ffltdk*. tifa YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE LIBRARY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL § Thekla 440 X^ Kachrieh Djami, the Church of Chora 442 v^ Phenari Yesa Mesdjid, the Church of Panachrantos 456 Monastir Mesdjid 458 Mir Achor Djami, the Church of Saint John of the ^ Studium 459 Khodja Moustapha Pasha Djami, Church of Saint Andrew in Crisis ¦ 464 Sandjakdar Mesdjid, the Church of G-astria .... 468 Minor Byzantine Churches .... • 470 Djeb Khaneh, the Church of Saint Irene .... 474 The Church of the Life-giving Fountain, or of Baloukli 485 Church of the Theotokos the Mouchliotissa ... 489 Arab Djami . 492 Yeni Valideh Djami, the Church of Saint Francis 493 Viii CONTENTS Page IX Sancta Sophia ... .... 494 X The Walls of Constantinople. 558 The Wall on the Marmora 561 The Wall on the Golden Horn 570 The Land Wall .... . . . . 584 XI The Mosques and Tukbehs ... . . . 625 The Mosque of Eyoub 633 The Mosque of Sultan Mohammed II 639 The Mosque of Sultan Bayezid II 647 The Mosque of Sultan Selim I 651 The Mosque of the Shahzadeh 653 The Mosque of Djeanghir 659 The Mosque of Mihrima Sultana ... ... 661 The Mosque of Roustem Pasha . . .... 662 The Mosque of the Hasseki, or Sultana 664 The Mosque of Sultan Soulei'man I 666 The Mosque of Piali Pasha 672 The Mosque of Kilidj Ali Pasha 673 The Mosque of Sultan Achmet I 676 The New Mosque of the Sultan's Mother, Yeni Valideh Djami, at Balouk Bazar 684 The Mosque ISTouri Osmanieh 689 The Tulip Mosque, Laleli Djami 690 The Mosque of the Holy Mantle, Hirkai Sherif Djami 693 The New Mosque of the Sultan's Mother, Yeni Valideh Djami, at Ale Serai 694 The Mosque of Djerrah Mohammed Pasha . . . 696 The Cellar Mosque, Mahsen Djami . . . . 697 The Mosque of Daoud Pasha 699 Various other Mosques . . . ... 700 The Turbeh of Sultan. Mahmoud II the Great ... 704 XII The Seeaglio . . 706 XTII Baths, Khans, and Bazars . . . . . . 750 XIV The Museum of the Janissaries, Elbicei Atika . 766 XV The Museum of Antiquities 772 Chronological List .... 789 Index . 795 LIST * ILLUSTRATIONS Mosque of Mohammed II Interior of Mehemet Sokolli Djami Ancient Church of Pantokrator Sheik Soulei'man Mesdjid, the Library of Pantokrator Church of Saint Theodore of Tyrone Church of the Pammakaristos .... Signature of the Patriarch Symeon in 1471 . . . Ancient Church of the Chora . . The Enthroned Christ Plan of Kachrieh Djami .... The Virgin and the Purple Skein . . The Virgin Judged The Star in the East. The Wise Men before Herod Scenes of the Nativity ... Mir Achor Djami, Church of Saint John of the Studium Colonnade of Mir Achor Djami in 1820 . . ... Ancient Church of Saint Andrew in Crisis .... The Cypress and Chain . .... Church of Saint Irene ... Interior of Saint Irene . . Mediaeval Armor on the Walls of Saint Irene . . Reputed Bell of Sancta Sophia .... . . Mediaeval Armor on the Walls of Saint Irene . . Kettle Drums of the Janissaries Fnntls. Page sj/iece 419 423428433 435437 443447448451 452 453 455 459 463 465467475 477 479480 481482 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Eudoxia, Wife of the Emperor Arcadius . . . ... 483 Supposed Sarcophagi of Constantine the Great and Theodosius the Great . . 484 A Deceased Patriarch enthroned before Burial . ... 487 Plan of Sancta Sophia ... . . . 503 Sancta Sophia . . . . 507 Interior of Sancta Sophia . . 509 Northeastern Turkish Gate to the Court of Sancta Sophia . . 511 The Xarthex of Sancta Sophia .... 513 Western or Visitors' Gallery in Sancta Sophia . . . 515 Station of the Empress in the Gynaikonitis 517 Corner of Upper Gallery, Sancta Sophia ... .... 518 Northern Row of Columns from Ephesus 519 Southwest Interior, the Column on the Bight being the First One erected in Sancta Sophia ... . . . . 522 The Ecumenical Council-Chamber ... ... . . 531 The Tribune of the Sultan, the Mafil-i-humayoun ... . 538 Village Greek Priest . 540 The Mussulman Pulpit .... . 544 Monograms on the Southwestern Door . ..... 545 The Enthroned Christ 546 Southeastern Entrance to Sancta Sophia 552 Turbeh of Sultan Selim II 553 Mourad III 554 The Baptistery and Turbehs . . .... . 555 The Armenian Patriarch Nerses . . . . . . 565 The Southeast Sea Wall .566 The Marble Tower 571 The Chain formerly closing the Golden Horn 572 Beginning of the AIAAXH, the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" . .... . . . . 581 A Section of the Walls . . .... 585 Cemetery Outside the Walls . . . . . . 588 The Golden Gate . ... ... 591 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Golden Gate . Entrance to the Seven Towers Castle of the Seven Towers in 1820 Gate of the Seven Towers . . . Gate of Belgrade .... A Tower in the Land Wall . . . Gate of Selivria General View of the Land Walls . Gate of the Mevlevis Gate of Saint Bomanos . . . . View Northward from Gate of Saint Bomanos Interior View of Gate of Adrianople in 1893 Palace of the Hebdomon and Tower of the Tribunal The Tower of Kaligaria and Neighboring Towers . The Walls of Heraklios . . The Crooked Gate . The Tower of Isaac Angelos The Turbeh of Eyoub . . . Street of Turbehs at Eyoub . A Pilgrim . . . ... A Beggar . A Portico at the Mosque of Sultan Bayezid . . . The Fountain at the Mosque of Sultan Bayezid The Mosque of Sultan Selim I . . . . . . The Mosque of the Shahzadeh .... The Turbeh of the Shahzadeh Fountain of the Shahzadeh .... A Colonnade at the Mosque of Boustem Pasha Interior of the Mosque of Eoustem Pasha . The Catafalque of Sultan Souleiman the Magnificent The Mosque of Kilidj Ali Pasha The Atmeidan and the Mosque of Sultan Achmet I . Principal Entrance of the Mosque of Sultan Achmet I Fountain of Sultan Achmet I . Xl Page 593 595596 597 599601 603 605606 609 611613 615617619 620621 635 638643645 649650 652655 657 658 663 665 671 675677 681683 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Tiles in the Mosque Yeni Valideh Djami The Mosque Nouri Osmanieh .... The Fountain of the Valideh .... Turbeh of Sultan Mahmoud II the Great Eeception of a Venetian Ambassador in 1500 Alai Kiosk Tchinili Kiosk .... The Bab-i-Humayoun . Plane-tree of the Janissaries Orta Kapou Hall of the Divan . . In My Lady's Garden . . Bab-i-Seadet . ... An Ottoman Lady (Outdoor Costume) Sultan Selim III ... Arz Odassi ... .... The Throne .... The Persian Throne Opening the Hazneh . Interior of the Library The Kiosk of Bagdad . Interior of the Kiosk of Bagdad . . Sultan Ibrahim ... The Entrance to Hirkai Sherif Odassi A Lady of the Harem (Indoor Costume) Entrance to the Harem .... In the Harem The Tower of the Seraskier . . . The Vestiary of a Bath The Egyptian Bazar The Grand Bazar . ... A Fortune Teller in the Bazar . . A Tinsmith in the Bazar . . Janissaries Page 687 691 695 705709711714715717 718 720 721722723 725727728730 731733735 737 740 742 745747 749 751752755757 761 765 767 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Janissaries in 1425 . . .... Sipahis in 1550 . The Aga of the Janissaries in 1550 . The Imperial Museum of Antiquities The Sarcophagus of the Weepers (Side View) The Sarcophagus of the Weepers (Side View) The Sarcophagus of Alexander (Side View) The Sarcophagus of Alexander (End View) The Sarcophagus of Alexander (Side View) The Sarcophagus of Alexander (End View) XUl Page 768 769 770 773775 777779781783 785 CONSTANTINOPLE VIII — Continued MEHEMET SOKOLLI DJAMI, THE CHTJBCH OF SAINT ANASTASIA EHEMET SOKOLLI PASHA DJAMI stands upon the site of the Church of Saint Anastasia. Nothing can be seen of the ancient edifice ; nothing of it remains save the foundations upon which the modern mosque is built. Yet the spot is so full of associations, and the church ex erted so large an influence in militant religious history as to demand more than a passing reference. The ancient edifice, a humble structure, was erected by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, afterwards Patriarch of Constan tinople. There he delivered those impassioned discourses which have seldom been surpassed in the annals of pulpit eloquence. He called his lowly sanctuary by the name of the virgin martyr Anastasia, whose memory had been handed down among the Greeks as the Pharmakolytria, or Healer. When imprisoned and tortured by Diocletian, the heroic maiden, forgetful of her own suffering, devoted herself to the lacerated and sick among her fellow7 prisoners. 418 CONSTANTINOPLE During forty-four years this was the only Trinitarian church in Constantinople ; from it was waged a single- handed, desperate, apparently hopeless warfare against per secuting Arianism. The victory, won by Orthodoxy, was largely due to its dauntless priests. In the fifth century the church was appropriated to the converted Goths, and its liturgy was celebrated in the Gothic language. In 537 Sancta Sophia was complete, and ready for reconsecration. In view of the eventful share the Church of Saint Anas tasia had had in the religious life of the capital, Justin ian decided that the gorgeous procession to dedicate his peerless cathedral should march from this church. The Patriarch Menas passed from its doors to the Emperor's chariot, and, drawn by four white horses, headed the mag nificent cortege, and the Emperor followed all the way on foot. A favorite sanctuary of Basil I, it was rebuilt and enlarged by him in the ninth century. When the Latins captured Constantino|)le, it was sacked and almost de stroyed. Its marble columns were torn down and shipped to Venice, and are built into still standing Venetian churches. Its cross, esteemed a masterpiece of Byzantine art, was likewise carried to Italy, and to this day can be seen in the Church of San Lorenzo at Genoa. At the time of the Ottoman Conquest, little save the foundations remained. On them, in 1571, by order of the illustrious Ottoman statesman, Mehemet Sokolli Pasha, Grand Vizir of Souleiman I and Selim II, the architect Sinan, the. Michael Angelo of the Ottomans, erected the present mosque. The great master, unrivalled among his countrymen, has stamped his creation everywhere with the impress of his genius. In bold conception and originality of design this edifice is not exceeded by any of the smaller mosques of the capital. It presents the perfect adjust- STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 419 ment of the hexagon in the square. The dome, over twenty yards in diameter, springs from six main arches, the four upon the sides likewise supporting semi-domes. Most harmonious and exquisite Persian tiles line the walls. Interior of Mehemet Sokolli Djami The seven white marble columns on either side extend and enhance the charm of. the general plan. The only recent feature, the twelve windows of rich stained glass, pre sented by Djevdet Pasha in 1881, are in keeping with the original design. 420 CONSTANTINOPLE GIUL DJAMI, THE CHUBCH OF SAINT THEODOSIA Giul Djami is situated on the fourth hill, near the upper bridge. It stands alone upon an eminence, entirely surrounded by the street, and with no other buildings near to obscure its proportions. Its bald and lofty walls, pale and sombre, rise from its prominent site with a grim ma jesty of their own. One gazes upon the gaunt, almost spectral outline with a kind of awe. Seen from the Golden Horn, it is the ghostliest of Byzantine churches. Seen from within, it reveals everywhere the decadence of Byzantine architecture, and is easily recognized as a work of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The walls and insignificant domes are still in excellent preservation. The apse is unusually profound. Long cylindrical vaults supply the place of semi-domes. The piers that support the central dome are distorted and dis proportionately large. In the piers to the east are sepul chral chambers, their floor being raised several feet above the pavement of the church. The former Byzantine occu pants were long since expelled, and their places filled by the remains of imams of distinguished sanctity. This is a peculiar fact, as among the Ottomans a dead body in a place of prayer is considered to vitiate the supplications offered therein, and even to contaminate the worshippers. But the special holiness of these remains is supposed to more than counteract their ordinarily pernicious effect. Under the church are spacious subterranean vaults, once tombs of prominent Byzantine families. Now their graves are inhabited by Ottoman households, not dead, but living. Lechevalier, ninety-four years ago, measured one of the vaults to which others converged, and found it one hun- STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 421 dred and twenty feet in length. To one of the lateral passages, which the Ottomans never enter, attaches the vulgar tradition that it is a subterranean imperial way to Sancta Sophia. For over a hundred years after the Conquest it was used as a marine arsenal. Selim II transferred to Tersk- haneh all the naval stores it contained. He had it washed within and without, erected a minaret, fitted in the mihrab and minber, and the church became a mosque. The Byzantine writers are strangely silent concerning its founder. It was consecrated to Saint Theodosia, an adherent of icons, who had been martyred for her faith during the iconoclastic persecution of Leo the Isaurian. In consequence of a miracle wrought in the church shortly after its erection, it suddenly became a place for pilgrim ages. Thenceforth, annually, on the 29th of May, the Emperor, Patriarch, and Senate made its circuit barefoot, and then entered for worship. To that frightful 29th of May on which the city was captured by the Ottomans attaches the one overmastering agony of the church's history. From the preceding sun set it was crowded with the highest-born and wealthiest ladies of the capital, who passed the entire night in prayer, and who were to remain there all the following day. It was possible that the Emperor, in the lull of battle, or perhaps victorious, might come to offer his formal suppli cations as of old. Suddenly, about eleven in the morning, the church was surrounded by a band of sipahis (Ottoman cavalry), whose onset was the first intimation to the wor shippers that their city had fallen, and that the Emperor was no more. The doors were battered down, the sipahis rushed in, and, despite vain resistance, the shrieking, horror-stricken women were dragged to a slavery worse 4:22 CONSTANTINOPLE than death. It was the season when Constantinople is fragrant with roses. The church was everywhere embow ered for its annual festivity. In memory of the picture it then presented, garlanded and flower-bedecked, to the vic torious Moslems, they have called it ever since Giul Djami, the Bose Mosque. ZEIREK DJAMI, THE CHUECH OF PANTOKRATOR Zeirek: Djami, the ancient monastic Church- of Panto krator, stands upon an artificial terrace on the fourth hill. Its two great domes and its flaring yellow walls render it prominent from the Golden Horn and from the heights of Pera. Converted into a mosque soon after the Conquest, it derives its Turkish name from a learned Ottoman priest, Zeirek Mohammed Effendi, who lived close by. In perfect preservation and kept with scrupulous care, it seems a construction of recent date. It is indeed among the more modern of the ancient Byzantine churches of the city, as it was built only a little more than seven hundred and seventy years ago by the Empress Irene, daughter of Geysa I the Great, King of Hungary, and wife of John I Komnenos the Good. Irene's resources not sufficing to complete the church on the scale she intended, she begged the assistance of her husband, who, it is said, chided his wife for her religious extravagance, but gave her a larger sum than she required. It consists of three parallel but unequal churches, sepa rated only by rows of columns and entered from the same imposing narthex. On the north is the church, specially appropriated