonenkaiser und Byzanz," Karolingische und Ottonische Kunst, ForschKA, III (Wiesbaden,
1957), 56, reads these inscriptions as follows: Otto Imp(erator) R(o)man(orum) A(YrOYCTO)Cand
eEOTANO Imp(eratrix) A(YrOYCTO)C.The last word has always been read, whether in Greek or Latin,
remark made that
as the masculine augustusos, and the reake the
ththscribe, not knowing better, gave the
masculine ending even to Theophano (Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, 51; P. E.
Schramm and F. Mutherich, Denkmale der deutschen Konige und Kaiser [Munich, 1962], 144, no. 73;
0. Demus, Byzantine Art and the West [New York, 1970], 84). I do not think that the inscriptions
ever intended to render the Greek word AYrOYCTOC.I read the titles completely in Latin, except
for the name of OEOOAN): OTTO IMP(ERATOR) P(o)m&N(orum) b[V]1G(USTUS) andeEO$AN6)
IMP(ERATRIX) n[V]G(USTA).Judging from the mistakes made in these inscriptions, the person
commissioned to incise them must have been a Greek, probably one from southern Italy with some
knowledge of Latin or spoken Italian. Only a Greek could have made such mistakes: note the P (rho)
used in Romanorum and the consistent use of the Greek b,. The abbreviation for augustus, which in
Latin consists of the first three letters A VG, must have been what he had in front of him. Not
understanding it correctly, he made cNCout of NG. The same abbreviation probably stood also for
Theophano. Other observations which support the theory that the carver was a Greek from southern
Italy are that his Greek letters are correct and that the second inscription between Christ and Otto is
correct Greek with standard abbreviations:
58 Two miniatures,
though not of double coronations, should be recorded here, since they confirm
my assertion that contingent political circumstances explain the portrayal of the empress. The earliest
example from the Middle Byzantine period is an illustration in the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus
(Paris. gr. 510). One folio (CV)shows the coronation of Basil I, another (Br) his wife Eudokia Ingerina
standing between two of her sons. The poem that runs along the border describes Eudokia as "the
well-branched vine bearing the grapes of the Empire." Basil, of course, had murdered Michael III
to become sole ruler; Eudokia is portrayed, as she was on Basil's coinage, to publicize the new dynasty
(H. Omont, Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheque Nationale du VIe au XIVe
siMcle [Paris, 1929], pl. xvi). There is also a miniature in cod. Sinait. 364 which depicts Christ in a
mandorla with angels on either side of him and a crown suspended above the heads of Constantine IX
Monomachos, Zoe, and Theodora. Constantine could only reach the throne through his association with
his wife Zoe, who with her sister Theodora had occupied it before him (A. Grabar, L'empereur dans
l'art byzantin [Paris, 1936], pl. xix,2). A similar iconography appears in the Barberini Psalter (Vat.
Barb. gr. 372, fol. 5r): the enthroned Christ holds a crown above the heads of an unidentified emperor,
empress, and coemperor, each of whom is also being crowned by an angel (J. Deer, The Dynastic
Porphzyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily, DOS, V [Cambridge, Mass., 1959], fig. 211).
59 Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (note 14 supra), 348.
60 Omont,
op. cit., pi. LXII.
61
Grierson, DOC, 111,2, 829, pi. LXIX; Morrisson, CMB, II, 644, pi. LXXXVIII, AR/01-02.
62 K.
Wessel, Byzantine Enamels (Greenwich, Conn., 1967), 151, fig. 38.
318 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
Stylistic Considerations
Redating the Romanos ivory to the third quarter of the eleventh century
will upset the notions that Goldschmidt and Weitzmann have maintained
concerning both the Romanos group of ivories and the concentration of superior
ivory carving in the thirty years between 940 and 970. As a group the Romanos
ivories represent the best pieces that have survived after the hiatus caused by
Iconoclasm. They are famous, as Weitzmann has observed, for their "elegance,
restraint and technical perfection,"69 and they have "a majestic grandeur
65
D6lger, "Entwicklung" (note 12 supra), 130-51.
66 Ibid., 150.
67
Ibid., 151.
68 Dolger asserts that the
inscription on the Moscow reliquary is incomplete as far as Constantine X's
title goes, because the title autokratoris missing. Actually, it is there on the right side of Constantine.
Also, in his transcription of the inscription next to Eudokia, Dolger reads 1ICTHinstead of MEFAAH..
69
Weitzmann, "Ivory Sculpture of the Macedonian Renaissance" (note 10 supra), 4.
320 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
which is not matched in any other ivory group."70While the redating of the
Romanos ivory does not, to my mind, imply that the entire Romanos group
should be placed in the eleventh century, it will shift the dating of a distinct
group of ivories. To clarify this point I would like to make a few stylistic
comparisons among some of the most famous pieces of the group. One of the
pieces closest to the Romanos ivory in style, so close, even, that it might be
said that it was executed by the same artists (compare the heads of Christ),
is the well-known Harbaville triptych now in Paris (fig. 16).71A triptych that
has been closely related to this piece is the one in the Palazzo Venezia in
Rome (fig. 15).72 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann dated these two works to the
mid-tenth century, the former because of its close stylistic connection to the
Romanos ivory, the latter because of its inscription which mentions a Con-
stantine, who, as Goldschmidt and Weitzmann have shown, must be Con-
stantine VII Porphyrogennetos.73 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann explained
what they saw as the stylistic differences between these pieces by saying that
the same workshop produced them during a "Versuchszeit," a period of
experimentation when different artists competed for the same assignment.74
In my opinion, the explanation for the lack of uniformity in the style of the
Romanos group as established in the corpus is that the entire group cannot
stand together as products of a single period.
There are only slight differences in the iconographic arrangement of the two
triptychs.75 The Palazzo Venezia triptych is one of the best representatives of
ivory carving of the Macedonian Renaissance figure style. The figures are
carved in high relief with some undercutting to give the impression of small,
free-standing statues set within a frame. They have well-modeled bodies and
rather rounded three-dimensional heads; the feet are placed firmly on the
ground. This interest in modeling and plasticity is one of the main character-
istics of the period. The figures are clad in heavy garments which fall in dense
folds to create additional volume. The individual parts of the bodies are
articulated by the fabric that wraps around them and falls in various layers
dthe
and lengths. On a single figure the material may be stretched over one
part-for example, a leg-to reveal its form under the garment, or it may be
multiplied in bunches of deeply cut folds to draw attention to another area
of the same body. A good example of this can be seen in the figure of Christ
in the center of the panel. Many parallels can be found in other tenth-century
works, especially in manuscripts. The famous mid-tenth-century Gospel Book
of Stauronikita 43, with its classicizing Evangelist portraits, presents a good
example where plasticity and articulation of the body are expressed through
elaborate drapery patterns; this can be seen, for example, in the seated figure
70
Ibid., 5.
71 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, no. 33, pl. xm.
72 Ibid., no. 31, pl. x. On the third triptych which figures in the discussion of Goldschmidt and
Weitzmann, the Vatican triptych, see note 78 infra.
73 Ibid., 17 and 33.
74Ibid., 17.
75I am restricting my comparisons to the two central panels, where the carving is highest.
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24. Hannover, Kestner Museum. Diptych, Wing, 25. Dresden, Griines Gew6lbe. Diptych, Wing
The Crucifixionand The Deposition and The Anastasis
C. b.
of John (fol. 13r).76 The closely related Gospel Book in Athens (Nat. Lib.,
cod. 56) offers further comparisons: for example, the figure of Matthew
(fol. 4v).77
The figures of the Harbaville triptych, on the other hand, are conceived
differently. One main difference is that the figures are carved in much flatter
relief with almost no undercutting; this is made even more clear visually by
the fact that their feet are at an angle with respect to the ground. Even the
throne of Christ has been represented without perspective, so that the front
and back legs appear on one plane. Although the figures have retained a
statuesque quality, their proportions have been elongated and their bodies
flattened. Here the artist has left larger areas of the garments free from creases;
the folds that do exist are flat with sharp, straight edges. The wavy, zigzag
endings of the garments in the Palazzo Venezia triptych have been reduced,
and with them the whole roundness and voluminous appearance of the figures.
The garments appear smoother and softer in contrast to those of the Palazzo
Venezia triptych, where the dense drapery seems as if it were of a heavier
fabric. These two works exhibit a different conception of the human figure.
The difference lies not so muchahhnds
in the individual shapes of folds draperies,
which are standard vocabulary, but in the general treatment of a given figure
and the impression it makes. The appearance of elegance and reserved plasticity
which characterizes the figures of the Harbaville triptych is reflected in its
whole setting as well. For example, the thin strips that divide the registers
contrast with the thick and wide borders that frame the individual groups
in the Palazzo Venezia triptych.78
The same differences in conception and style distinguish the Romanos
plaque from the two other coronation ivories which were dated to the tenth
century in the ivory corpus. These are the coronation of Constantine VII
76 K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1935), fig. 172.
77 Ibid., fig. 151.
78 In their
presentation of the Romanos group Goldschmidt and Weitzmann placed the third
closely related triptych, now in the Vatican museum, between the Palazzo Venezia and the Harbaville
triptychs in terms of stylistic development (Elfenbeinskulpturen, no. 32a-b, pp. 16-17, pls. xi and
xII). The date assigned to all three was the middle of the tenth century. In my opinion, these three
works should be placed farther apart in time from each other. The main criteria in the discussion of
Goldschmidt and Weitzmann are the carving technique, iconography, style, and general layout; these
considerations make the placement of the Vatican triptych as the second in the series quite
convincing,
since the Vatican piece clearly has elements related to both triptychs. Its figures have retained some
of the volume and plasticity of the figures of the Palazzo Venezia triptych, and its
composition reflects
the same strong regularity. On the other hand, the Vatican triptych already shows the
iconographic
changes present in the Harbaville triptych: the enthroned Christ in the Deesis, the military dress
worn by the soldier-saints, and the medallions. The elements which create a
feeling of overdecorative-
ness and crowding in the Vatican piece have been simplified or altogether lefc out in the Harbaville
triptych. For example, the central row of medallions, whose inclusion forced the Vatican artist to
reduce the space for the Deesis and to produce disproportionately small heads in the Deesis
have been omitted. Further, the medallions in the wings of the Harbaville group,
triptych have become
simpler; their borders are plain, without the continuous zigzag pattern. The whole impression created
by the Harbaville triptych is that of simplification and elimination. The Vatican should be
seen as a product of the beginning of the eleventh century. The change of dress in triptych
the military saints
should be considered as one of the factors for dating it later than the middle of the tenth century. The
dating of the Harbaville triptych in the later 60's of the eleventh century consequently enables us to
place these three triptychs sufficiently far apart from each other to allow for the conceptual changes
in style and composition.
21
322 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
Porphyrogennetos in Moscow (fig. 17), dated ca. 945,79 and the coronation of
Otto and Theophano in the Cluny Museum (fig. 13),80which, with its generally
accepted date of 982/83, is the most precisely dated ivory in the sphere of
Middle Byzantine ivory production. The figure of Christ offers the best source
of stylistic comparison between these pieces.81 The two tenth-century works
immediately convey their allegiance to the Macedonian Renaissance figure
style. In both, the different parts of the body are clearly articulated. The right
leg of Christ in the Moscow plaque is almost completely exposed by the soft
drapery which clings to his leg. In a similar fashion narrow curving lines
distinguish the area of the stomach. Even Constantine, who wears a straight
tunic under the loros, is represented with both his legs clearly distinguishable
under his garment. This kind of drapery is also present in the figures of Christ
and John of the Deesis in the Palazzo Venezia triptych. This treatment of
the drapery for the modeling of the human figure can be compared with the
figures in the scene of the Carrying of the Arc in the Leo Bible, Vatican, cod.
reg. gr. 1, folio 8r (fig. 19), or with the figure of Jonah at the top left in his
sermon to the Ninevites on a full-page miniature of the Paris Psalter, folio 431v
(fig. 18).82 Here, too, the legs project distinctly through the garment that is
pulled over them, and the same curvilinear folds describe the stomach area.
The Christ figure on the Otto plaque, although made on Italian soil,83
retains all the characteristics of the tenth-century Byzantine figure style and,
without doubt, must have been based on a Byzantine prototype. Though the
Romanos Christ figure has often been referred to as its model, a closer com-
parison will reveal the same differences that have been established between
the Palazzo Venezia and Harbaville triptychs. Both Christs are draped very
similarly and the folds concentrate and fall in similar areas. Yet the Christ
on the Otto ivory reflects the interests of the tenth century. Plasticity and
body articulation are much more pronounced than on the Christ figure of the
Romanos ivory. An effort was made to reveal, for example, His knee and lower
right leg, not only by the simple indentation which the outline of His leg
creates but also by the difference in the height of relief, which makes the
knee project forward. A similar treatment can be observed in the stomach
79The date of the Moscow ivory and the identification of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos were
first persuasively shown by Goldschmidt and Weitzmann in the corpus through the evidence of coinage
(Ellenbeinskulpturen, no. 35, pl. xiv, pp. 35-36). Subsequently, Weitzmann, in his article "The Mandy-
lion and Constantine Porphyrogennetos," CahArch, 11 (1960), 163-84, by marshaling pictorial and
textual evidence has established this identification beyond doubt.
