Delphi Complete Works of Procopius

by Procopius of Caesarea

  [10] Not far from this market-place is the residence of the Emperor, and practically the whole Palace is new, and, as I have said, was built by the Emperor Justinian; but it is impossible to describe it in words and it must suffice for future generations to know that it happens to be entirely the work of this Emperor. [11] We know the lion, as they say, by his claw, and so those who read this will know the impressiveness of the Palace from the vestibule (protemenisma). So this entrance, which they call Chalkê, is of the following sort. [12] Four straight walks stand in a quadrangle (tetragonos) rising heaven-high, equal to each other in all respects except that those which face south and north, respectively, are both slightly shorter than the others. [13] At each corner there projects a sort of structure (anastasis) of very carefully worked stones, ascending with the wall from the ground to its very top, having four sides, to be sure, but joined to the wall on one side, not detracting from the beauty of the structure, but actually adding a sort of grace to it by the harmony of the similar proportions. [14] Above them rise eight arches, four of which support the roof which curves over the centre of the whole structure in the form of a suspended dome (sphairoeidês), while the others, two toward the south and two toward the north, rest upon the adjoining walls and lift on high the vaulted (tholos) roof which is balanced between them. [15] And the whole ceiling boasts of its pictures, not having been fixed with wax melted and applied to the surface, but set with tiny cubes of stone beautifully coloured in all hues, which represent human figures and all other kinds of subjects. [16] The subjects of these pictures I will now describe. On either side is war and battle, and many cities are being captured, some in Italy, some in Libya; and the Emperor Justinian is winning victories through his General Belisarius, and the General is returning to the Emperor, with his whole army intact, and he gives him spoils, both kings and kingdoms and all things that are most prized among men. [17] In the centre stand the Emperor and the Empress Theodora, both seeming to rejoice and to celebrate victories over both the King of the Vandals and the King of the Goths, who approach them as prisoners of war to be led into bondage. [18] Around them stands the Roman Senate, all in festal mood. This spirit is expressed by the cubes of the mosaic, which by their colours depict exultation on their very countenances. [19] So they rejoice and smile as they bestow on the Emperor honours equal to those of God, because of the magnitude of his achievements. And the whole interior of the building, as far as the mosaics above, is clothed with handsome marbles, not only the upright surfaces, but the whole of the pavement as well. [20] Some of these marbles are of Spartan stone which rivals the emerald, while some simulate the flame of fire; but the most of them are white in colour, yet the white is not plain, but is set off with wavy lines of blue which mingle with the white. So much, then, for this.

  [11] [1] As one sails from the Propontis up toward the eastern side of the city, there is on the left a public bath. This is called Arcadianae, and it is an ornament to Constantinople, large as the city is. [2] There this Emperor built a court (aulê) which lies outside the city, and it is always open to those who tarry there for promenades and to those who anchor there as they are sailing by. [3] This is flooded with light when the sun rises, and when it passes on toward the west it is pleasantly shaded. And the unruffled sea flows quietly about this court, encircling it with its stream, coming in from the Pontus like a river, so that those who are promenading can actually converse with those who are sailing by. [4] For the sea preserves its depth even though it reaches up to the very foundations of the court and so is navigable there for ships, and by reason of the deep calm which prevails it brings together those on land and those on the sea so that they can converse with each other. [5] Such, then, is the side of the court which borders on the sea, adorned by the view over it, and breathed upon by the gentle breezes which come from it. [6] Columns and marbles of surpassing beauty cover the whole of it, both the pavement and the parts above. And from these gleams an intensely brilliant white light as the rays of the sun are flashed back almost undimmed. [7] Nay more, it is adorned with great numbers of statues, some of bronze, some of polished stone, a sight worthy of a long description. One might surmise that they were the work of Pheidias the Athenian, or of the Sicyonian Lysippus or of Praxiteles. [8] There also the Empress Theodora stands upon a column, which the city in gratitude for the court dedicated to her. [9] The statue is indeed beautiful, but still inferior to the beauty of the Empress; for to express her loveliness in words or to portray it in a statue would be, for a mere human being, altogether impossible.c The column is purple, and it clearly declares even before one sees the statue that it bears an Empress.