to the monks ; on the south is the main cathedral ; enclosed between the two is the smaller church STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 423 or chapel, which served as the heroon or mausoleum of many of the Komnenoi and Palaiologoi. The first to sleep beneath its tiny windowed dome was its foundress, the Empress Irene, who died in 1124. Nineteen years after wards her husband was placed at her side. Later still was borne thither the sarcophagus of their son, the brave Ancient Church op Pantokrator and sagacious Manuel I Komnenos, who filled the Byzan tine throne during the Second Crusade, and died in 1180. Next his was the sarcophagus of his Empress, Irene, before her marriage famous as the flaxen-haired Bertha of Bavaria. Among other imperial dead gathered here were Irene, the wife of Andronikos II Palaiologos, and the heroic Manuel II Palaiologos, who saved Constantinople when it was besieged by Sultan Mourad II. All these 424 CONSTANTINOPLE ashes have disappeared, the sarcophagi been broken or scattered, and the heroon is bare and empty. The church was completed with prodigal magnificence. Its mosaics were inlaid by the most cunning artists, and were celebrated for their surpassmg beauty. The marbles employed were the rarest and richest, and the columns the largest that gold could obtain. The mosaics are still pre served, though hidden, and some day doubtless will shine out again in untarnished splendor. Some were uncovered a hundred and fifty years ago, and were seen by travellers then in the city. The history of our Saviour's life was pictured in detail, and the figures of the Apostles and many of their deeds were represented, the subject of each scene being indicated in Greek below. Very prominent was the portrait of Manuel tendering Christ the plan of the fin ished church. The columns, over seven feet in circumfer ence, are now snowy white with thick coats of whitewash, and all their exquisite tints invisible. But the sheathing of the walls is dazzling in its variegated richness ; the Ottomans, with unusual regard to symmetry, have sought after like splendid marble slabs for the adornment of their elegant minber, or pulpit. In the age when the imperial foundress built her church, piety sought its worthiest offerings, not so much in objects of rarity or cost or aesthetic value, as in some icon or holy picture of traditional sanctity or wonder-working jwwer, or in a reputed relic of the Saviour or of his dis ciples. So Manuel endowed the sanctuary with an icon of Saint Demetrius which had been found at Salonica, and was esteemed of almost supernatural origin and efficacy. When the ship arrived that brought it, the Emperor and all the people marched to the harbor to receive it, and bore the icon to the church in one vast rejoicing procession. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 425 Here too was brought from Ephesus with equal reverence the slab of red stone on which it was believed the form of the Saviour had been washed and anointed for burial. On Manuel's death this slab was devoutly placed over his remains in the heroon. The monastery became the richest and most popular in the city, and for a time eclipsed the Studium in material prosperity and in the number of its inmates. When the chieftains of the Fourth Crusade parcelled out the Byzan tine Empire as conquered booty, the temporal power was assigned to the Franks, who elected the Emperor ; and the spiritual power to the Venetians, who chose as Patriarch their countnonan Morosini. Forsaking Sancta Sophia, as too near the imperial headquarters of their turbulent allies, the Venetians made this Church of Pantokrator their cathedral, and such it continued throughout the duration of the Latin sway. Hither they brought the venerated and often-mentioned icon of the Holy Virgin the Odeghetria, revered as painted by Saint Luke. It was considered the priceless treasure of this church when in 1261 the Greeks retook their city. Michael VIII refused to make his tri umphal entry till it had been carried to his camp outside the walls. Then placing the icon reverently in a chariot drawn by four horses, the restored Emperor and the victo rious army followed it barefoot through the Golden Gate, humbly acknowledging that the restoration of their Empire was due to no human prowess, but to the mightier efforts of the Holy Virgin. When the last Ottoman siege was impending, this Church was the centre of intolerant, uncompromising Orthodoxy, and of opposition to any appearance of union with Rome. Here was the cell of the ascetic Gennadios, the arch foe of Constantine XIII and of the Romanists. 426 CONSTANTINOPLE When Constantine, on that fatal December 12, 1452, pro claimed the ecclesiastical union of the Orthodox Eastern Church with the Church of Rome, monks and nuns by thousands crowded here before the cell of Gennadios, imploring his advice, and shouting together incessantly, "What shall we do? What shall we do?" Without emerging from his austere retreat, he threw his written judgment disdainfully from the window. It was in these words : " Know, 0 wretched citizens, what you are doing ; in the captivity that is to come upon you, you throw away your fathers' religion, and swear to impiety." Then all the nuns massed themselves around the church, together with the abbots and priests and monks and common people, and anathematized the union and all who favored it. After that event Constantine could no longer count upon the support of his own subjects in his resistance to the Ottomans. Almost six months later, when the city had been captured by the Moslems, this same Gennadios, elected by the bishops, issued from his cell to be confirmed by the Sultan as Patriarch of Constantinople. Gazing upon the mosque, now so quiet in that slum brous quarter of the city, it is impossible to realize that events so tumultuous and so momentous in an empire's history have had their arena here. There is close by one reminder of the imperial Byzan tine past. This is a magnificent sarcophagus of vert antique. The Moslems call it the tomb of Constantine, and the Greeks, the tomb of Irene. It may well be the last resting-place of one of those imperial ladies who once slept in the heroon. It is of splendid proportions, eight and one-third feet long, four and one-fourth feet broad, and six and two-thirds feet high. The lid is gable-roofed, with acroterige ; its height adds three feet more to the STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 427 sarcophagus. Crosses consecrate the sides and ends, but it bears no other inscription or decoration. For centuries after the Conquest it served as a fountain for their ablu tions to the habitues of the mosque, and one still sees the now disused faucets in its sides. SHEIK SOULEIMAN MESDJID, THE LIBRARY OF PANTOKRATOR Sheik Souleiman Mesdjid, very near Zeirek Djami, was made a mosque by Sheik Souleiman, who died shortly after the Conquest, and who was renowned for his learning and meekness. His lowly tomb and gravestone, Avith ample turban, are seen close to the door outside. Though never a church, this edifice has a peculiar and unique importance. During its later history it was the library of the Monastery of Pantokrator, and is the only Byzantine library building that has come down to us. It is an octagon, about thirty-five feet in diameter, destitute of windows in the ground floor, but with one in each of its faces high above. These octagonoi or octagona- — -the tetradesia of Kodinos — are of constant mention in Byzan tine authors. They exercised a mighty influence in early and mediaeval Byzantine history. They were the chief centres of study and research to priests and monks, whose only delights were found in the subtleties of a creed, and whose whole horizon was bounded by dogmas. In them were forged those weapons which, in a theologie age, paralyzed or impassioned armies, and overthrew or set up thrones. The monasteries of mediaeval Constantinople were no somniferous retreats ; they were resounding arsenals, whose arms were furiously plied. While the great host of 428 CONSTANTINOPLE believers followed blindly and without question their dog matic leaders, those leaders wrought and wrestled over casuistic atoms with a fervor and fire which leave the schoolmen of the West far behind. Futile and unproduc tive though their agonies of speculation and a/gument appear to us in our sterner, colder age, they were the most material realities on earth to them. Sheik Souleiman Mesdjid, the Library op Pantokrator The individual story of this octagon, noAV Sheik Soulei man Mesdjid, is utterly unknown. Its history has van ished like the cowled, long-bearded monks and abbots who pored over its manuscripts with fiery eyes, or tran scribed them with tireless hands. But of one thing we are sure. It had its part, its wild, furious part, in all the mad war of doctrines which, like successive earthquakes, convulsed the East. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 429 DEMIRDJILAR MESDJID, THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY VIRGIN OF LIPS Another church close by became Demirdjilar Mesdjid, the Mosque of the Blacksmiths. This also was the cathe dral of a monastery consecrated to the Holy Virgin of Lips, or of the South Wind, a tornado from the south having raged on the day of its consecration. The soldier Constantine Lips, who fell on the field of battle fighting the Bulgarians, founded it in the tenth century. The wife of Michael VIII, one of the many imperial Theodoras who adorned the Byzantine throne, rebuilt and embellished it four centuries later. Here her aged son, Andronikos II, after a troubled reign of forty-six years, became the monk Anastasios, and found asylum and peace, declaring he owed to his mother life to begin his career, and at its end a quiet home near her tomb. Here too was hurriedly buried at night, by a couple of hirelings, the Russian xAnna, the wife of John Palaiologos, the heir to the throne. This princess, a lady of marvellous beauty, and accom plished and ,good as she was fair, had suddenly sickened during the absence of her boy husband, and died of a most infectious disease. The church was made a mosque by Ali Effendi, chief barber and chief surgeon of Mohammed II. Almost re built in 1762, not a single Byzantine feature can be traced. Abandoned of late years, even by the Mussulmans, given over to dirt and neglect, its only occupants are domestic fowl and the goats which are shut up in it at night. 430 CONSTANTINOPLE ESKI IMARET MESDJID, THE CHURCH OF PANTEPOPTES While the great Mosque of Sultan Mohammed II Avas building, the neighboring female Monastery of Pantepoptes, the Omniscient, Avas degraded to an immense kitchen, Avherein the food of the Avorkmen Avas prepared. When that undertakmg was completed, the church itself became Eski Imaret Mesdjid, the Mosque of the Old Almshouse. It is a dingy, blackened pile, uncared for and unfrequented. The tile-coArered dome is pierced by a dozen arched Avin- cIoavs, so thick with the dust of centuries that scant light ventures in. Nor do the single enormous windoAv on the north, or the misshapen and deep-set eleA*en on the south, now Availed up or obscured, much better seiwe their original purpose. Symmetry or a definite architec tural design is Avholly wanting. The church Avas built in the eleA'enth century by Anna Dalassina, the great-hearted mother of Alexios I Komnenos. Here, like so many Byzantine princesses, she passed her last days as a nun. Here, a century later, in the unequal struggle between Church and State, the Patriarch Theodu- sios I Avas confined as a malefactor by Alexios II Komne nos, and, after a brief detention, went forth from his cell a conqueror. Here in 1204 Avas pitched the crimson tent of Alexios IV Mourtzouphles, Avhen defending his croAvn against the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade. Here, the first night of their A'ictory, those same Latin soldiers encanrpedj daring to advance no farther through fear of an ambuscade. Alexios IV had believed that the sacred relics of the church — the crown of thorns and a nail from the Saviour's cross — rendered it impregnable, and him invincible. After his STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES. 431 defeat, these Avere sent by the victors to churches in Venice, Avhere they are still revered. Less precious relics from the shrines of this church — as the heads of Saint Marina, of one Saint Paul, who was martyred by the iconoclasts in the eighth century, and of another Saint Paul who Avas four times Patriarch, and finally drowned by order of Con- stantius I, the son of Constantine — were embarked for the same destination, but Avere stolen or lost on the way. KALENDAR KHANEH MESDJID Kalendar Khaneh Mesdjid is still farther east, near the southern end of the Aqueduct of Valens. Even tradi tion is silent concerning its founder, its former name and history. Speculation infers from its present Turkish name, Avhich signifies House of the Shaven, that it once belonged to some monastic order, which, contrary to prevalent Byzan tine custom, cut off close the hair of the head and beard. The corners are so intercepted and dissembled by col umns and piers and walls that the interior presents the form of a Greek cross more strikingly than does any other Byzantine church of the city. The dome rests upon a cylinder, which streams down a flood of light through numerous and graceful windows, and Avhich is sustained by four symmetric arches. The marbles lining the walls are rich and varied, and the columns, flanking the triple entrance from the narthex, are surmounted by elegant capitals. While the church is manifestly very old, it is difficult to believe with the learned Italian Cuppa that it is the most ancient in the capital. Fast becoming a ruin, it Avas thor oughly renovated a feAV years ago. Close to it on the north are remains of the cells once occupied by the monks. 