80 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, no. 85, pl. xxxiv (ca. 972-83).
81 It should be
pointed out that all three plaques are carved in flatter relief than the central panels
of the triptychs. Since the height of the relief generally depends on the function of the object, the lower
relief here supports the suggestion made by Goldschmidt and Weitzmann that these were probably
intended for use on book covers. A low relief would be necessary because of the exposed position on
the outside surface of the book.
82 Miniature della Bibbia Cod. Vat. Reg. gr. 1, e del Salterio Cod. Vat. Palat. gr. 381, Collezione
Paleografica Vaticana, fasc. 1 (Milan, 1905), pl. 8; H. Buchthal, The Miniatures of the Paris Psalter
where he
(London, 1938), fig. 12; and idem, "The Exaltation of David," JWarb, 37 (1974), 330-33,
shows that the Paris Psalter is a copy made in the period after the death of Constntine VII.
83 See note 53 supra; Demus, Byzantine Art and the West, 85; Schramm and Miitherich, Denkmale,
144, no. 73.
DATING THE ROMANOS IVORY 323
21*
324 IOLI KALAVREZOU-MAXEINER
toa the Romanos ivory can bee traced a already in some of the figures in the
Menologion of Basil II (Vaticangr,cod. gr. 1613), dated ca. 1000, especially in
the more hieratic representations of standing praying figures.89The famous
Lectionary of Dionysiou (cod. 587), a manuscript almost contemporary with
the Romanos and Harbaville ivories, affords good stylistic comparisons. For
example,the minature
int te Holy Fathers on folio 126r (fig. 20),90which is
of th
of an iconic or hieratic nature, shows very close parallels to the group of
apostles in the Harbaville triptych. The figures, although wearing different
types of dress, are conceived in similar fashion. Their garments fall straight
in flat folds creating the same restrained plasticity. Only the heads, as on the
ivories, have retained greater volume. In another such miniature from the
same manuscript, the representation of All Saints an o folio 40,9 the saints
on either side of the Fathers can be compared with the standing saints on the
wings of the Harbaville triptych.
Without trying at this poin to suggest a reorganization of the entire
Romanos group, I would like to present some of the pieces which I consider
closest to the Romanos and Harbaville plaques and which should thus be
dated to the second half of the eleventh century. Two pieces with very similar
iconography are the triptychs of the Crucifixion in the British Museum (fig. 22)
and in the Cabinet des Medailles in Paris (fig. 23).92 They display very close
parallels to the Romanos ivory, not only in the figure style but also in the
details of the facial types and in the execution of the eyes and hair. Other
details that mark these ivories as works of excellent quality are the fine
incised line that runs alongethe innerin border of the frames and the careful
attention that has been given to the halo of Christ. In the center of the cross-
bars a ridge is formed which creates two concave strips, which, when gilded,
must have reflected the light more than the other haloes in the triptychs.
Another related piece is the diptych now split between Hannover and Dresden
(figs. 24, 25).93Combined, the two wings represent four scenes of the life cycle
of Christ. Although the scenes are in a more narrative mode, so that some of
the figures aremore animated, there cannot be any doubt of their closeness
to the Romanos style. A final example is a plaque, now in Berlin decorating
a manuscript, which originally was the central plaque of a triptych (fig. 21).94
It shows Christ enthroned holding the Gospels on His left knee and blessing
with His right hand. The Virgin and John the Baptist appear as busts on either
side of His head to form an abbreviated version of the standard Deesis.
Michael and Gabriel, with scepter and globe in their hands, accompany them
from above. The head of Christ especially reveals very close stylistic affinities
with the Romanos and Harbaville Christ figures. The eyes are large and have
slightly heavy lids; the halo shows again the careful finishing touches in the
8911 Menologio di Basilio II, Codices e Vaticanis Selecti, VIII (Turin, 1907), 106, 107, 130.
90S. M. Pelekanides, P. C. Christou, et al., The Treasures of Mount Athos, I (Athens, 1973), fig. 247.
91 Ibid., fig. 215.
92 Goldschmidt and Weitzmann, Elfenbeinskulpturen, 36, no. 38, and 37, no. 39.
93 Ibid., 37, nos. 40 and 41.
94 Ibid., 42, no. 55. Cf. Keck and Morey, op. cit. (note 11 supra), 401.
DATING THE ROMANOS IVORY 325
crossbars. The thin double columns with a knot in the center do not appear
in Byzantine art before ca. 1000, and the half-length figures that surround
Christ make their appearance in greater number during the eleventh century:
these additional iconographic details place this piece most comfortably within
this period.
In my mind there can be no hesitation about placing the Romanos ivory
and the pieces related to it in the third quarter of the eleventh century. Their
style stands well within the tradition which several decades later led to the
mosaic decoration of Daphni. The ivories are products of a workshop which had
a close connection with the imperial court; they stand out not only because
of their monumental simplicity and restraint in composition and figure style,
but also because of their very high quality. Reading Psellos' description of the
image he projects of court life in the decades before Manzikert, it is not hard
to imagine that ivory panels and icons such as these were the kind of luxury
objects upon which the court lavished its wealth. It is when the highest
quality of court art combines with the ideal Byzantine restraint that the
dating of art objects is most difficult and most in need of documentary evidence.
Other works of Byzantine art of exceptional quality-for example, the large
Deesis mosaic in Hagia Sophia-are still awaiting an outside factor to deter-
mine with certainty the date of their production.
U.C.L.A./Dumbarton Oaks
JOHN VII PALAEOLOGUS AND THE IVORY PYXIS AT DUMBARTON OAKS
NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
THERE is a Byzantine ivory pyxis, now ously intended to contain an inscription with
in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,which his name (and, perhaps, the name of the
appears to commemorate a historical event. empress next to him). It has been purposely
It is round and quite small, 3 cm. high and left blank, so we have no indication as to the
4.2 cm. in diameter. Around the body the name of the young emperor.
surface is carved in a frieze, on which no less f. An empress, wearing a crown and holding
than sixteen human beings are represented a noncruciformscepter. No inscription.
(fig. 1).1 To the left of the first emperor, the one
Two imperial families in frontal ceremonial inscribed John, is a kneeling youth in profile,
pose are depicted as the central figures of the offeringhim the model of a city (or a fortress).
composition. From left to right we see: The space below this model is filled with a
a. An emperor with a long, forked beard, peacock in profile, also looking toward the
wearing the crown and the loros and holding Emperor John. In the rest of the frieze
the cruciform scepter and the akakia. Close to musicians and dancers are represented: a
his head, on his right, is an inscription in drummer, a flutist, a lyre player, a trumpeter,
raised letters indicating his name: IC), that a lute player, another trumpeter, a syrinx (?)
is, 'Ico(avvrls). player, and two female dancers.
b. A child-emperor, also wearing the crown It is obvious that we are looking at the
and the loros and holding the cruciformscep- representation of two imperial families: two
ter and the akakia. Above his head is an imperial couples, each with one son already
inscription in raised letters with his name: elevated to the throne in spite of his tender
ANAP, that is, 'Av5p(6viKoS). age. In the first family, the emperor is called
c. An empress, wearing the crown and John, his wife Irene, and their offspring
probably holding a scepter, part of which is Andronicus. In the second family, we know
now broken and lost. Close to her head, on only that the father's name begins with the
her left, is an inscription in raised letters: letter M (Manuel, or Matthew, or Michael?).
TP, that is, Eip(ilvrl). It should be observed The model of the city is offeredto the Emperor
that the rectangle on which this inscription John-or, conceivably, to the six emperors
is carved, together with the initial of the altogether-and one has the impression that
following emperor, is not as thick as the rest this significant act, the offering of the city,
of the carvings. is the reason for the joyous festivities shown
d. An emperor with a forked beard longer on the frieze.
than that of the first emperor (perhaps an Who are the emperors represented on this
indication that he is older?), wearing the pyxis? Two answers have been given, both of
crown and the loros and holding the cruciform which link our pyxis to the Cantacuzenus
scepter and the akakia. Close to his head, on family, for the obvious reason that John VI
his right, the letter M is inscribed, indicating Cantacuzenus' wife was named Irene. Grabar
that his name begins with this initial. identified the emperors of the first group as
e. A second child-emperor, taller-and John VI Cantacuzenus, his grandson Andro-
presumably older-than the child named nicus (IV) Palaeologus, and his wife Irene, and
Andronicus; he also wears the crown and the those of the second group as John V Palaeo-
loros and holds the cruciform scepter and the logus, another son of his, and his wife Helen
akakia. Above his head is a rectangle, obvi- Cantacuzene; and he thought that the ivory
was carved in two different stages between
1 K. Weitzmann, Catalogue of the Byzantine 1348 and 1352.2 This complicated theory has
and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dum-
barton Oaks Collection. III, Ivories and Steatites 2 A. Grabar, "Une pyxide en ivoire a Dum-
(Washington, D.C., 1972), 77-82, no. 31 and barton Oaks. Quelques notes sur l'art profane
pls. LII, IIII; bibliography p. 82. pendant les derniers siecles de l'Empire byzan-
330 NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
to be discarded for many reasons, but most Andronicus IV; and that after February 1354,
of all because, as Weitzmann has correctly Matthew's name was added to the imperial
pointed out, the second emperor ought to acclamations in Constantinople. In all these
have a name starting with the letter M and, critical passages, John Cantacuzenus the
consequently, cannot be John V Palaeologus. Younger, Matthew's son, is not even men-
Weitzmann accepted Grabar's identification tioned, presumably because he was not
of the first imperial family, and suggested emperor.6
that in the second group one should see 2. In these same Memoirs, Cantacuzenus
Matthew Cantacuzenus with his wife Irene stresses that John V Palaeologus, after
Palaeologina and their son John; he related forcing Matthew to abdicate in 1357, elevated
the whole scene to the coronation of Matthew, the latter's sons, John and Demetrius, to the
which took place in Blachernae in 1355 (leg. "most distinguished dignities of the Romans,"
February 1354), and believed that the model that is, he made them despot and sebasto-
offered to the emperor represents the city of cratorrespectively.6But if John Cantacuzenus
Constantinople or the palace of Blachernae.3 the Younger had already been an emperor,
Yet, this interpretation also presents major this "promotion" would in fact be a demotion
difficulties. Why, if the whole was conceived that could not pass unnoticed.
to commemorate Matthew's coronation in 3. We have the text of the ex-emperor
1354, should the model of the city be offered Matthew's oath of allegiance to John V and
to the Emperor John (who reigned over it Andronicus IV Palaeologi in 1357, as it was
from 1347 to 1354)? What could be the resworn before the Patriarch Philotheos.7
reason for not adding the inscription with the John Cantacuzenus the Younger is not men-
names of the second child-emperor and his tioned in this text, and this omission would
mother?4And, more important, if one accepts have been unthinkable if John had previous-
the above identifications one has also to ly received the imperial dignity. It should be
suppose that Matthew Cantacuzenus'first son, noted that in Matthew's oath John VI
John, was crowned emperor together with his Cantacuzenus is mentioned as having con-
father in February 1354, or, at least, that he firmed his abdication, although he had be-
was crowned sometime between February come a monk three years earlier.
1354 and November of the same year (abdi- Thus, I conclude that the second child
cation of John VI Cantacuzenus). But this represented with full imperial insignia on
was certainly not the case, because: this pyxis cannot be John Cantacuzenus the
1. In his Memoirs, John VI Cantacuzenus Younger. Consequently, the proposed identi-
clearly states that Matthew alone was fications, dating, and interpretation of the
crowned in February 1354; that he was given ivory have to be revised.
a part of the Empire to rule independently The purpose of this paper is to propose a
for life as emperor but that, at his death, this different set of identifications that will redate
territory would not pass to his heir but would our pyxis to half a century later.8 I suggest
revert to John V, or, if he were dead, to that the emperors represented are John VII
Palaeologus, his wife Irene, and their son
tin," DOP, 14 (1960), 121-46; repr. in idem, Andronicus (V), and Manuel II Palaeologus,
L'art de la fin de l'antiquitdet du moyen-age,I his wife Helen, and their son John VIII; and
(Paris, 1968), 229-49.
