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CONTENTS
(Copyright reserved to the individual speakers)
Library of Congress Catalogue
Byzantine Studies Conference.
Card 77- 79346; Abstracts of papers-Byzantine Studies Conference. 1st- 1975-
Madison, Wis. [etc.] Byzantine Studies Conference.
v. 22 cm. annual.
Key title: Abstracts of papers-Byzantine Studies Conference,
ISSN 0147-3387
1. Byzantine Empire-Congresses.
DF501.5.B9a. 949.5 77-79346
I. THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN
Military Dilemmas
Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr., University of Chicago
The soldiers of Justinian were not and did not believe themselves to be inferior to their opponents with respect to quality or modernity of weapons, training, or the tactical and strategic skills of their commanders. They benefited from Byzantine control of the sea and from the cumulative military and diplomatic experience of the Graeco-Roman world. Initially, there was no deficiency in the caliber of the soldiers themselves. Byzantine armies continued to change throughout the sixth century, demonstrating a healthy readiness to adjust to meet new conditions of warfare.
The surprise attack on the Vandal kingdom in 533 was an exceptional campaign that resulted in a swift and decisive military victory. Most of the warfare in the Age of Justinian, however, was protracted and was characterized by frequent avoidance of decisive and potentially bloody battles. The reasons for the dominance of this mode of warfare were complex but among them was the finite amount of available resources, that is, men and material. The anonymous author of a manual of strategy (probably late in the reign of Justinian) described war in terms that differed from the rhetoric of Roman imperial revival in some of Justinian's legislation. He spoke of war as the greatest evil and he offered advice on how to avoid potentially ruinous combat with a numerically superior opponent. He assumed that because resources were limited, the commander must carefully calculate risks before engaging in costly battles. He did not assume any Byzantine military invincibility. (Des Byzantiner Anonymus Kriegswissenschaft, 4.2, 6.4-6.5 in Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller, ed. H. Kšchly, W. Rustow, Leipzig 1855, 2: 56, 58-60, also, 33.7-8, in 2: 162--164).
The protracted character of sixth-century warfare resulted from and intensified the armies' organizational and logistical problems: success in a long war of attrition increased the importance of maintaining the efficient flow of supplies and money. Yet the armies of Justinian were beset by complicated problems of recruitment and deployment of soldiers and horse, supplies and armaments, maintenance of communications, finances, delegation of authority, and intelligence. The causes of some of the worst problems lay not in the army but in the unwieldy, inefficient, and often corrupt bureaux of the Praetorian Prefecture and the Comitiva, Sacrarum Largitionum.
The most basic dilemma was how to procure and convey adequate provisions and money to the armies without causing excessive injury to domestic agricul- ture, commerce, and the civilian population. One category of Justinian's efforts to solve the dilemma was the issuance of legal prohibitions, controls, and penalties against recognizable abuses, exemplified in Novels 116, 130, and 134, and Edict 13. Another approach, with the aim of improving governmental efficiency, was the fusion of civil and military authority in a number of administrative jurisdictions (e.g., Novels 8.3, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 41, and 50). Justinian's policy of fusing civil and military authority has been regarded as a fundamental anticipation of the features of the later comprehen- sive "theme system." One must observe, however, that civil and military authority had been united in Isauria in Late Antiquity, and there are other provinces, for example, Arabia, in which those powers were occasionally fused. Justinian did not invent the fusion of powers; he expanded its usage.
One of the most important yet neglected and misunderstood sixth-century devices for assuring the smooth and honest flow of supplies and money to armies did not originate in the reign of Justinian--Anastasius had employed it and its origins lay sometime in the fifth century. This device was the appoint- ment of special prefects or deputy prefects, who represented the Praetorian Prefecture, to accompany major armies and oversee the payment and provisioning of the soldiers. Procopius described Archelaus, the prefect of the army who accompanied Belisarius to Africa in 533, as tou stratopedou.eparchos. houtō gar ho tēs dapanēs chorēgos onomazetai, and ton tēs depanēs chorēgon eparchon (BV 1. 11. 17, 1. 15. 13). The office attained the highest rank, endoxstatos, by the early seventh century, but it is only rarely mentioned in the primary sources--no doubt because of its unglamorous functions. The last known reference to an individual prefect occurred in 610. These officials were not modest accountants; they often had held distinguished public offices. Emperors probably selected them as their personal representatives to act as prestigious troubleshooters, to demonstrate their personal commitment to the scrupulous provisioning of their armies, and also, probably, to report concerning any problems. They were, therefore, a potential check on an ambitious or unreliable general. Only a few names are known and the office is easily con- fused with a regular Praetorian Prefecture. Most instances of their use come from the eastern frontier; they do not always appear to have been appointed for campaigns. Because they were responsible for the supplies and pay of the army they were the most important link between an expeditionary army, the Praetorian Prefecture, and the emperor. Their presence on campaigns consti- tuted a special form of coexistence of two types of authority, civilian and military, in a large army. It is not known how much friction developed between these Prefects and the generals with whom they served. These prefects of Byzantine armies in the sixth century were the antecedents of the "prefects of themes" who are mentioned in a very early and extremely important protocol list on p. 61 of the Reiske edition of the De Cerimoniis of Constantine Porphyrogenitus: anthypatous tōn thematōn kai eparchous. Ernst Stein, in his article "Ein Kapitel vom persischen und vom byzantinischen Staate," Byzantinisch-Neugriechische JahrbŸcher 1 (1920) 70-82, correctly realized that the passage was an invaluable clue to the early development of the theme system, but on p. 71 he incorrectly assumed, without extensive dis- cussion, that the eparchoi must be the governors of the old Late Roman pro- vinces, that is, the praesides or rectores provinciarum. If so, the text would reflect an early and otherwise unknown step in the merger of the older civilian provincial administration into the theme system. But the Greek term eparchos does not refer to a rector or praeses, it means a praefectus. Only by putting together the few references to the prefects of Byzantine armies in the sixth century, and noting their continued appearance as late as 610, can we understand that the "prefects of the themes" were a continuation of that office--the one responsible for paying and provisioning the soldiers--not from the philo- logically improbable one of the governors of provinces. The prefects of the themes soon disappeared, but one can understand the office only by studying references to it from the sixth century, in particular, from Procopius. Despite the importance of the office for understanding linkages between sixth-century institutions and developments in the seventh century, there is no indication that the prefects of sixth-century armies managed to solve the multifaceted organizational problems of the army and the Praetorian Prefecture.
The failure to find some adequate solution to the problem of paying and supplying the army ended in disintegration and eventual catastrophe. It was the reign of Justinian that experienced a decisive transformation of the problem of Byzantine military unrest. The mutinies that seemed so troublesome in the late fifth century temporarily receded in the initial years of Justinian's reign. Although it had some grievances, the army posed no threat to the government in 527; it appeared to be under control. By 542 opinion had shifted within the army and mutinies had become a familiar event. Soldiers and their units had been cautious about opposing the government. By Justinian's death, however, the government was losing its grip on increasingly restive and independent-minded soldiers and commanders. The change was not sudden, but gradual and subtle. By the end of Justinian's reign restiveness had penetrated Byzantine units in every major region except, possibly, Constantinople. The conditions of stress and indiscipline had rooted themselves too deeply in the reign of Justinian for his successors to remove them without fundamental corrective measures. Justinian had, throughout his reign, succeeded in insulating his person against soldiers' frustration. Local malcontents vented their rage against more immediately visible officials and commanders. Discontent was spreading and ripening, but it did not concentrate its force against an emperor until the end of the century.
The Religious Policy of Justinian and the End of the Age of the Fathers
David B. Evans, St. John's University
The current academic consensus quite rightly sees in the reign of the emperor Justinian a watershed in the development of' Byzantine Christian doctrine: the establishment of the decree of the council of Chalcedon as the Christological norm of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and the interpretation of that decree in the light of the tradition of Cyril of Alexandria. In what follows we pose two questions concerning Justinian's religious policies, briefly review the answers offered by the academic consensus, and suggest two ways in which the consensus ought to be supplemented.
The first question is: what were the motives of Justinian's religious policy? Here the academic consensus inclines to assign a number of relatively superficial reasons: e. g., Justinian's desire to pacify the Monophysite adversaries of Chalcedon. I suggest, however, that Justinian's policy has an inner logic too: it is an attempt to resolve a crisis in the development of early Christian thought posed by the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria. The earlier church had taught that the Word of God was not only creator of the world but also the worldsoul, in which all human souls came to understanding both of themselves and of the cosmos. This doctrine, it seems, Cyril all but abandoned, laying all emphasis upon an equally ancient concept: that the same Son through whom the world was made was the divine principle in which Christians were united to God the Father and therefore deified. The virtual neglect of the Word as cosmological principle nonetheless seriously compromised the Christian's grasp of what we may call, after Freud, the reality principle, that is, again, the capacity of the Christian psyche to comprehend both itself and its world. It is therefore hardly surprising that Cyril's orientations met bitter opposition from contemporary representatives of those earlier traditions in which the Logos had served also, or even primarily, as worldsouls in Justinian's reign therefore from the remnants of the school of Antioch and from the Origenists. Against these traditions, Cyrillians of both dyophysite and Monophysite persuasion united in insisting that the soteriological function of the Word of God was an absolute sine qua non of orthodoxy.
The second question: what means were employed by Justinian to resolve this crisis? First, of course, the Chalcedonian formula in two natures was forcefully asserted and if necessary forcefully imposed. On the other hand, the Neochalcedonians pressed the canons of Cyrillian orthodoxy to their very limits-- e. g., in the theopaschite formula, "one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh"-- in order to smoke out every Christology which even tended to set the identity of Jesus in some other locus than the Logos; this tactic had besides the advantage of pre-empting the criticism of the Monophysites. Hence the condemnation of the tradition of the school in the Three Chapters at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 555; hence also the condemnation of the Origenists.
Nonetheless these policies did not of themselves resolve for the Neochalcedonians the crisis of Cyrillian Christology. They only signified a determination to interpret Cyril on lines affirming the reality principle and the significance of man and the cosmos for human salvation. The question remained: how to reconstruct the bridge between faith and cosmos which had been broken by the abandonment of the classical Logos Christology? Here I advance two hypotheses intended to suggest the lines along which our research must continue.
First, it seems that the Byzantine church in this age tends more and more towards the conviction that the worldsoul lies not in the Word of God himself but in the community of the Christian church, which on the one hand is both created and inhabited by the Son and, on the other hand, not only expounds but also represents the true sense of soul and cosmos to the Christian. This doctrine is, of course, as old as the earliest Christian eschatological community; and even older, since it reflects one of the major affinities of the Christian church with the Judaism in which it arose.
Second, if we ask from what sources the Byzantine church mined the materials to build this new edifice, we must answer, I think: in large part from the teaching of precisely the heretics which in Justinian's reign it condemned. The very concept of church as worldsoul seems implied in the systems of both Origen and the school of Antioch. Moreover, the chief representative of this concept in the age of Justinian is (pseudo-)Dionysius the Areopagite, who owes an immense debt to still another movement condemned in this reign: the schools of Neoplatonism. From Neoplatonism Dionysius borrows the concept of the divine processions, by means of which, I suggest, he constructs a cosmology reflecting the concept of church as worldsoul. In sum, Justinian's radical purification of Neochalcedonianism from every taint of error had the paradoxical effect of casting adrift certain critical elements of teachings hitherto forbidden, so that they might be reappropriated by more formally orthodox Christian thinkers. The result was a new influx into Byzantine thought of religious and philosophical currents which were deeply to influence the life of the later empire, not least of all in Byzantine humanism, the Neoplatonic sources of which now could flow freely.
Imperial Ceremonies in Context
Averil Cameron, King's College, London
The second half of the sixth century has been seen as a time when the emperors gracefully yielded before the advance in the veneration of religious images (E. Kitzinger, DOP 8 [1954], 119f., 125f.), allowing their own imperial cult to decline as the cult of icons was increasingly drawn unto the ceremonial of the state. The prominence which this view gave to the role of imperial initiative in the rise of icon worship has subsequently been criticised (notably by P. Brown, EHR 88 [1973], 10f.). Taken alone, it is true that it could hardly account for the phenomenon, and a full socio-religious analysis is much needed. However, I feel that we should not be too hasty in passing over the role of the imperial court, and I wish to focus particularly on one short space of time--the accession of Justin II and its immediate aftermath.
Justin's accession is both described and celebrated in Corippus's surviving panegyric. It is very clear from this work that the new emperor was helped to the throne by a powerful group whose leaders were the patriarch John Scholasticus, the quaestor Anastasius and Callinicus the praepositus; several other officials are named by Corippus too. Naturally the poet depicts the candidate as reluctant, and the scene in which he is 'persuaded' to accept by the senate is only what we should expect. But a closer reading of book II of the panegyric reveals that the whole inauguration was in the nature of a senatorial coup; not only was this Justin the chosen candidate of the senate, but he was actually robed and crowned in the presence of the senate, not the people, and behind closed doors inside the palace. The people are then presented with a fait accompli; the new emperor shows himself to them already robed and crowned, and even the speech which he then delivers to the people in the Hippodrome has already had its counterpart in a speech delivered earlier to the acclaiming senators inside the palace. When the emperor does make his appearance to the people, the acclamations seem to be led by the factions, even though Justin himself had not long before this led an offensive against them. I wish to argue that such an innovation in inauguration procedure as to hold the essential parts of the inauguration ceremony of a new emperor behind closed doors, thus making any real participation by the people or the army impossible, must be deliberate. To support this I should cite Justin's restoration of the consulship as an imperial prerogative. He took it himself in 566 and 568, and Corippus's poem amply shows the propaganda and popularity value which the prospective consulship had for a new emperor whose position--so long as Justin the son of Germanus remained alive--remained insecure. To take the consulship meant vast expenditure, and we may be right in assuming that similar sums were needed to help persuade the Blues and Greens to join in the ceremonial in support of Justin's accession. Furthermore, Justin--and especially his wife Sophia--had been working on the new patriarch for some time, after being brought into his ambit by their mutual connection, the orthodox St. Symeon Stylites the Younger. All of this suggests that a determined effort was being made.