432 CONSTANTINOPLE KILISSEH DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF SAINT THEODORE OF TYRONE The ancient Church of Saint Theodore of Tyrone, now Kilisseh Djami, or the Church Mosque, is a short distance west of the Mosque of Sultan Souleiman. Away from the main thoroughfare, in a street so quiet as to seem almost mouldy, its humble yellow form escapes the notice of the infrequent passers-by. But it has a strongly marked personality of its own. Nowhere else in the city can be found a type of Byzan tine church architecture so crude and primitive. The childish infancy of Byzantine art seems appealing from its every feature and from the church as a whole. Almost all those structural details are present which were else- Avhere carried to such degree of symmetry and poAver ; but here they are seen in an incomplete, experimental stage. The domes are small and heavy, not suggestive of air and light, and are similar neither in inner appearance nor in outward form. The columns, all different from one another, seem dropped by chance upon their bases, rather than arranged by any design. Their indefinite capitals belong to no acknowledged school. The rude marble slabs, which Avainscot the walls, fill up rather than adorn the places Avhich they coArer. The windows resemble one another neither in height above the floor, nor in size or shape. An idea of similarity betAveen parts naturally alike seems wholly wanting. Yet the plaintive simplicity attracts rather than repels. Apparently the combination of all the architectural discords results in a sort of architectural harmony. It is not strange, so simple and primitive is the church, STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 433 so almost barbaric in its artlessness, that the common Greeks revere it as the oldest church in the city, and that more than one European scholar has considered it a crea tion of the third century. It was doubtless built by the Consul Sophakios not long after 450. A biting sarcasm asserted that the church was his thank-offering to God at escaping with his life from Church of Saint Theodore op Tyrone the Council of Chalkedon, in which he had been present. Saint Theodore of Tyrone was the patron of all who had met with any loss, and was believed, in answer to entreaty, to assist in its recovery. Whoever lost money, a garment, a beast of burden, anything whatsoever, at once sought his effective aid. Petitions offered in this church, which was dedicated to him, were considered peculiarly effective. So there was always here a throng of distressed yet hope ful suppliants. Faith was increased by the oft-repeated story VOL. II. 2 434 CONSTANTINOPLE of one man from whom a favorite slave had run away, and who remained in prayer three days and nights without rest or food. On conclusion of his supplications, going home, he found there the slave, who, moved by penitence and Saint Theodore, had returned two days before of his oavii free will. Those were days when emperors sought, sometimes with ill success, to determine creeds and to teach the people what they should or should not believe. A boy, more faArored than Isaiah, claimed to have heard the angelic anthem, " Holy, Holy, Holy," three times rej)eated, with the addition of, " Who was crucified for us," and then Avas believed by many to have been translated bodily to heaven. Contention as to whether the additional ascrip tion was part of the celestial hymn rent the city. The Emperor Anastasios ascended the pulpit of this church, and ordered that it should be accepted at once and by all. The fanatic spirit of opposition burst forth in fury. The rebellion that resulted from this imperial harangue, in the graphic language of Gibbon, " nearly cost the Emperor Anastasios his throne and life." But the place is quiet and almost deserted now. In the exo-narthex is a partially filled-up opening, admitting to some subterranean room or passage. No Moslem dares to enter, and no Christian is permitted. The imams assert in Avhispers that an underground way reaches to Sancta Sophia, more than a mile distant ; that it is paved in stone and arched in brick all the way. They believe it is haunted by the ghosts of Christian emperors who used to traverse it, attended by their retinue and with a coach and four. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 435 FETIHIEH DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF PAMMAKARISTOS On an artificial terrace of the fifth hill, commanding a superb view over the Golden Horn and the heights beyond, is Fetihieh Djami, the Mosque of Victory. Its peculiar apse and the eccentric shape of its numerous windoAved domes indicate not only a former Byzantine church, but m a* 11 - [it*- --- ,;•¦..,. ¦!t«»t ' ?%£._. ... Church of the Pammakaristos also the time of its erection. Mary Dukaina, sister of Alexios I Komnenos, and her husband Michael Dukas, chief imperial equerry, founded it early in the twelfth century. It was consecrated to the Pammakaristos, the All-Blessed Virgin, and was the cathedral church of the largest female monastery in the capital. One of its distinctive features is the forest of piers and columns Avhich jut from the walls and cover the floors, 436 CONSTANTINOPLE upholding the domes and ceiling. The narthex, exo- narthex, nave, aisles, and chapels, are nowhere cut off or indicated by walls, but by the puzzling maze of pillars. So at first the structural design seems blurred and confused. The main dome, less than five yards in diameter, rests on a drum which is supported by four arches. These arches rest in turn upon another drum, likewise supported by four arches, which are perfectly parallel to those above, and are subtended, only seven feet above the floor, by heavy piers. The twenty piers in the church are of every shape and proportion. The inner apse is sharply angular, irregular in form, and lighted from above by a dome. To rear a fabric different from every other, and to attain this result- by a variety that recognizes no acknowl edged law, seems the aim of the architect. Yet the general effect is pleasing, and even impressive. One who is untrammelled by artistic rules, and who finds in freedom from restraint the test of originality and power, will easily esteem this church the foremost in Constantinople. Towards the southeast corner is a tiny chapel, approached between columns with lovely capitals. The inner surface of the dome above is filled with a large and splendid mo saic, whose gilded and tinted hues are as rich to-day as almost eight hundred years ago. From the centre Christ looks down, his right hand extended in blessing, and around him in vivid distinctness are grouped the figures of the twelve apostles. This chapel was an heroon; in it stood, till after the Conquest, the sarcophagi of Alexios I Komnenos, and of his renowned daughter Anna Komnena, the one the shrewdest and ablest, the other the most learned and beautiful of their illustrious house. In 1456 the Patriarchate, migratory since the fall of the Empire, was transferred to this church from the forsaken STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 437 Church of the Holy Apostles. The banished nuns, its former inmates, betook themselves to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Trullo, now Achmet Pasha Mesdjid. Many times Sultan Mohammed II came hither in peaceful fashion to visit his friend the Patriarch Genna dios. It continued to be the Patriarchal See for one hun dred and thirty years, — that is until 1586, when the church was made a mosque by Sultan Mourad III. Then the Patriarchate was removed to the lowly Church of the Holy t -.\ . ./ . A / Signature of the Patriarch Symeon in 1471 Virgin in Vlach Serai. An immense cross stood unchal lenged upon its central dome till 1547, when Sultan Souleiman, persuaded by the entreaties of the scandalized faithful, ordered that it should be taken down. Once the church was the centre of the following event, characteristic of the age, indicating better than pages of description the abject condition and suppleness of the subject Greeks and the rapacity and intolerance of their conquerors. In 1530 the Moslems, fired with a sudden fanatical frenzy, obtained from Kemalpashazadeh, then Sheik-ul Islam, a fetva, or religious decision, declaring that, in a city won for Islam by the sword, the Christians had 438 CONSTANTINOPLE no right to any religious property whatsoever. The conse quent panic was extreme. Ibrahim Pasha, a generally just though avaricious man, was then Grand Vizir. The Patriarch Jeremiah I got together all the precious things Avhich. the church contained, and offered them as a present to the Grand Vizir. Moved by the terror of the Christians, and perhaps equally affected by the seasonable gifts, Ibrahim Pasha informed him there was but one way of counteracting the fetva of the Sheik-ul-Islam. If two Mussulman witnesses could be produced who were present at the capture of Constantinople seventy-seven years before, and avIio would SAvear the city was peacefully surrendered and not captured by storm, the Christians would be safe from all further molestation. The suggestion was enough. At Adrianople were found two very aged Mussulmans, the exact number of whose days was sufficiently uncertain. By large sums of money these men were persuaded to come to this church at Con stantinople, and were escorted all the way by an Ottoman guard of honor. On their arrival they were magnificently received at the church. The next morning, together with the Patriarch and a great crowd of people, they went to the palace of the Grand Vizir. Leaving the two old men in a Avaiting-room, the Patriarch entered alone and had his private audience. His tAvo companions were shortly sent for, and told the following story. At eighteen years of age they had fought at the siege of Constantinople. After much blood had been shed and further resistance was hopeless, Constantine had offered to surrender on condition that the Christians should retain all or at least most of their churches. The Sultan accepted the conditions. Thereupon the Emperor himself brought the keys of the city to the tent of Mohammed, who embraced him, and STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 439 seated him on his right hand. After three days the soA^ereigns entered the surrendered city, riding side by side and chatting amicably all the time. The tAvo Mussulmans swore to the truth of their statements. There Avere no other survivors to contradict their oaths. Their solemn declaration was officially communicated to Sultan Soulei man, who thereupon issued a formal edict that the churches still in the hands of the Christians should be theirs in peace forever. ATIK MOUSTAPHA PASHA DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF SAINTS PETER AND MARK Atik Moustapha Pasha Djami is the ancient Church of Saints Peter and Mark. It Avas built in 459, not merely as a place for worship, but above all as the shrine of a reverenced relic. The patricians Galbius and Candi- dus, during their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, had found at Jerusalem a plain garment of fine wool, Avhich a credu lous age, alert for marvels, accepted as the incorruptible robe of the Holy Virgin. It Avas the property of a Jewish girl, of pure life and simple manners, who watched over it Avith superstitious care. By a stratagem the tAvo pilgrims obtained possession of the precious relic, and on their re turn to Constantinople hid it in the ground till a worthy receptacle could be prepared. The church was hastily erected, an unpretentious structure, as befitted the unas suming habits of the Virgin, but so strong with thick walls and heavily grated windoAvs as to guarantee its cherished treasure against pious robbery. Here the robe was kept with scrupulous devotion until it was believed that only an imperial custodian was appropriate to its 440 CONSTANTINOPLE wonder-working sanctity, and it was removed to the Church of the Blachernai. In the open street in front is a marble monument of most sacred associations. It is a colymbethra, or baptis mal font. But one other of like antiquity exists in Con stantinople, and exceedingly few have been discovered in the East. This is fashioned out of a single enormous block. On the inside three steps descend to the bottom, where the convert stood while baptism was administered. Until recently it was filled with stones and rubbish. It has since been thoroughly cleansed, stealthily, and at night, by pious Greeks. Disused since the church was made a rnosque by Atik Moustapha Pasha, in the reign of Bayezid II, and carted aside in dishonor, the rugged font evokes emotions of profound and sympathetic inter est. By its presence we are carried back to the early days and the primitive forms of Christianity. Thrilled imagination summons back the long procession of believ ers who, descending and ascending singly through the centuries, have worn deep those marble steps. A host, whose number baffles computation, have received the sacred sign Avithin the narrow limits of that font, and pledged their Christian faith in its baptismal waters. TOKLOU IBRAHIM DEDEH MESDJID, THE CHURCH OF SAINT THEKLA Toklou Ibrahim Dedeh Mesdjid is situated within the grounds of the ancient Palace of the Blachernai, and near the ruined though still standing Palace of the Heb domon. A basilica, about forty feet long and half as broad, without dome, and with a sharply defined semi- STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 441 hexagonal apse, it is a marked contradiction of the archi tecture prevalent in the ninth century, when it was erected. Until recently, rumors that it was haunted re pelled worshippers, and it was fast falling to decay through neglect. Grass and weeds grew rampant on the roof, and eATen inside on the ancient floor. In 1890 an Ottoman set about its restoration, defying the common superstition that Avhoever ventured on so rash an undertaking would speed ily die. Moreover, he meant to exorcise all evil spirits, if lavish use of paint, in brilliant colors and someAvhat startling combination, Avould bring about such result. His success was complete. The hues of the mosque are some what florid; but the daring innovator is, or was a few months ago, hale and hearty, and not a little triumphant. The edifice was first erected by Thekla, the bed-ridden daughter of the Emperor Theophilos, and consecrated to the martyr Thekla, her patron saint, who like herself endured life-long suffering. Anna Komnena tells the story of the church's splendid restoration and almost re-erection, two hundred and fifty years later, as a votive offering by the Emperor Isaac Komnenos. On the 24th of September, the day of Saint Thekla, he had escaped death as by miracle. A frightful tornado had arisen while he was on the march against the Scythians. With a few officers he took refuge under an enormous oak. Shortly afterward, at the same moment, the tree was both struck by lightning and up rooted by the violence of the storm. Yet neither the Emperor nor any of his suite were harmed. " Marvelling at the divine protection graciously extended, he, after his return to the capital, as an everlasting memorial of his own safety and of that of his army, restored the elegant and costly temple which was honored with the name of the venerable Thekla." 442 CONSTANTINOPLE Shortly after the Conquest the Ottomans discovered in the vicinity Arab tombs, which their holy men declared to be those of two companions of the Prophet, — Djaber and Abou Seidet, — who had been slain at the first Arab siege of Constantinople nearly eight hundred years before. The sheik Ibrahim Dedeh was appointed by Mohammed II guardian of those tombs, and the church was made a mosque. In its modern appellation the name of the maiden Thekla, fashioned into Toklou, and of the Ottoman sheik Ibrahim Dedeh are strangely united. Which would have been most horrified at the juxtaposition, the saint or the sheik, it is impossible to say. KACHRIEH DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF CHORA Kachrieh Djami, near Adrianople Gate, over-hung at sunset by the lengthening shadows of the great land wall, is worthy of a pilgrimage. Many a traveller at the men tion of the "Mosaic Mosque" will recall that unpretentious pile, outwardly so humble, but a reArelation of color and beauty within. Its structure and ornamentation embody every distinctive feature of Byzantine architecture and art. Of small proportions, it is planned and finished through out with prodigal expenditure of wealth and skill. Its mosaics constitute its most apparent glory. Many in the catholicon, or sanctuary proper, are hardly visible, white washed or covered over. But in the narthex and exo-nar- thex, the ceilings, domes, and walls are lined with an unbroken succession of mosaic pictures. Some have been disfigured or effaced ; others are as fresh and brilliant as when their glowing cubes first flashed in meaning from the wall. The endless multiplicity of scenes confuses the STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 443 gazer. These are exquisite in design, rich in coloring, and lifelike in expression. The limbs in natural outline are harmoniously draped, and the stiff and formal Byzantine type seems humanized and softened. Apparently the gentler Italian influence hovers over those masterpieces Ancient Church of the Chora of the East. They are rivalled by none now known in Constantinople, and are unsurpassed by the rarest mosaic treasures of Salonica or Ravenna. But Kachrieh Djami possesses another and a higher pre eminence. No other church in Constantinople incarnates in equal measure all the changing story, the pathetic romance, the startling vicissitudes of Eastern Christianity. 