  [10] I shall now describe the labours which were carried out here by this Emperor to ensure an abundant water-supply. In the summer season the imperial city used to suffer from scarcity of water as a general thing, though at the other seasons it enjoyed a sufficiency. [11] Because that period always brings droughts, the springs, running less freely than at the other seasons, used to deliver through the conduits a less abundant flow of water to the city. [12] Wherefore the Emperor devised the following plan. At the Imperial Portico, where the lawyers and prosecutors prepare their cases, as well as all others who are concerned with such matters, there is a certain very large court (aulê), very long, and broad in proportion, surrounded by columns (peristylos) on the four sides (tetrapleuron), not set upon a foundation of earth by those who constructed it, but built upon living rock. [13] Four colonnaded stoas surround the court, standing one on each side. Excavating to a great depth this court and one of the stoas (that which faces toward the south), the Emperor Justinian made a suitable storage reservoir for the summer season, to contain the water which had been wasted because of its very abundance during the other seasons. [14] For receiving this overflow of the aqueduct when its stream is spilling over, this cistern both furnishes a place for the water which for the moment can find no space, and provides a supply for those who need it when water becomes scarce. [15] Thus the Emperor Justinian made provision that the people of Byzantium should not be in want of fresh water.

  [16] He has also built palaces at various places, completely new ones, one at the Heraeum, which they now call Hieron, and another at the place called Jucundianae. But I could never adequately describe in fitting words either their magnificence and their exquisitely detailed workmanship or their massive bulk. [17] It will be sufficient to say simply that they are regal and that they were built under the personal supervision of the Emperor and with the help of his skill, while nothing was disregarded, excepting only money. The sum of this indeed was so great that it cannot be computed by any reckoning.

  [18] There too he skilfully contrived a sheltered harbour which had not existed before. Finding a shore which lay open to the winds from two directions and to the beating of the waves, he converted it into a refuge for voyagers in the following way. [19] He prepared great numbers of what are called “chests” or cribs, of huge size, and threw them out for a great distance from the shore along oblique lines on either side of the harbour, and by constantly setting a layer of other chests in regular courses upon those underneath he erected two very long walls, which lay at an angle to each other on the opposite sides of the harbour, rising from their foundations deep in the water up to the surface on which the ships float. [20] Then upon these walls he threw rough-cut stones, which are pounded by the surf and beat back the force of the waves; and even when a severe storm comes down in the winter, the whole space between the walls remains calm, a single entrance being left between the breakwaters for the ships to enter the harbour. [21] In that place also he erected holy shrines, as I have already recounted, and stoas and markets and public baths, and practically all the other types of buildings, so that this quarter is in no way inferior to the Palace-quarter within the city. [22] And he also constructed another harbour on the opposite mainland, in the place which bears the name of Eutropius, not far distant from this Heraeum, executed in the same manner as the harbour which I have just me
ntioned.

  [23] Now building operations carried out by the Emperor Justinian in the imperial city, to describe them in the briefest terms, were about such as I have recounted. The one detail which remains to be mentioned here I shall straightway set forth. [24] Since the Emperor maintains his residence here, it results from the very magnitude of the Empire that a throng of men of all conditions comes to the city from the whole world. [25] Each of them is led to come either by some errand of business or by some hope or by chance; and many indeed come whose affairs are not in a happy state at home, in order to petition the Emperor; and all these become residents of the city because of some compulsion which is either urgent, imminent, or threatening. [26] And in addition to their other difficulties, it comes about that these persons are also in want of quarters, being unable to pay the hire of any stay here. [27] This difficulty the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora solved completely for them. For very close to the sea, in the place called Stadium (for in ancient times, I suppose, it was given over to games of some kind), they built a very large hospice, destined to serve as a temporary lodging for those who should find themselves thus embarrassed.

