Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

conclusion 971
iv. conclusion
The period 425 to 600 is traditionally seen as active and innovative only in
the building of churches. However, although this was much more marked
in the east than in the west (reflecting the greater political stability and prosperity
of the former), the fifth and sixth century also saw considerable continuity
of the ideal and the reality of the ancient city. Entirely new
scaled-down versions were built into the reign of Justinian at Justiniana
Prima in the Balkans and Anastasiopolis/Dara in Mesopotamia, while in
many other cities porticoed streets, fora, baths, fountains and aqueducts
continued to be maintained or even built for public enjoyment, alongside
new and elaborately decorated palaces and private houses for the ruling
classes.
Continued prosperity and the growth of Christianity did, of course, also
foster a boom in church building, and churches did eventually come to
replace the public baths as the largest buildings of public congregation. In
church architecture our period saw the evolution of what was to prove an
enduring split – between the centralized church in the east and the longitudinal
basilica in the west. By the mid sixth century, the masonry dome
poised on piers had been perfected, exemplified by St Sophia at
Constantinople, which was to remain for centuries the largest and most
structurally complex church in Christendom. The recent introduction of
monasticism occasioned the development of a communal architecture
which in a rural setting recalled the Roman villa.
Up until the seventh century, in the east at least, new architectural forms
evolved slowly out of old, with no obvious breaks in continuity and development.
Continuous traditions of urban life, combined in many regions
with favourable economic and political conditions, ensured that this was so.
Only in the troubles that beset seventh-century Byzantium did the scale of
all building, outside the Moslem east, decline dramatically; and only then
were a number of traditional forms of building abandoned for ever.
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