standards bearing lamps, "like trees." The ambo itself had a canopy, and the whole was formed of precious marbles, silver and ivory. On the elevated floor of this ambo the Emperors were crowned. It was the prototype of the "pulpitum" set up at Westminster where the English kings were crowned.
"Who shall describe the fields of marble gathered on the pavement and lofty walls of the church? Fresh green from Carystus, and many-coloured Phrygian stone of rose and white, or deep red and silver; porphyry powdered with bright spots, green of emerald from Sparta, and Iassian marble with waving veins of blood-red on white; streaked red stone from Lydia and crocus-coloured marble from the hills of the Moors. Celtic stone like milk poured out on glittering black; the precious onyx like as if gold were shining through it, and the fresh green from the land of Atrax, a mingled harmony of shining surfaces. The mason also has fitted together thin pieces of marble figuring intertwining curves bearing fruit and flowers, with here and there a bird sitting on the twigs. Such adornment surrounds the church above the columns. The capitals are carved with the barbed points of graceful acanthus; but the vaulted roof is covered over with many a little square of gold, from which the rays streaming down strike the eyes so that men can scarcely bear to look."
The church was dedicated and re-dedicated at Christmas, and the axis of the church points exactly to the point of sunrise on Christmas Day. It must have been at the very moment of sunrise that the doors of the completed church were thrown open.
The poet says, "At last the holy morn had come, and the great door of the new-built temple ground on its opening hinges. And when the first beam of rosy light, driving away the shadows, leapt from arch to arch, all the princes and people hymned their song of praise and prayer, and it seemed as if the mighty arches were set in heaven."
The architects were two artists from Asia Minor, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. They were the most famous builders of the age, and Anthemius with a younger Isidorus, nephew of the other, is said to have built also the Church of the Holy Apostles.
The square area covered by the central dome of St Sophia is more than one hundred feet in each direction; it is prolonged, east and west, by two vast semicircles, making a length of considerably more than two hundred feet. From the eastern semicircle open three smaller apses, and to the west open two apses and a central square compartment. All this is unobstructed area, one colossal chamber. At the sides of the square central space, and around the four corner apses, stand magnificent monolithic columns of porphyry, and of marble, green spotted with white. These columns with their arches support the gallery floor above the aisles. Over them again rise other columns which bear the lateral walls supporting the done. The dome itself is pierced around its base by forty windows through which a flood of light pours into the vast space.