It is not a surprise to find that Justin's chief supporter is the patriarch. Despite a certain reserve of expression in Corippus's panegyric, it demonstrates very clearly how far the emperors had already progressed towards merging their Roman past with an imperial ideology that was increasingly religious. Even the most Roman ceremonials described by Corippus are given an explanation in terms of Christian symbolism, and the theme of Christian devotion seems to have a special place in the propaganda of this reign. In view of Justin's connection with St. Symeon it seems a totally reasonable hypothesis that when the image of Camuliana was brought to Constantinople it was with imperial support. It seems equally reasonable to suppose that the two striking evocations of the Theotokos in Corippus's poem are there because Justin and Sophia shared, and would support, her growing and special cult in the city.
I would argue that the later sixth century was crucial not only in religious developments per se, but also in the final penetration of Christian themes and symbolism into imperial ideology, especially as expressed in ceremonial. This is of course not new. Roman triumph and Byzantine adventus had been sharply juxtaposed already under Justinian, and several treatises on the imperial role and on ceremonial itself show that thought was being expended on the question of how to reshape imperial ideology. But nothing now was as it had been in the early years of Justinian. If the people had changed, so had the top levels of society, including the imperial court itself. It was less a matter of the emperors 'yielding' to something they could not stop than of their embracing and absorbing it, and emerging the stronger as a result.
No simple or monocausal answer will explain either religious change or the development of ceremonial in a society. Nevertheless, I do not think we should lose sight of the fact that there may, after all, be occasions when the governing elite does play a vital part. The reign of Justin II seems to me to offer a series of occasions, of which Justin's accession is the first, but not the least important for that.
Ivories for the Emperor
David H. Wright, University of California, Berkeley
Many aspects of mature Byzantine art first come together in recognizable form in the Age of Justinian. Among these there is a momentous change in the customary iconography of the Emperor, especially in representations which make a visual statement of political authority. What for centuries had been an essentially secular iconography, never having more than vaguely pagan overtones, now becomes a specifically Christian iconography. The Emperor assumes a definite position in the Christian order of things, and his authority to rule is shown to derive directly from Christ. A small group of surviving ivory panels exemplifies this change, and also demonstrates the adaptation for Christian purposes of classical style as well as classical iconography.
These panels were each made to be part of some larger assemblage of ivories, imperial emblems for display, which must have developed a shrine-like character. Not one of these objects survives complete, but it is possible to gain some idea of their original nature and meaning. The Barberini diptych (Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, 1952 or 1976, no. 48) is the most nearly complete, lacking only the small panel on the right, which must have been comparable to the one on the left, where an officer in armor presents a statuette of Victory. Triumph and subjugation are the themes of the assemblage as a whole, and the sources in older imperial tradition are easily recognized, but one feature is new: two angels in the top panel hold a medallion with the bust of Christ directly above the head of the Emperor, thus making imperial authority an integral part of Christian order. In two other ivory panels of this type, isolated survivors of what must have been similar assemblages (Milan, Volbach 49; Basel, Volbach 50), the medallion at the top shows Constantinople, not Christ, and it is supported by Victories, not angels. Similarly, in 519 the reverse type used on the gold solidus was changed from the traditional striding Victory to a standing angel holding a globe with a cross on it, but the inscription "Victoria Augusti" was retained. This is the moment when secular imperial iconography becomes specifically Christian. Aside from such a general consideration, the Barberini diptych can be dated to the second quarter of the sixth century by comparing style and carving technique with the Cathedra of Maximian (see Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making, 1977, p. 97).
None of these three imperial ivory assemblages equals in quality the finest Constantinopolitan ivories of the period. The Barberini diptych is the best, but even it is far rougher and more summary in carving than the consular diptychs of Anastasius of 517, for example. These imperial fragments all have western proveniences: the Barberini diptych was already in southern Gaul in the seventh century. They may well have been made in the capital for dispatch to the western provinces (like the Cathedra of Maximian). But they were all impressive emblems of imperial authority, and the Barberini diptych is actually the smallest of the three (34.1 x 26.6 cm.)
Fragments of a comparable assemblage reused on an Ottonian bookbinding in Munich (Volbach 45) are the earliest known ivories of this imperial category; by comparing their style they can be dated within about a decade of the consular diptych of Felix of 428 (Volbach 2). The Munich fragments have been trimmed, and cannot be detached for inspection, but they are of different sizes and clearly represent subordinate figures of different categories. By analogy with the Barberini we may suppose the Munich fragments were part of a seven-part composition with the emperor in the center. A single panel in Bologna shows a high-ranking attendant (Volbach 47) and belongs in this tradition, and another fifth-century fragment in Hamburg shows a Victory spearing a barbarian (Volbach 46) and may come from a bottom panel of this type, but from a panel even larger than the one in Milan (12.5 cm. high instead of 10.7 cm.). Among these fifth- century panels there is no specifically Christian symptom, except the normal Chi- rho on a soldier's shield, and thus it seems these elaborate ivory panels were following the secular tradition of statements about imperial authority exemplified by the great silver missorium of Theodosius of 388.
Two ivory panels with an empress of the first half of the sixth century, however, each show her holding the globe with the cross (Florence and Vienna, Volbach 51 and 52). Each of these panels was made to be the center of a composition probably comparable to the Barberini diptych, but substantially larger in actual size. The heights of the center panels are: Barberini 20 cm., Vienna 26 cm., Florence 30.5 cm. Since no trace survives of the other panels of these assemblages we cannot tell how important Christian symbolism was to these emblems of imperial authority. The loss is all the more frustrating because the enthroned empress (Vienna) holds the globe in her left hand, and reaches out with her right in what seems to be a gesture of reception. What was she to receive, and from whom? At any rate, the disparity in size warns us that the Florence and Vienna panels did not form a pair. These five-part compositions are normally referred to as diptychs, and three of the corresponding Christian five-part diptychs do survive as complete pairs, two of them reused as bookbindings. But it is not clear that the imperial ivory assemblages were always diptychs; the inscription on the Milan fragment implies a lost corresponding panel, but among the surviving fragments there is no trace of a pair, and no sign of original hinges or similar mounts. I believe the imperial ivory assemblages were made as discrete objects for display, as venerated emblems of authority.
The climax of this development can be found in what is certainly the largest (41.4 x 14.0 cm.), and arguably the most beautiful of late antique ivories: the panel in the British Museum with an archangel holding forward a globe with a cross on it (Volbach 109). It can be assigned to Constantinople and dated to the period between 520 and 540 by comparing particularly the form of tabula ansata in dated consular diptychs, a fact noted but not exploited by de Loos-Dietz in 1947 (Vroegchristelijke Ivoren, pp. 138-139). Carving technique and style of decoration correspond very closely to the consular diptychs of Justinian of 521. This is surely imperial work of the highest quality. Shape and drill holes along the left edge make it clear that this was the hinged right wing of some larger assemblage of ivories, and the archangel turns his head slightly to the left, holding out the globe with cross to the left, in a gesture of presentation. The back of the panel has a shallow recess of the type that held wax in a normal consular diptych, but I think this was a vestigial feature in a panel so large and unwieldy as to be impractical for normal writing. It is hard to imagine a composition for a single left panel which would make a symmetrical pair and still adequately complement the iconography of the surviving right panel. Therefore I would like to propose that this was a triptych, a sort of folding shrine which when opened showed the Emperor in the center, probably flanked by guards or attendants, while on the wings at either side an archangel held out to the Emperor certain symbols of his authority: the missing archangel probably the scepter, the surviving one the globe with cross, a symbol of specifically Christian dominion.
The inscription carved in high relief on the tabula ansata above the head of the archangel begins with a cross, and reads Dechou paronta / kai mathōn tēn aitian. This is a line of iambic trimeter in a style recalling classical tragedy. Several scholars have advised me that it may be a quotation, and have generously helped search the obvious lexica. Since all attempts are still unsuccessful I shall let the kind friends who have helped in this futile endeavor remain anonymous. Perhaps the line circulated as a monostichon, or possibly it was a deliberate imitation of the style of classical tragedy. At any rate, a full interpretation of the inscription is obviously important for proper appreciation of the ivory in its historical context. It is normally assumed that the text on the surviving panel is only the first half of a sentence which was completed on the lost panel. On an ordinary consular diptych the inscription is routinely continuous across the two panels, but if this ivory was part of a larger assemblage, a folding triptych with a shrine-like character, I suggest that the inscriptions on the two wings may have been composed to be complementary as a pair, but each to be comprehensible on its own. I believe this inscription can be interpreted in this manner, and I am very grateful for the generous advice I have received from several specialists, but since the matter is controversial I shall not attach their authority to my attempted explanation.
The word paronta can be masculine singular or neuter plural, and therefore can be taken as a person, an object, or an abstraction. Since the archangel is an attendant figure, making a symbolic gesture of presentation and turning slightly to the left, paronta cannot refer to the archangel. It could refer to the missing panel in which another person is being presented (for example, the Emperor to Christ) but that is speculation, and seems to me unlikely. Paronta could refer to the globe with cross, but that would seem to me only a secondary and almost trivial meaning. I believe paronta should be understood as an abstraction for which the globe with cross can serve as a symbol. When this inscription has been taken as only the first half of a sentence kai has been taken as a simple conjunction, but if it is taken as an expression of emphasis (even instead of and) it is easier to understand the inscription as self-sufficient. The root meaning of aitian, cause, origin, can be found expanded in Origen to include essence, and I think this meaning is implicit in this Christian context. On this basis I offer the translation Accept present circumstances, even understanding their essence. I take the full meaning to be an exhortation to the Emperor to accept his authority to rule within the Christian order of things. This is even more specifically a statement of the establishment of imperial authority under Christian sanction than is the Barberini diptych, and it is tempting to suppose that the enormous triptych I am trying to reconstruct was made to celebrate the accession of Justinian in 527.
Just as the old imperial iconography has been given a new meaning in its Christian frame of reference, so the revived classical style which overwhelms the beholder at first glance is, in fact, fundamentally medieval. The soft naturalistic modeling of the garment is deceptive, and actually hides real confusion in the anatomy, for this archangel with disconnected ponderation floats above the steps as if disembodied. He is an ethereal being, not an earthly Victory. He stands at the beginning of a long line of Byzantine archangels flanking Christian thrones.
II. THE ARTS BEFORE JUSTINIAN
Isis in the Via Latina Catacomb
Michael Maas, University of California, Berkeley
The figure popularly known as Cleopatra in Chamber E of the mid-fourth century Via Latina Catacomb in Rome should be recognized as the goddess Isis. Such an identification is supported by iconographic and historical evidence and is consistent with themes of resurrection and salvation presented in pagan and Christian terms elsewhere in the catacomb.
The scene in Chamber E shows a nimbate, semi-nude female reclining in a field of tall red flowers. She looks up to her right and leans upon a basket upon which lies a wreath. A snake curls around her left arm and she holds it to her breast. Her right arm is raised in a gesture of reception.
Father Ferrua's identification of the figure as Cleopatra1 is attractive because of the familiar story of her suicide, yet Cleopatra's presence in a fourth century catacomb is difficult to understand. Plutarch2 provides a necessary link, explaining that Cleopatra, as Queen of Egypt, deliberately associated herself with Isis, the great Egyptian savior-goddess who had herself won salvation after enduring many hardships. Furthermore, the asp, whose bite was associated with immortality, was closely connected with the goddess's cult.3
Pompeian frescoes4 show Isis holding an asp, receiving the beleaguered Io into Egypt where she is restored to human form and given a place to rest from Juno's cruel pursuit. This allegory by the banks of the Nile clearly illustrates Isis' great promise: redemption of the suffering faithful and salvation in the afterlife accomplished through divine intervention. Initiates of the cult of Isis were called renati, born-again.5 As Isis had once gained salvation, and Io after her, so might the deceased buried in this chamber.
The red flowers and wreath in the scene in Chamber E, as well as the peacocks painted above the arcosolium, further suggest transformation and rebirth. Lucius the Ass in Apuleius' Metamorphosis nibbled a rose wreath at a festival of Isis and regained his human shape. Is the Via Latina Isis keeping a wreath for the person she is reaching out to greet as a token of a new position in the afterlife? It is tempting to wonder whether that person is buried in the chamber.
The artist's model for the scene may have been a representation of Isis similar to that of the Pompeii frescoes, or it may have evolved from a more generalized convention of showing Isis without a second protagonist.6 A third possibility lies in the general type of the reclining semi-nude female frequently employed in depicting such goddesses as Tellus,7 and even Isis herself in a slightly different manifestation.8 It is quite likely that this general type was adapted to Isis in a funereal context by the addition of the asp and the gesture of reception. Such intelligent synthesis and creativity is characteristic of the entire catacomb.
The presence of Isis in the Via Latina Catacomb makes sense. Her cult was active at Rome in mid-fourth century and her guarantees about the afterlife were similar to those made-by her rival deities depicted in adjoining chambers.
1 Antonio Ferrua, La Pittura della Nuova Catacomba di Via Latina (Vatican City, 1960), p. 61. See p. 61 n. 1 for other suggested identifications equally inappropriate to a tomb. For the most recent bibliography on this subject see L. Kštzsche-Breitenbruch, Die Neue Katakombe an der Via Latina in Rom, Jahrbuch fŸr Antike und Christentum. ErgŠnzungsband 4, 1976, p. 11, nn. 20, 21.
2 Plutarch, Antony 54.6.
3 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 74; Josephus, Contra Apion II.86.
4 L. Richardson, Pompeii: the Casa dei Dioscuri., Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 23 (1955), pl. 29; V. Tran Tam Tinh, Essai sur le culte d' Isis a PompŽi (Paris, 1964), pl. 16.2.
5 See Harold Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration (Chicago,1929), pp. 169-195; C. J. Bleeker, "Isis as Saviour Goddess," in Studies . to E. 0. James (Manchester, 1963), pp. 1-16.
6 As for example on a Gnostic gem. See A. Delatte and Ph. Derchain, Les Intailles Magiques GrŽco-Egyptiennes (Paris, 1964), p. 86 no. 106.