3 Weitzmann, op. cit., 79. Weitzmann's
5 Ioannis Cantacuzeni ex imperatoris Historia-
chronologicaldata have been slightly rectified
by I. Spatharakis,"The Proskynesisin Byzan- rum Libri IV, ed. L. Schopen, III, Bonn ed.
tine Art," BABesch,49 (1974),204, who follow- (1832), 269-70, 280-81.
ed the chronologyof the Cantacuzenusfamily 6 Nicol, op. cit., 118, 157. Cf. Ioannis Canta-
established by D. Nicol, The ByzantineFamily cuzeni, 358: fg{ioK6e T-rv Tnqaveo-rcrrcov 'rTap&
of Kantakouzenos(Cantacuzenus) ca. 1100-1460, 'PoCpalioiS, T6v'Io&vvrv
8eoarr6lvMiV nrrro68el(oa...
DOS, XI (Washington,D.C., 1968), 114. KactKotVCoiaOaS...rpa.rrt[rlS.
4 7 F. Miklosich and
Spatharakis,loc.cit., in his effort to explain J. Miller, Acta et Diplo-
this lack of inscription,supposesthat the pyxis mata Graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, I
was left unfinished because, in the meantime, (Vienna, 1860), 448-50.
8 I will not take into consideration here
John VI Cantacuzenus was overthrown in
November 1354. This is possible but not likely. John II Comnenus and John III Vatatzes,
THE IMPERIAL IVORY PYXIS AT DUMBARTON OAKS 331
that the pyxis was made to commemorate where he ruled as "emperor of Thessaly"
the installation of John VII as emperor in until his death (23 September 1408)13while
Thessalonica by the end of 1403 or the be- Manuel II reigned in Constantinople.
ginning of 1404. Sometime before 1397, maybe already in
The career of John VII, of the first imperial 1390, John VII married a daughter of Fran-
family, is fairly well known.9 Son of the cesco II Gattilusi, Lord of Lesbos.14Her first
turbulent Andronicus IV, he persisted in name was undoubtedly Eip'lvrl, Irene; it is
claiming the Byzantine throne and, aided by attested in a manuscript colophon, written in
the Genoese, managed to occupy Constanti- Thessalonica in August 1404,15as well as in
nople on 14 April 1390, only to be expelled a chrysobull issued by John VII himself in
five months later (17 September) by his uncle February 1407.16After her husband's death
Manuel II.10 In 1399, thanks to the inter- in 1408 she took the veil and, according to
vention of Marshall Boucicaut, John VII was the Byzantine habit, changed her name to
finally reconciled with Manuel II, who one beginning with the same initial, EOiyEvia;
adopted himll and entrusted him with the she is mentioned by this monastic name in a
defense of Constantinople while he traveled prayer written between the years 1427 and
in western Europe, seeking military aid 1439,17as well as in the chronicle recordingher
against the Ottomans. Profiting from the death on 1 January 1440.18
Ottoman defeat at Ankara in 1402, John VII
13 The year of John's death (6917 = 1408/9)
in 1403 concluded the treaty by which Sultan is confirmed by the Bulgarian chronicle published
Bayazid's son, Suileyman celebi, returned the by J. Bogdan, "Ein Beitrag zur bulgarischen
city of Thessalonica to Byzantium, together und serbischen Geschichtschreibung," ASP, 13
with substantial territories in Macedonia and (1891), 543, esp. 534 and note 1. Before dying,
Thrace.12 John VII quietly turned over his John VII made his profession as a monk and
changed his name to Joseph (not Joasaph, as is
power to Manuel II when the latter returned sometimes assumed: Actes de Dionysiou, 116).
to Constantinople in June 1403, and, after a 14 Several problems surround John VII's
short quarrel (see infra, p. 334), John VII and marriage and its date. See G. Dennis, "An
his family took possession at the end of 1403 Unknown Byzantine Emperor, Andronicus V
or the beginning of 1404 of Thessalonica, Palaeologus," JOBG, 16 (1967), 179; N. Oiko-
nomides, Yrl?efcolaayi T6v 'Av5p6vlKO E' lTTaalo,
5 (1968), 28-31; Barker.
A6yo, in elcrauvpfacraTa,
whose wives were called Irene; neither of them op. cit., 462f.
ever had a son and coemperor named Androni- 15
Sp. Lampros, Kar&Aoyos TCOVEvTa'rS ipAio-
cus, or a coemperor whose name began with the SCXKaS-TO 'Ayiou "Opouvs^XrA1vilKVKxCSiKCOV,I
letter M. (Cambridge, 1895), 181, cod. 2104 (Esphigmenou
9 F. Dolger, "Johannes VII., Kaiser der 91): IunvlAryovoTrcp,Iv8iKTl5vos 1p', ,s-ip' Trovs, rrt
Rhomaer 1390-1408," BZ, 31 (1931), 21-36; -rs T-rOVEUcaEpEoaTrcov A'pcov paoiaTcov
ao1alXEias
P. Wirth, "Zum Geschichtsbild Kaiser Johannes 'lco&vvouKal ElpiAvrs-r&Tv
16 W. raAailoX6yov.
VII. Palaiologos," Byzantion, 35 (1965), 592- Regel, Xpv6opouXaa Kai yp&pipacrra T-ri
600; J. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (1391- ... povirsTOUBarroTrESou (St. Petersburg, 1898),
1425): A Study in Late Byzantine Statesmanship 45; and J. Bompaire, Actes de Xeropotamou
(New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), passim. (Paris, 1964), 207: Tris paapicorTarr1S
pOI
aoyovoa-rrn
10 It seems that at this time John VII had Kupas Elpivrnl.
adopted his father's name, Andronicus, and that 17 J. Goar, EOXoA6yiov(Paris, 1647), 81;
is how he was acclaimed by his own soldiers and F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western
referred to by his Genoese friends. See E. Zacha- (Oxford, 1896), 552: 0-rrp acoT-ripias, Kp&rovs,
riadou, "John VII (alias Andronicus) Palaeo- ViKr15 Kai St1aovjS -rv EoEoECo-rp&rcoV Kai qtAo-
logus," DOP, 31 (1977), 339-42. XpiTrcovv aaXicov ,Pov, TrfseVaEPEo"r&rls Kal 1XtAo-
1 Miklosich and Muller, Acta et Diplomata
XpioaTrouS6ooivrnS 'pjcav
'YTro!ovisplovaocis[name
Graeca,II (1862), 359-60: lvcbSraav wo-rr6prrar)p in religion of Helen, widow of Manuel II], -riS
Kai vl65. This adoption is recorded in several EOcrEPEoTr&TrrKai qtAoxpfo-rov
Earou
fvri5 lov
archival documents of the first two decades of [name in religion of Irene,
E1yEvfas pIUovaXfis
the fifteenth century: cf. N. Oikonomides, Actes widow of John VII], Trov E,oEPET-r6-rcov Kai
de Dionysiou (Paris, 1968), 90; M. Braun, 'IcodvvouKal Mapias
q9ioXpiocrcovpaaXlcov iuCpOv
Lebensbeschreibungdes Despoten Stefan Lazarevic [John VIII's third wife; they married in Septem-
(Wiesbaden, 1956), 22: "wie seinem Vater." ber 1427, and she died on 17 December 1439].
12G. Dennis, "The Byzantine-Turkish Treaty 18 Georgios Sphrantzes, Memorii, ed. V. Grecu
of 1403," OCP, 33 (1967), 72-88; cf. Barker, (Bucharest, 1966), 62, esp. 332: Kal Trma, 'lav-
op. cit., 225 and note 43. vouapiou prnv6os TrooaCrov E"TOu[i.e., 1439/40]
332 NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
The couple were reputed to have died throne, and who had probably lived in
childless. This is only partly true because it is Thessalonica.23
now established that they did have a son We know nothing more about Andronicus'
named Andronicus (after his paternal grand- dates. If the consolatory letter really refers
father), who had been elevated to the rank of to his death, we may assume that he died in
coemperor and who died at the age of seven, Thessalonica during his father's reign there
before his parents. This is proved by two texts (end of 1403/beginning of 1404-1408). This is
discovered and published by Dennis.19 The not certain, although very probable.24The
first and more eloquent one is a "Monody on study of our pyxis will provide more evidence
the death of the seven-year-old Emperor kyr in favor of this dating.
Andronicus Palaeologus, son of kyr John, the The second imperial family on our pyxis is
nephew of the Emperor kyr Manuel."20The much better known: the Emperor Manuel II
prosopographical data of the title, partly Palaeologus (1391-1425) with his wife Helen
confirmed by phrases from the text of the Dragas, whom he married in 1392, and their
Monody, are very clear. Moreover, from the first son John (VIII), born probably in De-
text we learn that Andronicus' parents were cember 1392.25The only problem that arises is
both alive, that they were emperors and related to the date of John VIII's coronation
"regarded him gladly as their successor."21 as coemperor.Dolger, followed on this point by
From another passage we may also deduce many scholars, has established that John VIII
that Andronicus had arrived in the city, in was crowned on 19 January 1421.26But there
which the anonymous author of the Monody are many uncertainties27 concerning what
dwelt, shortly before his death: "Scarcely did exactly happened on 19 January 1421: was it
we behold this imperial child, when suddenly a coronation or a marriage? The Greek verb
he departed from our midst."22 CorTcpo means both. If it was a coronation,
The second text published by Dennis is a was it the first one for John VIII, or was this
letter of consolation to an emperor (not the moment when his father, Manuel II,
named); its author might be a patriarch or, bestowed upon him the dignity of basileus
more probably, a metropolitan of Thessalo- autokrator?
nica. Comparison of internal evidence shows Be that as it may, it seems to me that
that this letter most probably refers to the John VIII was undoubtedly a coemperorlong
same event: it is written for the death of an before 1421, for the following reasons:
emperor's young son, who was also an 1. Venetian documents refer to him as
emperor and was expected to succeed to the emperor before that date.28 2. In an oration
23 As
a&rrEavEvi 8o rrotva EOuyvia, ir TO raTcX-rio.rl Dennis, ibid., 176-77, pointed out, a
Svuy&dp. This text of Sphrantzes is at the significant reference to St. Demetrius is made
origin of a wide-spread misunderstanding that in the letter, indicating that the author might
John VII's wife was called Eugenia. See be the Metropolitan Gabriel of Thessalonica
28 note 15.
Oikonomides, rlEicOiJoca, (1397-1416/19), whose name also seems to be
19 Dennis, "An Unknown Byzantine Em- written, with very faint letters, at the end of the
peror," 175-87. It could be added here that consolatory letter.
S. Runciman, "Lucas Notaras, yacl3p6spTOU 24 In
my article in erlaarvpiamorra(supra,
paoldMcos,"in Polychronion, Festschrift Franz note 14), I proposed that the Emperor Andron-
Dolger (Heidelberg, 1966), 447-49, supposes that icus mentioned by various sources in Constan-
John VII also had a daughter, who later married tinople in 1390 was John VII's son, whose
Lucas Notaras. Cf. A. Bakalopoulos, in BZ, 52 existence was discovered by Dennis, but I was
(1959), 15-16. wrong; see supra, note 10. Dennis, "An Unknown
20 Dennis, "An Unknown Byzantine Em- Byzantine Emperor," 176-77, was most prob-
peror," 181: MovcSia trri Trl TrEAEvTrKvpo0 'Av- ably correct when stating that Andronicus V
SpoviKov PaaicAEcoTOOnrahailoX6you,vtou TOU Kupo0 died in Thessalonica.
'Icodvvou TOUeVEEpO0 TOV paAiEolosKvpo0 MavovfiA,
25 Barker,
op. cit. (note 9 supra), 104 note 28.
Tirr&
trouSov-ros.
26 F.
Dolger, "Die Kronung Johannes VIII.
21 Ibid.: ot EJCEpEoaTraroI
Kai &ayot paoiAeTs zum Mitkaiser," BZ, 36 (1936), 318-19.
Kalr a S1.a(OXov SappoUvrTESXEIv.
yEvvfITOpES...
27 H.-G. Beck, in BZ, 69
(1976), 184.
28 List of the documents in Barker, op. cit.,
22 Ibid.: ... peu, TrS flSv &SAi16OTiTOS,6TI TE
&aCiaEiOpEV TOV -7TavEKAEOTTOov paa1?lKOV K?,&8ov
347 note 91. See also the letter that Constantine
EKpEoov yEyovEV.