444 CONSTANTINOPLE Artistic interest in its material outlines, though aesthetic and fair, is eclipsed by that profounder sympathetic inter est attaching to its churchly history of more than sixteen hundred years. The Turkish name Kachrieh is derived from the Greek word "chora," signifying country district or open land. When built by the persecuted Christians, while paganism was dominant and universal, and before Constantinople was founded, it was situated far outside Byzantium. Here the dismembered bodies of the martyrs, beheaded in the Diocletian persecution, were tremblingly interred by their surviving felloAV-disciples. So upon it rests a halo, not as merely commemorative of martyred saints and consecrated to their memory, but as having itself afforded the secret sepulchre to their mutilated remains. The original sanctuary, unchanged and humble, was enclosed within the city walls which Theodosius II built from the Golden Horn to the Marmora. Justinian, in that wondrous reign when devotion wrought its prayers and anthems into domes and columns and chiselled stone, left the hallowed foundations undisturbed, but tore doAvn the upper structure to rear a sanctuary more impressive to the eye. In the seventh century, Priskos, favorite son-in- law and prospective heir of the Emperor Phokas, endowed it with almost imperial resources, crowded it with added splendor, and then, a few years later, a disappointed and heartbroken man, found therein his only asylum, and there wore till his death the monastic garb. Here in 711 the Patriarch Kyros, unjustly deposed, was confined as a male factor in a subterranean cell. Nineteen years later he was followed by the saintly Patriarch Germanos I, who died and was buried here. Hither came in the ninth century the Emperor and clergy, entreating the monk Michael to STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 445 ascend the patriarchal throne, and obtaining in answer to their urgent prayers only his hrvincible refusal. Gradually in succeeding generations fashionable piety passed it by. Its resources dwindled ; the roof fell in, and its utter ruin seemed impending. Then the belle of that haughty Byzantine court, the Bulgarian Princess Mary Dukaina, as devout as she was beautiful, rebuilt it in its present form. Her daughter Irene wedded the mighty Alexios I Komnenos, and with filial devotion in after years raised to her mother's memory a splendid mausoleum. Byzantine history is fragrant with tales of that mother's beauty and of her spotless life, but the still standing walls of this monastic church are her only visible monument. Again it became shaken and tarnished by time. Then the elegant Grand Logothete, Theodore the Metochite, in 1321, strengthened the main structure, with enormous expenditure built chapels around, and made the whole interior as resplendent as it was before. His monogram is still visible near the minaret on the south side of the church. When, shortly after, fickle fortune dethroned his friend the Emperor Andronikos II, the courtly Metochite was stripped of all his wealth and reduced to the most abject penury. He had no other refuge than the church enriched in his days of affluence. Here he became a monk and lived, and died eleven years after. His ardent and ever-faithful pupil, Nikephoros Gregoras, composed the following ej)itaph, which was inscribed upon his tomb : " This small stone conceals the dust of him who during life was the great glory of mankind. Cry aloud, all ye band of reverenced Muses. This man has perished ! All wisdom has perished ! " Not long afterwards Nikephoros Gregoras, accused of impiety, was sentenced to solitary confinement in the monastery, and in his cell he wrote his famous history. 446 CONSTANTINOPLE Under the Komnenoi and Palaiologoi this church, con jointly with the Church of the Blachernai, served as the imperial sanctuary. Here the Patriarch often led the wor ship. With the Monastery of the Odeghetria it shared the honor of guarding the ancient picture of the Holy Virgin the Odeghetria, believed to have been painted by Saint Luke. Through Lent this picture was revered at the im perial palace. On every Easter Monday it. was brought by the whole rejoicing city to the Church of Chora, and there exposed to the reverence of the populace. Whenever the capital was besieged it was kept, within this church, and thence often carried to the walls to encourage and inspire the defenders. On the day of the Ottoman Conquest it was here captured by the Janissaries. By them it was divided into four pieces, which they shared by lot as precious talismans. At last the Eunuch Ali Pasha, twice Grand Vizir, and slain in battle in 1511, converted the church into a mosque. The sharp eye of Peter Gyllius searched it out ; then it was forgotten by subsequent scholars till Leche- valier in 1786 discovered it with difficulty. Neglected by the Ottomans, its ruin then seemed sure. A great fissure had rent the dome, and the rain poured unhindered through the roof in every storm. Finally it was repaired by Sultan Abd-ul Aziz in 1875, and again thoroughly cleansed and restored in 1889, to be in readiness for the approaching visit of William II the German Emperor. The edifice is almost square. In the catholicon, or sanctuary proper, three of the sides are formed by great arches, while over the fourth, corresponding to the apse, rises a semi-dome. A drum, half of whose sixteen deep- set windows have been closed, supports a flattened dome. Beneath the architrave, which belts the base of the arches, THE ENTHRONED CHRIST 448 CONSTANTINOPLE the entire wall is sheathed with marble slabs of various shapes, of every color, in all possible combinations of design. Nowhere can this peculiar feature of Byzantine art be better seen. Over toward the east the deep apse recedes in successive diminishing diameters. On the left is a mosaic Christ of colossal size. The left hand grasps the Gospel, which is open to the words, " Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I." The right hand is extended in blessing, and the calm face above looks down in infinite tenderness and compassion. This picture was uncovered for the inspection of the German Emperor, and on his departure was immediately white washed over. Corresponding on the right is the indistinct mosaic outline of the Holy Mother. Above these two mo saics, and beneath an archi trave, likewise of delicate mosaic, a marble figure seems advancing from the wall. North of the catholicon, but not communicating with it, is a vaulted chamber, bare and unadorned, of equal length, and of the same period of construc tion. At its farther eastern end is a domed tiny chapel, with a window in its apse. This resembles an heroon, or mausoleum. South of the catholicon, and opening on it, is a chapel, evidently part of the later construction of the famous Theodore. Over the twelve windows in the dome above are grouped twelve angels, with the Virgin in the cen tre ; but the angelic faces, poorly portrayed in fresco, are almost blotted out. On either side of the chapel is an Plan of Kachrieh Djami STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 449 archivault of white marble, tastefully carved : on the north side, Christ, in the centre, between the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, bestows the benediction, while above and around are frescoed pictures of Old and New Testament story ; on the south side the Almighty Himself is repre- -*te *F-W. _!¦ sented with archangels on either hand, and a tedious inscription above glorifies the lorn since forgotten General Tornikes. The narthex, like the northern vaulted chamber and the sanctuary proper, is part of the eleArenth century structure raised by the beautiful Mary Dukaina. Tavo columns on the southern side are croAATied by capitals, AAdience zealous Moslems haAre en- deaAwed to hammer off all the angels and crosses. One solitary cross has escaped their fervor, and is unharmed. In the narthex and exo -narthex centres the absorbing interest of the mosaics. Why these have been left un hidden and untouched it is impossible to say. The Mos lems themselves even point them out with pride, and dilate Avith hrventiA^e originality on the scenes they depict. The subjects are draAvn equally from the receiA-ed and the apocryphal books of the NeAv Testament. Over the central portal of the exo-narthex Christ the VOL. ii. — 3 450 CONSTANTINOPLE Pantokrator, the Almighty, is represented, crowned as always with the cruciferous nimbus, and as ahvays the left hand grasps the Gospels and the right gives the bless ing. Nowhere does the Gospel hold a larger place, nowhere is it thrown into more reverent prominence, than in Byzantine art and in the Eastern Church. Above, on the right, is the Miracle of the Loaves, and on the left the Marriage at Cana. By these two scenes, flanking the cen tral figure of Christ, the Byzantine artists loved to set forth the dogmas of the Lord's Supper. Likewise over the central portal of the narthex, admits ting to the catholicon, the enthroned Christ blesses Avith the right hand and grasps the Gospel Avith the left. The suppliant Theodore, on his bended knees, presents a plan of the renovated church to the Lord Christ. He is coifed with that immense striped cap, bestowed as a sign of special favor by Andronikos II, which played so large a part in that stormy reign. An obsequious and pliant con temporary poet found in that cap the inspiration of his muse, and wrote the following Avell-paid verses : " The good Metochite, the eminent Logothete, himself the cul mination of learning, wears a gold-and-crimson cap, which, as a gift, the illustrious Emperor bestowed on him who is the maintainer of the State." To right and left of this entrance are the life-size pictures of Saints Peter and Paul. SomehoAV these tAvo have aroused the scruples of the faith ful, and are both hidden behind a wooden door. Their faces are full of life and expression. Farther to the right are a colossal Christ and Virgin. Both portraits are damaged and disfigured, but an indescribable melancholy and benignity linger on the faces of the Holy Mother and her Son. Among all the storied sacred scenes one knows not 1 1 to-J« i3 H Q 452 CONSTANTINOPLE which to choose, or Avhere longest to dwell. In the south ern dome, Christ, always giving his blessing and ahvays with the Gospel, is surrounded by thirty-nine patriarchs, his ancestors. This is his genealogy according to Saint Luke. In the four pendentives are represented the Heal ing of Peter's Wife's Mother, of the Two Blind Men, of The Virgin judged the Dumb and Blind Demoniac, and, most appealing of all, of the Woman with the Issue of Blood. In the northern dome the Virgin the Theotokos holds in a medallion the infant Saviour, and around her group, in two rows, the twenty-seven Hebrew ancestors of the Saviour. This is from the genealogy according to Saint Matthew. The pictures in the pendentives are partly from the apocryphal Gospels, — Joachim feeding his Flock on the Mountain, the High Priest judging the Virgin, and the Annunciation ; the fourth scene has disappeared. THE STAR IN THE EAST. THE WISE MEN BEFORE HEROD 454 CONSTANTINOPLE The history of the Virgin Mother, which reverent affec tion loved to ponder all through the Middle Ages, is given detailed expression in the mosaics of the narthex. In one — and there is none more touching — the parents, Joachim and Anna, bend tenderly over their fair girl child, whom together they hold and caress. In another her unequalled destiny is reArealed as she and her sister maidens receive skeins for weaving sacred tapestries. Her skein blushes to royal purple at her touch. A different spectacle, though one of the noblest, is the Healing of the Sick, where a numerous company, hobbling on staffs or unable to stand, stretch out piteous hands and beg to be cured. A mother holds forth her dying babe. Peter, James, and John look on with attention, while the Saviour, in the foreground, stoops Avith compassion towards the sufferers and heals their complaints. In the exo-narthex are specially portrayed the early life and the miracles of our Lord. None is more realistic than the Massacre of the Innocents, badly injured though it be by heedless vandalism. But description can only enu merate main features and chief actors ; it cannot really describe. No justice can be clone by words to the fadeless beauty of these crowded mosaic scenes. In the natural depression of the hill, the site appears ¦neither imposing nor well chosen, and is half concealed from vieAV. Later Christianity, Avhen world-triumphant, for her churches and cathedrals sought commanding places, appropriate to her universal sway. But this humble, easily unnoticed spot, fitted better the necessities of the persecuted primitive Christians. Here if anywhere, in its secluded loAvliness and loneliness, they might worship God, and, unseen, inter their murdered dead. So the very humil ity of the site is itself significant of its consecrated history. ¦¦3SEB* SCENES OF THE NATIVITY 456 CONSTANTINOPLE PHENARI YESA MESDJID, THE CHURCH OF PANACHRANTOS Phenari Yesa Mesdjid is the ancient monastic Church of the Panachrantos, or the Most Immaculate Virgin. It consists of two structures, built at different periods, which lie side by side, and are separated by a massive wall, through which they communicate by a spacious open arch. Both have domes on cylinders and a common narthex, but are long in proportion to their Avidth, and have many analogies with churches of the West. To the northern or smaller church is given the appearance of nave and aisles by great arches prolonged east and west on the north and south. sides. In the same manner a like effect is produced in the southern or larger church, save that an additional aisle is effected by an additional arch. All these aisles terminate towards the east in tiny chapels. Hence the tAvo churches present the striking and unique but most un-Byzantine appearance of seven parallel, adjacent, and in tercommunicating sanctuaries of different length. In the day of the church's splendor the combined effect must have been original and impressive. Even in its present degraded and filthy condition something can be pictured of the old-time appearance. The beautiful edifice is now in shocking need of repair. Biers and empty coffins fill the northern aisle. Pigeons' nests crowd every crevice and projecting point in the northern church, and the droppings are thick all over the rotting floor. The larger church is still open for wor ship. The imam asserts that magnificent mosaics are hid den under the dirty whitewash. Likewise he states that STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 457 the pigeons never enter here. Meanwhile they regard him knowingly, and flutter everywhere through the aisles. The name of the founder is lost, and its history seems almost a blank. Only one event breaks its dead monot ony. In 1282 the eloquent but vacillating Patriarch John II secretly abandoned the patriarchate, and fled hither alone by night. The death of the latinizing Michael VIII, to whom Pachy meres says he " had been tongue and hand and sharp-pointed pen, and subservient in all things," left him without a protector or friend. The un stable Patriarch feared that the people, indignant at his apostasy, would reach him even here, and tear him to pieces. A curious letter, still preserved, written by the hegou- menos, or abbot of the monastery, answers an urgent entreaty of distant Christians for a sacred relic to be used in the consecration of a neAvly erected church. " We haAe given you a part of the skull of the Apostle Philip. It is wrapped up in ribbons of gold, on which the name of the Apostle is written in Greek. We entreat all avIio behold that sacred particle to remember us in their prayers. Those Greek letters, sealed with our seal, Avere written by us in the month of January, 1214." The church was made a mosque by Phenari Yesa, Mol- lah, or Priest, of Brousa, who returned to his native city and died there in 1496. The Moslem pulpit is the gift and memorial of the humane and enlightened Beiram Pasha, Grand Vizir of Mourad IV. His death, Avhile marching with the Sultan against the Persians, caused his sanguinary master to shed tears. A solitary majestic cypress lifts its sombre form at the northwest corner of the mosque in the deep valley of the Lycus. 