7 See, for example, Ršmische Qvartalschrift, Vol. 66, No. 3-4, taf. 24.b.
8 In the guise of the Recumbent Nile. Andreas Alfšldi, A Festival of Isis in Rome (Budapest, 1937), p. 19ff.
An Iconographic Study of the Fourth -Century Calendar Frescoes under S. Maria Maggiore in Rome
Inabelle Levin, Case Western Reserve University
In 1966 during structural modifications on the foundations of S. Maria Maggiore, Filippo Magi unexpectedly came upon a remarkable cycle of frescoes. Painted on two facing long walls of a large cortile in a public building, these frescoes depict calendar texts alternating with imposing landscapes showing the occupations pertinent to that month. The entire year, through December, was thus articulated in an alternating rhythm of text and illustrations. Evidence within the texts shows that the cycle dates from the fourth century. Although Magi's publication presents the archaeological findings surrounding the discovery, the frescoes have not yet been adequately studied either for their stylistic associations or for their iconographic and historical significance.
The illustrated panels are rare testimony of a monumental, illusionistic landscape tradition in the fourth century. Their style clearly recalls early Graeco- Roman painting. The foreground of each scene is filled with a sprawling complex of buildings occupied by groups of figures in the intermediary spaces who are engaged in a variety of religious and secular activities. In the background is a panoramic view of country life showing the particular agricultural labors suitable for each month. In September, for example, workers harvest fruit, while, nearby, a farmer presses wine. And in November, a worker beating down clods of soil follows closely upon a ploughman; trees heavy with olives drop their ripe fruit; and a farmer in the distance carries his olive harvesting sticks. In these frescoes artists of the fourth century present us with a pictorial exploration of significant aspects of Roman life as genre scenes in a specific temporal context.
A long tradition of calendar pictures had already existed in Roman art. Moreover, farming and country life were amply represented in wall paintings and mosaics from the first through the fourth centuries in scenes of field work and harvesting. They reflect a Roman interest in agrarian life which is also found in Latin poetry, letters and technical literature extending from Varro, Columella, Vergil and Pliny to Palladius in the fourth century. The focus on pagan religious festivals and agrarian themes which merge in the painted scenes and calendar entries in the fourth-century frescoes under S. Maria Maggiore are also combined in the texts and illustrations of the renowned manuscript, the Calendar of 354. But they represent a dying tradition. The supplanting of paganism by Christianity as a state religion, and its concomitant cultural changes signify, of course, the eventual demise of pagan religious scenes and texts within a calendar context. The labors of the months continue to exert their influence in a variety of Medieval Byzantine works of art, where, in typical fashion, calendar scenes are limited to one or two workers performing a single appropriate activity, or to an individual surrounded by attributes of the month in a series of twelve pictures spanning the course of a year. Despite the ongoing tradition of these labors of the months, the imposing panorama, so vital a part of the fresco cycle under S. Maria Maggiore, does not reappear for another millennium. Our frescoes, deliberately evocative of first- century illusionistic landscape painting, surely represent the stylistic traditions maintained by Late Antique fresco painters which served as sources for Late Antique, Byzantine and Medieval manuscript illustrators. Prior to the discovery of this fresco cycle, we knew only of modest fourth-century quotations of individual elements from first-century painting. Our frescoes testify to the far greater importance that those pictorial concerns held in the fourth century.
The Louvre Good Shepherd Christ: A Forgery
James Nelson Carder, Mount Vernon College
The Early Christian Collection in the MusŽe du Louvre contains a bone statuette of the Good Shepherd Christ (MND 1890, H. 14.5 cm) (1). Said to have been found in the environs of Rome, possibly on the Via Appia near the catacombs, this statue is dated by Coche de la FertŽ and Du Bourguet to the end of the third century. It represents a youthful shepherd wearing a sleeved exomis tunic, leggings, laced boots, and a shepherd's shoulder-strap purse. The shepherd supports a ram across his shoulders, his left hand grasping the animal's far front foot and his right encircling the near back leg. The animal's other two legs hang free while, open mouthed, it turns to look across the slightly lowered head of the shepherd.
The plastic treatment of the shepherd's body, drapery, and face as well as the richly carved locks of hair suggested to Coche de la FertŽ and Du Bourguet a comparison between the Louvre statuette and a marble Good Shepherd Christ in the Rome Terme Museum, also dated to the late third century (2). The seeming validity of this comparison is immediately evident. Not only are the overall compositions similar, but also such details as the type of hair, face, and shepherd's purse and especially the shepherd's grasp of the ram's far front leg leave little doubt that the two pieces are somehow closely related. However, certain anomalies in the Terme Museum sculpture call into question this comparison and ultimately cast doubts on the authenticity of the Louvre piece.
Already in 1929, Wilpert had suggested that the Terme Museum Good Shepherd had been the victim of "un restauratore di poco cultura archeologica" (3). In his published photograph, Wilpert removed those areas which had been added through modern restoration, notably including the shepherd's arms and the supported ram's legs and muzzle. Further examination of the piece reveals that other areas have also been altered; for example, parts of the face and hair have been recut, and the clavicle bone at the neck has been redefined.
It is precisely those features which were added or reworked by the Terme Museum restorer that best compare with the Louvre bone statuette. The Louvre shepherd's grasp of only one of the ram's front legs, a device otherwise unparalleled in Early Christian Good Shepherd representations, and the equally unparalleled open mouth of the supported ram are features which in the Terme sculpture could not have existed before the piece was restored. These features and other similarities and misunderstandings observable in the Louvre statuette suggest strongly that it was copied directly from the restored Terme Museum marble. The statuette must therefore be considered a forgery of fairly recent date.
(1) E. Coche de la FertŽ, L'AntiquitŽ chrŽtienne Paris, 1958, no. 18; P. du Bour- guet, Early Christian Art New York, 1971, 114, Pl. p. 113. (2) F. Gerke, Die christliche Sarkophage der vorkonstantinischen Zeit Berlin, 1940, 252, n. 1, pl. 20,3. (3) G. Wilpert, I sarcofagi cristiani antichi Rome, 1929, 1 testo, 72.
Renaissance and Renascences in the Fourth Century
Kathleen J. Shelton, University of Chicago
In recent decades, a sizeable body of art historical literature has identified and discussed the characteristics of a corpus of sculpture dating to the late fourth century, executed in the East and associated with the reign of Theodosius I. Some scholars, such as Rumpf, have understood the style as a decline from standards of the mid-century; others, such as Kollwitz and Kitzinger, have discussed the positive aspects of the aesthetic of a "Theodosian Renaissance." More important than differing judgments of relative quality is the recognition by both groups that the (eastern) sculpture of the late fourth century demonstrates a distinct formal mode within the Late Antique, Early Byzantine period.1
Contemporary with the Theodosian material is a body of works, primarily in the minor arts, associated with the West, specifically with Rome and the Roman pagan senatorial aristocracy. The works created for these patrons have been discussed as demonstrating a revival of both classical style and pagan iconography. This "Roman Renaissance," which is traced back to the mid-century, has been assumed to be linked to the "Theodosian Renaissance" in the East, although, with admirable caution, scholars have noted that the influence of western works on eastern production cannot be explicitly demonstrated.2
A third Renaissance, the "Constantinian Renaissance," has been discussed as beginning in the 320's and the reign of Constantine as sole emperor.3 The three movements, if taken together, can be seen to characterize the fourth century as a period of classical or classicistic revivals; their combined literature accounts for nearly every example of the figural arts which can be dated to the second, third and fourth quarters of the century.4 The scholarly model of the century, however, is far from unified, built up of separate ad hoc solutions. The hypotheses of three Renaissance movements in such close succession arise from studies of materials with distinct patrons and chronologies for which a theory of one major movement with different, though related, manifestations might be better substituted. But a larger issue concerns the definition of Renaissance and its appropriateness as a theoretical structure to the developments of the fourth century.
The style and iconography of the objects understood as illustrating the revival of classical forms and imagery bear investigation as do their patrons and the closely associated concept of a pagan reaction. These are materials for future discussions. One possible key to an understanding of the fourth century and to the revival theories considered necessary to its explication lies in the art historical perceptions of the preceding period. An element in the definition of any revival is its observed difference and distance from that which went immediately before. In discussions of the fourth century revivals, the preceding period is that of the Tetrarchies. Writing in the 1930's, Gerke discussed fourth century materials as harking back, not to Periclean, Augustan or Trajanic antecedants, but simply to the third century.5 And Gerke's comments have been echoed by others to whom the Tetrarchic style appeared to be a complete break with the past.
Any resemblances between monuments of the fourth century and those from periods before the Tetrarchies could only be conceived as conscious revivals. The barrier represented by the Venice and Vatican porphyry groups, the Tetrarchic coinage of the eastern mints, the historical panels from the arch of Constantine and the decennial monument in the Roman forum prevented any sense of continuity between the arts of the third and fourth centuries. The coinage of the western mints, panels of the Arcus Novus of Diocletian, the recarved Constantinian heads on the Hadrianic roundels and other related materials provide an antidote and an illustration that styles documented in the third century persisted into the later years of the reign of Constantine and the fourth century as a whole.6 A Renaissance may seem a necessary structure to explain the distance from the decennial monument to the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. Monuments exist, however, which indicate that neither the early nor the mid-fourth century is accurately represented by examples such as these. The Renaissance solution gives a false impression by characterizing the century as dominated by a single style: the theory implies a uniformity seldom seen or suggested for other periods of Roman or Byzantine art.
While it is difficult to trace the history of the Renaissance theory, it is possible that its origins can be located in eighteenth and early nineteenth century notions of artistic decline in the late empire; conscious revivals on the part of individual patrons were often offered as explanations for those objects thought to be of unusually high quality.7 With the general acceptance of Riegl's positive evaluation of the Late Antique period, the theories might have been expected to pass away. On the contrary, they appear to have multiplied.8 The reasons are not clear. Many scholars continued to see motivations for classical revivals in the activities of specific patrons, in contrast to the supra- personal, ahistorical "Kunstwollen" posited by Riegl. More importantly perhaps, the Renaissance solution offered an explanation for the many elements of classical figural style observed in late works, less satisfactorily dealt with by Riegl whose aesthetic characterization of the period appears largely drawn from compositions (abstract, hieratic) and techniques (polychrome, open-work and the like) which, if not new in the lat: period, achieved a prominence not seen in the early empire. Elements which spoke of survivals or revivals of classical types and styles, however modified, were not easily accommodated within Riegl's theory which still postulated a single style for the period no matter how positive its evaluation. A hypothesis of multiple coexisting styles, in keeping with current approaches to periods both before and after the fourth century, would allow for certain of Riegl's conceptions of the Late Antique, while simultaneously acknowledging the persistence of aspects of classical style. It is a solution less dramatic than a Renaissance, but one better supported by the extant materials of the fourth century.
1 A. Rumpf, Stilphasen der spŠtantiken Kunst (Cologne, 1957), 20ff, 29f; J. Kollwitz, Ostršmische Plastik der theodosianische Zeit (Berlin, 1941) ; E. Kitzinger, "A Marble Relief of the Theodosian Period," The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West, ed. W.E. Kleinbauer (Bloomington, 1976), lff, additional bibliography, 389.
2 Kitzinger, "Marble Relief," 21ff; idem, "On the Interpretation of Stylistic Change in Late Antique Art," The Art of Byzantium, 33f; H. Bloch, "The Pagan Revival in the West at the End of the Fourth Century," The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed. A. Momigliano (Oxford, 1963), 193ff; Rumpf, Stilphasen, 12ff.
3 I. Lavin, "The Ceiling Frescoes in Trier and Illusionism in Constantinian Painting," DOP 21 (1967), 97ff; Rumpf, Stilphasen, 12ff.
4 While Kitzinger and Bloch are selective in their choice of monuments, most scholars cast their nets widely: e.g. Rumpf, Stilphasen, passim; T. Dohrn, "SpŠtantikes Silber aus Britannien," MdI, 2 (1949), 115ff; also D.E. Strong, Roman Art, ed. J.M.C. Toynbee (Baltimore, 1976), 163ff.
5 F. Gerke, Die Sarkophag des Junius Bassus (Berlin, 1936), 8ff.
6 See E. Harrison, "The Constantinian Portrait," DOP 21 (1967), 79ff.
7 E.g. J.B. Seroux d'Agincourt, L'Histoire de lâart par les monuments·, 6 v., (Paris, 1810-23).
8 A. Riegl, Spatršmische Kunstindustrie (Vienna, 1901) ;E. Garger, "Zur spŠtantiken Renaissance," JbKSWien, n.s. 8 (1934), lff, refers to many of the theories.
Problems in Three Types of Late Antique Figural Bronzes
David Gordon Mitten, Harvard University
This paper is concerned with outlining problems of continuity and change encountered in study of three related groups of late antique bronzes: figural lamps, weights (head, bust and full-figure), and statuettes, whether free- standing or forming part of a larger object. This discussion has been generated while writing a chapter on late antique bronzes for the author's forthcoming Greek, Roman and Etruscan Bronzes. The extent to which the lamps (birds, animals and ships, as well as those with animal-head handles, such as griffins) develop from prototypes already current within classical culture will be considered, as well as problems of identifying and dating products of work- shops active in both major artistic centers and provincial areas. Weights as well as lamps masquerade as statuettes; a number, in fact, are made by filling suitable objects, such as bust balsamaria with Dionysiac subjects or heads from large statuettes, with lead. Reasons for choice of subject matter for these weights range from fairly obvious, such as emperors or officials, to more obscure and ambiguous, such as classical divinities and mythological personages. The known statuettes ordinarily feature subjects of ecclesiastical, secular or mythological/allegorical character. Given the restricted contexts in which they could be used, since the millennia-old tradition of dedicating votive statuettes in Near Eastern and classical cults rapidly disappeared with the advent of officially sanctioned Christianity, their apparent variety of function is surprising. Dating examples of all three groups, either on the basis of finds from secure archaeological contexts or stylistic comparisons with datable objects in other media, has only been done in isolated cases. The iconography of selected objects from all three groups can be illuminated by comparison with subjects depicted on objects in other media (silver vessels, ivories, etc.). I hope that this presentation will illuminate the problems attending the study of late antique bronzes in general and the contributions that they have yet to make to our understanding of the traditional and innovative aspects of late antique art.