Kai rTapEvS$OS Raoul addressed to King Ferdinand of Aragon
THE IMPERIAL IVORY PYXIS AT DUMBARTON OAKS 333
addressed by John Chortasmenos to Manuel The careful distinction made between the
II not later than 1415 it is clearly stated that various titles in the captions accompanying
John VIII was already a coemperor.29 3. A the miniature figures should suffice, in my
short chronicle, usually misinterpreted, seems view, to convince us that John VIII was
to assert that John VIII was crowned emperor already crowned coemperor with his father
before John VII's death, that is, before before 1408, especially since John is repre-
September 1408.30 4. More importantly, we sented wearing the same type of crown and
have the frontispiece miniature (fig. 2) of the the same deep purple garment with loros
luxurious manuscript that Manuel Chryso- and is probably holding the same cruciform
loras presented, as a gift of Manuel II Palaeo- scepter as Manuel II, while his brothers'
logus, to the Parisian Abbey of Saint Denis in garments and insignia are completely differ-
1408 (now in the Louvre, Ivoires, cod. A 53, ent.32One may even suppose that the minia-
fol. 2). In this miniature, which is a real ture was made some years before 1408, prob-
family portrait,31John VIII, still a child, is ably before the birth on 8 February 1405
wearing the full imperial costume and in- of Constantine (XI),33 Manuel's fourth son,
signia and is qualified as "coemperor" since this prince does not appear in the family
(rrti-rTospCacAus but not autokrator)in the portrait; and one may date implicitly John
accompanying inscription. He is represented VIII's coronation before 1405. But this is an
together with his father (the pacriNAES Kai argument ex silentio, admittedly weak; and,
auTOKparcop Manuel),his mother (the airyou- in any case, a more precise dating of the
ora Kai auToKpaT6opltcraHelen), and his miniature is not important for our purposes.
two younger brothers, the despot Theodore It will suffice to say that John VIII was a
and Andronicus,who is called auSEvTo6rrouvAo crowned coemperor-in any case, he was
in the inscription because no official title had certainly represented in official works of art
yet been bestowed on him (he was to become as such-before the year 140834and possibly
a despot in 1408). before 1405, and to add that the study of our
pyxis provides one more clue for the dating
of his elevation to imperial rank. As to the
in March 1416: "imperator Calojohannes"; "coronation" of 1421-if it was a coronation
S. Cirac-Estopafian, Bizancio y Espana. La -one may suppose that it concerned John
Union, Manuel II Paleologo y sus recuerdos en VIII's accession to the rank of autokrator,
Espana (Barcelona,1952), 123.
29H. Hunger, Johannes Chortasmenos(Vienna,
1969), 222f. 32 Cf. the colorreproductionof the
30 P. Schreiner, Die miniature,
byzantinischen Klein- in Sp. Lampros, AE<,Kcopa
chroniken,I (Vienna, 1975), 185, par. 31; cf. II Bvlav-r.vcovAOroKpa-
ropcov(Athens, 1930), pl. 84.
(1977), 410-11. This short chronicle,in spite of 33Barker, op. cit., 494-96.
the incongruous chronological data that it con- 34 A. Christophilopoulou,
tains (the 10th indiction [1402or 1417]does not 'EKAoyi1,&avcypev-
Cis Kal orCTpis -rTOOBvlav-rtvo
correspond to the year 6924 [1416]), affirms a'roKp&ropos
(Athens, 1957), 203, has correctly interpreted
that ManuelII crowned (o-rrEiteti pcaacXa)his the miniature and considered that it proves that
son John [VIII] En LCOVTOSr -roU;the pronoun -roU John VIII was crowned before 1408; in spite of
(he) must refer to the Emperor "Andronicus" the evidence, her position has been dismissed
(i.e., John VII; cf. supra, p. 331), whose death is by Barker (op. cit., 350 note 97), with the very
mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph.
unlikely argument that John's representation
Consequently, the phrase should be understood in imperial garments was "perhaps a mere
as "while he [John VII] was still alive," and the
coronation of John VIII should be placed before acknowledgement of the obvious fact that he
was the heir apparent." There is no
September 1408. Needless to say, the additions way of
establishing a terminus post quem for John's
proposed by the editors after -roUare no longer coronation, and I think that notes like the one
necessary. written by John Chortasmenos in cod. Vat.
31 See the recent and detailed
study of this gr. 742 (Constantinople, 5 September 1402,
miniature by K. Wessel, "Manuel II.
Palaiologos aCrroKp6ropesManuel [II] Palaeologus and John
und seine Familie. Zur Miniatur des Cod. Ivoires
A 53 des Louvre," Beitrdge zur Kunst des Mittel- [VII] Palaeologus) are of little avail, since one
alters. Festschrift fiir Hans Wenzel zum 60. may suppose that Chortasmenos mentioned
only the aOroKp6rropEs (and not the simple
Geburtstag(Berlin, 1975), 219-29, together with basileis) of his time. See Codices Vaticani Graeci,
the remarksof Beck, in BZ, 69 (1976), 184.
III, ed. R. Devreesse (Vatican City, 1950), 257.
334 NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
as has already been suggested by Christo- to have a forked beard similar to the one on
philopoulou.35 our pyxis; two sketches (again with forked
From the above historical analysis one may beard) made after his death and preserved in
conclude that the only period in Byzantine the two manuscripts in which we found the
history to which the prosopographical indi- representations of John VII (figs. 3a-b); etc.39
cations given by our pyxis relate is roughly 4. The only other portraits of John VIII as a
the period between December 1399 and child and of his mother Helen are also to be
September 1408: two emperors reigning found in the Louvre manuscript. These
jointly (John VII and his considerably older comparative examples do not oppose my
uncle Manuel II), whose wives are alive identifications of the emperors represented
(Irene and Helen), and whose sons are on the pyxis.
coemperorswith their fathers (Andronicus V One may then suggest a more precise date
and John VIII). And there is no reason I for its carving. Of the two sons, John VIII is
know of that might oppose the above identi- represented as being considerably older than
fications. The faces of the emperors on the Andronicus V, who died at the age of seven
pyxis are quite small-no head is bigger than not long after he arrived in the city in which
7 mm., crown and beard included-and are his father reigned. Was this city Constanti-
not preserved in perfect condition; it would nople (John VII arrived in December 1399)
thus be in vain to try to recognize their or Thessalonica (1403/4)? The difference in
personal characteristics and compare them age between Andronicus V and John VIII
with other known likenesses, such as the ones shown on the pyxis suggests Thessalonica.
listed below: For John VIII, born at the earliest in
1. Our pyxis preserves the only contem- December 1392, could not have been more
porary representation of John VII; we know than seven years old in December 1399; there
of two sketches of this emperor, both dating would be no reason for him to be represented
from the fifteenth century and both made at that time as older than Andronicus V,
certainly long after his death. One is found on especially since we know that John VIII was
folio 299 of cod. a. S.5.5 of the Biblioteca a rather small child: Clavijo, who met him in
Estense of Modena36 (fig. 3a); the second, 1403 when he was eleven, thought that he
usually misattributed, appears on folio 2 of was only eight.40
cod. gr. 1783 of the Biblioth6que Nationale In light of the above, we may now look
of Paris37 (fig. 3b). 2. There are no other more closely at some events of 1403. I have
known portraits of Andronicus V and his said that soon after Manuel's return to
mother, the Empress Irene. 3. We know of Constantinople and the peaceful transfer of
several portraits of Manuel II, some con- power a quarrel developed between him and
temporary and some made after his death: his nephew. John VII was sent to Lemnos in
the portrait in the miniature on folio VI of apparent disgrace. From there he crossed
cod. suppl. gr. 309 of the Biblioth6que over to Lesbos, and in September 1403,
Nationale (contemporary);38the portrait in together with his father-in-law, the lord of
the Louvre manuscript (supra, p. 333, and Lesbos Francesco II Gattilusi, he launched a
fig. 2) (contemporary),in which Manuel seems naval expedition against Thessalonica-with
35 Christophilopoulou, op. cit., 203-4. Cf.
no tangible result. But soon afterward the
B. FerjanCic,inZVI, 10 (1967),260 and note 39. two Byzantine emperors were reconciled once
36Lampros, AeSKcolac,pl. 91; Barker, op. cit., again, on the basis of a compromise which
fig. 29, pp. 531-32. may well indicate the reasons for their quarrel
37 Lampros, /Asncolia,pl. 86; Barker, op. cit., and which is reported by a contemporary,
fig. 32 and p. 532. Barker thinks that the Clavijo: Manuel II and John VII would both
Emperor John represented to the right of
ManuelII is his father,JohnV. But a comparison remain full emperors; after Manuel's death,
of this sketch with those of John V and JohnVII
in the Modenamanuscript (see supra, note 36) 39 Barker, op. cit., 534-39, gives a list of the
reveals that it can fit only John VII, who died presumedportraits of ManuelII.
relatively young in 1408.
40
Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Embajada a
38
Lampros,AeKncola,pl. 85; Barker, op. cit., Tamorldn,ed. F. L6pez Estrada (Madrid,1943),
frontispieceand pp. 533-34. 34-35.
THE IMPERIAL IVORY PYXIS AT DUMBARTON OAKS 335
John VII would reign alone; after his death, including Mt. Athos, were now attached to
he would be succeeded by Manuel's son, Constantinople; and that the Empire of
presumably John VIII; and the latter would Thessalonica, together with its taxes, was
in his turn be succeeded by John VII's son, "given" to John VII by Manuel II, who thus
presumably Andronicus V. Clavijo states appears to have some kind of superiority over
clearly that in his judgment this arrangement his nephew, whom he calls his (adopted) son.44
would not be respected by either party: "lo This fits quite well with what Clavijo tells us
qual tengo que lo non gardaran el uno al of the agreement of 1403.
otro."41This is just Clavijo's personal opinion, Let us now try to see what the meaning of
but it is characteristic of the atmosphere of the whole scene might be. I suggest that the
suspicion that prevailed at the very moment model of the city offered to the emperors
when the arrangements about the succession represents Thessalonica,45and that the whole
to the throne were reached by means of scene is a symbolic representation of the
discussions, quarrels, and military threats. festivities that took place for the reception of
The text of Clavijo,42combined with the John VII as the emperor who was going to
synchronism of the four emperors provided reside and rule there. This is why the city is
by our pyxis, seems to indicate that by the offered to John VII, while Manuel II, the
end of 1403 John VIII as well as AndronicusV principal emperor, is left somehow in the
were crowned coemperors-thus their here- background.
ditary rights to the throne were confirmed. We must remember that the arrival of
Thessalonica was regained from the Turks John VII in Thessalonica in 1403-4 had a
by Demetrius Leontares, Manuel's trusted meaning that went well beyond the simple
friend, who turned it over to John VII after reception of a new emperor: by concluding
the reconcilitation of the two emperors in the treaty of 1403, John had, in fact, liberated
1403.43We also know that this was a condition the city from the Turkish yoke; and by
for the reconciliation, and that detailed settling in it, he turned it once again into the
arrangements had been made concerning the second city of the Byzantine Empire. The
relations between the two emperors in a inhabitants of Thessalonica were all too
written oath, a 6pKoo-rTIKO6V, which is not conscious of this; the synodicon of the city
preserved, though some clauses of it are contains an exceptionally long and laudatory
mentioned in a document of September 1405 paragraph on John VII: "John Palaeologus,
issued by Manuel II. We learn that a well- our ... emperor ... who fought valiantly and
defined frontier was traced between the persistently for the Roman state, at a time
empires of Constantinopleand of Thessalonica when it was almost subdued by the foreigners;
(r6 oCVvopovTTrSOEaaSraoviKrls); that part who did not at all flinch, when a most violent
of the territories recovered from the Turks, storm threatened to inundate everything;
41 44 For the document of
Ibid., 56. This arrangementseems to be 1405, see prpy6ploio
6
along the same lines as the one proposed by nlaXauoi,2 (1918), 450-51; cf. F. Dolger and
Manuelsome ten years earlier and rejected by P. Wirth, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ost-
John VII. See D. Loenertz, "Une erreursingu- romischen Reiches, V (Munich-Berlin, 1965),
liere de Laonic Chalcocandyle: le pretendu no. 3301. For the adoption, see supra, note 11.
second mariage de Jean V Pal6ologue," REB, 45 As Weitzmann, Catalogue, III
(note 1
15 (1957), 183-84; repr. in R. J. Loenertz, supra), 79, has noted, this is a very simplified
Byzantina et Franco-Graeca (Rome, 1970), model of the city-and understandably so,
391-92. taking into consideration the scale of the whole
42 Cf. the cautious assessment of this text by representation-and one cannot really expect
Dennis, "An Unknown Byzantine Emperor," any characteristic features that would relate it
178-79. to any particular city. I compared it to a much
43 Ducae Historia
Turcobyzantina,ed. V. larger model of Thessalonica represented in a
Grecu (Bucharest, 1958), 113. A document of Vatopedi ivory and dated to the twelfth
April 1421 asserts that Thessalonica had century (A. Grabar, "Quelques reliquaires de
reverted to the Byzantines "since seventeen saint D6metrios et le martyrium du saint a
years," which brings us into the Byzantine year Salonique," DOP, 5 [1950], 3-5). While there
1403/4 (from Septemberto August): F. Dolger, are both similarities and differences, there is
Aus den Schatzkammerndes Heiligen Berges nothing forbidding the identification of our
(Munich,1948), no. 102, lines 53-54. model of the city as Thessalonica.
