Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

948 31. building and architecture
Another part of the palace known from the early period, and loosely
ascribed to Constantine, is the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, used for state
banquets, when 228 persons reclined at table in the antique manner. Justin
II (565–78) built the Chrysotriklinos, the main throne room of the palace,
known only from written sources. It was octagonal in plan and had a dome
supported by eight arches and pierced by sixteen windows. On the east side,
an apse held the emperor’s throne. The other seven arches opened into
semicircular niches. From the written account, it appears that its architecture
may have distantly recalled that of Domitian’s audience hall in Rome’s
Palatine and may have reflected Justinian’s church of Sts Sergius and
Bacchius (Fig. 58). In 578 the emperor Tiberius is recorded to have pulled
down a number of buildings to enlarge the palace on one side and to have
put up what John of Ephesus describes as ‘larger and more magnificent
buildings, including a splendid bath’ and stables. 51
An unidentified part of the imperial palace, excavated and dated after
540 on the basis of underlying material, probably formed part of the
private quarters (Fig. 43). This discovery consisted of a large peristyle court
paved in high-quality mosaics, on to which opened an apsed reception
room or triclinium paved in marble. Nothing remains of another sixthcentury
imperial palace, that of the Deuteron, built by Justin II on the main
street leading to the Adrianople Gate; this is recorded to have had a private
hippodrome, gardens and two columns with statues. 52
Certain large and luxuriously decorated town houses known from texts
and excavations can be identified as praetoria or official residences of provincial
governors, bishops or other officials, although in the case of many
of the excavated buildings it is impossible to be certain if the building concerned
is a large privately owned dwelling or a publicly financed palace.
The residence of the praetorian prefect at Constantinople was established
in the 470s in an existing house with bath suite on the Forum of Leo; this
was enlarged in 517 by the addition of an upper storey into which a new
bath was built before 551. A text indicates that the governor’s praetorium at
Antioch must have been large: in 526 the Baths of Commodus on the
Forum of Valens were converted to this use. At Apamea, a building that
has been identified as the palace of the governor of Syria Secunda (a province
created c. 415) had its entrance from the street in the west wing of the
peristyle, while two large triclinia project from the east and north wings.
The building’s decoration included mosaics and stone and stucco sculpture.
The massive ‘Palace of the Giants’ (84×129 metres) built in c. 410 at
Athens, possibly for official use, had two peristyle complexes linked by a
51 Ebersolt (1910) 58–67, 77–92; Mango (1972) 128.
52 Brett, Macaulay and Stevenson (1947); Talbot Rice (1958); Mango (1972) 124–5.
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