The So-Called 'Sheikh lbada Group' of Early Coptic Sculptures
Gary Vikan, Dumbarton Oaks
One of the largest, stylistically most unified, yet in origin and authenticity most controversial groups of Late Antique/Early Christian sculpture is that said to have come from the village of Sheikh lbada (ancient Antinošpolis) in Upper Egypt. Comprising grave stelae, niches, tympana, capitals, and friezes of apparently late Roman and early Coptic manufacture, the so-called "Sheikh Ibada group" suddenly flooded the international art market in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These pieces soon entered the collections of many major American and European museums. Moreover, because they were seen as new and unique evidence for large-scale stone sculpture in Coptic Egypt, and because they were thought, both for their iconography and their style, to provide a bridge between pagan and Christian cultures, they quickly assumed a prominent role in art historical literature (e.g. K. Wessel, Koptische Kunst, Recklinghausen, 1963, pp. 94ff.). From the beginning, however, the authenticity of this extraordinarily large, completely undocumented, stylistically and iconographically enigmatic group of limestone carvings was seriously and widely questioned. Yet, after nearly two decades, individual pieces continue to be bought and sold, exhibited, and, most significantly, to be published (e.g. A. Effenberger, Koptische Kunst, Vienna, 1975, pp. 140ff.). Thus, at present, Sheikh Ibada seriously clouds our image of early Coptic sculpture.
I have, therefore, recently undertaken a systematic investigation of the Sheikh Ibada group and thus far have been able to examine, at first hand, close to one hundred member pieces. From these, I have assembled a series of more than six dozen sculptures that I feel are wholly or substantially modern.
I propose, first, to introduce the Sheikh Ibada group and to identify the several major stylistic and iconographic genres into which it may be subdivide. I will then present the internal and external evidence upon which the authenticity of individual pieces may be challenged. The latter will consist primarily of tra- cing dubious provenance, while the former will comprise a variety of stylistic, iconographic, and purely technical observations which together virtually preclude an Early Christian dating. Finally, I will attempt to identify and characterize the role of recutting and repainting of authentic pieces.
It is hoped that this presentation will provide a framework whereby the authentic of Sheikh Ibada can be extracted from the spurious. This, in turn, should help to clarify our image of early Coptic sculpture.
III. BYZANTINE LITERATURE
Poetry as an Imitation of Christ
G. Ronald Kastner, University of Iowa
The obscure early fifth-century poet Claudianus of Alexandria is represented in the Palatine Anthology by only a few short poems. This paper will focus on one twelve line apostrophe to Christ (PA 1, 19) in an attempt to demonstrate how this writer has created a poem in which the activities of Christ and of poetry are made parallel.
A glance at the strictly formal aspects of the poem: metrical variety, rhythm of the lines, and assonental patterns does not dispose the reader toward a belief in Claudianus' merits as a poet. Metrical forms are fixed and show little variety and the rhythm of the individual lines is monotonous: the first four lines all have their caesura in the same weak position, in the same foot and after the same word ending. Assonance and alliteration patterns are achieved by similar word endings.
When thematic content is considered, Claudianus' poem shows little compensating power. The epithets of Christ are standard: saviour, eternal one, first born of the Father. The addition of neo-platonic concepts: source and light of God are not novel.
What does set this poem apart from other jejune works of the age, however are the ways in which Claudianus has molded and manipulated his conventional themes and style. The neo-platonic vocabulary is juxtaposed with Stoic, and specifically Platonic terms as well as with purely Christian language. There is even a reminis- cence of pre-Socratic philosophy in the mention of the four primal elements: fire, air, water, and earth. These philosophical matters are discussed in two sections framing a passage devoted to the convulsive effects of Christ's presence on earth. The revolution which Christ produces in the world is mirrored in the metrical shocks of the passage: all the metrical irregularities of the poem are concentrated in its two lines.
This middle section of the poem also suggests the level of human activity as against the level of divine and mysterious events which has heretofore been recorded. The ending of the Assyrian raging fury and the destruction of the false rites can be seen as reminders of the Byzanto-Sassanid wars over Christian persecution in the Assyrian Empire. The events in question probably occurred during the war of the early 420's.
The tension between creation and destruction which this center section of the poem brings to the fore has been hinted at previously. In the opening line ōdina is used; it can mean either offspring or the pain and discomfort giving rise to a birth. The paradoxes mentioned in the next few lines have merely continued this tension in another guise. Its final resolution is to be found in the last line of the poem where the poet, in a series of ever expanding epithets of Christ, calls him saviour of articulate beings, and thus implies that the ambiguities of human life and language are contained within the dimensions of God. The poem likewise is large enough to contain the ambiguities of humanity within itself: it has effectively presented and commented upon the tension of life.
Hesychius Hesperiensis: Some Evidence for the Study of Greek in the West
M. H. Field, Catholic University of America
The evidence for the study and knowledge of Greek in the Latin-speaking West has been widely scattered and often hidden by a deceptive context. One source of information which seems attractive is the Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, edited by G.Goetz and others, in eight volumes, 1888-1923, published at Leipzig for the Saxon Academy. The Glossae Latinograece et Graecolatine are in Volume II, later re-edited with greater care by the British Academy under the direction of W.M. Lindsay. The two Glossaries here treated are known by the names of their alleged compilers, Cyrillus and Philoxenus.
The editors of the Corpus do not deal with the sources of the bilingual compilations except in passing. One source which suggests itself is the Lexicon of Hesychius of the fifth century, compiled at Alexandria from a number of sources which are themselves open to investigation. The possible relation of Hesychius to the two mentioned Glossaries is dismissed by Goetz in his introduction to the Corpus De Glossariorum Latinorum Origine et Fatis [=Corp.Gloss.Lat., v.I] pp. 34 sqq.
The suggestion made here is that Hesychius, or his source, was available to the compilers of these two Glossaries, who can reasonably be placed in South Italy or Sicily in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. If this possibility is accepted, the source of a number of entries in the two word- lists can be shown, and, of greater interest, a textual problem in Philoxenus can be resolved as a simple miscopy from Hesychius. The lemma in Hesychius is of itself of some interest: it would seem to be part of an iambic trimeter which may be dramatic in source.
These few explanations of the origins of certain glosses indicates another source for evidence of the study of Greek in the Latin west, a source which remains to be fully investigated.
George, Bishop of the Arabs: A Syriac Homily on the Life of Severus of Antioch Kathleen McVey, Dumbarton Oaks
George, Bishop of the Arabs, was born about 640 A.D., probably in the village of Gindarus near Antioch. He received his early education there from a periodeutes of the diocese of Antioch. It is likely that he spent the following years at the monastery of Qenneûrē on the Euphrates opposite Europus, a monastery famous among Monophysite Syrian Christians for its tradition of Greek scholarship. George was consecrated as the Jacobite bishop of all the Arab Christian tribes of Mesopotamia in 687 A.D. He continued in that position until his death ca. 724 A.D.1
George's writings encompass a wide range of subjects, but he treats them all in the same scholarly, or even scholastic, manner. He translated part of Aristotle's Organon together with all the comments included in his Greek manuscript. He composed scholia on difficult passages from Scripture or from the Greek and Syrian Fathers of the Church. He dealt with chronological and astronomical questions in his learned correspondence, and he wrote a simplified account of the second, third and fourth books of the Pseudo-Dionysian De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia for popular use. Even his more original works, such as the homily on the life of Severus of Antioch, which is of principal concern here, show considerable reliance on earlier written sources.2
George's homily on Severus is of relatively slight importance as a new source for the life of Severus. George has included a significant amount of accurate information on Severus' life, but most of his information is derived from other extant sources. The most important of George's sources is the Life of Severus by John of Beith Aphthonia.3 In general outline, sequence and scope, Georgeâs homily corresponds closely to John's vita of Severus. A few details establish George's literary dependence on John, namely, the representation of Severus in composing the Philalethēs as David fighting Goliath, the incidents surrounding the summoning of Severus to be ordained as Patriarch of Antioch, the portrayal of events immediately preceding and following Severus' death, that is, the story of his bath, of the marble slab with its healing powers and the miraculously accommodating coffin. It is equally clear that George did not know the Life of Severus by Zachary the Scholastic4 not only because he fails to include any information from Zachary's vita which is not also in John's vita, but also because he completely omits Saverus' period of study in Alexandria, saying that Severus studied in Sozopolis and than went on to study law and rhetoric in Beirut. This misunderstanding is easily traceable to John's vita but virtually impossible for the reader familiar with Zachary's vita.
To the framework provided by John, George has added some further materials. Precisely because virtually all of George's sources for this work are extant, the analysis of his use of these sources may provide insight into the concerns and conditions of George's own time. Rather than attempting to consider each of George's additions, we will examine only one of them in some detail here.
At three points in his vita, John of Beith Aphthonia refers the interested reader to the writings of Severus for further information which he himself does not discuss. One of these three instances occurs in the context of Severusâ baptism, which took place at the shrine of Leontios at Tripolis. A closer look at the corresponding section of George's homily on Severus will enable us to offer an explanation of his choice of emphasis in this instance.
George presents Severus' baptism as a significant turning point in his life, a change which precipitated his leaving his studies in Beirut and entering the monastic life. In the course of his studies at Beirut, George says, Severus was drawn to the shrine of the martyr Leontios in Tripolis with the crowds of pilgrims who celebrated the annual festival of the martyr there. Severus "had heard of [the shrine] previously because of the.wonders that had been performed by the martyr." While he was at the shrine, Severus saw for himself the miraculous powers of Leontios. By way of illustration, George recounts three stories of the miraculous intervention of Leontios in the lives of visitors to his shrine.
The stories are shortened but otherwise unaltered versions of stories related by Severus in his twenty-seventh Cathedral Homily, on the martyr Leontios.5 As noted above, George's attention had been directed to Severus' homily by John of Beith Aphthonia. John also cited Severus' testimony in that homily to the importance of the miraculous powers attributed to Leontios in his decision to be baptized at the shrine. Severus' homilies were available to George in the revised Syriac version of his contemporary and friend, Jacob of Edessa. From this homily he chose to include only the miraculous accounts. Such stories are commonplaces of hagiography, so their inclusion is not especially remarkable. Yet one striking detail of George's account, which derives neither from John's vita nor from Severus' homily, may be the key to George's intention in adding these stories to his work. This detail is the notion that Severus went to the shrine for an annual festival attended by crowds of pilgrims. Again, annual festivals and pilgrims were common features of late antique and early medieval saints' shrines, but consideration of the role played by the cult of St. Sergius in Arab Christianity provides a more specific context for George's treatment of these stories.
Numerous sixth-century sources and some seventh-century sources testify to the importance of St. Sergius and his shrine at Rusafa (Sergiopolis) for Arab Christians.6 Many Arabs went there to be baptized in the early sixth century, as Severus attests in his fifty-seventh Cathedral homily.7 John of Ephesus, Theophylact Simocatta, Evagrius, the Life of Ahudemmeh, as well as the archeological evidence, attest to the importance of the annual pilgrimage to the shrine at Rusafa, renowned for its cures and other miracles. Evidence of the continuation of the cult of Sergius at Rusafa after the Islamic conquests is less frequent, but there is no positive indication in the sources that the shrine declined in importance in the seventh century A.D. Further, two Arabic sources contemporary with George lend support to the contention that the cult of Sergius at Rusafa and elsewhere continued to function during George's episcopacy. The Arab Christian poet, Al-Akhtal (d. 710-11 A.D.), refers several times to St. Sergius, once saying that his tribesmen, the Taglib, carried the cross and the image of St. Sergius into battle with them. The Islamic poet, Jarir ibn 'Atiyya (d. 732-33 A.D.), accused the Christian Arabs of having replaced the pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca with a pilgrimage to the shrine of Sergius at Rusafa.
It is probable, then, that George has in mind an implicit parallel between his Arab Christian audience and Severus in his treatment of Severus' baptism. Just as many of the Christian Arabs, or at least their recent ancestors, had gone to the annual festival of the martyr Sergius at Rusafa to be baptized, so also Severus had gone to the annual festival of the martyr Leontios at Tripolis to be baptized. Just as many of the Arabs were persuaded by the miracles of Sergius to become Christians, or to remain Christians rather than becoming Muslims, so also Severus had been persuaded by the miracles of Leontios not only to become a Christian, but to embark upon the perfect Christian life, the monastic life.
1 For biographical and bibliographical information, cf. V. Ryssel, Georgs des Araberbischofs Gedichte und Briefe, (Leipzig, 1891), as well as the standard reference works for Syriac literature by Baumstark, Duval, Ortiz de Urbina and Wright.
2 Ed. and trans. by the present author, The mēmrā on the life of Severus of Antioch, composed by George, Bishop of the Arab tribes: A critical edition of the Syriac text, English translation and literary and historical commentary, (unpub. doctoral diss.), Harvard Univ., 1977.
3 Ed. and trans. by M.A. Kugener, Patrologia Orientalis 2.3 (1904).
4 Ed. and trans. by M.A. Kugener, Patrologia Orientalis 2.1 (1904).
5
Ed. and trans. by M. Brire, Patrologia Orientalis 36.1 (1971), 566-68./p>6 Most of these sources are cited by H. Charles, Le Christianisme des arabes nomades sur les limes, (Paris, 1936), 29-35, and by H. Lammens, ƒtudes sur le sicle des omayyades, (Beyrouth, 1930), 214, 229, 239-40, 267.
7 Ed. and trans. by R. Duval, Patrologia Orientalis 4.1 (1906), 92-93.
How Did Photius Compose His Bibliotheca?
Warren T. Treadgold, University of California, Los Angeles
Photius himself tells how he came to compose his so-called Bibliotheca, a col- lection of about 400 descriptions of books. According to his preface, his favor- ite brother Tarasius had asked him to write down summaries of the books he had read. Photius writes to Tarasius, "Though later, perhaps, than was your burning desire and warm entreaty, nevertheless more quickly than anyone else would have expected, we, finding a secretary, have edited as many of the summaries as our memory preserves, satisfying your desire and claim." However, Photius does not explain how he prepared these "summaries," which range from one incomplete sen- tence to many pages of nearly literal quotations. In a recent dissertation on the Bibliotheca which is to be published in the series of Dumbarton Oaks Studies, I distinguished three main kinds of description.