336 NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
who, like a good captain, salvaged the power Church.48This scene is depicted in a miniature
of the Romans and recovered from the Bar- of the famous Scylitzes Matritensis (fig. 3c).49
barians many cities, the first and greatest of I understand the composition on our pyxis
which is our Thessalonica, that saw the light to represent the new emperorbeing welcomed
of liberty after a long slavery-God, ceding by the people in the city over which he is
to the emperor's endeavors and fervor and to going to rule. It is obvious that the entire
the intercession of our patron, the great scene is conceived by our artist in a much
martyr Demetrius, granted us deliverance more symbolic way: the emperors do not
from slavery; moreover, John has settled in walk into the city; they stand in ceremonial
our city and, without neglecting anything, fashion and accept the model of the city.
has done everything necessary to assure our There is no crowd represented to acclaim
safety... "46 them. The symbolic character of the whole
The arrival of an emperor in a city has scene is stressed through the presence of a
always been considered a major event great variety of musicians and female dancers,
normally accompanied by public festivities. a variety that brings to mind the famous
A text of Pseudo-Athanasius vividly describes Psalm 150 of David.
this scene: cOryKIVOJvvTacl
pIEVT71P01,O'KIpTcoaI
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:
E TaTS6ES, XopEv0oua Kopal ... Kai XcopE
praise him with the psaltery and harp.
s5a -ravTrcov r TTjS acrlXlKfis wrapouvCiaS Praise him with the timbrel and dance:
ravilyupiS.47 These festivities were even
more spectacular if a new and popularemperor praise him with stringed instruments
and organs.
entered a city in order to assume power
Praise him upon the loud cymbals:
therein, as was the case in 963 when Nice-
praise him upon the high sounding
phorus Phocas entered Constantinople. The
cymbals.
people went out to meet him and then Let every thing that hath breath praise
Kai
escorted hinm pJr'Eu8q)rPlnlOV Kai KpoTCOV
the Lord.
caaTriyyov Kai Kuv3xaAcovto the Great
Most of the instruments mentioned in
these lines are represented on our frieze, as
46 J. Gouillard, "Le synodicon de l'ortho- they are also in miniatures made to illustrate
doxie: Edition et commentaire,"TM, 2 (1967), this Psalm.50I suspect that the illustration of
99: 'IcoavvouTOO.... [pamicMshp6v TOOlTaAaioA6- this very well-known Psalm may have been
yov... crrEppcoJ6B Kai yEvvailcosVnp T'rv p5oCpaiKov somewhere in the back of the artist's mind
dycovioapvvov TrpacypiCrovEiSy6vvu XE86vCrr6 -rTv
aX&oqiAcov KAlvTroov, Kai cr9oSpoTcrou pl8' 6crov
TOVjKOiScOVOSdVEyEp3SVTOSKai KoTrctKAuceiV
EiITETV
48loannis ScylitzaeSynopsisHistoriarum,ed.
Tarrv-radrreiAouvtXro, TroO 8 griSYv rErrv66vwroS, I. Thurn (Berlin-NewYork, 1973), 258.
&XX&Kara TOUSdya3ous KUpepvfrTarS Tfv TE dpxfv 49 S. C.
Estopafian, Skyllitzes Matritensis
TroT'Pcopaiots dvaacoaaPvou Kai w6OX'io*K 6XiyaS (Barcelona-Madrid,1965), 153 no. 375, fol. 145V
rnS -rTv papp3&pcovXeip6s eA6vwros,Cv wpcb&rrKa and pl. 349. The rapprochementof this minia-
pEyio-rrili KaS' fp&s O'rrrI COaaAcovfKrn ^AXESEpoV ture with our ivory has already been made by
q9(5 iouoca peTa SouvEiav paKpdv, TOoV Eo0 TroIS Weitzmann, Catalogue,III, 80, who considers
TOUiaoJamMcos dyoviapaall Kal TrpoSupials Kat -ri it to be a "palace orchestra," in spite of the
rTOU Trar TroioXtOxou pEyaAopCpTUpoSArpiTrTpiov accompanying text that the miniature is meant
pEaTE{la ITwKapp9SVroSKai TfIV dnrwaTAaytv T'rf to illustrate.
SouXAiaSXapicrapvou, ETITE TTiVOKlvrloVv ralTTrr
50 Cf., for example, a twelfth-century minia-
TroirTCalo vou Kai iprlEV6sTrav 8?6vrov AA.E?E196TOS, ture in E. T. de Wald, The Illustrations in the
da& &iT0aTpO6TroITO dcraMS& tfpiv wrEplwtrcTa- Manuscriptsof the Septuagint.111,1, Vaticanus
pvo...... graecus 1927 (Princeton-London-The Hague,
47 PG, 28, cols. 1081b-c. Cf. Ph. Koukoules, 1941), fol. 264, pl. LXIv; in this miniature a
BuLavrivcovBios KaitrloXtrtip6, II,1 (Athens, group of animals, including a conspicuous
1948), 52-53; for an earlier period, see S. Mac peacock, is also represented in order to illustrate
Cormack, "Change and Continuity in Late the phrase "Let everything that hath breath
Antiquity: the Ceremony of Adventus," Histo- praise the Lord." See also the miniatures of the
ria, 21 (1972), 721-52 (bibliography); and for Serbian Psalter, in which a group of dancers is
Western parallels, see P. Willmes, Der Herrscher- represented: J. Strzygowski, Die Miniaturen des
"Adventus" im Kloster des Friihmittelalters SerbischenPsalters (Vienna, 1906), 66-67 and
(Munich, 1976). pl. XLIV.
s!xAJ AJOAI sI'eoOuoliequna tI
'i
-I I?~~~~mik
._.. %..-;?
?; z-?- .* , --L '
--" 71
/
"'
( .- ..l
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2. Paris, Louvre, Ivoires, cod. A 53, fol. 2r, Manuel II Palaeologus and Family
hVi
. 1
, _
: It
,X I'' ,
3a. Modena, Biblioteca Estense, cod. Mutinensis a.S.5.5, fol. 299r, Andronicus IV,
John VII, and Manuel II
t "?a)?atf~~~~C:
3b. Paris, Bibl. Nat., cod. gr. 1783, fol. 2r, John VII, Manuel II, and John VIII
r.ir- ?47t1s
URI 12 . , ' v, - , ,t.r. ,
if <7 'A.
I .-~- - , *
-*1r Ajr/ .0 7
i I :C ~'1 ' '~l
,r
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-. I ,
3c. Madrid, Bibl. Nac.,Scylitzes Matritensis, fol. 145v, Nicephorus Phocas Entering
Constantinople
THE IMPERIAL IVORY PYXIS AT DUMBARTON OAKS 337
when he conceived the composition that much but which might be too good to be true.
decorates the pyxis. What David said in After all, a simple decorative peacock is
relation to God was a main source of inspi- nothing exceptional, especially if it was carved
ration for Byzantine rhetoric.51In the case of in a city where everyone could see the mosaics
our pyxis, a discreet allusion to Psalm 150 of the Rotunda of St. George.
could not but flatter the emperor and, more- The lack of an inscription indicating the
over, constitute a symbolism for the festivities name of the young John VIII is not only
that should have taken place when John VII, explainable but also significant in the histori-
the "liberator," assumed power in Thessa- cal context of the year 1403/4. It fits well in
lonica. the general atmosphere of bitterness and
This bringsus to the question of the meaning mistrust that characterized the compromise
of the peacock represented under the model arrangement of 1403, described with much
of the city. Weitzmann, as well as Grabar, skepticism by Clavijo. This arrangement
prefers to consider it as purely decorative, provided that John VIII would succeed
hinting at the splendor of a palace garden. John VII; but, as this would be natural and
This may well be true. But with the new as it is attested in the Monody mentioned
interpretation of the pyxis, I wonder whether above (p. 332), John VII wanted to have his
the presence of this peacock does not have a own son, Andronicus V, as his successor. Our
more significant meaning. The peacock is pyxis, made to commemorate John VII's
represented with other birds and animals in entry into Thessalonica, was initially con-
miniatures illustrating Psalm 150,62 and we ceived and carved in a way that is compli-
could suppose that its presence on the pyxis mentary to John (who receives the city), but
might well be a reminiscence of a prototype with full respect to the political rights of all
that inspired the artist. In addition, according reigning emperors.The lack of any inscription
to moder scholars,53 the peacock was, in above John VIII seems to betray a certain
Early Christian times, a symbol of the intention on the part of John VII and of his
immortality of the soul or of the Resurrection. partisans concerning the future succession to
While I am not in a position to assert that the throne-an intention that might create
this tradition survived until-or was re- additional problems in the future of the
membered in-the fifteenth century, it is Empire; but these problems did not materi-
hard to avoid this association, knowing that alize because of Andronicus V's and John
the model of the city represented above the VII's timely deaths.
peacock was the second city of the Byzantine What was the use of the pyxis? Many
Empire, lost to the Turks and then recovered hypotheses can be made, provided they take
thanks to the efforts of the emperor to whom into consideration the dimensions of the
its model is now offered. Further research in ivory. However, it is striking that a scene
this direction might be of interest. For the with clear political and ideological implica-
time being, this is a hypothesis I like very tions-a scene of propaganda-has been
51It would suffice to look at the index locorum carved on an object so small that it could be
of any Byzantine oratorto find many instances seen only by members of the family that
where David's Psalms are applied to emperors, possessed it. Was it made at the instigation
even in a context that might appear to be of some Thessalonians and offered to John
impious. For example, see Nicetae Choniatae VII? Is it the only survivor of a series of
Orationes et Epistulae, ed. I. A. Van Dieten
(Berlin-NewYork,1972),259-61. In one instance similar objects that were distributed to the
(ibid., 67) Choniates addresses the emperor in elite of Thessalonica, presumably by John
these words: OrTrcos, o6s9EE
paaolXEu,elEyaAuvSrl VII? Either is possible; and in both cases the
Tr&Epya Caov, TCrrcSv aoro<pgq
rTavra TrroilaraS size of the pyxis seems to testify to the
(Ps. 103:24). financial difficulties that all Byzantines,
52Cf. supra, note 50.
53 See the article "paon" by H.
Leclercq,in including the emperors, experienced in the
DACL, XIII,1 (1936),cols. 1075-97. fifteenth century.
22
JOHN VII (ALIAS ANDRONICUS) PALAEOLOGUS
ELIZABETH
A. ZACHARIADOU
IT is a commonplaceto point to the scarcity Aside from these arguments, there is one
and deficiency of the Byzantine sources fact that is much more convincing: several
when beginning an article dealing with events sources, previously alleged to be wrong or
at the end of the fourteenth century. Byzan- confused, become clear and understandable
tinists strove to fill the gaps in the Greek if one bears in mind that John VII was also
sources with information collected from called Andronicus. These are the following:
Oriental or Western ones, but a lot of con- 1. The narrative of the pilgrim Ignatius of
fusion prevails resulting mainly from the Smolensk.4 Ignatius, an eyewitness of the
activities of a refractory branch of the revolt of John VII in 1390 against his grand-
Palaeologan dynasty, i.e., Andronicus IV father John V and his uncle Manuel II,
(the first-born son of the Emperor John V) reported that the soldiers in the service of the
and his son John VII. In this note I would rebel, when entering Constantinople, shouted
like to draw attention to a passage by the the acclamation "Polla ta eti Andronikou"
Genoese historian Giorgio Stella; this passage and obliged the citizens to repeat the same
may improve our understanding of some of phrase. As the acclamation was purported to
the sources which mention an Emperor be "Polla ta eti Ioannou," many an inter-
Andronicus at the end of the fourteenth and pretation has been given to this passage5
beginning of the fifteenth century. which, taking into account the evidence of
Stella, while reporting Manuel II's journey Stella, needs no further explanation.
to Europe (1399-1403), intending to beseech 2. Two entries in the registers of the ex-
Western help for the crumbling Byzantine penses of the Genoese colony of Pera of the
Empire, wrote: Sui ergo loco nepotem ejus year 13906mention a certain Chir Andronicus
Calojanem, alias vocatum Andronicum, olim as emperor (dominum imperatorem Chiran-
sibi aemulum, et inde amabilem, linquens, dronicum) and as a Palaeologus (domino Chir
Occidentales regiones adivit.1 According to
Stella, therefore, John VII, who reigned in
1389-1391," BZ, 51(1958), 37-40; J. W. Barker,
Constantinople during Manuel's absence, was "John VII in Genoa: A Problem in Late
also called Andronicus. Byzantine Source Confusion," OCP, 28 (1962),
The question that arises, of course, is 213-38.