458 CONSTANTINOPLE MONASTIR MESDJID Monastir Mesdjid, Mosque of the Monastery, is very near Top Kapou, the Cannon Gate, Avhere the last Con stantine fell in the final siege. From its architecture Ave know that it Avas built sometime in the thirteenth or four teenth century. The tradition of the Ottomans that it was the first church in the city to fall into their hands and the first to be made a mosque, invests it Avith a mournful distinction. The legend may be true that three beautiful maidens deA^oted their little all to its erection, consecrated it to the Three Martyrs, maidens and sisters like themselves, and then, bidding good-by to the Avorld, took upon themselves the irreA^ocable monastic voavs. But of its name, its his tory, or its founder, nothing is knoAvn with certainty. It is a tiny sanctuary, only seven yards square. Though without dome or visible mosaics, it possesses in miniature eA'ery other feature of a Byzantine church. In it are apse and narthex and marble columns and bulging capitals, Avrought Avith acanthus leaA-es and crosses, and on its mildewed Avails are the faded forms of frescoed saints. Noav in its utter desolation it is only a plaintive ruin. The decaying oaken door, no longer turning on its hinges, is held together by strings. Through the rotten ceiling one looks out at the stars and sky. The floor is strewed Avith fragments of mouldy coffins. The minaret itself has fallen ; a round hole in the roof of the narthex indicates its former place. The last worshipper, the Moslem as Avell as the Christian, long since made his prayer, and nothing enters the desolate Avails to-day save the birds and the antiquary, through the shattered Avindow. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 459 MIR ACHOR DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOHN OF THE STUDIUM Near the Seven Towers, north of the railway track, arresting the eye from the passing train, is a peculiar greenish-colored building with gable roof. Its name is Mir Achor Djami. Just four centuries ago it was con verted into a mosque by Elias, the mir achor, or chief .-„..,. > i-fr -';¦'". '¦-.."¦¦ -' ¦¦'.'. Mik Achor Djami, Church of Saint John of the Studium equerry, of Sultan Bayezid II. But its longer history as the Studium, or the Studite Church of Saint John, began eleven hundred years before, when it was erected by the patrician Studius, member of that distinguished house which gave prefects, consuls, and senators to the service of Constantine and of his immediate successors. As the most ancient, almost the only, basilican church in the city, it possesses special architectural prominence. 460 CONSTANTINOPLE The proportions of the sanctuary, ninety feet by eighty- three, are in keeping Avith the early Byzantine tendency to desert the oblong and adopt the square. In its various renovations ahvays the original plan was strictly retained. When last reclad in its former splendor, in 1293, by Prince Constantine, brother of Andronikos II, a contemporary author wrote, " He modified its ancient appearance in no respect." LikeAvise the Ottomans have abstained from any apparent change. So, despite the decaying roof and the floorless gallery and the neglected air of spoliated Avail and column, one, as he wanders reverently through its aisles, is able in imagination to reclothe the naked outline Avith its early glory, and to reconstitute the sanctuary as it was when Christianity Avas young. It was the chief church of a monastery numbering over a thousand monks. The A-oice of prayer and praise ceased not day or night ascending from its altar ; for the brethren were the Akoimetai, or the Sleepless, and the service was uninterruptedly chanted by a third of the fraternity in turn. Cosmopolitan by its constitution, all nationalities Avere represented in its ranks, though Greeks, Latins, and Syrians were most numerous. Among the most striking and heroic figures of Eastern church history is its venerable Abbot Theodore. A fanat ical, unterrifiecl adherent of the icons, or holy pictures, Avhen, during the fierce iconoclastic persecution the stern Emperor Leo V in 815 ordered every holy picture to be banished or destroyed, Theodore, at the head of his clergy, in solemn procession, carried through the street all the icons he could gather, and gave them an asylum in his monastery. Nine years before, Theodore's indignant denunciation prevented the conclusion of a shameful treaty with the Bulgarian King Crum. Long afterwards, STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 461 in 842, the iconoclastic general and dictator Manuel lay at the point of death. The monks of the Studium thronged his chamber and promised him life and health if he would restore the icons. His subsequent almost mirac ulous cure he attributed to their intervention. Thereupon, and in conformity to the prayer of the Emperor Theophilos, the council Avas assembled which ended that bitter icono clastic controversy. This result, achieved by the monks of the Studium, the Orthodox Church annually commemorates Avith special solemnity on the first Sunday in Lent, hence called the Sunday of Orthodoxy. Just tAvo centuries later the dethroned Michael V, and his uncle the General Constantine, hid in the church in terror, but Avere torn from its altar by the infuriated mob. In 1059 Isaac I Komnenos of his own free will laid down his croAvn, saying he avouIc! rather be doorkeeper in the Studium than sit upon his throne. As the doorkeeper he dwelt here till his death, and was often visited by his friend and successor Constantine XI Dukas. Here in 1078 another discrowned Emperor, Michael VII, reluctantly assumed the cowl. The monastery's grandest clay Avas the 29th of August, when the beheading of John the Baptist was annually commemorated. At early dawn each year the Emperor came by boat from the Palace of Boucoleon, landing at the seaward gate of the monastery, the still existing Narli Kapou. While the Senate gathered in the church, the magistrates and patricians lined the shore. In tAvo lines, facing each other, the brotherhood Avere draAvn up from the landing-place to the church to receive their sovereign. As he passed betAveen their files, Avith swinging censers and lighted candles they fell in behind and folloAved him to the sanctuary. Then, as the liturgy commenced, the 462 CONSTANTINOPLE Emperor waved a smoking censer over the holy relics. Afterwards the monks and abbots served him with a light repast, and led him back to the barge in the same order as before. In this monastery Avere composed the hymns Avhich voiced the Church's devotion all through the Middle Ages. Youths of exalted and imperial rank were sent here to receive their education in this " illustrious and renowned school of virtue." So ascetic were the monks that, saA'e the legendary visit of the Empress Catharine to her abdi cated husband, Joseph Bryennios declares that during a thousand years no woman's foot " profaned " its court. Interment in these hallowed precincts was esteemed a sacred privilege. Here, among other illustrious dead, were reunited after their voluntary life-long separation Isaac I Komnenos and his devoted Bulgarian wife, the Empress Catharine. Here lay side by side Bonos, gov ernor of the city in the wars against the Persians and AA^ars, who died in 627, and Prince Kassim, youngest and apostate son of Bayezid I Ilderim, who died almost eight centuries later. Under the Latin occupation the monks were dispersed, and the vvide fields round the church served only as pasturage for sheep. So late as 1740 Pococke, in his characteristic cumbrous style, declares Mir Achor Djami as still " the finest mosque after Sancta Sophia which has been a church." He lingers with clumsy admiration on its pillars of snowy marble and vert antique, and " its very rich entablature." Only one hundred and ten years ago the roof and flooring of the galleries were destroyed by fire, that swept away the surrounding quarter of the city. The rudest covering was* stretched above to shut out the rain, but hardly any other repairs were attempted. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 463 Close to the entrance on the street stands a capital of enormous size and unusual beauty. Cloisters and giant trees enclose the court which precedes the mosque. Heaped about the enclosure are piles of ruins, while iso lated fragments dot the soil. This courtyard has been a quarry for generations, Avhence columns and blocks of marble and high-wrought capitals, Avith their sculptured crosses, have been dug out and borne away. The four columns which formed the open outer side of the narthex are almost concealed by the coarse Turkish wall which fills up the intervening spaces ; but their exquisite composite Roman capitals stand forth admirable and dis tinct. In the luxurious architrave, ornate with the egg and dart orna ment, and with birds and foliage, the cross con stantly appears ; and Ro man eagles are sculptured soaring from the corners. Within the sanctuary proper six superb columns of vert antique stand on the north ern side, in perfect poise, upon the A-ery bases where they Avere placed in the time of Constantine. In compari son, the eight bulky wooden columns, and the clustered pillars in the gallery, are pitiable caricatures. But the imams assert that they are in color and proportion the exact copy of the fire-crumbled marbles they replace. Beyond the marble floor recedes the broad and shallow segmental apse. Through the brick tiling of the southern aisle the battered lid of a sarcophagus protrudes slightly Colonnade of Mir Achor Djami in 1820 464 CONSTANTINOPLE above the general level of the floor. Almost all the an cient doors and windows have been mortared up, and the whole interior of the church, once so bright and glittering, now dark and gloomy, seems equally deserted by the sun shine and by its early faith. In the wall of the enclosure, near its northern gate, is the plaintive epitaph of the Russian monk Dionysios, who, an exile from home, found in this church a hospitable grave. But the careless mason has built the sepulchral tablet bottom upwards into its place, heedless of the dead man's fate and history. KHODJA MOUSTAPHA PASHA DJAMI, CHURCH OF SAINT ANDREW IN CRISIS Khodja Moustapha Pasha Djami occupies a romantic situation on the seventh hill in the southwest part of the city. It stands in the centre of a vast enclosure, shaded by giant cypresses, and hemmed in by close-packed Mus sulman graves. Though an attractive and airy edifice, it presents no special architectural feature. Its walls are picturesque, composed of alternate layers of brick and blocks of marble. This mosque Avas the cathedral church of the female Monastery of Saint Andrew in Crisis. Hearts were in that day sometimes as tender as in this. A chronicle of 1371 mournfully narrates : "A certain monk from the ven erable Monastery of the Odeghetria, a priest named Iosaph, has eloped with a certain nun from the venerable monas tery of the glorious saint, the mighty martyr, Andrew in Crisis." Probably the church was first erected by Arcadia, sister of Honorius II. Entirely rebuilt in the eighth cen- STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 465 tury by an unknown founder, it was splendidly raised anew in its present form by the Princess Theodora, daughter of the erratic usurper John VI Kantakouzenos. Revering the heroic memory of the Patriarch Ar- senios I, she entreated that his re mains should be removed from Sancta Ancient Church of Saint Andrew in Crisis Sophia, where they had lain in peace over fifty years, and be broug-ht hither to halloAV her church. This was done with the utmost solemnity by the Emperor and Senate. A few years later, when Theodora was dead and for- VOL. II. 466 CONSTANTINOPLE ' gotten, the relics Avere taken back to their first resting- place in Sancta Sophia. This lady's eventful history far eclipses in dramatic interest and vicissitude that of her beloved church. To strengthen his unstable throne her father tendered the hand of his daughter, already twice a widow, to Sultan Orkhan. The offer was accepted. Victim of her father's unscrupulous ambition, Theodora was handed over to her Ottoman lord. No religious rites consecrated their union ; but the aged Orkhan made no effort to change the faith of his Christian wife, and on her death she received Chris tian burial. Her grave at Brousa is still often pointed out, near, but a little apart from, those of the Ottoman dynasty. The church was made a mosque in 1489 by Khodja Moustapha Pasha, Grand Vizir of Bayezid II and of Selim I. During the reign of Achmet I, on the anniver sary of the Prophet Mohammed's birth, the imams encir cled the gallery of the minaret with rows of lighted lamps. The Sultan, enchanted at the fairy-like effect, ordered that henceforth on the Prophet's birthday all the minarets in the city should be thus illuminated. Hence the exquisite custom, continued to this day, had its origin here. In front, protected by a high railing, is the blasted trunk of an enormous cypress which died generations ago. Sus pended from its branches hangs a lengthy iron chain which common credulity dubs with the name of the " Judge." Whenever a debtor or creditor of bad faith stood below, the chain was expected with instantaneous precision to strike him a severe blow upon the head. Its present apathy is ex plained by the following tradition. Once an Ottoman was unable to obtain twenty pounds owed him by a Jew. The debtor protested that the sum was already paid. The cadi STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 467 ordered that appeal should be made to the judgment of the chain. The Jew concealed the exact sum in a hollow stick, which, just as he was stepping forward to undergo his trial, he asked the good-natured Otto man to hold. The money having thus been unconsciously received by the cred itor, the Jew re mained untouched, but the Ottoman, who in his turn stood beneath, was prostrated to the ground. Thereupon the Jew picked up his stick and de parted, but the chain, indignant at the trick, remains immovable to this day. A more pathetic legend attaches to a small square stone daubed with paint, and long since built into the wall of the enclosure. Both the Ottomans and Greeks believe this to be a holy picture, mortared in bottom upwards and face inside. On every Easter morning, the Greeks as sert, invisible to any human eye, and untouched by any The Cypress and Chain 468 CONSTANTINOPLE human hand, it stands in its original upright position, and turns its patient face beseechingly towards the an cient church. SANDJAKDAR MESDJID, THE CHURCH OF GASTRIA Sandjakdar Mesdjid, the Mosque of the Standard Bearer, was formerly the church of the female Monastery of Gastria, and is situated in the southern part of the city, close to the Marmora. Little of the original structure can be discerned in the actual mosque. The narthex is now used as a kitchen by its Moslem occupants, but it is no dirtier or less attractive than the rest of the fast-decaying building. Despite the squalid present, much legendary and historic interest attaches to the spot. According to tradition, here, on her return from the Holy Land, Saint Helena disem barked with the true cross, and