Fashioning Sixth Century Constantinople

Text, Translation and Commentary of Buildings, Book I by Procopius of Caesarea
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-40706-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 640 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Studies in Byzantine Cultural History

The Buildings is a sixth-century text by Prokopios of Kaisareia (Caesarea Maritima) on the building works attributed to the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565 CE), extolling the virtues of good rulership through praise of architecture. Book I centres on the imperial capital Constantinople: rich in its use of rhetoric and aesthetics, it portrays the emperor as a builder-patron, but also portrays the city itself as a place of beauty and delight to its inhabitants. Several of the buildings described in Book I – such as Hagia Sophia – are extant today; they and others are also documented in a range of historical sources that allow us to compare Prokopios’s account with his contemporaries, and to observe the legacy and changing uses of the spaces he describes into the Middle Ages.

Fashioning Sixth-Century Constantinople presents an all-new English translation of Book I paired with a revised edition of the Greek text. It is accompanied by a detailed interdisciplinary commentary, informed by the respective disciplines of philology, history, archaeology and art history, but bringing a new perspective through cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially on points of technical and topographical descriptions, aiming at the most comprehensive and up-to-date commentary of the text.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of Byzantine literature, history, art, and archaeology, as well as those interested in the florescence of Byzantine Constantinople.

This volume originates in the DFG-funded project ‘Procopius and the Language of Buildings’ (2018–2022), hosted by the Universities of Mainz and Halle-Wittenberg.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Turquois, Elodie

Ritter, Max

Whiting, Marlena

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Griechische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Römische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword and Introduction

Foreword

Note on the Edition

Main manuscripts used for this edition

Note on the Translation

Note on the Archaeological Commentary

Introduction

Procopius's Buildings: Significance to Scholarship

Constantinople

Constantinople and Justinian: Context and Image

Imperial Patronage in Constantinople: Norms and Practices

Other Texts on Justinian's Constructions in Constantinople

Reconstructing Late Antique Constantinople through Archaeology: Historical Development and Methods

Procopius's Biography and His Relation to Constantinople

The Text of the Buildings as a Historical Artifact

The Date of the Buildings

The Textual Transmission: Manuscripts, Abridgement and Extracts

The Byzantine Afterlife of the Buildings

Early modern reception of the Buildings: editions and translations before Haury

The Text as Literary Object

The Procopian Matrix: Style, Narrative and Genre

Composition: Macro and Microstructures, Motifs, and Themes

Buildings Classification

A Brief Note on Orientation

Maps and Plans

Text and translation of the Buildings and chapter-by-chapter commentary

Preface: rhetorical and historical exordium, Justinian’s military, legal and religious achievements, and delayed reveal of the subject (1.1.1–19)

Hagia Sophia: historical context, design elements – focus on the central space (1.1.20–49)

Hagia Sophia: description of interior features – focus on the rest of the church (1.1.50–66)

Hagia Sophia: two episodes of Justinian’s personal intervention (1.1.67–78)

The Column of Justinian (1.2.1–12)

Hagia Eirene and the hospices of the Patriarchate (1.2.13–19)

The churches of the Virgin Mary at Blachernai, Pege and elsewhere in the city and its environs; the churches of Anne, Zoe, and the Archangel Michael in the city (1.3)

The churches dedicated to the Apostles: SS. Peter and Paul in the Palace of Hormisdas and the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus (1.4.1–8)

The Church of the Holy Apostles: description and discovery of the relics (1.4.9–24)

The churches dedicated to the martyrs Acacius, Plato, Mocius, Thyrsus, Theodore, Thecla and Theodota (1.4.25–31)

Constantinople’s maritime topography (1.5)

The churches on the Golden Horn: SS. Priscus and Nicholas, SS. Cosmas and Damian, and St Anthimus (1.6.1–14)

St Irene at Sykai, the Forty Martyrs and Justinian’s miraculous healing (1.7)

The churches on either side of the Bosporus: the churches of the Archangel Michael at Anaplous and Brochoi/Proochthoi, and a church of Mary near the latter (1.8)

The Metanoia convent (1.9.1–10)

The churches of the upper Bosporus (St Panteleimon, the Argyronion leprosarion, Archangel Michael at Mochadion) and more in the city (St Tryphon, SS. Menas and Menaios and St Ia) (1.9.11–18)

The Augoustaion area: the Baths of Zeuxippos and the Senate House (1.10.1–9)

The Chalke Gate (1.10.10–20)

Arkadianai: description of the court and statue of Theodora (1.11.1–9)

The water supply of the city and the Basilica Cistern (1.11.10–15)

The harbours and suburban palaces at Hiereia and Joukoundianai (1.11.16–22)

End of the section on Constantinople; the hospice at Stadion (1.11.23–27)

The Great Palace at the time of Justinian

Textual Sources for the Great Palace

Archaeological Evidence for the Great Palace

The Topographical Context of the Great Palace

A Reconstruction of the Layout and Internal Organisation of the Great Palace

Gates of the Great Palace

Conclusion

Bibliography

List of Editions of the Buildings in Chronological Order

List of Abbreviations

Primary Sources

Secondary Works

Über Autor(innen)

Max Ritter is an Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He received his PhD in Byzantine Studies from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, where he later continued as a postdoctoral researcher. He also held two research fellowships in Istanbul, which allowed him to engage deeply with the city’s historical landscape and integrate the perspectives of local scholars into this book. His research focuses on building culture and lived religion in Byzantium, drawing on both textual sources and material evidence. Most recently, his research shifted towards Byzantine conceptions of nature, notably focusing on marine environments.

Elodie Turquois completed a doctorate in Classical Languages and Literature from the University of Oxford on materiality and visuality in Prokopios of Kaisareia and has published widely on Prokopios and the Buildings. She is an independent researcher whose work explores Late Antique literary aesthetics, the manuscript transmission of the Buildings; she uses narratology, stylistics, and reception theory to approach ancient texts. Her most recent research investigates the reception of Constantinople and its late antique tradition in the writings of 16th-c. French travellers.

Marlena Whiting has a doctorate in Late Antique Archaeology from the University of Oxford, with a specialism in travel infrastructure and the built environment of monasticism and pilgrimage. Currently a researcher and lecturer at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, she has held visiting fellowships at CBRL Amman and ANAMED in Istanbul, and has worked on archaeological projects in Jordan, Syria and Spain. Her research applies interdisciplinary approaches from social sciences (network analysis, spatial access theory) to material and textual evidence to understand historical contexts from a phenomenological perspective, with a focus on religious life and gendered lived experience.