4 B. de Khitrowo, Itineraires Russes en
whether this piece of information can be
Orient, 1,1 (Geneva, 1889), 129-57 (for the
accepted as historically true; a quick survey events in question, see esp. 140-42).
of some of the facts does indeed substantiate 5 G. T. Kollias, 'H
avrapcia 'Icoavvov Z'
it. Stella was a contemporary observer of the ivavTiov 'Ico&vvouE' HaAailoX6you,in 'EAXiviKda,
events of those years which he chronicled in 12 (1952), 34-64 (esp. 57-61); A. Christophilo-
his Annales.2 Moreover, his remarks con- poulou, TTEpI 7r6 -rp6oPAripa T-rS vaSda
ec;iS TOU
BuLav-rvoO aOrroKpOropoS, in 'ETrarr.'ETr.OiAX.EX.
cerning John VII gain credibility because 'AS., 13 (1962-63), 390-93; N. Oikonomides,
John, as well as his father Andronicus IV, was riEdcopayt& r6V'AvSpoviKo E' Taaloo6yo (1390),
closely connected with the Genoese3 and, in ErlravpialaT-ra,5 (1968), 23-31 (esp. 27-28).
6 Recepimus die XVIIa Octobrisde LXXXXo
consequently, familiar to Stella.
in domino Chir A ndronico Paleologo perperos
1 Georgius Stella, Annales Genuenses, IIIm: N. Jorga, "Notes et Extraits pour servir
RerItalSS, XVII, col. 1196. a l'Histoire des Croisades au XVe siecle, Comptes
2 On
Stella, see the detailed study by G. de la Colonie de Pera," ROL, 4 (1896), 71;
Balbi, "Giorgio Stella e gli 'Annales Genuenses,"' Alia barcha que portavit dominus Potestas ad
in Miscellanea Storica Ligure, II (Milan, 1961), dominum ImperatoremChirandronicum... : L. T.
125-215. Belgrano, "Documenti riguardanti la Colonia
3 R.
J. Loenertz, "Fragment d'une lettre de Genovese di Pera," Atti della Societd Ligure di
Jean V Paleologue a la Commune de Genes, Storia Patria, 13 (1877-84), 151.
340 ELIZABETH A. ZACHARIADOU
Andronico Paleologo). The existence of an has been rejected or completely disregarded."
emperor bearing this name in 1390 can be One can express the view that Chalkokondy-
justified satisfactorily only if he is identified las did not omit John VII while writing about
as John VII.7 the family of Andronicus IV but simply
3. A short chronicle of the years 1221- mentioned him in this case by his other name,
1460.8 This text does not constitute as Andronicus. As for the other sons, I shall give
reliable a source as the description of the eye- a few observations later in this article. For
witness Ignatius of Smolensk or the registers the moment, it is perhaps worth elaborating
of Pera. However, it should be mentioned, for a little on the second name of John VII.
its anonymous author states that in the year It is well known that, according to the
1399, while Manuel II was in Europe, his Byzantine (or, more generally, to the Greek
"brother" Andronicus was left to reign in Orthodox) tradition, individuals when bap-
Constantinople, and that, when Manuel tized received one name only. The case of
returned, Andronicus was sent to Thessa- John VII would have been most exceptional
lonica to rule there until his death. There is if he had been given two names, such as John-
no doubt that this is John VII. The qualifi- Andronicus, when baptized. Nevertheless, his
cation "brother" is certainly due to the two names could be explained, since there are
anonymous author's confusion; but this instances during the last centuries of Byzan-
confusion could well derive from the second tium of individuals changing their names. The
name of John VII. son of Michael II, the lord of Epirus, for
4. A passage from Laonikos Chalkokondy- instance, was called Demetrius, but when his
las, which reads as follows: "John [V1 made father died he changed his name, taking that
an alliance with Murad who had crossed to of his father in orderto venerate his memory.12
Europe recently, and he took the daughter The second son of the Emperor Basil of
of the king of the Bulgarians as wife for his Trebizond, the well-known Alexius III the
son Andronicus and she bore him sons: the Grand Comnenus,was first called John; later
oldest was Andronicus, the juniors Demetrius he changed his name to Alexius, which was
and Manuel, and Theodorus."9 The marriage the name of his grandfather.l3 Another ex-
of Andronicus IV to Maria, the daughter of ample can be produced, that of Francesco II
the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander Asan, is Gattilusi, first called Jacobo, then, after his
a well-established historical fact.10 But what father's death, Francesco, like his father.'4
about the sons? It is generally accepted that Although the Gattilusi, being Catholic and
Andronicus IV had only one son, John VII.
Despite the fact that Chalkokondylas reports 11A. Th. Papadopoulos, Versuch einer Genea-
many of John's activities, he seems to ignore logie der Palaiologen, 1259-1453 (Speyer a. Rh.,
him when enumerating his presumedbrothers. 1938), 52; according to this author, Andronicus
IV perhaps had two daughters as well as his
For these reasons this passage of his History son John VII.
12 'O TO0
MilXahA8eoTr6Tovvi6OsO-rorros, Arlpfi-
7 Conjecturesabout the identity of the Chir TpIOS LL:vTO Kaor'&PXdAEY6?wVOS,Sav6vTos 8 TOU
Andronicusin question were made by Oikono- arrarp6STOrVOOpa pvi1mlv cKEivoudvrTacaaC&-
KCrrTd
mides, op. cit.; also by J. W. Barker,Manuel II pevos:Pachymeres, I, Bonn ed. (1835), 439; cf.
Palaeologus (1391-1425): A Study in Late D. M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford,
Byzantine Statesmanship (New Brunswick, N.J., 1957), 198, 212.
1969), 78 note 207, 245 note 77. 13'EyEvviSrl 6 KopLvnv6s
Kxip 6 nrrovo-
'Ico&vvin,
8 P. Schreiner, Die Byzantinischen Klein- xpaelIS 'AAMios,6 vl6s Toi KUipBamniAov6 8&rE-
chroniken,I (Vienna,1975), 178-88 (esp. 184- pos...; 6 p' ul6s KUpBaaiAEfouTOUKolwvrvo0,6
85). KOp 'Icodvvrns, 6
wrouolao'SEis5Kardc T6'v 1ll lov11 KUp
9 oj iv v rT -M
'ApooupjaTr vEcorl i5 'A7los: O. Lampsides, MiXCdlXTOO rTavaprou
'Ico&vvr1S
T.rvEOpcbrrrv Kal
8iapvrit ulpaX)ialv-rofi-craro, irepi T-rC Mey&6cov Ko,winv&cv,in 'Apx.n6vr., 22
Tiv TOOMvauovpacoiAcosSuyacrpa fly&yEro i!rl (1958), 65, 69; cf. E. Janssens, Trdbizonde en
rTCiratli acxroO 'AvSpoviKcp, &9p'fi ,yvov ro aurr? Colchide (Brussels, 1969), 112.
14 Hv Si Kal Trp-Ou1S
v6s bhivou v6pocrr 'Ilxco-
-rraTSes,rrpeacPrEpos pIv 'AV8p6vtKOs, AlIpi'iTplOS
86 Kal 'EIa vovijAosof ve&rpol Kat e6Scopos: poS, 6 r&-r6v
T6V Svarov TOV aiorrp6s arroO
tAOiSii
Laonici Chalcocandylae, Historiarum Demon- OpavrrUKoS: Schreiner, Die Byzantinischen
strationes,ed. E. Dark6 (Budapest, 1922), I, 34. Kleinchroniken, 220; cf. W. Miller, Essays on
10Barker, Manuel II, 5-6, 8 note 18. the Latin Orient (Cambridge, 1921), 319.
JOHN VII (ALIAS ANDRONICUS) PALAEOLOGUS 341
Italian, were outside the Byzantine tradition, the soldiers in the rebel's service and the
the change of name can be included here people of Constantinople acclaimed an Em-
owing to their relationship with the Palaeo- peror John, the whole attempt would be
logi. carried out in confusion. On the contrary, by
The enumeration of these cases allows us acclaiming an emperor bearing a different
to guess that John VII changed his name by name-Andronicus-everyone in the capital
taking that of his father in order to honor the would be aware of the ascent of a new
latter's memory. A summary of certain facts emperor.
explains his action. His father, AndronicusIV, On the other hand, it must be emphasized
elder son of John V, was the legitimate heir that John VII himself did not use the name
to the Byzantine throne. For reasons already Andronicus when he became emperor. During
analyzed by Byzantinists, he was removed his short reign following the revolt he con-
by his father, and his brother, ManuelII, was cluded a treaty with Venice (June 1390),
promoted as heir to the throne. However, preserved in the original, in which, as well as
Andronicus, enjoying the support of a con- in its official Latin translation, he appears as
siderable part of Byzantine society, managed John.18 Moreover, in none of the Venetian
to occupy Constantinople and reigned there documents of this period does John VII
from 1376 to 1379; after being expelled, he appear as Andronicus, despite the frequent
never gave up his rights to the throne.15 mention of his name.19 While it seems as if
After his death, his son John VII followed his the Venetians ignored his adopted name, on
father's policy and considered himself the the contrary, the evidence of the sources,
legitimate heir to the throne of Constanti- although scant, proves that he was familiar
nople.16There is no doubt that by adopting to the Genoese by this name.20 The few
his father's name he could keep alive his contemporary Byzantine authors also seem
father's memory as well as his cause. to ignore the second name of John VII,
According to the above-mentioned cases, perhaps because they were loyal to the
and given these special circumstances, one legitimate branch of the Palaeologan dynasty
could conjecture that John VII adopted his and therefore disapproved of the second
father's name immediately after the latter's name of John VII, which by itself stirred up
death in 1385;17but this hypothesis cannot old passions within the imperial family.
be proved by the sources. However, it can be Finally, it appears that John VII adopted
considered certain that he was called Andro- his father's name temporarily and later
nicus in 1390, as he is mentioned by this name relinquished it. Toward the very end of the
by two of his contemporaries: Ignatius of fourteenth century he produced a son whom
Smolensk and the bookkeeper (or perhaps he named Andronicus.21Once the name of his
bookkeepers) of the Genoese colony of Pera. father was given to his son he himself had no
The date is significant. For in that year John
revolted and seized the Byzantine throne for 18 F. Miklosich and
J. Muller,Acta et Diplo-
approximately five months (April to Septem- mata Graecamedii aevi sacra et profana, III
ber). One might think that John VII adopted (Vienna, 1865), 135-44; G. M. Thomas, Diplo-
and used the name Andronicus to facilitate matariumVeneto-Levantinum, II (Venice,1899),
his proclamation as emperor during his revolt 224-29.
19 On the Venetian documentsof the period
against his grandfather, also named John. If around 1390, see esp. N. Jorga, "Venetia in
Marea Neagra," Analele Academiei Romdne,
15 See Kollias'
remarks, op. cit., 41-53, and ser. II, 36 (1913-14), 1093f.
esp. Barker, Manuel II, 9-52. 20 It shouldbe rememberedthat in a Genoese
16 Cf. the
eloquent passage of Ducas: [John document issued in February 1390, i.e., before
VII] A?ycovKadt Snryoi,evosTn' d&SiKavA,Av r7raCSE the revolt, John VII appears as Chaloianni:
?TTapaTOU l ilou arroV, aorr6oxoa6 Orarfhp aTro0. Barker, "John VII in Genoa," 236-37.
Kal &VXKEITO eiS aV0roCST6OpaciEtov, 6 86 &8IKKiaas 21 G.T. Dennis, "An Unknown Byzantine
arrouos C5coKE -riv Paaoiiav Tr Sw8ripc vicp: Emperor, Andronicus V Palaeologus (1400-
Ducas, Historia Turcobyzantina,ed. B. Grecu 1407?),"JOBG, 16 (1967), 175-87; N. Oikono-
(Bucharest,1958), 83. mides, "John VII Palaeologus and the Ivory
17 On the date of AndronicusIV's
death, see Pyxis of Dumbarton Oaks," DOP, 31 (1977),
Barker,Manuel II, 51-52. 329-37.