was received by her son, Constantine the Great. The lilies, roses, and all the wealth of flowers which she had found growing around the cross in Palestine, she had carefully planted in pots with her own hands and brought hither. Nowhere in Constan tinople is there a balmier and sunnier region. So here in long lines Helena set out her floral treasures, and the place has been called ever since Gastria, or the Flower Pots. When, later, a female monastery was founded in the same locality, it perpetuated the legend and the name. During that century and a half of the harsh iconoclastic persecution, the nuns steadfastly adhered to the cause of the icons, and won great popular esteem by the devoted courage with which they disregarded the threats of the emperors. Theophilos was the last and most merciless of STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 469 the iconoclastic sovereigns. From the assembled noble maidens of the capital he had publicly chosen his bride Theodora, and in the midst of the fair company had declared his preference by the gift of a golden apple. The house of Theodora and of her mother Theoktiste Avas close to the monastery. Strongly sympathizing Avith the nuns, they restored and embellished the church, and enriched the monastery with repeated gifts. Often Theok tiste called her grandchildren to her house and taught them to revere the icons. This Avas artlessly told one day by Pulcheria, the youngest daughter, to her father. Though furiously enraged, Theophilos Avas powerless, save to pre vent his children from further visiting their grandmother. Some years after her husband's death Theodora, scandal ized by the evil life of their son, the Emperor Michael III, withdrew to the monastery in sorrow, and became a nun. Here she was subsequently joined by her surviving daugh ters. The sarcophagi of these princesses stood side by side in the narthex of the church till shortly before the Otto man Conquest. Because of her many virtues and spotless life, Theodora had been reckoned a saint in the judgment of the Church and of the common people. Her remains were therefore removed to the Church of the Theotokos Spelaiotissa, the Holy Virgin of the Cave, in Corfu. There still, once a year, is exposed to the veneration of the peo ple the shrivelled, blackened form, bejewelled and gold- bedizened, of her who seemed to the imperial suitor the fairest among the ladies of Constantinople just ten hun dred and sixty-five years ago. The church was converted into a mosque by Kha'ireddin Effendi, the standard-bearer of Sultan Mohammed II. 470 CONSTANTINOPLE MINOR BYZANTINE CHUECHES So uneventful or so little known is the history, so small the artistic interest, so insignificant the remains, of some of the following mosques, once Christian churches, that one might almost pass them by in silence. Yet even the humblest among them all is venerable for its hoary age, sacred for the faith and Christian purpose Avith which its walls of prayer were laid, and all the more pathetic that now no human being can disclose or learn its checkered story. Despite the lapse of centuries and the weary miles that separate that dreamy capital from the tumultuous, enterprising West ; despite the adamantine wall of preju dice built up by different customs, blood, and speech, those Byzantine worshippers, even though long since dead, are our brethren and fellow-Christians still. Not with out emotion can one Avho loves the common Christianity they cherished gaze upon those voiceless piles where, in an age and land less favored than our own, their sick, weary, suppliant hearts sought to draw near to God. Sheik Mourad Mesdjid is the Turkish name of a name less Christian church, or rather of the place whereon it stood fourteen years ago. On the site has recently been erected a dervish convent, the front steps of which are two magnificent Corinthian capitals three and a half feet in diameter. The foliage of no other capital of the city is so exquisitely incurved. Into the walls of the convent have been built countless carved and chiselled marble fragments from the forgotten church. Balaban Agha Mesdjid is a tiny fabric, probably erected in the seventh century, and doubtless dependent upon some STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 471 monastery. Nothing of its history is known save that it was conArerted into a mosque by Balaban Agha, the Alba nian hero of Dr Ludlow's romantic story, the " Captain of the Janissaries." Not even a legend or tradition clings about the church, converted into Kermankess Mesdjid by Kermankess Mous tapha Pasha, Grand Vizir of Sultan Ibrahim. Only a few months afterwards the ill-fated Grand Vizir lost the favor of his capricious master, and, hiding under a heap of hay, was dragged out and beheaded in 1643. The roof and walls fell in ruin seven years ago. Underneath may still be discerned another, a subterranean and more ancient, church, noAV so filled Avith earth and refuse that only Aery little of it can be seen. But on the choked-up Avails there may be faintly traced in places the almost obliterated figures of the SaA'iour and the saints. Yesa Kapou Mesdjid, the Mosque of the Gate of Jesus, is situated in an unfrequented, narrow passage, called the Street of the Gate of Jesus. Perhaps in the neighbor ing land Avail of Constantine there existed some so-called gate, but both haA'e equally disappeared. No history attaches to the church; the mosque is clean and bright, and tended with affectionate pride by its excellent imam. Achmet Pasha Mesdjid is familiar in Byzantine annals as the church of the female Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Trullo. It is at least as old as the tenth century. A legend, confirmed by Phrantzes, states that in it, in 692, convened that peculiar ecclesiastical assembly called the Penthekte, or Fifth-Sixth, as supplementary to the Fifth and Sixth General Councils. When the female Monastery of Pammakaristos, in 1456, became the Patri archal See, its nuns found a shelter here, and remained in 472 CONSTANTINOPLE quiet one hundred and thirty years. Then they were forced to seek another home, and the church was made a mosque by Achmet Pasha. Now it is only a dismantled ruin. The brick minaret long ago crumbled to pieces. Weeds and shrubs thrive on the tile-covered roof and dome, and the Ottomans of the quarter are ignorant of even its Turkish name. Of Sinan Pasha Mesdjid, the ancient Church of Saint John the Baptist of Petra, nothing is left save a portion of the apse and of the northern wall. Burned down many years ago, no man has been brave enough to defy the current prophecy that all who had any part in its re-erection would die together the moment it was com plete. It was changed into a mosque by Sinan, Kapou- dan Pasha, or Chief Admiral, of Sultan Souleiman the Sublime. The venerable monastic Church of Myrelaion, now Boudroum Djami, or the Subterranean Mosque, seems designed as a mausoleum rather than a church. Built in the seventh century, and rebuilt on a larger scale three centuries later by Romanos I Lekapenos, it afforded places of burial to the dead equally with places of prayer to the living. Here Romanos Avas himself interred with his Em press Theodora. Beside them was placed their daughter the Empress Helena, whose life was a long hard struggle between the conflicting claims of her ambitious father and her pliant husband, Constantine VIII. Here were gathered and laid to final rest the long-scattered bones of the dis membered Emperor Maurice. Here the Empress Catha rine assumed the veil, when seeking the one asylum of the city that should remind her most forcibly of the vanities of power. Mesich Ali Pasha, Grand Vizir of Bayezid II, was attracted to the gloomy church as in keeping with his STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 473 own sombre spirit, and converted it into a mosque. Hardly had the transformation been effected when, in 1500, at the zenith of his glory, he was accidentally killed by a falling stone, and was buried in the mosque enclosure. In per fect preservation, but dark and dreary, the edifice has an almost sinister appearance peculiarly its own. Even the Moslems do not love it, and seek some other sanctuary in which to pray. Kepheli Mesdjid is near the Hebdomon. Its founder was the soldier Manuel. It was also his place of burial. Sidney and Bayard are not more knightly figures than this Byzantine chevalier. Loyal to the infant Emperor Michael III, he refused the crown which the nation pressed upon him, and his entire life is a record of heroism and stainless virtue. The church was enlarged by Photios, the brilliant Patriarch who defied the Pope, and in 879 pre sided over the Eighth Ecumenical Council in Sancta Sophia. Again it was almost rebuilt by Romanos I Lekapenos, the conqueror of the Bulgarians and the Russians. The Greeks deserted the locality after the conquest. Mohammed II, eager to repopulate his capi tal, established there many thousand Armenians, whom he had brought as captives from Kaffa in Russia. He gave them as their sanctuary the half-ruined church of Manuel. Its new possessors were finally despoiled by Souleiman the Sublime, Avho made the church into a mosque. But the present name, signifying Mosque of the People from Kaffa, preserves the memory of the Armenian exiles. Vast subterranean chambers underlie the church. Near the Aqueduct of Valens is Sekban Bashi Mesdjid, the ancient Church of Christ. It was built by that fair and tireless founder of churches, Mary Dukaina, sister of 474 CONSTANTINOPLE Alexios I Komnenos, and was made a mosque by the Sekban Bashi, who died in 1496, and is buried near. It is surrounded by a Mussulman cemetery, where successive tiers of graves are heaped upon one another. Of small proportions and inartistic, it is equally destitute of beauty and of history. DJEB KHANEH, THE CHURCH OF SAINT IRENE Saint Irene is the only ancient Byzantine church still standing upon the grounds of the Seraglio. All the other numerous and splendid Christian edifices, once included within those limits, have been destroyed or have disap peared. This one sanctuary remains close to the verge of the vast enclosure, and with the high Seraglio wall appar ently braced against it. It was never converted into a mosque, and hence at its side there is no minaret, the distinctive, sky-piercing symbol of Islam. Unchanged in all outward appearance since the Ottoman Conquest, and as manifestly a Christian church as when first erected by Constantine the Great, its venerable form seems lifting a solitary and eternal protest against the transformations which have gone on around. It was consecrated not to a virgin martyr named Irene, but to the Elprfvrj, or Peace of God, even as the great cathedral which towers just beyond was dedicated to the Sophia, or the Wisdom of God. Burned at the Revolt of the Nika in 532, it was, when rebuilt by Justinian, in no way inferior to the splendid fabric destroyed. Early in the eighth century an earthquake racked and rent its walls, but did not throw it down. The un sightly buttresses, which increase its strength but de- Z, s HZi— i <5to& 480 CONSTANTINOPLE enemy, save those of the Crusaders in 1203, and of Mo hammed II just two hundred and fifty years later. In chests are tiny bags of earth, sent in token of submission by terror-stricken provinces, and strings of gold and sil ver keys from conquered cities. Heaped upon each other in careless and indiscriminate confusion are countless objects the meaning and the source of which are alike Reputed Bell of Sancta Sophia forgotten, but which were once the almost articulate expression of all human passion and despair. Saint Irene is a prodigious hearthstone, on Avhich all the ashes of religion and of triumph and surrender have grown cold. On the north side of the church is a narroAv, grassy plat, separated from the street by a high iron railing. Placed in line and easily scrutinized through the impas sable bars are seven large objects of great though dissimilar interest. The least important is an enormous head of z, £ HZ,h- ( 5 482 CONSTANTINOPLE Medusa. The forehead has been barbarously chipped away, that, thus adjusted, it might better serve in the foundations of some building. Next is the lower portion of that porphyry obelisk of which Prioli carried the upper part with so much pride to Venice. On the extreme left is the empty sarcophagus, of green Thessalian marble, to whose eternal trust Leo VI the Philosopher, and his ill- Kettle Drums of the Janissaries used Empress Saint Theophano, committed their daughter Eudoxia. The porphyry pedestal a little farther north has more momentous associations. On it once stood the silver image of another Eudoxia, the frivolous wife of the Emperor Arcadius, and the relentless foe of Saint John Chrysostom. While the statue was being poised upon this now disfigured stone, buffoons and women of the street STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 483 burned incense at its base, and circled around it in boisterous and lascivious dances. The ribald uproar dis turbed the worship which Chrysostom was conducting in Sancta Sophia. Ascending the pulpit, the indignant and dauntless Patriarch thundered forth that most vehement and tempestuous of all his impassioned sermons. Losing sight of the ignoble crowd, with his merciless tongue he lashed the follies and errors of the Empress. He likened Eudoxia to the paramour of Herod Antipas. "Behold," he said, "that revenge ful Herodias. Herodias is falling back into her madness. Herodias begins again to inspire the dance. Herodias demands once more the head of John." This ill-judged but heart-wrung discourse resulted in the speedy exile and consequent martyrdom of that most passionate and most eloquent of Christian preachers. On the right hand of the plat are three huge porphyry sarcophagi. They were excavated in 1847 from among the ruins of the Church of Saint Menas in the Seraglio, but had .been brought thither at some unrecorded period from the Church of the Holy Apostles. The one farthest north, still covered by its gable-pointed lid, may be, as Dethier almost proves, the sarcophagus of Theodosius the Great. The monogram of the Saviour, surrounded by a laurel wreath of victory, hallows the lid. Underneath are the letters Alpha and Omega, significant of Christian faith and hope. The sarcophagus on the left is even larger, — twelve and one half feet long, by six and one half Eudoxia, Wife of the Emperor Arcadius 484 CONSTANTINOPLE feet Avide, — but not hewn from a single stone. The lid is Avanting. A not improbable conjecture assigns it to Constantius II, who died in 360. The third sarcophagus, prominent in the very fore ground, likewise destitute of its lid, marred and cracked and seamed but most august because of its prodigious Supposed Sarcophagi of Constantine the Great and Theodosius the Great size, is, of all sarcophagi cut from a single block, the vast est in the world. Its inner cavity or receptacle is eight feet nine inches long, four feet one inch wide, and three feet eleven and one quarter inches deep. Hence it was evidently designed for the reception, not of one coffin, but of two, one resting upon the other. Not a single mono gram or character of any sort breaks the sphinx-like plain ness of its outer or inner surface. Empty and uninscribed STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 485 sarcophagi, like dead men, themselves tell no tales of their ended past. Yet a chain of collateral evidence, which it is impossible to doubt, demonstrates that this sarcophagus Avas the sepulchral chamber wherein the coffins of Constan tine the Great and of his mother Saint Helena, removed from her earlier tomb at Rome, were placed together in filial and maternal nearness for their final rest. THE CHURCH OF THE