  BOOK II.

  [1] [1] All the new churches which the Emperor Justinian built both in Constantinople and in its suburbs, and all those which, having been ruined by the passage of time, he restored, as well as all the other buildings which he erected here, have been described in the preceding Book. [2] From this point we must proceed to the defences with which he surrounded the farthest limits of the territory of the Romans. Here indeed my narrative will be constrained to halt painfully and to labour with an impossible subject. [3] For it is not the pyramids which we are about to describe, those celebrated monuments of the rulers of Egypt, on which labour was expended for a useless show,a but rather all the fortifications whereby this Emperor preserved the Empire, walling it about and frustrating the attacks of the barbarians on the Romans. And it seems to me not amiss to start from the Persian frontier.

  [4] When the Persians retired from the territory of the Romans, selling to them the city of Amida, as I have related in the Books on the Wars, the Emperor Anastasius selected a hitherto insignificant village close to the Persian boundary, Daras by name, and urgently set about enclosing it with a wall and making it into a city which should serve as a bulwark against the enemy. [5] But since it was forbidden in the treaty which the Emperor Theodosius once concluded with the Persian nation, that either party should construct any new fortress on his own land where it bordered on the boundaries of the other nation, the Persians, citing the terms of the peace, tried with all their might to obstruct the work, though they were hard pressed by being involved in a war with the Huns. [6] So the Romans, observing that they were for this reason unprepared, pressed on the work of building all more keenly, being anxious to get ahead of the enemy before they should finish their struggle with the Huns and come against them. [7] Consequently, being fearful by reason of suspicion of the enemy, and continually expecting their attacks, they did not carry out the building with care, since the haste inspired by their extreme eagerness detracted from the stability of their work. [8] For stability is never likely to keep company with speed, nor is accuracy wont to follow swiftness. [9] They therefore carried out the construction of the circuit-wall in great haste, not having made it fit to withstand the enemy, but raising it only to such a height as was barely necessary; indeed they did not even lay the stones themselves carefully, or fit them together as they should, or bind them properly at the joints with mortar. [10] So within a short time, since the towers could not in any way withstand the snows and the heat of the sun because of their faulty construction, it came about that the most of them fell into ruin. So were the earlier walls built at the city of Daras.

  [11] The Emperor Justinian perceived that the Persians, as far as lay in their power, would not permit this outpost of the Romans, which was a menace to them, to stand there, but they would of course assault it with all their might, and would use every device to conduct siege operations on even terms with the city; and that a great number of elephants would come with them, and these would bear wooden towers on their shoulders, under which they would stand, supporting them like foundations; and worse still, that they would be led about wherever the enemy needed them and would bear a fortress which would follow along wherever, according to the judgement of their masters, it should happen to be needed; [21] and that the enemy would mount these towers and shoot down upon the heads of the Romans inside the city, and attack them from a higher level; that, furthermore they would raise up artificial mounds against them, and would bring up all manner of siege-engines. [13] And if any misfortune should befall the city of Daras, which was thrown out like an earthwork before the whole Roman Empire and was obviously placed as a threat to the enemy’s land, the disaster for us would not stop there, but a great part of the State would be seriously shaken. For these reasons he wished to surround the place with defences in keeping with its practical usefulness.

  [14] First of all he rendered the wall (which, as I have said, was very low and therefore very easy for an enemy to assault) both inaccessible and wholly impregnable for an attacking force. [15] For he contracted the original apertures of the battlements by inserting stones and reduced them to very narrow slits, leaving only traces of them in the form of tiny windows, and allowing them to open just enough for a hand to pass through, so that outlets were left through which arrows could be shot against assailants. [16] Then above these he added to the wall a height of •about thirty feet, not building the addition upon the whole thickness of the wall, lest the foundations should be overloaded by the excessive weight which bore upon them, so that the whole work would suffer some irreparable damage, but he enclosed the space at that level with courses of stones on the outside and constructed a colonnaded stoa (stoa) running all around the wall, and he placed the battlements above this portico, so that the wall really had a double roof throughout; and at the towers there were actually three levels for the men who defended the wall and repelled attacks upon it. [17] For at about the middle of each tower he added a rounded structure (sphairikon schêma) upon which he placed additional battlements, thus making the wall three-storeyed.