342 ELIZABETH A. ZACHARIADOU
further need of it, and for this reason he is more than probable that the blind prince is
mentioned only as John in all the contem- Andronicus IV, who was blinded by his father
porary sources referring to his activities in after his revolt of 1373.23Given that John VII
the fifteenth century until his death in 1408. had been dead since 1408,24one can assume
It is remarkable,however, that two important that Neshri is speaking of another son of
authors of the fifteenth century, Stella and Andronicus IV. The second source is the
Chalkokondylas, as well as the anonymous narrative of the embassy of Clavijo, who
author of the short chronicle mentioned mentions another son of AndronicusIV, called
above, kept the memory of his second name. Demetrius, whom he met during his stay in
In the passage of Chalkokondylas cited Constantinople. Although it becomes clear
above there is also mention of three more sons from the text that Clavijo confused Demetrius
of Andronicus IV. As far as I know, Chalko- with John VII,25 one wonders at the strange
kondylas is the only source reporting that coincidence: Chalkokondylasand Clavijo, two
there were any sons other than John VII. quite unrelated sources, both mention a son
However, there are two non-Greek sources of Andronicus IV named Demetrius.
which should cause us to hesitate so that we Future research, I hope, will throw more
do not just simply reject this passage of the light upon the family of Andronicus IV. After
Athenean historian. The first is the work of all, the existence of his grandson Andronicus
the Ottoman historian of the fifteenth century, was only quite recently revealed. This family
Neshri, who, while narrating the last phase of produced many problems for the Palaeologan
the struggle between Mehemmed celebi and dynasty, for the Byzantine Empire in general,
Musa celebi (which ended with the death of and eventually for Byzantinists; and so let
the latter in 1413), reports that among those the temporary change of the name of John VII
who fought on Mehemmed'sside was the son be added to the rest of his acts which have
of the blind prince, K6r Tekfur oglu.22 It is caused and still cause headaches to modern
scholars.
22
Ne?ri Tarihi, Kitdb-i Cihan-niimd, ed.
F. R. Unat and M. A. K6ymen (Ankara, 1957), 23 R. J. Loenertz, "La premiereinsurrection
II, 510-11 and note 2. On Neshri's source, see d'Andronic IV Pal6ologue (1373)," EO, 38
V. L. M6nage, Neshri's History of the Ottomans (1939), 334-45; F. Dolger, "Zum Aufstand der
(London, 1964), 11-14, 64. N. Jorga, Geschichte AndronikosIV. gegen seinen Vater JohannesV
des Osmanischen Reiches (Gotha, 1908), I, 359, im Mai 1373," REB, 19 (= Melanges R. Janin)
thinks that "Kor Tekfur" is "K6nig Georg," (1961), 328-32; Barker, Manuel II, 19-22.
the nephew of the Serbian Tsar Stephan; he 24
Barker, Manuel II, 278.
does not quote sources. This identification 25
Ruy GonzAles de Clavijo, Embajada a
seems very dubious, for it is difficult to admit Tamorldn,ed. F. L6pez Estrada (Madrid,1943),
that K6r (blind) is a distortion of the name 56; cf. idem, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406,
George. Moreover,in case Jorga's source was trans. G. Lestrange (London, 1928), 87.
Neshri, the identificationis out of question, as
the Ottoman historian writes about the son
(oglu) of the Kor Tekfur.
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c=_o4t2;;5@ r Ir L
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- t I
Vt, 131
f'. "4.
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, .tet^p.. A,fJ, ^'to1,"/.sv'*",'
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qy
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.
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they made a reconstruction that, as Bekker In this article, I try to give the read-
observed, "completes neither the sense nor ings of A as completely as possible, even
the space."8 In his own edition, the latter when they must be indicated to be uncertain.
simply printed a number of points equal to Though I saw the original in Venice at an
his estimate of the number of letters missing early stage of my work, the readings I give
from A. Konrat Ziegler, when he reedited the here derive principally from those of Hagg
preface, gave no reconstruction in Greek but and Coppola and from my own inspection of
stated the sense of the passage in German, on photographs, particularly the old and clear
the basis of a subsequent quotation in the one published by Martini which is reproduced
Bibliotheca that plainly served as Photius' here.13 Beyond this, I have made tentative
model for this part of his preface.9 However, reconstructions of the missing portions of the
the most recent editor of the Bibliotheca, text on the basis of parallels elsewhere in the
Rend Henry, who made no changes in Bekker's Bibliotheca and in Photius' other works. The
text, expressed the opinion that "every line numbers given are those of A. Restored
attempt to find a sense for this fragmentary letters are enclosed in square brackets, inter-
passage is in vain."'1 In his review of Henry's polated letters in braces. Vertical lines indi-
edition, Higg seemed to share this opinion, cate the beginning of the patch. A point
though he supplied new estimates of the gaps under a letter indicates that its reading is
and new readings of some of the letters uncertain in A and uncorroborated by the
covered by the patch." Most recently, apographs. My translation and commentary
Carmine Coppola has reexamined the text, are based on a dissertation on the whole
again without attempting to reconstruct the Bibliotheca which I recently completed for
gaps.12 Harvard University and hope to publish in
the near future.
8 See Bibliotheca,apparatusto 1, ed. Bekker.
9 RE, 20 (1941), col. 686. 13 Martini, op. cit., pl. i. From this photo-
10 Bibliotheca,note to 1, ed. Henry. graph, with strong light and magnification,
11 Hagg. op. cit., 48-50. I believe I can confirm and supplement the
12"Contributoalla restituzionedel testo della readings of Hagg for the letters concealed by
lettera a Tarasio,proemialedella 'Biblioteca'di the patch. Of course, all such readings will be
Fozio," RSBN, 12-13 (1975-76), 129-53. supersededwhen and if the patch is removed.
Kcov-
col. 1 {Oco'rou &piXtErrirox67uro col. {Of Photius, Archbishop of Constanti-
Kal OIKov-
rrav-rTvovTr6XEcS 1 nople and Ecumenical Patriarch. }
IEVIKOoVaTptrrpi&XO.} Photius to his beloved brother
d6crios fyawrnTAvcp &SEA- Tarasius, greeting in the Lord.
5 cp Tapaclcp v KupicpXappetv. When we were chosen by the mem-
'EtrmStI 'rej reKOlVTijSwrpEaepi- bers of the embassy and by imperial
as Kal 'ri pBacaniecp^q Ppc Trpea- appointment to go on an embassy to the
peteiV Jpa;S r' 'AaavpiovS alpeSiv- Assyrians, you asked us to write down
Ta Trrasa &S IrrroStiS ?- for you summaries of those books that
10 Kivcov TCOV p3ipiov, ols p1h'rrap-'I- had been read when you were not present,
X6s d&vaytvcoxKoxivols, ypaqilvai my dearest brother Tarasius, so that you
ctO, &6i^pqV p(-aTraTpoi, Tap6aie, might have some consolation for the
Tv' separation that you bear unwillingly,
)Xoti&puaiV T-rfs6Stat[ES os and also the knowledge, even if some-
flv fpapkcas TqpeiSswapoaSlov, what impressionistic and rather general,
15 &cla BSKaltv OTro eIS&KO&S fALoV of those books that you have not yet
dvtyvcoS el KaI Ti-
SlaTanTrcirKivv read in our hearing. These are the fif-
va xal KOIVOTv-ipa
Tr V -rrlryvcoaCv teenth part plus one short of three
(Tra'ra i Trrit cp pet
wVTE-rtKalc8EKrr hundred and no more [i.e., 279], for that
EIISa&v&a
XPOvoU IIETQra8ctappuirVTOS, to memory and writing if he wishes, but
fIvVlov JETra TO1JaiKpipoui&slK~dCYai for a man who reads many books together
20 oViK olpaci f8ix ov EIvCu.'Hpidv6S Ka'i to come to an exact recollection of them,
6cycaEtTiTOrMO7LEi
T-oV a&vEyvcoaPivcAV especially when some time passes in the
KcXi "5-r'S
oi,8E a&s 8 " 6 7rrp6XEIpov interval, is not, I think, an easy thing.
iTcACo 8CiTrE'qPEUYE PE-tras, oIv8' To01- Besides, for our part, with those books
Tro1STTv ETri
"oTS &ki
6MwS poiav iSi- that we have read that are common and
25 PE9cxa povri'&a, &X?a'KTa-r'a "rbo oioj- probably, because of their availability,
aiov -ro pKpEIaSQVrcO0V iJrEpc'cP$r9. have not eluded your studies either, we
El 8U-ri Kat1&??ioXPElCOSES Ka(iT1J aTiS have not taken as much care as with the
ariT1aECAS EhTri
wTrOV -tr1i VC'TIrTo,aEOI others; in the case of these exactitude
ocJVEicTTiTrTt=E,aovroS &a0ov avv1iljoEi. has been deliberately neglected. But if
30 XpflaCFiPEUCEl BE aol 81I9ov6"ri Ta anything else useful and beyond what
EK- you requested finds its way in along with
8Eo01iVa EiS TrEKE4POa2kacCb8r Iwvi- the summaries, you will see it better
p.lv Kaci acva.vi"coiv rCAVv***EiTrEKaT'a than I.
a"Eav-rov&vc(vEa g'lEvos iTr1m7IES,Ka'l These materials that we have edited
Eid ETOIPOVEVPECrLV "COOV EV a1JUOt ElTi- will no doubt be of use to you for your
35 Iy-rovEvCov, o'i i#ilv &7i?wlKai Eis general memory and remembranceof the
EOXEPEo-TE- [books that(?)]; you have gone through
-rpwr6v oirrrco-ri?va&vay-
payv av&?nyiv in your reading [either with others(?)]
vcoariv or by yourself, and for finding readily
-r,nSaTISavviaEcoS'irnfESOVIrwv. what you look for in them, as well as for
your easier comprehensionof those things
that have not yet come to be read by
your perceptive self.
COMMENTARY
Col. 1, 4-5: Photius' letters include second for his friend Arsenius of Hiera.'5
thirteen others addressed to Tarasius.'4 Thus, this preface is not likely to be a
Moreover, prefaces similar to this one show literary fiction, especially because Photius
that Photius wrote three of his other works addresses a number of passages in the rest
for particular people: his Lexicon for his of the Bibliotheca to Tarasius in the second
student Thomas, his Amphilochia for his person.'6
friend Amphilochius of Cyzicus, and his 6-17: Photius seems to have borrowed the
Against the Manichaeans in its first edition phrase 6r' 'Aaoavpous from Procopius. Com-
for the "Manichaean" Berzelis, and in its
15 Photius, Lexicon, ed. S. A. Naber (Leiden,
1864-65), I, 199-200; cf. Der Anfang des Lexi-
14Photius, Epistolae, ed. I. Valettas (London, cons des Photios, ed. R. Reitzenstein (Leipzig-
1864), nos. 12, 13, 14, 142, 143, 220, 223, and Berlin, 1907), 1-2. Photius, Amphilochia, PG,
224; ed. PG, 101, nos. 133 and 135 (Professor 101, cols. 45A-48B. Photius, Adversus Mani-
L.G. Westerink has informed me that the MSS chaeos,preface ed. and trans. Gh. Astruc et al.,
indicate that these were originally letters "Les sources grecques pour l'histoire des
addressed to Tarasius); and ed. A. Papadopou- pauliciens d'Asie mineure," TM, 4 (1970),
los-Kerameus, Sanctissimi Patriarchae Photii 181-83.
archiepiscopi Constantinopoleos epistolae XIV
16
See, besides the passages cited in notes 1
(St. Petersburg, 1896), nos. 4, 6, and 8 (nos. 3, and 21, Bibliotheca,103b.30-32, 145a.30-145b.7,
5, and 7 are letters from Tarasius to Photius). 154a.18-19, 186a.5, 186a.14, 188a.28-29, etc.
THE PREFACE OF THE BIBLIOTHECA OF PHOTIUS 347
pare Ev'Acaavpiois, which Photius quotes in from memory alone, and in fact it is demon-
his epitome of Procopius' Wars, where it strable that he did not.22 Because Photius
means the land east of the Tigris.l7 Probably evidently produced only one manuscript for
Photius' embassy was that of 845 to the Tarasius, I have translated KSeScoKagIev as
Caliph's capital at Samarra, on the east bank "we have edited," not "we have published."
of the Tigris in Assyria.18 In any case, 29-31: Note that this passage excludes
Photius would not have been chosen as an the idea that Photius presents the books in
ambassador before 842, when he was in the order in which he read them. This is
exile as an iconophile,19and we would almost further disproved by a number of references
certainly know if he had been chosen after in the Bibliotheca to books that are only
858, when he became patriarch. The "sepa- described later on.23
ration" that Photius mentions here is pre- 29-col.2, 8: As Johann Klinkenberg was
sumably the one that will occur when he the first to notice, Photius has modeled this
leaves on the embassy and Tarasius stays passage on the preface of Pamphila of
home. Epidaurus to her lost collection of historical
18-22: Photius gives the same number extracts.24 Photius quotes this preface in
with similar elaboration in his title and post- "codex" 175: Tai-ra 86e ravra, o6a
face, though the Bibliotheca contains 280 Xoyou Kai PvTllIriS aU-ri a&ia 66OKEI,
numbered descriptions of books, convention- EiSvTroivipva-ra cyvpuItyfiKai oC Trpos
ally called "codices." As J. B. Bury noted, rarS i[iaS
T&s li8as
O o
T'ro.SE'aEIS
1J arE 5iaKEKpipEvovEa-
?I SlaKEKpIlVOV K<a-
this is probably because "codex" 268 concerns c-rov SlEAE1V, &X' OUTCOoE6IKiKai CSo
an author, the oratorLycurgus,whom Photius KaaCVTOV&TS T1?V V avaypawat, cos oOxi
says he did not read.20 That no "codices" XaXETr6v EXOUCa, prllOi, TO Kar' ElSo
were added at a later date is demonstrated by aulTa 8IEEAEV, 'TriTEpTrEUTEpOV 68 Kai
a note in the original table of contents under XapltiOrEpoV -rO &vaplypivov Kali Tr v
"codex" 280: "...with which things note, TrOIKItiaV TOUroJ OVOE i5OUs vopiloucra.2
dearest brother, that the things you earnestly "[She says] that she distributed all those things
requested also come to an end."'2 that she considered worthy of notice and mem-
22-29: The sense and syntax both imply ory in commingled notes and not arranged each
that it was the editing that was done before according to the particular subjects, but she
anyone else would have expected, not, as recorded them just by chance and as each one
some have thought, the finding of the secre- came, not because she found it difficult, she
tary. If Photius included as much as he could says, to distribute them according to their kind,
remember, this need not mean that he worked but because she considered mixture and
variety more delightful and pleasant than
17Bibliotheca, 26a.2; cf. Procopius, De Bellis,
uniformity." This passage provides the frame-
II, 19.17. work for my reconstruction and the words
18 See A.
Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes
that I have restored in lines 1 and 4. In line 4,
(Brussels, 1935), I, 198-204, 310-15. Since
there was no government at Baghdad at any Photius seems to have followed his practice
time during the period of Photius' career, the of making impersonal the constructions that
common opinion that his embassy went to
Pamphila made personal, particularly because
Baghdad is indefensible.