LIFE-GIVING FOUNTAIN, OR OF BALOUKLI Outside the great Land Wall, and directly west of the Gate of Selivria, is an extensive plain. During the spring and summer it is green with grass and bright with floAvers. In every direction the land stretches aAvay in beautiful undulations, shaded by enormous trees. What Prokopios wrote thirteen hundred and fifty years ago is true to-day : " A luxuriant forest of cypresses, verdant and flowery slopes, a spring noiselessly pouring forth its calm and refreshing waters, — these are the features Avhich beseem that sacred spot." It is the Philopation, or the far-famed Seaward Meadow of the Golden Gate. The place Avas loA^ed by Justinian and Theodora, and by many Greek emperors and patriarchs since. It Avas the faA^orite resort of the Byzantines Avhen in search of change or rest or health, and Aveary of the busy city. Since the Conquest the dead have packed the places always dear to the living. The entire territory is now parcelled out among the ceme teries of three peoples. The flat monuments of the Arme nians, the pointed shafts and crosses of the Greeks, and the turbaned tombstones of the Ottomans cover the ground. As far as the eye can reach, all seems one boundless graA-e- 486 CONSTANTINOPLE yard, wherein it is no exaggeration to say that millions sleep. Near the centre of the plain is the spring called the Life-giving Fountain, whose hygienic qualities were recog nized in the time of Constantine. Superstition magnified its beneficent effects. When it was reported that a blind man had been restored to sight at the touch of its waters, Leo the Great fortlrwith erected a church over the source. Justinian, believing that a bath in the spring had cured him of calculus, thriftily enlarged the church by means of the superfluous material that remained after the comple tion of Sancta Sophia. Twice destroyed by earthquake, it was successively rebuilt by Irene, wife of Leo IV, in the eighth century, and by Basil I one hundred years later. Simeon, the King of the Bulgarians, during one of his raids in the tenth century, burnt it to the ground, and on his departure it was restored with added splendor by Romanos I Lekapenos. A generation later King Peter, the son of Simeon, Avedded at its altar the granddaughter of that same Romanos. There too was solemnized the still more brilliant wedding of the youthful Emperor John V, and Helena the bewitching daughter of John Kanta kouzenos. The father hoped the young Avife's charms might blind the husband to his own culpable designs upon the crown. Near the church was the Palace of the Peghe, or of the Spring, to Avhich the emperors annually removed on Ascension Day, and where they devoted a few weeks to their health. Not a vestige of the palace exists. Here Avere the headquarters of Mourad II during his unsuccess ful three months' siege of Constantinople in 1422. The church Avas greatly injured at the time, but not entirely destroyed until after the victory of Mohammed II. Then STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES ±8\ its materials, part of which had been dug long before from ruined pagan temples, were carted away to serve in the erection of the Conqueror's Mosque. But the fountain, or ayasma, never lost its place in popu lar regard. Soon the people flocked back to the beautiful meadow as of old. Sixty-two years ago Mahmoud II authorized the Greeks to construct the now-existing church on the site of the ancient edifice. Though digging deep through the debris, nothing Avas discovered save a large white marble door and a portion of the old- time pavement. The present simple church stands in the centre of a small, marble-paA^ed, high- walled enclosure. On the right is the revered ayasma. To it one descends by a flight of stone steps. Shut in, roofed over, obscure and gloomy despite the always burning lamp and the con stantly lighted candles, it bears small resemblance noAV to the sparkling open fountain above which, in the eA'e of Byzantine faith, the enthroned Virgin ahvays seemed to hover, and the vivifying waters of Avhich restored the suffering and diseased. Farther to the south are many tombs of bishops and dis tinguished prelates. No less than eight patriarchs are interred among them according to the peculiar form of patriarchal burial. Each in his tomb is seated on a sub- A Deceased Patriarch en throned before Burial 488 CONSTANTINOPLE terranean throne ; each grasps the Gospel with the dead left hand, and the stiff fingers of the right are arranged as if giving the benediction. Thus always, with the Gospel clutched by their mouldering fingers, does the Church gather her Patriarchs to the grave, — mute testimonial for the resurrection that the only hope of saint and sinner is the story of Christ's redemption. The monument, which rises above and hides the grave of each, is shaped like an altar, and bears the two insignia never Avanting over a Patriarch's tomb, — the cross, in symbol of faith, and the double- headed eagle, significant of the Empire overthrown in 1453. The last Patriarch to join the illustrious company was Dionysios V, Avho died in August, 1891. A legend is firmly believed among the common Greeks that on May 29, 1453, the last day of the final siege, a monk was frying fish near the ayasma. Suddenly a terri fied priest rushed in, screaming that the city was taken. "I Avill never believe it," replied the friar, "unless these fish jump back into the Avater." This they forthwith did. The fish now gliding in the dim recesses of the ayasma are commonly considered the lineal descendants of their half-fried ancestry. It is asserted in attestation of the legend's truth that the living fish are black on one side and Avhite upon the other. So general and so firmly planted is the tradition that the name now usually applied to the locality is Baloukli, or the Place of the Fishes. TAvice every year — on Easter Friday, called the Day of Baloukli, and on the following Sunday — the place is thronged by an eager crowd. Often more than fifty thou sand people come together to quaff the water and to picnic among the tombstones under the trees. A few are in quest of health, but the larger number are seekers after recreation. Belonging in general to the humbler classes, STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 489 but representing all nationalities and creeds, the concourse affords an almost unequalled opportunity to watch peculiar phases of Constantinople life. Good order and decorum reign supreme. No relaxation can be more innocent, and no merriment more quiet and subdued. CHURCH OF THE THEOTOKOS THE MOUCHLIOTISSA The tiny monastic Church of the Theotokos the Mouch- liotissa, planted on a hill a little above the present Patri archate, possesses a peculiar and solemn distinction. It is the only church in Constantinople, existing prior to the Conquest, in which Christian services have been unceas ingly rendered ever since. Most of the churches built before 1453 were successhely made mosques ; all the others, except this one alone, Avere throAvn doAvn by earth quake or consumed by fire. Subsequent re-erection might imitate their form, but could not restore the absolute identity of the structures once destroyed. Moreover, in each of all the rest there was a break of months, and sometimes years, in the continuity of Avorship. But in the Mouchliotissa the Avails are the very same that echoed Avith the anguish and reddened with the blood of the Ottoman siege. On the same still-trodden flagstones of its pavement pressed the knees then bent in unaA'ailing prayer. In the four and a half centuries since there has been no week, and almost no day, when Christian worship has not ascended like incense from its altar. Hence it is the sole ecclesiastical link that directly binds the religious present of the capital to its mediaeval religious past. In a metropolis once the "City of Churches;" in a capital Avhose sovereigns wore, as their most exalted title, " Faith- 490 CONSTANTINOPLE ful Emperor in Christ ; " over the ruins of an Empire clashed to pieces four hundred and forty-two years ago, — the Mouchliotissa comes down with its thrilling history of six centuries, the only Christian sanctuary in Constan tinople which has never been defiled by conversion into the temple of another faith, which has never lain in ruin, and in which the voice of worship has never ceased. Mary, daughter of Michael VIII, was given by her father as hostage and wife to Apagos, Khan of the Mon gols. On the death of her barbarian husband she returned to Constantinople, and devoted her private fortune to the erection and maintenance of this monastery. Its name, Mouchliotissa, or Mongol Lady, transmits the memory of her wedded life. In a humorous exercise of philology, Lechevalier derives the name from the Greek /xdyovKov (a jaw), and infers that an Empress was there cured of the toothache ! At the Conquest many Christians, with their wives and children, fortified themselves in the church. Refusing to surrender, and resisting to the last, they were all massacred together. The hill on which it stands is still called Sand- jakdar Yokoushu, Height of the Standard Bearer, from a brave Ottoman officer who was slain in the fight. The Sultan bestowed the church and the entire locality upon the Greek Christodoulos, in reward for his services as architect of the Mosque of Mohammed II. The hatti sherif, or imperial firman, confirming the grant, written and signed in ordinary characters by the Sultan's victorious hand, is still preserved. It is in the following words : " 0 thou who hast been elevated to the rank of Sou Bashi (Prefect) of Constantinople. Since, in consequence of Our divine clemency, to the architect Christodoulos, in recom pense for his perfect work, We have given a grant of the STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 491 Street called Kutchouk Djafer, thou wilt go to the Church Mouchliotissa, and wilt trace the afore-ordered Street, with the vacant places which it contains ; then thou wilt put the afore-ordered Christodoulos in possession thereof, con formably to Our present sacred command, to which thou shalt give absolute obedience." A second Christodoulos, nephew and heir of the first, was architect of the Mosque of Bayezid II, and to him that Sultan confirmed the grant. In the eighteenth century Achmet III was entreated by his courtiers to take the church from the Christians. The Moldavian Prince Cantemir, as he tells the story, took the precious firman to the Grand Vizir, Tchorluli Ali Pasha, " who read it through Avith profound attention, humbly kissed it thrice, afterwards handed it back, and ordered that all further prosecution of the subject should cease, and that the Christians should never again be molested about the matter." The church presents many structural and ecclesiastical peculiarities. It is the eAadent creation of a degraded archi tectural age. The pulpit and episcopal throne are strangely placed. Many of the painted and mosaic icons were brought from other, older churches, and their appearance testifies to their antiquity. Close to the throne is an ele gant and costly tapestry, in which is exquisitely worked the Burial of Christ. This is the gift of the Russian Czar Nicholas I. At the rear is an ancient ayasma. The mis shapen and inartistic church is cherished by the Greeks with intense and affectionate veneration. 492 CONSTANTINOPLE ARAB DJAMI Arab Djami, the Arab Mosque, on the north side of the Golden Horn, resembles no other mosque in the city. It is a plain, unassuming, low-studded building, one hundred and eighty feet long and less than half as broad. Even had it no square, high, sharp-pointed campanile at its side, from which the muezzin calls to prayer, it Avould be recog nized at once as formerly an Italian church. Built by Dominican friars on the site of a more ancient Byzantine chapel, it was the favorite sanctuary of those Genoese adventurers Avho in Galata maintained a semi-independent existence for hundreds of years, and alternately cajoled and defied the Byzantine capital. Its present neat and attractive wooden ceiling Avas the gift in 1880 of a devout Ottoman lady, who suffered from an incurable disease, but who vainly hoped by this meritorious act to purchase per fect health. The church Avas made a mosque in 1620 by Moustapha I. A common but erroneous Mussulman tra dition attributes its erection to the Arab general, Mouslem, who besieged Constantinople in 718. It is regarded by the Ottomans as the most ancient, except one, of the mosques of the city. Large revenues are derived from its tAvo most popular and revered possessions, — a black ebony boAvl of generous dimensions, and the fountain in the court. Whenever an enceinte woman drinks sufficient water from the fountain in this bowl, she is guaranteed the happy de livery of a boy. When it is too late to repeat the draught, in case the lady proves to be the disappointed mother of a girl, the imam gravely assures her that she did not drink enough. STILL EXISTING ANTIQUITIES 493 YENI VALIDEH DJAMI, THE CHURCH OF SAINT FRANCIS Yeni Valideh Djami, likewise in Galata, occupies the site of an Italian church, consecrated to Saint Francis, and served by Franciscan friars. The Genoese writers proudly extol its former beauty. After the Conquest its monks were accused by the Moslems of devoting them selves to the abhorred wine traffic rather than to prayer. So their landed estates were confiscated, and the church burned down. In 1697 a mosque was erected on the abandoned foundations by Rebieh Ghoulnouz Oumme- doullah, Sultana of Mohammed IV, a Cretan lady, the beauty of whose face was considered not inferior to the euphoniousness of her name. All the Christian houses be tween the mosque and Golden Horn were then torn doAvn, so that indignation at their existence should not disturb the devotions of the faithful. In the imperial order com manding the mosque's erection, it was enjoined upon the architect " to change into a house of God the former resort of abomination and scandal." Though destitute of architectural beauty, the edifice deserves mention, not only because of its Christian history, but as being the largest mosque which the Ottomans have raised in Galata. IX SANCTA SOPHIA HE first questions every stranger asks as his steamer rounds Seraglio Point from the Marmora, or descends the Bosphorus from the Black Sea, are, " Where is Sancta Sophia ? " " Which is Sancta Sophia ? " To catch the ear liest possible glimpse of its outline the eye of every traveller is strained. Myths and legends told concerning it are devoured with eager interest. With rapt attention its walls and pillars and arches and mosaics are scanned. In after years, in the quiet of the stranger's home, it is the colossal form of Sancta Sophia which stands out most distinct on the canvas of Constantinople memories. Nor is it strange. To many Constantinople means nothing but Sancta Sophia. To thousands who have never even heard of the city's wonderful walls, and who have never made a mind-picture of the Bosphorus, the name of its Arenerable cathedral is a familiar sound. Even to those who knoAv it least it is the synonym of what is grandest, most glorious, most historic, and most sacred in the achievements of Christian architecture. SANCTA SOPHIA 495 In one respect Sancta Sophia is unlike every other anti quarian monument of Constantinople. Those other an tiquities of the city belong wholly to the past, and have no future. The battered Theodosian walls can never with stand the shock of war again. Up the broken Serpent of Delphi in the Hippodrome no oracular response will ever pass to some future suppliant. Their part in the world's history is done. They are ancient, classic, hoary; but with each day becomes more remote the age for which they were formed, and the purpose for which