About 100 of the 400-odd descriptions are short and vague, often including mistakes and places left blank and never including specific information from the books that Photius could not have remembered easily. In view of what he says in his preface, it seems likely that he dictated at least most of the descriptions in this category to his secretary from memory.
About 65 descriptions are more or less literal excerpts and epitomes from the books, generally long and rough, sometimes to the point of including incomplete sentences. These include all the last 58 descriptions, which make up almost half the Bibliotheca. In a recent book on Photius' method, Tomas HŠgg concluded that Photius had prepared such excerpts and epitomes while he was actually reading the books. If this is right, Photius could not have prepared them for his brother on the spur of the moment in the manner he describes in his preface; in fact, in con- trast to the rest of the Bibliotheca, these descriptions never address Tarasius in the second person. They therefore seem to have been reading notes taken ear- lier by Photius and later copied into the Bibliotheca, probably by the secretary. Indeed, some of these excerpts reappear verbatim in Photius' Amphilochia, in which he specifically mentions using such notes (schedaria) . If the secretary did the copying by himself, this explains how several books were described twice --once from dictation and once from copied notes--without Photius' noticing it.
The remaining 240 or so descriptions are too precise to have been composed from memory but too finished to have been simple notes, especially because some of them address Tarasius in the second person. Therefore Photius must have composed them for the Bibliotheca by referring either to notes or to copies of the texts. Most of the specific information in these descriptions is of exactly the sort that a man would find if he gave a book a cursory look: the author, title, and dedication, the number of parts in the work, the chapter headings, and a few facts from the first and last pages and perhaps a page in the middle to which he happened to turn. But this is not the information from all over the book that one would expect from notes taken during a complete reading. Photius definitely did own books: his letters record his consternation when he was separated from his library, and Nicetas the Paphlagonian reports that Photius' great wealth and scholarly interests "made every book flow to him" so that his books were "difficult to count." Thus Photius probably composed at least most of these 240-odd descriptions by referring back to his personal library, which, since he mentions that many of the works were bound together, would have totaled some 150 volumes. Though this would have been an immense library by Byzantine standards, that is just what Nicetas says Photius had.
Over the whole Bibliotheca, Photius' method can probably be summarized as follows. When he received his brother's request, he sat down with his secretary among his books, picked up a volume and began to dictate with the book before his eyes. Between dictating from books he owned, he dictated from memory on books he did not own or could not find. He also had his file of reading notes beside him, from which he first had his secretary copy a few single epitomes, then left him to copy the remainder. In all, Photius seems to have dictated somewhat less than half the work for his brother, letting his secretary copy the rest without him.
Artistry and Tradition in Byzantine Romantic Gardens
A. R. Littlewood, University of Western Ontario
The ekphraseis of gardens in the Greek romances of late antiquity and early Byzantium appear to serve a definite purpose. These gardens are closely associated with the heroine, often with interlocking imagery, and help the reader to understand better both her and her relationship with the hero. Accordingly, they are beautiful, well cared for and neat, with many an element traditionally associated with fertility and love, but without the overgrown luxuriance of uncontrolled fecundity. Notably the most sensuous description is that of Achilleus Tatios (1.15), whose girl is the most forward and possessed of a virginity soon to be preserved through no grace of her own (the affinity of heroines and their gardens may be corroborated with the overt sexual descrip- tions of girls and gardens in Alkiphron and Aristainetos). Again, the similarities between these gardens and eschatalogical paradises suggest that life with the heroine will be one of blessed felicity, the natural consummation of the Greek romance.
In the Byzantine romances an ekphrasis of a garden is almost de rigeur (there is even evidence that the fragmentary romance of Manasses did not eschew the theme). Of the middle Byzantine romance-writers Niketas Eugenianos describes the beauties of a garden (1.77-115) as introduction to the beauties of his heroine found therein (further linked together by a subtle conceit), and chooses for the most part as his flowers and trees those given erotic stories in the Geoponika; Eustathios Makrembolites, artistically insensitive in this as in virtually all else, places in a beautiful but orderly garden (1.4-6, 2.1.11 etc.) a forward and indecorous wench not even beautiful at this point in the eyes of the hero; and the author(s) of the great romantic epic of Basil Digenis Akritis revels in a sensuously described garden (e.g. cod. Gr. 6.15-41: cf. other garden at 7.13-108), a significant departure from the tradition since the garden is not the natural and original setting of the girl but the creation of Basil himself, a hero neither bashful nor virginal. During the Palaiologan Age we find descriptions of gardens, apart from the monstrosity afforded by Meliteniotes' Sophrosyne, in Kallimachos and Chrysorrho‘ (274-354), Belthandros and Chrysantza (282-313), Libistros and Rhodamne (e.g. cod. Esc. 2448-2510: cf. garden of Eros, ibid. 246-294) and the Achille•s (e.g. cod. Neap. 709-794). Notably in all these romances the garden, usually closely connected with the heroine, is heavily guarded, but when it is attained by the hero so too is the love of the girl, a theme emphasized by Manuel Philes' mystical interpretation of an earlier lost version of Kallimachos and Chrysorrho‘.
It is always hazardous to weigh the respective dependence on tradition, subconscious sensitivity and deliberate artistry, but a few tentative conclusions can be drawn for individual writers. In general the romances of Niketas and Eustathios show close adherence to the classical Greek tradition, while the Palaiologan examples manifest two phenomena of interest. First, the descriptions of girls and gardens, when given in any detail, conform not so much with classical as with contemporary canons which are influenced, especially in regard to gardens, by Persian and Islamic aesthetics. Second, the overt and at times exaggerated emphasis upon the erotic connotations of the gardens and the very close connexion between them and the heroines suggest that the one may be a conscious symbol of the other. This symbolism is commonly accepted by modern psychoanalysts, but in conscious articulation it belongs not to classical antiquity but to an oriental tradition (and a western introduced by the East through Spain): it is particularly evident in the mass of meta-Byzantine demotic compositions, compositions that have their roots firmly planted in the late Byzantine popular poetry of which these romances are no inconsiderable a part.
IV. THE ARTS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY
The Mosaics of San Vitale: Evidence for the Attribution of Some Early Byzantine Jewelry to Court Workshops
Katharine R. Brown, Metropolitan Museum of Art
A thorough examination of the jewelry represented in the mosaics of San Vitale has never been undertaken. References to specific pieces as well as general observations have been made by different authors; among these R. Zahn, M. Ross, and A. Lipinsky deserve special mention. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the existing material and to demonstrate that, based on the evidence of these mosaics, many pieces of early Byzantine jewelry can be attributed to court workshops. I shall also stress in this connection the importance of new finds. Although as many items as time permits will be discussed, here only a few examples are cited.
The most striking feature of these mosaics is the extensive--almost exclusive--representation of pearls, emeralds and sapphires ("hyacinths") not only in the jewelry and liturgical objects but also on the columns depicted at the ends of the panels and on the jewel-like frames which surround them. We know from Pliny that with the exception of "Adamas" (possibly diamonds) the Romans considered the pearl the most valuable of all jewels; to them it indicated the importance of the wearer. Next in rank was the "smaragdus," which included the emerald and various other green precious stones. "Hyacinths," however, do not seem to have gained esteem until the VI century. From the San Vitale mosaics, it is evident that in the early Byzantine period pearls, emeralds, and hyacinths symbolized courtly splendor.
The exuberant display of pearls on the crown, diadem, long pendilia and collar of Empress Theodora shows the imperial fashion of the era. Her crown and diadem are enriched with emeralds and orange enamel; the drop earrings have emeralds, pearls and hyacinths; and the necklace is of emeralds strung on gold wire. Her gold collar is set with pearls, two rubies and a large central emerald and the pendants are pear-shaped pearls. This collar has been compared to the splendid crescent-shaped gold openwork necklace in Berlin, mounted with pearls, emeralds and sapphires. The components of the Berlin necklace and its extraordinary splendor suggest that it was probably an imperial necklace.
The bracelets worn by Theodora's two ladies-in-waiting permit us to identify as court pieces a pair of bracelets in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The bracelets in the mosaic are gold, bordered with pearls and set either with emeralds or green enamel. The MMA bracelets are gold, bordered with pearls and set with sapphires and (originally) emerald plasma, of which only one set remains. Both the necklace and the bracelets, said to have been found in Egypt, are part of a treasure that included many splendid pieces of jewelry; all of the pieces can probably be attributed to a court workshop.
If the green of the bracelets in the mosaic is meant to represent green enamel rather than emeralds, the splendid bracelets recently discovered in Varna, Bulgaria come to mind. Although different in form, their components are similar; the medallions are decorated with a geometric design in light green and lavender enamel around a central pearl. Within the heavy gold frames of the hoops are rinceaux with bunches of grapes made of pearls, and leaves of light green glass. The importance of the Varna bracelets is that they provide our first evidence of Byzantine enameled jewelry in this early period.
Justinian as portrayed in the mosaics, wears a fibula of the type believed to have been reserved for emperors and empresses from the time of Constantine the Great until the X century. A rare example of what may well be a fibula of this type was unearthed in TŽns, Algiers in the late 1950's. The recent finds at TŽns and Varna help to substantiate our knowledge of early Byzantine court jewelry as depicted in the San Vitale mosaics.
Leviathan, Behomoth and Ziz: A Christian Adaptation
Lois Drewer, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
A Nilotic landscape with the very unusual motif of the combat of an ox and a crocodile forms part of the animal Paradise imagery of the wood reliefs sheathing the beams of the nave ceiling of the Justinianic Church of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai. Elizabeth Alfšldi-Rosenbaum (La mosa•que grŽco-romaine, II) has recently drawn attention to this motif, which has parallels in three sixth-century mosaic pavements in Cyrenaica (Cathedral of Cyrene and Church of Qasr-el-Lebia) and in the fifth-century "House of Kyrios Leontis" at Beth Shean. The specific combat of ox and crocodile (unlike the image of the crocodile devouring an ass with which Alfš1di-Rosenbaum compares it) has not been found in extant Roman Nilotic landscapes. An intriguing parallel does exist, however, in a lost monumental bronze statue of unknown date representing a death struggle between an ox and a crocodile, which is described by Nicetas Choniates (De Signis).
In the Sinai relief the ox and crocodile combat appears twice in a river setting with lotus plants, wading birds and men in boats. The crocodile has the snout of the ox tightly clamped within its jaws, and at the same time, the ox bites back. One large bird nearby has apparently just laid a round egg. At the center of the relief a triton holds a cross staff on either side of a cross inscribed in a wreath.
I propose the identification of the battle of the ox and crocodile as a Christian adaptation of the theme of the mortal combat between Leviathan and Behemoth which, according to Jewish commentators, takes place at the end of the world in order to provide food for the righteous at the banquet marking the beginning of the Messianic Age. This theme is represented in a number of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Hebrew Bibles, where Leviathan is shown as a giant fish, Behemoth as a large ox, and the third member of the triad of primordial beasts of the land, sea and air, Ziz, as a huge bird with a very prominent egg. Although there is no evidence that these manuscript illuminations belong to a continuous pictorial tradition, we can be certain that the three Messianic beasts entered the repertory of Jewish art at an early date, since they can be identified in the fifth- or sixth-century pavement of the Synagogue of Hammam Lif in Tunisia. Here Behemoth and Leviathan are shown, not in combat, but in a Nilotic landscape with Ziz and two geese, which are also reserved for the feast in the Messianic Age.
I suggest that the story of the combat of Leviathan and Behemoth, adapted as a Christian eschatological theme, forms the basis for the representation of the ox and crocodile combat in the Sinai Nilotic relief. Here the ox represents Behemoth, while the crocodile, rather than a large fish, represents the sea monster Leviathan. If this hypothesis is correct, then the large bird with its prominently featured egg can almost certainly be identified as Ziz. The human figures in small boats may well be the righteous who were said to witness the combat of Leviathan and Behemoth.
This explanation is consistent with the themes of the other beam reliefs. The iconographic program of the Sinai beams was evidently derived from a Christian prophecy of the Messianic Age in which all living creatures prosper, and the three primordial beasts in the Nilotic landscape herald the coming of the Messianic Age and the reward of the faithful.
The Translation of Relics Ivory
Suzanne Spain, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
The Translation of Relics ivory in the Cathedral Treasury, Trier, is one of those objects passed off in the handbooks of Early Christian and Byzantine art as puzzling, troublesome and, perhaps, best forgotten. But the ivory may well be an extraordinary pictorial record of a specific event in Byzantine history. It reverberates with the propagandistic elements of imperial ideology and it documents the survival of ivory carving at a high level of craftsmanship in a troubled province of the empire. In this paper I shall be concerned with iconographical aspects of the Trier ivory; its stylistic context is treated elsewhere.
Depicted on the ivory is a translation involving an emperor, empress, court officials, clerics, and two high ecclesiastics who approach in a horse- drawn cart, holding a reliquary on their knees. The destination of the procession is a basilical church whose roof is in the final stages of construction or repair. Two small buildings flank the basilica, one a lean-to- like structure, the other a domed cylinder. Previous attempts to identify the actual event and the art historical context of the ivory have focused on the identity of the two bishops in the cart; scrutiny of texts has yielded three translations in which two patriarchs participated. None of these hypotheses has proved acceptable. If, instead, one turns to imperial dress and architecture for clues to the identification of the translation, one obtains information which helps significantly, first, in narrowing the chronological span within which the ivory can have been carved and, second, in suggesting the locus of the translation. Studies of imperial insignia indicate that the ivory reflects modes of the last decades of the VI and early VII centuries. Thus the Justinianic period to which the ivory has been consigned in most recent works must be ruled out. The fibula type is, in fact, extremely rare, and if it is to be credited--and I do--places the ivory in the reign of the emperor Heraclius.
Architectural parallels for the representations on the ivory have been sought almost exclusively--and unsuccessfully--in Constantinople. If one admits the possibility that a translation involving an emperor may have taken place other than in the capital and still find reflection in art, then the identification of the buildings and the event follow easily. I suggest that it is the Holy Sepulchre complex in Jerusalem which is the destination of the translation. Not only do the specific elements of the complex represented on the ivory agree with earlier depictions, but we know that Heraclius participated in a translation of relics at the conclusion of the Persian War and that these very buildings were under repair in the same period.
Additional facets of the iconography of the ivory, including the role of the empress and the politicized relic and translation, will also be discussed.