19C. Mango, "The Liquidation of Iconoclasm 22 See T.
Hagg, "Photius at Work: Evidence
and the Patriarch Photios," in Iconoclasm, ed. from the Text of the Bibliotheca," GRBS, 14
A. Bryer and J. Herrin (Birmingham, 1977), (1973), 213-22.
135-39. 23 Bibliotheca, codex 29, 6a.28 (to codex 31),
20 A History of the Eastern Roman Empire codex 33, 6b.38-7a.2 (to codex 76), codex 38,
(London, 1912), 446 note 2. 8a.22-25 (to codex 43 = 240), codex 41, 9a.
21 . s.
.oi aoI, (fiTCrE &E(eqX9oV,
vaTrapT(tEcQSai 12-15 (to codex 55), codex 58, 17a.24-27 (to
ioSit Kad rfiv wro$ovpivtlv f(aTloliv. E. Martini, codices 91 and 93), codex 60, 19b.36-38 (to
"Studien zur Textgeschichte der Bibliotheke codex 70 = 244), codex 61, 20b.12-17 (to
des Patriarchen Photios von Konstantinopel. I. codices 159 = 260, 262, and 265) and 23-28
Der alte Pinax," 'EAA.I?oA.2'uAV., suppl. to 34 (to codex 158), etc.
(1921), 318.25-27. This pinax is included in 24 De Photi bibliothecae codicibus historicis
both MSS, and ought to be included in editions (diss. Bonn, 1913), 18-19.
of the Bibliotheca. 25 Bibliotheca, 119b.27-33.
348 WARREN T. TREADGOLD
he generally refers to himself in the plural, go6Lev)with our holy dogmas....32Finally,
while vopilcov in line 5 (for her vopiLovoa) is the completion of line 8 is suggested by
singular. In line 4 I restore her unreduplicated Photius' criticisms of Phlegon, cited above,33
perfect form dcvacpjyp.vov(for &(vacEpty- of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, whose digres-
pivov), which is comparable to Photius' own sions snatch "the reader (&i'poa-riv) away
&iropvrlpove0a39a(for &rrdopeiwEPnovEiJcrSai)from boredom(K6pou)with his history,"" and
in line 12. Lines 2 and 3 can be reconstructed of Basil of Seleucia, whose "boringness
from parallels elsewhere in the Bibliotheca. (-rrpooxop~s)of expression rouses the reader
For example, Photius criticizes Phlegon of (&iCpoc"rr'v) to disgust and aversion.... 96
Tralles for "untimely learning and pedantry Even if this reconstruction has gone slightly
(pi?oTrovIa xcal qp;o-rpTwa)that lead the astray, the sense is certain.36 Photius liked
reader(&ipocrrlv) to boredom(x<6pov),"26 and variety and disliked rigid organization in the
Libanius for spoiling some of his orations works of others. When he composed the
"through much learning and officiousness Bibliotheca, he applied these preferences to
(-rroNA'... yiowirovca "rE Q"27
KCaiiTrEplEpyfa). his own work, justifying them with some of
Photius also accuses Theophylact Simocatta the words of Pamphila, whose compilation he
of "officious and excessive pedantry (4piAo-r - admired and perhaps saw as a forerunner of
. .
pIfa.S mrrEp4lpyov KcaiirEprfiis) -"28But in his his own.
preface to his Lexicon he observes that his own 9-10: The -r&a in the margin before line 10
inclusion of poetic words is "nothing excessive seems to be a conjecture (probably a correct
(rEptvr-r6v)or Pedantic (qi?~.6riiov) "29 My one) made by a later hand after the corner
completion of line 6 is based on Photius' with the end of line 9 was lost.
judgment of the historian Candidus, who 17: Photius regularly uses the words Kai
"is found harmonizing his history even from T6'Th in his letters to mean "and especially."37
the most dissimilar things (icai iS &vopoio- 20-26: This explains why Photius describes
-r&rcov&pdi6Lcov)."30 The completion of line 7 many obscure books at great length, while
is corroborated by Photius' praise of Dio of treating Herodotus and Isocrates rather
Prusa for taking his examples "from varied briefly and leaving out altogether such
(1roIKmf?s) material and harmonizing(#poEoL6- standard authors as Plato, Thucydides, and
p.wvos) them appropriately,"31and his condem- Xenophon, whom he had certainly read.38
nation of an anonymous author who "in
32Bibliotheca,117b.2-4: 00i 0QT& y&p p6'vov
many Places and at many times (bv-rro?Noi lv -iro?NoTsKal 1TOAMKiS exvdcppoo-raTo-is1 eTirpoxs
KcdlrroAi&KtS) tries to force disharmonious The
9SE(oxS86yaaowv bpapp6tavIKPI&LETat....
(d&vapipooaa)words to harmonize (~pap- form iv 7ro?olo TrroAA&KtS is paralleled at 98a.
15-16.
33 See note 26 supra.
26 Bibliotheca,84a.39-41: ... -oro XPtl' U Bibliotheca, 65a.15-16: ...-r6v &KpocrrdW
-imEpi
ropoS&KalpoSpihoorroviac Kai qtnAoTvi4a,E1sK6pov irsm oi
&rrTO pi Arlv bo-ropLavK6pov6taiAaPP!vov....
&Tr&yoVcTa T6v &KpoarriW.... 35 Bibliotheca,116a.13-16: T6 6S AMav
'rrpoF-
27 Bibliotheca,67b.14-16: Ttjy&prroQiN 'rrpl Kopis -rfs -rporjrs ... Eis &rn8iavKai 8xapo?hv -r6v
-roi*S6?MoJ iptioTrovic-e xal Tmrpiepybc(
-r3v.... Troi &xpowTrjvSxyEfppsI....
M6yo.. xd(pvi 1vvparro.... 36 Cf. Ziegler, in RE, 20, 686: "The sense was
28 Bibliotheca, 27a.19-20: ... f -rTf yvC)pO?o- that, rather than systematic organization, the
ui
yfaS oCK Katip -rrapev$jKl qNO11orxfias baTI author preferred an order in varied alternation,
?rspxpyoiiKai Trepi-rrs. which excluded the danger of boredom and
29 Lexicon (note 15 supra), I, 200: ...-rreprr- satiety in the reader."
T6Vo*18kvo08i 4ptA6riIlov.... 37 Epistolae, ed. Valettas (note 14 supra),
30 Bibliotheca, 55a.28-29: ... auvipvy~i Trlv 160 and note 2, 290, 291, 527, 533, and 556.
Kxail gvopoto-r&Trcv d&ioisarai. 38 See Bibliotheca, 8a.7, 100a.21-24, and
ta"rop(av &pp6tLcv
Henry mistranslates this whole sentence, which 165b.20-23 on Plato; 35b.30-32, 64a.17-20,
is praise of Candidus, not further blame: "But and 171b.9-12 on Thucydides; and 17b.20-21
he, occasionaly in his writings becoming al- on Xenophon. In his postface, Photius says
together much better than himself, is found explicitly that he is leaving out books "whose
harmonizing his history even from the most study and perusal commonly constitute the
dissimilarthings, through commingling." arts and sciences" (545.13-14: ... cv iha,rrov8l
31Bibliotheca, 165b.17-18: ...-rrowfLrki
siArTi Kai pEs?r1l -r4Xvas qn?txT
Kai ftrilaTpLas ipy&[Lx-
Xap5cvcov a?rr&Kcal -rpoapv~Sd&ps&ol6O.ivos. aSai... )
THE PREFACE OF THE BIBLIOTHECA OF PHOTIUS 349
32: Here a scribe seems to have omitted the other books without him. In general,
several words. I give a sample reconstruction though Photius probably expected Tarasius
in my apparatus and translation. to show the Bibliothecato others, its contents
30-37: Since the books Photius has left tend to confirm that it was a private and
out are only those read by Tarasius in informal work, whose statements should not
Photius' hearing (col. 1, lines 15-16), Photius be treated as if they were the result of long
realizes that Tarasius may have read some of and careful research and reflection.
URBAN SOCIETIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
JBAA Journal of the British Archaeological REB Revue des Etudes Byzantines
Association REG Revue des Etudes Grecques
JbAChr JahrbuchIfir Antike und Christentum RerItalSS L. A. Muratori, ed., Rerum Itali-
JbZMusMainz Jahrbuchdes R6misch-Germa- carum scriptores (Milan, 1723-70); New
nischen Zentralmuseums,Mainz Ser., ed. G. Carducci, V. Fiorini, and P.
JdI Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archdologischen Fedele (Citta di Castello, 1900- )
Instituts RepKunstw Repertorium ifr Kunstwissen-
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies schaft
Archdolo-
JOAI Jahresheftdes Osterreichischen RH Revue Historique
gischen Instituts RHE Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique
JOBG Jahrbuchder OsterreichischenByzanti- RHR Revue de l'Histoire des Religions.
nischen Gesellschaft Annales du Musee Guimet
JRS Journal of Roman Studies RIASA Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale di
JWarb Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Archeologiae Storia dell'Arte
Institutes ROL Revue de l'OrientLatin
RSBN Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici
Loeb The Loeb Classical Library
LRE J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman SBOsterr, Phil.-hist.Kl. Osterreichischen
Empire (London, 1923) Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philoso-
MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua phisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte
SC Sources Chretiennes. Collection dirigee
Mansi J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum
nova et amplissima collectio par H. de Lubac et J. Dani6lou
ST Studi e Testi
MDIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen Instituts
StM Studi Medievali
fiur Agyptische Altertumskundein Kairo StPB Studia Patristica et Byzantina
MelUSJ Melanges de l'Universite Saint-
SubsHag Subsidia Hagiographica, Societe
Joseph, Beyrouth des Bollandistes
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica:
Poetae Poetae Latini Medii Aevi. Die Synaxarium CP Synaxarium Ecclesiae Con-
lateinischenDichter des Mittelalters stantinopolitanae. Propylaeum ad ActaSS
Novembris, ed. H. Delehaye (Brussels,
SS Scriptores
MN American Numismatic Society, Museum 1902)
Notes
TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the
OCP Orientalia Christiana Periodica American Philological Association
OJh Jahresheftedes OsterreichischenArchdolo- TAPS Transactions of the American Philo-
gischen Instituts in Wien sophical Society
Teubner Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig)
Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne TM Travaux et Memoires. Centre de
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Recherche d'Histoire et Civilisation by-
Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne zantines
PLRE A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, and TiirkArkDerg Tirk Arkeoloji Dergisi
J. Morris, The Prosopographyof the Later TiirkTarDerg Tirk Tarih, Arkeologya ve
Roman Empire, I (Cambridge, 1971) Etnografya Dergisi
PO Patrologia Orientalis (Paris, 1903-
VS Eunapius, Vita sophistarum,ed. G. Gian-
RACr Rivista di ArcheologiaCristiana
grande (Rome, 1956)
RBibl Revue Biblique
RBK Reallexikon zur Byzantinischen Kunst,
ed. K. Wessel (Stuttgart, 1963- ) WByzSt Wiener Byzantinistische Studien
RE Paulys Real-Encyclopddieder classischen
Altertumswissenschaft,new rev. ed. by G. ZVI Zbornik Radova VizantoloSkogInstituta,
Wissowa and W. Kroll (Stuttgart, 1893- ) Srpska Akademija Nauka