they were designed. Sancta Sophia belongs to the past as well. In 537, a Avhole generation before the birth of Mohammed the Prophet, its great dome swept heavenward as skylike as it does to-day. Yet that church, we may believe, has a future as glorious as, perhaps more glorious than, its past- May the Sultan live a thousand years ! May succeeding sovereigns, as enlightened, as philanthropic, as generous, as his present Imperial Majesty, sit upon the Ottoman throne ! Sultan Mohammed II was never more profound, more philosophic, more truly great, than on the day of conquest. An Ottoman soldier, in the intoxication of vic tory or fanaticism, was destroying the mosaics in Sancta Sophia with his mace. " Let those things be ! " the Con queror cried. With a single blow he stretched the barba rian motionless at his feet. Then, in a lower tone, he added, so the historian declares, " Who knows but in an other age they may serve another religion than that of Islam ? " What the future of this cathedral is the Avild- est speculation cannot grasp. In the legend of the com mon people, a Greek priest was celebrating the liturgy when the exultant army of the Sultan burst through the doors. Taking the cross in his hand, the priest slowly 496 CONSTANTINOPLE Avithdrew to one of the secret chambers, and there, with the cross, is Avaiting still ! The Church of Sancta Sophia rises on the crest and western side of the first hill. It stands just outside the limits of ancient Byzantium. To-day its confused and shapeless pile, bounded by four massive minarets, encased in gigantic buttresses, made grotesque by wide painted stripes of alternate yellow and white, fills the horizon of the eye from every direction. Like Saint Peter's at Rome, it traces its history by an unbroken chain back to Constantine himself. It is a fit coincidence that those two cathedrals — one the vastest sanctuary of Western Catholicism and the other of Eastern Orthodoxy — should both have been first erected by the first Christian Emperor. It is another coincidence that neither Avas intended by its founder to be the metro politan church of either the new or the ancient Rome. That distinction in Constantinople Avas intended for the Church of Saint Irene, and in Rome for that of Saint John Lateranus. Its foundations Avere laid in 326, on the site of a pagan temple, in the presence of Constantine himself, a few months after his return from the council of Nice. It Avas a basilica, and its erection occupied ten months. It was dedicated, not to the lady Sophia, the legendary martyred mother of three legendary martyred daugh ters, Faith, Hope, and Charity, as is sometimes said; nor to the Third Person of the Trinity, as is more com monly believed. It was consecrated to the divine Sophia, or Wisdom of the Logos, or Word of God, — that is, to Christ himself. Its dedication and name is a result and souvenir of the theologie Avar Avhich had raged in the council of Nice. SANCTA SOPHIA 497 That Constantine ever cast a longing, lingering look back to the paganism he had abjured, I do not believe. He was a Christian rather than a pagan. Still he was a politician more than either. In the struggle of Christian creeds he meant to be found the champion and leader of the win ning side. The Arians had just been defeated at Nice. The believers in Christ's oneness and equality with the Father were in the ascendant. So for a time, as long as the great majority were on that side, Constantine was a Trinitarian. Hence the churches which he founded in that first summer day of Orthodoxy were devoted, one to the Wisdom of Christ, and one, the chiefest, to the Peace of God which passeth all understanding. Thirty-four years afterwards his son Constantius II, unable to rival his father's military successes, and burning with a natural desire to surpass his father's architectural achievements, tore it down and rebuilt it anew, croAATiing it with a dome of brick. At this, its second consecration, twenty thousand idolaters, converts from paganism, were baptized. When, the following year, Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, the brick dome gave way, and crushed the pulpit and part of the pavement in its fall. The excited Christians reported that this dome was so full of a heavenly spirit that it thus committed suicide rather than exist after the accession of a heathen emperor. A wooden dome, less dangerous and less sensitive to religious error, took its place. This edifice of Constantius became the Patriarchal Church, and was hallowed by the sermons of Chrysostom. When Chrysostom was deposed and exiled, a fierce fight ensued between his foes and adherents : many persons were killed ; the church was burned to the ground. The affectionate devotion of his followers is said to have res- VOL. II. — 6 498 CONSTANTINOPLE cued the pulpit and the patriarchal throne from the sacrilegious flames. A throne, asserted to be the very one on which he sat, and a pulpit, believed to be the same from which his sermons were thundered, are now preserved with credulous reverence in the Patriarchal Church at Phanar. A third structure was erected by Theodosius II and con secrated with special solemnity in 415. Longer-lived than its predecessors, it was the chief Christian temple of the capital during the reign of nine emperors and under fifteen patriarchs. In 532 broke out the horrible Revolt of the Nika. The flames, first kindled for the sake of plunder, and then kindled anew by the hopeless hate of the defeated party, consumed an untold number of churches, palaces, baths, houses, and public buildings. When at last quiet was restored, the Emperor Justinian beheld from his half- burned palace a broad black belt reaching from the Golden Horn to the Marmora. The greatest grief of the Emperor and of his remorseful subjects is said to have arisen from the fact that the Church of Sancta Sophia, thrice built, was again utterly destroyed. This church Justinian determined to restore on a scale of magnificence such as the world had never beheld. It should be expiation in stone of his own mistakes and sins as a sovereign. It should commemorate the over throw of disorder and rebellion, and the pacification of the capital and Empire. In it his own glory should be embodied, and succeeding ages should there behold the enduring monument of his reign. It should preserve as well the memory of his Empress Theodora, whose noble courage had saved his imperilled throne, Avhose image was stamped with his upon every coin, and whose name SANCTA SOPHIA 499 was joined with his in every decree. It should be worthy of them its founders, and — as far as lay in seemingly limitless human resources and in the highest human skill — of the Saviour for whose worship it was designed. Anthemios of Tralles, the most skilful architect and engineer of the century, the first of the Greeks to utilize the power of steam, — a man, Agathias says, " able to imi tate earthquakes and thunderbolts," — was chosen archi tect in chief. With him were associated Isidoros of Miletus and Ignatios the restorer of the Augustaeum, architects of almost equal ability and fame. An angel was considered to have revealed the plan of Sancta Sophia to the Emperor in a dream, — not indeed in its entirety and elaborateness of detail, but the one idea, the main conception, which afterwards the architects were to develop and clothe with form. This conception was that of a dome, of the greatest possible diameter, made the seg ment of the largest possible circle, elevated to a dizzy height and sustained by the least possible support. The revelation did not consist in the mere conception of a dome, — which was no new idea, though afterwards almost monopolized by a single school, but in the most perfect combination of these conditions. Anthemios was to be no mere developer or servile imitator of any sys tem then existent., Byzantine architecture was to spring into its fullest development almost at a bound. Sancta Sophia was " at once the herald and culminator of a new style." How wide a dome could be safely built, it was for Anthemios to judge. That question decided, it was next for him to determine the least possible amount of support necessary to maintain it in the air. Until those two prob- 500 CONSTANTINOPLE lems were solved, the work could hardly begin. They, however, being once determined, the construction could be pushed on as rapidly as means and material were provided. Proclamations were sent all over the Empire, announ cing the work Justinian had begun, and inviting the co-operation and assistance of the faithful and devout. Patriotism, personal ambition, desire of the Emperor's favor, hope of preferment, everything combined with half- pagan superstition and genuine piety to aid as far as they could. We speak of the Sancta Sophia of Justinian. It is fitting that the great fabric should be peculiarly illustra tive of his fame. But it is rather the outcome and crea tion of a people in its most gilded age. It is rather the burst of a century's enthusiasm than the slow construc tion of imperial power. In the edifice centred then, as has centred ever since, the whole heart of the Byzantine Empire. Contributions poured in from Europe, Asia, and Africa, — even from remotest provinces. The rich gave of their abundance. More than one poor widow cast in all that she had. Imperial, national, and private treasures were lavished like water as the work progressed. When earthly resources failed, it was thought that celestial aid was afforded. An angel, disguised as a donkey-boy, — a form in which angels are seldom met, — was reported to have led a string of mules to secret vaults, and to have brought them back with their baskets laden with gold. Justinian, a laborer's tools in his hands, toiled with the workmen. The angelic assistants were as tireless as he. At night, when all were asleep but the watchmen, the walls con tinued to grow by invisible hands. Once, when the men Avere taking their noonday rest, SANCTA SOPHIA 501 a man in white raiment suddenly ' appeared to the boy who watched their tools, and told him to hurry the men back to their work. The boy hesitating to leave his post, the stranger said, " I will stay here till you come back." The boy went on his errand, but before he returned the story Avas told the Emperor. He de clared the man in white to be an angel. He gaA^e the boy much money, and despatched him at once to a distant province of the Empire, binding him under most solemn oaths never to return. The humble classes believe that somewhere around Sancta Sophia the outwitted angel is waiting for that boy. The new church was to occupy the exact site of the old, but, being far larger, required much additional territory ; that, too, in the most elegant and expensive quarter of the city. Part was given gladly by deArout proprietors ; part was bought at a fair price by the Emperor. But the widow Anna refused to abandon the spot whereon she Avas born. Neither bribes nor imprecations moved her. At last the Emperor came to her house and besought her for the love of God not to hinder his pious purpose. Moved by his condescension and entreaties, she made a free gift of her property, only stipulating that she should be buried on that very spot, so that on the resurrection morning, arising from the hallowed ground, she might demand and receive an eternal reward. The promise was given and kept. The bones of the widow were laid to rest a few years after at the northeast corner of the building by Justinian himself. Another proprietor, a cobbler, refused to give up his bit of land. He, however, was ambitious, not of gold, but of honor. Finally he agreed to sell, on condition of having a prominent seat in the Hippodrome and being saluted by 502 CONSTANTINOPLE the troops in the sa/ine manner as the Emperor. Justinian consented. A most conspicuous seat Avas assigned this aspirant after distinction, but its back was first turned toward the soldiers and the games. Shouts of derisive laughter mingled with the salutes of the well-trained troops, when the cobbler for the first and only time approached his distinguished seat. To prepare for the foundations, a surface several hun dred feet square was excavated and made level. On this was deposited a layer of cement nearly tAventy feet thick. Close by an oratory, with a small pavilion, was built for the Emperor, where he might rest or pray. On February 23, 533, Justinian laid the first stone, while bishops swung incense and the Patriarch Epiphanios repeated prayers. Anthemios believed he could sustain a dome one hundred and eight feet in diameter with an axis of no more than forty-six feet. For its support he built four colossal piers of cubical stone, bound together by iron clamps and faced in marble. To counteract the enormous lateral pressure, two other immense though slightly smaller piers were con structed at both the east and west ends. These were a little nearer each other than were the colossal piers, so the space thus included Avas a sort of oval. At the same time in both the north and south sides two other piers were built in a straight line with the colossal piers. Hence these four direct supports and the eight lateral supports were arranged most distinctly in form of a Greek cross. At the height of nearly one hundred feet four semi-circular arches sprang from the four colossal piers. On the top of these arches rested the belt or perimeter which served as a base to the circumference of the dome. It is stated that the only mortar used was made of lime, SANCTA SOPHIA 503 powdered brick and shells, and pulverized elm-bark, mixed with warm barley water, which had been boiled till it be came a pulp. The brick for the arches were made with spe cial care. On very many were stamped the words *H MeyaXrj 'E/cKXijcrta, the Great Church, by which name, rather than Sancta Sophia, the cathedral has always been commonly called among the Greeks. For the dome small square brick were pre pared in Rhodes, of so spongy material that five weighed hardly more than an ordinary brick. On each were stamped in Greek the initials of the verse, " God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early." These brick Avere placed in layers, which diminished in thickness towards the apex of the dome. On completion of each tAvelfth layer relics of saints were inserted, and priests intoned prayers and hymns. It was believed that celestial music cheered the work men Avhenever they grew weary. An auspicious dream never failed the Emperor when in doubt as to some perplexing question or detail. Thus when the archi tects could not agree as to the shape of the apse, an Plan of Sancta Sophia 504 CONSTANTINOPLE angel in a vision showed the Emperor that it must be triple, — its present form, — in acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity. The many legends, still affectionately cherished and repeated, " prove," as says Bayet, " how this gigantic enterprise wrought itself into the popular imagination." The church was ready for consecration on December 24, 537. The grand procession started from the Church of Saint Anastasia, and wound its solemn Avay by the Hippo drome and the Great Palace, through the Augustaeum, to the southern door of the inner narthex. There Justinian removed his crown — never so gladly laid aside as then — and placed it in the hands of the Patriarch Menas. Then alone he passed through the central door, and alone ad vanced as far as the ambon, or pulpit. From a soul full of the completed magnificence, and of bursting gratitude, he uttered the exclamation which will be remembered as long as Sancta Sophia endures, and so loud that they who had not crossed the threshold heard his exultant accents, " Glory to God who has deemed me worthy to accomplish such an undertaking ! Solomon, I have conquered thee ! " SoXoficov, vevLKr)