Observations on the Joseph Plaques from the Cathedra of Maximianus
Jane Timken Matthews, Stonington, Connecticut
The Joseph Plaques have been considered by most recent scholars to be part of the Cotton Genesis recension. Careful analysis of these plaques indicates that, while there are indeed some affinities, they do not necessarily belong to the Cotton Genesis family. In our attempt to arrange illustrated manuscripts into families, it is important to distinguish between those relationships that are possible and those that are necessary. Cases of similar postures, motifs, or general compositional parallels do not always constitute sufficient proof of a single source. However, when two or more manuscripts exhibit the same elements that cannot be explained by reference to the Septuagint, then one can justifiably claim a positive, necessary relationship between them.
This paper will concentrate on the scenes of Joseph in the cistern, his sale to the Ishmaelites, Jacob shown the bloody coat, and Joseph sold to Potiphar. These scenes illustrate Genesis 37:24 ff. This passage in the Septuagint is extremely confused because the original frame of the Joseph story has incorporated, in an unsubtle fashion, the so-called Judah expansion. We read first that the Ishmaelites appear, then the Midianites arrive. Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites and v. 29 says that the Ishmaelites bring him to Egypt. But v. 36 tells us that the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar. After the break for the Tamar story in Chapter 38, Chapter 39 begins with the information that it is the Ishmaelites who sold Joseph to Potiphar.
Most all versions of the Joseph story depart in some degree from the Septuagint text at this juncture. Josephus (de Antiquitates) and the Targums eliminate the Midianites. The Book of Jubilees, also known as the Little Genesis, and the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo Philo leave out the entire sequence of Ishmaelites and Midianites. The brothers sell Joseph directly to Potiphar. The Pirk of Rabbi Eliezar eliminates the slaughter of the kid and Jacob shown the bloody coat. Philo Judaeus (de Iosepho) also tells the story differently from the Septuagint. The brothers slaughter the kid before Joseph is raised from the cistern and sold to the merchants. It is Philo's version of the story that corresponds to the order of events illustrated on the ivories. This aberrant sequence is followed also by the Octateuchs, the Paris Gregory, the Coptic textiles, and the Golden, Sister, and Sarajevo Haggadoth.
Philo is, of course, a very plausible source for an illustrator of the Septuagint to use. He was enormously important to the early Fathers, particularly Origen, Clement, and Ambrose. I believe we must assume a literary connection between illustration and text. It is quite impossible, given the discursive nature of Philo's text, to imagine that there was ever an illustrated version of de Iosepho. The correspondence between Philo's version of the Joseph story and the ivories on the cathedra permit us in this instance to assume a literary source for non-canonical elements in Septuagint illustration and it enables us to make some adjustment in our grouping of early Old Testament manuscript cycles.
Iconography of the Ivory Cathedra in Ravenna
George Stričević, University of Cincinnati
The suggestion I made in a communication presented at the last Inter- national Congress for Byzantine Studies that the Ravenna Cathedra might be of post-Justinianic date seems to be corroborated by the subject-matter of the ivory plaques which decorate the chair in general and the iconographic rendition of individual scenes in particular.
An analysis of the Miracles cycle in terms of the selection of the scenes, their organization and internal iconographic characteristics is almost impossible, due to the fact that only less than half of its dozen or more panels are preserved, yet the cycle of Infancy offers an opportunity for important considerations in all three respects. One thing stands out prominently: the cycle is neither an illustration of the narrative as rendered by the canonical gospels, nor a pictorialization of an apocryphal story, notably the one told by the Protevangelium of James (already evinced in several of our panels). The same apocryphal text might also be responsible for most of the alterations introduced in the common schemes of various canonical scenes. Finally, the Cathedra corresponds to the Protevangelium Jacobi in its omission of the Flight to Egypt.
A peculiar way in which both the canonical and apocryphal material is employed by the sculptor of the Cathedra seems to be of special interest. He has chosen to illustrate only those of the episodes in which Christ's divinity is manifest. Several noncanonical episodes thus are added to the cycle of the Cathedra and the popular scene of the Flight to Egypt is omitted. The reason for the omission might easily be that that part of the story would not contribute anything to the Christological theme of the cycle. The elimination of the Flight led, naturally, to the omission of the Dream of Joseph in which he receives a warning about the pending murder of all the newly born children, which is not relevant to the main theme of the cycle, while another Dream, based on the narrative of the Protevangelium, is added earlier in the cycle because its message is pointedly Christological. The Journey to Bethlehem which by itself would also lack Christological significance has been altered independently of both canonical and apocryphal account, the ass on which Mary rides is led by an angel, a witness of Christ's divinity par excellence, replacing Joseph's son of the Protevangelium narrative. The introduction of this angel as well as the addition of other witnesses in all the remaining scenes (the Midwife in the Nativity, one or two angels in several other scenes, Joseph and Zechariah in the Test by Bitter Water), whether they are invited there by the text on which the episode is fashioned or not, only confirms that the central and dominant theme of the program is Christological theology.
In light of these observations the choice of Miracles for the subject-matter of the remaining panels covering the back of the Cathedra could not be more natural: the miracles are indeed the most straightforward illustration of Christ's divinity. That we have here again the representations with a particular theological focus, and not simply illustrations of the biblical narrative, is clear from the inclusion of witnesses whose presence in one instance at least (the Samaritan woman) directly disagrees with the Gospel account. Some of the witnesses in the Miracle scenes are identified as Evan- gelists by a codex they hold in their left hands while with the right they assume a conventional gesture of testimony. A comparison of the figures of the Evangelists in these panels with the four portraits of the authors of the Gospels on the front side of the Cathedra, might prove to be of certain interest in a stylistic study of the Cathedra ivories, especially in view of a presumed possibility of separating various hands, but it certainly provides the clue for the introduction of the figures of the four Evangelists, as the major witnesses of Christ's divinity, on the front side of the Cathedra.
The meaning of these figures explains the iconographic function of John the Precursor who is represented in their midst. The most prominent position of a witness of Christ's divinity which on the Cathedra is ascribed to him by placing him in the central panel, is re-affirmed by the iconography of three panels on the back of the chair: the elaborate Visitation scene in which John's father Zechariah is included without any reference to the texts describing the event, the introduction into the cycle of the most unusual scene of the Escape of Elizabeth and, finally, the use of a new scheme of the Baptism of Christ with two assisting angels.
The Christological theme identifiable in all three groups of panels discussed so far also seems to have been behind the choice of the Story of Joseph which decorates the arm-rests of the Cathedra.
The hypothesis of Prof. Schapiro that the story of Joseph was included in the iconographic program of the Cathedra as a "symbolization of the bishop's office which was patriarchal in Joseph's sense and included civil as well as religious functions" cannot be supported either by the Greek exegetical literature or by the Byzantine iconographic tradition. While the Greek Church Fathers never make any reference to Joseph "as the model of the high civil servant and the bishop", they often talk about him as one of the figures of Christ. This is also true of Romanos, the greatest hymnographer of the Eastern Church, who wrote two kontakia on Joseph. one of them concentrates almost entirely on Joseph as a symbol of virginity, the other on the Patriarch's experience which is viewed as a prefiguration of Christ's passion. A special interest of Romanos in the present context lies not only in the fact that his liturgical poems are of all Byzantine writings on the subject, chronologically closest to the presumed date of the Cathedra, but also in that his adaptation of the Biblical story corresponds to the iconographic rendition on the Cathedra in the sense that neither of these two abbreviated versions of the story omits any of the episodes from the Biblical narrative which are well established in exegetical literature and illustrate, in the words of Romanos, that "Christ is prefigured in Joseph". The only one of the ten Joseph panels on the Cathedra which could be interpreted in terms of Prof. Schapiro's hypothesis (Joseph supervising the distribution of grain), identifies the Prophet as the ante-type of Christ: Joseph esurientibus populis panem copiose ministrat, Christus coeli pane manentes orbe toto ex saturat nationes. The Christological meaning of the Joseph story in Romanos is also confirmed by the fact that both of his kontakia on Joseph were intended to be sung on the Monday of the Holy Week because, in the words of the synaxarion for that day, Joseph "symbolized in himself the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and his consequent great glory".
If Joseph is Christ's antetype, then the iconographic program of the Cathedra appears to be more unified than has been previously realized: the old Testament story is nothing but a part of one single cycle of the Life of Christ which starts with the events preceding and following his Nativity, and continues after the Baptism, with a series of events (apparently mostly Miracles) which in the most direct fashion testify to Christ's divinity, and concludes after the Entry into Jerusalem, with the account of his passion and the consequent triumph, told allegorically, by a series of episodes from the Story of Joseph.
In all its parts the program has a pointed Christological character which pro= vides a clue for the understanding of the circumstances, and, in turn, also of the place and the time of its origin. The Christology expressed by the unusual iconography of the Cathedra, however, has no direct relationship either with the theological dispute concerning the Monophysite teaching that the Incarnate Christ had only one, divine nature, or with the orthodox allegations that by objecting to call Mary theotokos (and having instead preferred the safe term Christotokos), Nestorius taught that the two natures of Christ, divine and human, are separate. Repeated testimonies of Christ's divinity (starting with the Annunciation), which is the major theological preoccupation of the iconography of the Cathedra, can be best understood in relationship to the Christological controversy of the 6th c., known as the dispute about the Three Chapters. The Fifth Oecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 553, which dealt with the teaching of Theodor of Mopsuestia ("a Nestorian before Nestorius"), and some writings of Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, concluded its deliberations by the condemnation of the teaching of these three theologians who, it was argued by the orthodox, having agreed with the separation of God Logos and Christ (a heresy associated with Nestorius) consequently taught that Christ was no more than a mere man. The Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia was condemned at the Council in its Twelfth Anathema because he, apparently, believed that throughout his life, even at the Baptism-- which is the clearest instance of epiphany--Christ remained a mere man, progressing only gradually toward the divine adoption which, however, did not take place before his Resurrection. Through its repeated statements of Christ's divinity from the moment of his conception (the Annunciation), the iconography of the Cathedra appears as the most direct Orthodox reaction against the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
The iconographic program of the Cathedra which reflects the Christological controversy (resolved in 553), manifests clearly that the Cathedra could not have been made earlier than the middle of the 6th c. All the parallels for the various iconographic peculiarities of the Cathedra appear also to come from the latter part of the 6th c. at the earliest. Seen in this light the Ravenna Cathedra emerges as the compendium of a new iconography which, borrowing freely from various sources, including the centuries old Protevangelium Jacobi, and by introducing a whole series of new features, reflects the Orthodox position in the conflict surrounding the Three Chapters which, in spite of the unambiguous stand taken by the Council, did not cease to disturb the Christian world for another century and a half. The Ravenna Cathedra is possibly a document of great interest for the history of the gradual acceptance of the decisions of the Fifth Council (Northern Italy being particularly recalcitrant). In my communication presented to the Byzantine Congress in Athens last year I suggested that the Cathedra was sent to the Church of Grado by Emperor Heraclius and posited it to be the chair of the first bishop of the Church of Aquileia, St. Hermagoras. The Christological preoccupations which make the Cathedra a visual manifesto of the Orthodox Church in its struggle against the heresy of the Three Chapters would be, indeed, difficult to relate in any specific manner with St. Hermagoras, legendary disciple of St. Mark. But it can, and does, stand in the most direct relationship with the reasons and the circumstances under which the Cathedra, meant to symbolize the bishop's authority, was sent to Grado by Emperor Heraclius in order to give support to the claims of the Bishop of that city to be the legitimate successor of St. Hermagoras. The other claimant to the same honor, the Bishop of Aquileia, not only resided outside the borders of the Empire, in the territory controlled by the Lombards, but also still defended the teaching contained in the Three Chapters, and was, for that reason, considered schismatic by both the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor. On the other hand, only a few years before the Chair of St. Mark and --I believe--with it the ivory cathedra of St. Hermagoras were sent to Grado, the Bishop of that city, calling himself the Patriarch of the New Aquilea, renounced the schism, of the Three Chapters and was accepted into communion with the Orthodox Church. As a statement of the orthodox Christology, the cathedra therefore appears to be the most appropriate document of the reconciliation and the seal of the alliance between the Empire and the Church of Grado, which will from that moment on serve as the outpost of Byzantine interests in this part of the world in their struggle against the Lombards and against the remaining pockets of the Aquileian Schism.
V. GENERAL SESSION
Three Late Antique Reliefs from Sardis: An Iconographic Puzzle of Children and Tree
Jane Ayer Scott, Fogg Art Museum
Three marble reliefs found in 1975 in a funerary region just west of the excavated areas of the ancient city of Sardis present a challenging iconographic assemblage. Uniformity of size, material, and style make it virtually certain that they came from the same monument, possibly a funerary altar or an individual commemorative structure.
Two reliefs show venatios. One is a staged combat between bears, boar, bulls, dogs, and zebu. The other seems to represent a version of the taurokathapsia (Pliny NH 8.70.182)in which bulls were chased by large hunting dogs and then downed by a bear whereupon the neck was twisted by a venator. In spite of the wealth of textual evidence, late antique representations of animal fights in Asia Minor are meager and fragmentary and the Sardis reliefs add important information about the animals used and the form of the combat.
The third relief shows an enigmatic cult scene. Dominating the composition is a starkly-rendered four-branched tree on a base or roughly indicated altar. From each branch is suspended a human figure having baby-like rounded forms. They are horizontally disposed, all with arms outstretched in what might be considered an "offering" gesture, and with legs bent to varying degrees. One is attached at the base of the spine, the others at the shoulders where wings would sprout were they armorini; indeed, the lower left "baby" resembles closely in attitude an armorino in a vine from the mosaics of the Villa Romana del Casale in the Piazza Armerina. Grouped in rigid symmetry in two registers on either side of the tree are familiar participants in a hunting sacrifice: on the left are two musicians above, below them an animal is carried on a stretcher or pole led by a priestess; balancing them on the right above is a male figure in gladiatorial tunic and below a hunter or venator clad in the subligaculum receives a large offering tray from a priestess.