  [18] Then he observed that it had come about that many of the towers, as I have said, had fallen into ruin in a short time, yet it was entirely out of the question to pull them down, since the enemy were constantly in the neighbourhood watching their opportunity and continually scouting to see whether they might not find some part of the defences dismantled at any time. But he hit upon the following plan. [19] He left these towers in place, and outside each of them he cleverly erected another structure in the form of a rectangle, which was built securely and with every possible care, and thus, by means of a second set of defences, he safely enclosed those parts of the wall which had suffered. [20] But one of the towers, called the “Tower of the Guard,” he pulled down at a favourable moment and rebuilt so that it was safe, and everywhere he removed the fear which had arisen from the weakness of the circuit-wall. [21] He also wisely added sufficient height, in due proportion, to the outworks. [22] And outside these he dug a moat, not in the way in which men are wont to make them, but only for a short distance and in a novel manner; and the reason for this I shall explain.

  [23] The greater part of the defences, as it happens, are in general unapproachable for an attacking party, since they do not stand on level ground and offer no favourable opportunity for assault to an approaching force; but they stand along a steep slope of a rough and precipitous character, where it is not possible for a mine to be dug or for any attack to be made. [24] But on the side which is turned toward south, the soil is deep and soft and consequently easy to mine, so that it makes the city assailable on this side. [25] So in that place he dug a crescent-shaped moat, with sufficient breadth and depth and extending to a great distance, and joined either end of this to the outworks and filled it amply with water, rendering it altogether impassable for the enemy
; and on its inner side he set up another outwork. On this the Romans take their stand and keep guard in time of siege, freed from anxiety for the circuit-wall and the other outwork which is thrown out before the main wall. [26] And it happened that between the main wall and the outwork, at the gate which faces toward the village of Ammodius, there lay a great mound of earth, under cover of which the enemy were able to be in large measure unobserved while making mines against the city under the circuit-wall. [27] This mound he removed from the spot and he cleared up the place thoroughly, and thus frustrated any secret attack on the wall by the enemy.

  [2] [1] Thus did he construct these fortifications. He likewise made reservoirs for water both in the space between the circuit-wall and the outworks and also close by the church which is dedicated to the Apostle Bartholomew, situated toward the west. [2] And a river also flows from a suburb of the city which is •two miles distant from it and is called Cordes. [3] On either side of it rise two cliffs which are exceedingly rugged. This river flows down between the heights on either side of it all the way to the city, carried along the bases of the mountains, and for just this reason it cannot be turned aside or tampered with by the enemy; [4] for there is no flat ground where they might be able to turn it from its course. And it is drawn into the city in the following way. [5] They have constructed a large channel extending out from the circuit-wall, and covered the mouth of the conduit with a great number of the thickest possible iron bars, some upright and some horizontal; and thus they have arranged that the water can enter the city without endangering the fortifications. [6] In this way the water flows into the city and fills its reservoirs and then is conducted wherever the inhabitants wish, and finally flows out at another part of the city, the opening for its discharge being made like that by which it enters the city. [7] And winding about the plain near by, it used to make the city easy to besiege; for it was not a difficult matter, thanks to the bountiful supply of water, for the enemy to encamp there. [8] So in order that this should not happen the Emperor Justinian took the situation under careful consideration, seeking diligently to find some remedy for the condition. [9] And God provided the solution for the impossible problem which confronted him, settling the matter out of hand and saving the city without the least delay. This took place as follows.