The rendering is crude and provincial, but the compositional arrangements can be related to the mainstream of late antique arts, especially mosaics, and to some dated examples. A coin of Phrygia, issued under Gallienus (A.D. 253- 268) shows a venatio using a similar vertical and symmetrical composition. In general aspect and proportions, the human figures resemble those on the Arch of Constantine and the hair of the priestesses reflects the coiffure of Constantinian ladies. Elements of the cult scene closely resemble the small hunt mosaic at the Piazza Armerina, dated A.D. 300-330. In short, the reliefs could be dated from the late third well into the fourth century, and they illustrate the almost folkloristic sculptural style of provincial Anatolian workshops of the-period which was used to portray local official and cult scenes and which reflects the grand traditions. The compositional arrangement and rhythmic lines in the fight scenes presage modes of artistic expression which were to flower in the production of Byzantine ivories and mosaics.
Although the reliefs are a welcome addition to our meager knowledge of the visual arts of late antique Sardis, it is the iconographic interpretation which is of greatest interest. Tree worship was fervently practiced and widespread during the late Empire, and representations of trees hung with small offerings are ubiquitous. The children in our tree are set apart by their size, human form and vitality. L. Robert suggests (verbally) that they are dendrobates, participants in animal games who climbed trees in the area and teased the animals from the branches. Although texts reveal that the staged hunt was made to appear more natural in the Late Empire and a sacrifice was added to lend further credence, this may be the first known visual evidence for the practice. If the ceremony represents an amphitheater sacrifice with the venators participating, then it is possible that the dendrobates or acrobats joined in, perhaps to give life to the tree. That the suspended figures were intended to represent some such participants is supported by their similarity to a figure shown vaulting a bull on an unpublished relief of about the same period from Ephesus (Selcuk Museum inv. no. 145).
But to whom is the sacrifice being offered? One would expect the image of Artemis to appear on the rustic altar, but such is not the case. Clearly the tree is meant to represent the goddess which is consistent with both Artemis and Cybele and both have a long association with animal games. The musicians lend weight to a ceremony honoring Cybele. In one of her aspects Cybele has been credited with the ability to heal infants placed in her arms (-branches; Diod. Sic. 111, 58). If the scene represents some aspect of the rites of the Great Mother in which the goddess is represented by the tree, could the children be an allusion to this healing aspect of the cult? If so, the games may have been dedicated to the goddess, showing a persistence into the Late Antique of the association of bull baiting and arena games with the ceremonies of Cybele.
Although a conclusive interpretation remains elusive, the reliefs show the continuing strength of the tree cult and its association with animal games. Both were powerful aspects of the early Anatolian cults of Cybele and Artemis Anahita and both were later translated into Christian imagery of triumph over death and evil and the eternal life of the soul.
Barbarians and Byzantines: The Iconography of the Vanquished in Later Antiquity Sandra Knudsen Morgan, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The problem of the representation of barbarians in Roman art has already been considered by several scholars,* but the approach has mostly stressed the early and middle empire. The artistic conventions of the fourth and fifth centuries reveal a multi-faceted change in awareness of the peoples surrounding the Empire.
The three basic early imperial stereotypes of the uncivilized and subhuman barbarian are by and large strengthened in the fourth century despite the growing presence of foreigners in the army, bureaucracy and imperial family. Images on coins, gems and minor arts probably reflect monumental commissions that have not survived. First, the ancient equestrian-hunt motif no longer identifies the enemy by national type or inscriptions. The barbarian no longer fights back: he is naked and weaponless. Second, the image of the standing Roman soldier no longer extends his hand in token of peace to the barbarian at his feet. The armored emperor now spurns the groveling captive who has become increasingly smaller in proportion to the standing figure and more abjectly humble. Finally, in fifth century coin issues, the crouching prisoner becomes nonhuman and appears instead as a human or skull-headed serpent. The origin of this symbol of evil to the realm may date to the Tetrarchy: a human-headed snake appears on the mo- saic at Piazza Armerina of the exploits of Heracles, the patron of Maximianus Herculeus. The specific reference may be to a wall painting described by Euse- bius as the image of Licinius, the enemy of humanity. The image was adapted by the Christian church in the iconography of Christ trampling on beasts and later in the combined triumph and clemency of the Harrowing of Hell as developed in the late seventh-eighth century. A new theme of proskynesis appears in the fourth century. The iconography is of Near Eastern origin, dating at least to the Assy- rian motif of the defeated king bound and set as a footstool beneath the feet of the conqueror. Coins, gems and gold glass show tiny barbarians kneeling in homage at the feet of the robed emperor or of the Tyches of Constantinople and Rome. Lastly, the motif of the tropaeum seems to disappear after the Constantin- ian dynasty. Dr. Grabar has suggested that the symbol was replaced in one con- text by the Christian cross, as on sarcophagi which place armed soldiers to either side of a chi rho. The adaptation may go further than this, for also in the fourth century, the souvenir ampullae made in the Holy Land introduce a new ele- ment in the iconography of the Passion--the Roman soldiers at the foot of the Cross. Kneeling, they resemble the old type of conquered barbarians, and eventually the image was explained as representing the callous guards who threw dice at the foot of the Cross for possession of Christ's belongings. The Roman soldiers are now the new barbarians of the Middle Ages: non-Christians, heretics and revilers of the Truth.
* Babelon, J., "Lâiconographie de la violence," Papers Presented to David M. Robinson, vol. 2 (1953), 238. Grabar, A., Christian Iconography (1968), 126. Levi, A. Ca1—, "Barbarians on Roman Imperial Coins and Sculpture," Numismatic Notes and Monographs, no. 142 (1952).
Two Classicizing Steatites of the Macedonian Period
Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, University of California, Los Angeles
Steatite has commonly been regarded as a material that replaced ivory. It is more readily available and consequently less expensive. According to the generally accepted view, when ivory production slowly came to an end in the eleventh century, the workshops adopted steatite for carving religious plaques and icons.
There are, however, two important steatite examples that challenge this view: one is a fragment of the Koimesis in the Vatican, the other a complete plaque of the Koimesis in Vienna. These two icons exhibit such close similarities to the ivories of the "Pictorial Group" that they must have issued from the same workshop. The classical motifs--such as expressions, gestures, dress and facial types--typical of the ivories are also present in the steatites. The carving of the Vatican Koimesis, in fact, is of such high quality that it surpasses even the best ivories of the "Pictorial Group." If a single Macedonian workshop produced both ivory and steatite carvings during the same period, then it can no longer be said that steatite replaced ivory in the course of the eleventh century. Instead, steatite must be recognized as a material used in the tenth century; it should be regarded not as a replacement for ivory but as a variation in the medium within the same workshops and workshop traditions. It must also be concluded that the revival of the mid-tenth century affected yet another medium, steatite, which until now had been thought to have come into use only in the later years of the empire.
Child Donations and Child Saints in Coptic Egypt
Leslie S. B. MacCoull, Catholic University of America
As in other parts of the Christian Orient, so in the piety of Coptic Egypt child saints were recognised and singled out for veneration, holy men in miniature who fell into two types: those manifesting early in life the beginnings of the extraordinary devotion that was to characterise their later careers, or child saints per se whose feats of sanctity were perfected in their childhood itself. A valuable source for the sort of pious practices that fostered the growth of child saints is furnished by the documentary evidence of the donations of children to the monastery of Apa Phoibammon in Jeme, near Thebes, in Upper Egypt: the monastery archives preserve twenty-six such documents from the eighth century. There are, of course, two main reasons for parents' offering their children to a monastery, especially the most central and most venerated religious house of their area: gratitude either for the gift of offspring or for the child's recovery from illness. (Both Pachomius and Shenoute received boys offered to the houses under their supervision.) I suggest in this paper yet a third reason: the desire to create an atmosphere of upbringing for a child that would stimulate the development in childhood of actual effective sanctity, an operative and transmissible power, thus furthering their own salvation and that of the community. To this process of structuring holiness the Coptic documentary papyri bear witness in their religious and even their legal phraseology.
The Jeme documents were published by Crum and Steindorff in 1912; the child donations were studied as a group from the juristic point of view by Steinwenter in 1921. Earlier enquiries have been directed in the main toward problems of monastic history in the narrow sense: were the donated children simply future monks, additions to the monastic population? what was the legal status of these individuals? We need to ask further questions of these documents. Both Coptic ostraca and letters and the anecdotes collected in the synaxaries give us pictures of child oblates growing up in the world of the ascetic life, performing both everyday services and acts of ascetic devotion most edifying to the monastic and lay members of their communities. I propose in this paper to make an analysis of the clauses in the child donation documents of Jeme in order to illustrate how popular religion was embodied in the legal phraseology used by Egyptian Christians under Muslim rule. The engraphon dōreastikon produced a lasting addition to the holiness of the Coptic community.
The Index of Armenian Art, Part 1: Manuscript Illumination A Progress Report to the Year A.D. 1100
Dickran Kouymjian, California State University, Fresno
The Index of Armenian Art (IAA) was started in 1973 at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, as the Iconographical Index of Armenian Art. The name has been shortened to reflect better the actual contents and purpose of the project, which are to record in index form all Armenian art in various media to the year 1700 in such a way that the data can be easily and quickly accessible to all scholars.
Since the largest surviving mass of Armenian art has been preserved as manuscript illuminations, it was decided to concentrate on this area before moving to wall painting, sculptural reliefs, textiles, metal, woodwork, ceramics and other minor arts. Due to the limited means available to the investigator, both in monetary terms and in qualified researchers, it was decided to begin the index by cataloguing those Armenian manuscripts already published in whatever fashion.
In Beirut from 1973 to 1975 some five hundred Armenian manuscripts were processed with nearly five thousand individual miniatures or illuminations indexed on specially designed, individual cards. This work was accomplished with the assistance of a research grant from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the American University of Beirut, and further facilitated by a grant-in-aid from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon, Portugal, consisting of published catalogues of major Armenian manuscript collections.
Between 1975 and 1977, work on the Index of Armenian Art was unfortunately stopped when the principal researcher, unable to return to Beirut because of the tragic war which devasted the Lebanon, remained in Paris, while the data and card indexes stayed behind. In January of 1977 the material was found safe and practically undisturbed; it was transferred by airfreight to Paris and subsequently to Fresno, California. Work on the project has recommenced and the first and second fascicules covering respectively the period up to 1000 A.D. and the eleventh century, already promised in an earlier announcement for the Fall of 1975, hopefully will be issued during the coming year.
The paper will discuss problems involved with the mass collection of art historical data, its proper organization, and its appropriate distribution. In choosing to issue the material for general distribution in the form of chronologically arranged fascicules, inherent and predictable difficulties have been encountered. The most annoying of those is comprehensiveness, for these are estimated to be about 25,000 Armenian manuscripts scattered in collections throughout the world. The possibility of newly uncovered or reattributed codices, dating from a period already prepared for issue, considerably retards the release of a definitive fascicule. So also does the availability of a complete and reproducible photographic record of each manuscript; the final reports envisage the inclusion of plates of all major illuminations. And thirdly, since nearly half of the illustrated manuscripts of the earlier period, ninth to the twelfth century, have failed to preserve adequate colophonic material, they are dated by style, iconography and/or palaeography, a dangerous undertaking considering the archaisizing tendencies often encountered in certain periods. Thus, one proceeds cautiously, using terms like "provisional" or "preliminary" report and "draft" fascicule.
Yet, already the Index of Armenian Art, despite these potential and real drawbacks, can provide useful art historical material, which, though it may not offer all or even any answers to specific questions related to the development of East Christian art, nevertheless, can considerably aid the scholar and researcher by removing the "mystery" sometimes associated with Armenian art. It makes available what still exists of the Armenian artistic tradition, and it can be used, especially for the early centuries, with confidence that little if anything has been omitted.
Furthermore, though the Index is least complete for those centuries from which the largest numbers of manuscripts have survived, the fourteenth to the seventeenth, the mere visual inspection of the scene cards for any period provides useful data on questions such as the composition of the major Christian cycle, the use of symbolic frontispieces, Old Testament scenes in New Testament contexts, the most and the least represented miniatures. The paper will report on such general finding, if only in a summary fashion, for the entire time span covered by the Index.
The illustrated material up to 1100 A.D. has been processed and is now being analyzed for inclusion in the first two preliminary reports encompassing the periods (1) from the earliest illuminations through the tenth century and (2) the eleventh century. Fifty-two Armenian manuscripts have been found to contain either miniature, canon tables, headpieces, or marginal decorations of one type or another; seventeen to the year 1000 and thirty-five from the eleventh century. Five manuscripts up to the Millennium year preserve a total of twelve narrative scenes from the life of Christ (including the Old Testament parallel of the Sacrifice of Abraham), while from the subsequent hundred years, nine manuscripts have narrative cycles containing some eighty individual scenes.
Concentrating on the earliest block of material, from the late sixth or the early seventh century (the final miniatures of the Etchmiadzin Gospel) to the end of the tenth century, the following tabular results are obtained. Of seventeen dated or attributable manuscripts and fragments, fourteen preserve, either fully or in part, the Eusebian canons, and eight of these also retain the letter of Eusebius to Carpianus. Ten manuscripts have full page illuminations other than canons, Eusebian letter, or decorated colophons; of these, five manuscripts have narrative miniatures (a total of twelve illuminations) but only two preserve a sufficient number (more than one) to study the "cycle". These are the final miniatures of the Etchmiadzin Gospel, four scenes, and the tenth century gospel fragment (Vienna Mechitarian Library no. 697) with five scenes. The complete list for the entire period follows: the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham (3 miniatures), Annunciation to the High Priest (1), Annunciation to the Virgin (2), Nativity limited to the Presentation of the Magi (1), Baptism (2), Crucifixion (1), Ascension (1). There are also several "symbolic" full page miniatures: Christ enthroned flanked by two unidentified Evangelists (1), Virgin and Child (3), a sanctuary or tempietto representing the Holy Sepulchre (4), ornamental cross (4). Finally, sixteen evangelistsâ portraits (of which three are half-page miniatures) are known: Matthew (2), Mark (2), Luke (2), John (2), Matthew and Mark (2), Mark and Luke (1), Luke and John (1), the Four Evangelists together (1), two unidentified evangelists (3). In total there are forty recorded narrative, symbolic or portrait miniatures to the end of the tenth century.
It should be stressed that though Fascicule I of the Index of Armenian Art endeavors to include all Armenian manuscript illuminations to the year 1000, it does not include all surviving Armenian art of the period. Other major iconographical sources wait complete indexing, namely: (1) sculptural reliefs especially of fifth to seventh century stelae found principally in the precincts of the church at Talin, (2) architectural reliefs on churchs like Mren and Aghtâamar, and (3) surviving fresco cycles from Mren, Aghtâamar, Tatev and other churches. The future plans for the Index call for systematic recording and cataloguing of this early material simultaneously with the continued gathering of manuscript data as proper resources are made available to the Index of Armenian Art.
The Iconography of the Ceiling of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo
Annabelle Simon Cahn, Yale University
The palace chapel of Roger II of Sicily has been perceived as an important architectural reflection of Hauteville image and symbol. While the mosaic decoration has been partially investigated from this perspective, the stalactite ceiling has been scrutinized more casually.
Painted between 1143 and 1151, the soffits have been organized with birds, bird-sirens, musicians, dancers, trees, lions, animal combats and seated men distributed throughout the work, as well as individual scenes heretofore considered piecemeal from the perspective of mythological representation, daily life, and the stereotype of the courtly pleasures or power of the Oriental potentate.
Little consideration has been given to the work within a recension of ceiling decoration devoted to the dome of heaven even though contemporaries perceived the work as a starry sky. Many of the details heretofore otherwise interpreted can be viewed as the sounds of heaven, the souls of deceased generations, as well as planets, constellations and fixed stars.
Therefore the place of the ruler enthroned at the western end of the nave directly under the sun and moon in the soffits above, or seated in a nave loggia (now walled in) with his head in the stars, was carefully calculated within a chapel which integrated a microcosm of the cosmos.
VI. LITURGY AND THE ARTS
Some Liturgical Influences on the Passion Cycle in the Early Christian Period
Archer St.Clair, Princeton, New Jersey
Among the objects on view in the exhibition "The Age of Spirituality" at the Metropolitan Museum are two ivory pyxides, one from the Metropolitan's collection,1 the other from the Cleveland Museum2. Both are usually dated in the sixth century and assigned an Eastern provenance, but as with most portable ivories of the period, specific localization has yet to be achieved.
Depicted on the Metropolitan pyxis is the Visit of the Holy Women to the Tomb of Christ. But instead of the tomb and angel associated with the traditional rendering of the scene as it appears on a related pyxis in Sitten for example,3 the central element is an altar raised on three steps and covered by a curtained ciborium. Above the altar hangs a lamp and there is a gospel book, Incised with an "X" on the altar.
Goldschmidt was the first to identify the altar and ciborium with the Anastasis Shrine in the Church of the Holy Sepulcre at Jerusalem,4 an identification which has been generally accepted. But the representation on the is bears no resemblance to the shrine as it is depicted on ampullae5 or on the Sancta Sanctorum. reliquary lid,6 and it lacks any feature such as the grille which would connect it with the distinctive Anastasis Shrine. Instead the representation on the pyxis corresponds more closely to the arrangement of the apse which as early as the fifth century was typical in Syria and Palestine, and which is described in the fifth century Testamentum Domini.7 Rather than topographical, the substitution of the altar for the tomb was liturgical, meant to represent the symbolic identification of the altar with the tomb of Christ as expressed in the liturgical commentaries of the period.8 The presence of five women on the pyxis perhaps reflects the version of the story in the Diatesseron,9 the standard text in Syrian churches until it was gradually replaced by the individual gospels.
On the Cleveland pyxis, a similar structure occupies the center of the composition, with scenes from the life of Christ on either side. In addition to the gospel book however there is a cross either on or behind the altar. This addition necessitated the raising of the hanging lamp so that only the beginnings of its chains are visible at the top.
The earliest evidence for the use of crosses directly behind the altar comes from Syria where crosses were often carved in stone and embedded in the apse wall.10 Narsai speaks of the "Gospel of Life and the Adorable wood" on the altar,11 and the sixth century biography of a Nestorian monk indicates the presence of crosses on altars in monasteries of the period.12
Within the expanded narrative context of the Cleveland pyxis, the ciborium and altar with gospel book and cross symbolize the passion and resurrection of Christ.
One may ask why the pyxides include elements of the liturgical re- enactment of the Passion within the narrative context of the events themselves. The answer probably lies in their function as containers for the bread of the Eucharist. Thus just as the ampullae incorporate topographical details in keeping with their function as souvenirs of the loca sancta of the Holy Land, so these pyxides incorporate references to the Eucharistic liturgy in keeping with their function. A similar combination of liturgical and narrative elements occurs in the scene of the Visit to the Tomb on the silver plate from Perm,13 and a similar reference to the liturgical re-enactment of the Passion was perhaps intended on the sixth century glass chalice from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,14 where an "altar-tomb" is flanked by two angels who appear to hold codices. Narsai describer: the deacons as ministering on either side of the altar in the likeness of the angels who guarded the tomb of Christ,15 and John Climax refers to the deacon's role in a similar manner: ho de diakonos ho evangelizonen typos zn tou evangelizonenou angelou.16 Like the pyxides, the function of the chalice was probably liturgical, as a container for the wine of the Eucharist.
1 W. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, No. 177, pl. 89.
2 Ibid. No. 184, pl. 92. 3 Ibid. No. 176, pl.89.
4 "MittelstŸcke fŸnfteiliger Elfenbeintafeln des VI. bis VII. Jahrhun- derts", Jahrbuch fŸr Kunstwissenschaft, 1923, 33.
5 A. Grabar, Les Ampoules de Terre Sainte, Paris, 1958, Monza: Nos.2, 3, 5, 6, 8-15; Bobbio: Nos. 3-7, 15, 16.
6 H. Grisar, Die ršmische Kapelle Sancta Sanctorum und ihr Schatz, Freiburg, 1908, 113
7 I. Rahmani, Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Mainz, 1899, 25. For the use of curtains see A. Khouri-Sarkis, "Le voile rideau interieur", L'Orient Syrien, VII, 1962, 277ff.
8 See for example: A. Mingana, Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord's Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, Cambridge, 1933, 85-86; The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, trans. R. Connolly, Cambridge, 1909, 30; J. B. Pitra. Spicilegium Solesmense, IV, 441, (John Climax).
9 For a discussion of the number of women see C.H. Kraeling, The Christian Building: Excavations at Dura Europos, Final Report, 8, II, New Haven 1967, 86.
10 E. Peterson, "Das Kreuz und das Gebet nach Osten", FrŸhkirche, Judentum, und Gnosis, Freiburg, 1954, l5ff.
11 Liturgical Homilies, 30.
12 A. Baumstark, "Altarkreuze in nestorianischen Klšstern des VI Jahrhunderts", Ršmische Quartalschrift, XIV, 1900, 71.
13 Recently redated in the ninth or tenth century. See V. P. Darkevitch, B. I. Marchak, "Sur le soidisant ÎPlat Syrienâ provenant de la region de Perm", Sovetskaia Archeologaia, II, 1974, 213ff.
14 M. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Vol. I. Metalwork, Ceramics, Glass, Glyptics, Painting, Washington, 1962, No. 96, pl. LIV.
15 Liturgical Homilies, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, 4, 12, 56, 77. 16 Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, IV, 441.
The Oldest Armenian Sources Concerning the Rites of Initiation A Reflection on the Earliest Shape of Baptism in Armenia and its Origin
Gabriele Winkler, St. John's University, Minnesota
This paper is divided into three sections: 1) An outline of the oldest Armenian sources comparing them with all their oriental versions hitherto known, 2) an investigation of the content of these sources, 3) conclusions on the basis of comparative liturgy.
I. The sources: the so-called Historia Agathangeli and Vita Gregorii. The Armenian dynasty of the Arsacids had embraced the Christian faith in the late 3rd (or very beginning of the 4th) century. These events and particularly the outstanding figure of Gregory the Illuminator became very soon a focus of interest in the chronicles of Armenia. One of the most important is the history by Agathangelos who claims to be the secretary of king Trdat (3rd-4th cent.) and an eyewitness of the conversion of Armenia under the Arsacidian dynasty. This document however was not written at the time of Trdat but in the 5th century by an Armenian anonymous writer. Considerably different from this narration is another important source of Trdat's baptism, the Vita of Gregory the Illuminator. These two main streams, the Agathangeli Historia and the Vita Gregorii were soon translated from Armenian into various other oriental languages. Concerning the ritual of baptism we have to distinguish four groups of versions: 1. the Agathangeli Historia, in Armenianl, Arabic2 and Greek3 2. the Vita Gregorii, in Arabic4 and Greek5 (the Armenian original has not been found yet); 3. the texts which assimilated both Agathangelos and the Vita in Ethiopic, Syriac/Karûuni and in Greek; 4. the abbreviated versions in Georgian, in Coptic/Arabic, in two different Greek recensions and in Latin -- all of which depend on the Greek Agathangeli Histo- ria6. The most important documents are those in groups 1 and 2, whereas the versions in 3 and 4 are of secondary relevance.
II. The investigation of the content of these sources After translating the relevant passages for baptism in the above mentioned versions, the analysis has shown that all the sources agree in the basic setting of baptism despite their considerable divergence in the emphasis of various parts of the event of baptism (i.e. baptismal rituals) and the eucharist. The Agathangeli Historia centers its main interest on the instruction for baptism by Gregory and the events after baptism proper. Almost no word is said about the baptismal rites as such, whereas the Vita Gregorii describes the whole sequence of baptism in a rather dry and concise way.
The preparation for baptism does not offer any major problems: it consists mainly of the request for a whole-hearted conversion, prayer, fasting and an instruction in the Christian faith. The crux interpretationis begins with the baptismal rites which follow the time of preparation. One of the central problems, for instance, lies in the divergent references to the oil in the various versions of the Agathangeli Historia. The most crucial question, however, is whether the anointing which is mentioned in several documents happens before or after baptism proper.
The Armenian original of the Agathangeli Historia speaks clearly of an anointing of the people: ". and the oil of anointing (yough atzoutian)which Gregory poured (argkaner)over the people, floated around them in the river" (n. 833). However in the Arabic version of the Agathangeli Historia the oil is connected with the blessing of the water: ". and the oil which the . holy Gregory poured into the river ." (n. 325, 7-9). Finally, in the Greek version of Agathangelos, on the one hand, the oil is called katēchoumenikon elaion and on the other it is explicitly stated that the very same oil is poured into the river (n. 148, 18-19). This is obviously a contradiction: either it is the oil for the anointing (here specified as 'catechumenal') or it is the oil for the blessing of the water. on the basis of a careful comparison of the Greek version with every other version (cf. above I. the sources), I came to the conclusion that the specification of the oil as katēchoumenikon is a later interpolation7. If we drop this interpolation, then the Greek document supports the evidence of the Arabic version, namely that the oil was poured into the river. Hence the Greek and Arabic versions stand against the Armenian original which says that the oil was poured over the people.
The Vita Gregorii (in its Arabic and Greek versions) helps to solve the enigma of the divergent statements concerning the oil in the Agathangeli Historia. The Arabic and Greek versions of the Vita are in complete accord with one another in their reference to the oil and in the sequence of events: 1. the gathering of the people at the river; 2. the stripping off of the clothes (Arabic version: n.154, 13-14; Greek: n. 166, 13); 3. the pre-baptismal anointing of the head (Arab.: 154, 14-15; Greek: 166, 14-15); 4. the blessing of the water with oil (Arab.: 155, 2; Greek: 167, 1-2); 5. the baptism proper (Arab.: 155, 4-5; Greek: 167, 3-5); 6. and the eucharist.
Comparing the evidence in the Vita Gregorii and in the Agathangeli Historia with the rest of all the oriental versions, which have either assimilated both sources (i.e. Agathangelos and the Vita) or which depend on the Greek version of the Agathangeli Historia, I came to the following conclusions8:
1. The different assignments of the oil in the Armenian, Arabic and Greek versions of the Agathangeli Historia can be solved through a comparison with the Vita Gregorii (in its two congruent versions): the references to the oil in the Arabic and Greek versions of the Agathangeli Historia have to be compared with the blessing of the water with oil as described in the Vita Gregorii (cf. above n. 4). In contrast, the Armenian version of Agathangelos alludes to the anointing of the people before baptism as referred to in the Vita (cf. above n.3).
2. The anointing of the people which is mentioned both in the Armenian original of the Agathangeli Historia and in the Vita Gregorii (in its Arabic and Greek versions) is an anointing of the head--there is no further anointing of the whole body. The Armenian original very likely indicates the oldest stratum in stating that the oil was poured (argkaner) over the people.
3. This anointing of the head is beyond any doubt performed before baptism. None of the versions (cf. above I. the sources) ever mentions any anointing after baptism. Immediately after the immersion follows the eucharist.
Here I can present only a few points which lead me to this conclusion9: The Vita Gregorii gives a concise report of the sequence of events. Both the Arabic and Greek versions of the Vita are in complete accord on this. In both versions the anointing happens before baptism. Most striking, however, is the affinity between the evidence of the Armenian sources and the oldest Syriac sources: a) in structure, b) in content, c) in the terminology for the oil10.
In the Armenian original of Agathangelos, baptism is determined as Îwombâ (argand) and 'birth' (tzanound)11. Both terms form the essential leitmotiv for all the Syriac writers. Furthermore, the oil is called 'oil of anointing' (yough atzoutian), which betrays a Syriac construction. It is an exact translation of the Syriac: meûha da-mûīhūtā. Therefore we can assume that the Armenian baptismal ritual has its roots in Syria and that the Armenians once knew of just one anointing, namely the anointing of the head which was performed before baptism. However, between the 5th and 7th centuries the Armenian dropped this pre-baptismal anointing and introduced an anointing after baptism12.
1 Cf. the critical ed. of G. Ter-Mkrtčean ew St.Kanayeanc, Agat'angełay patmowt'iwn Hayoc (Tiflis 1909).
2 Cf. A.N. Ter-Łevondyan, Agat'angełosi arabakan nor xmbagrowt'yowna (araberen bnagir ev owsowmnasirowtâyown) (Erewan 1968).
3 Cf. G.Lafontaine, La version grecque ancienne du livre armŽnien d'Agathange. Edition critique (=Publ. de l'Institut Orient. de Louvain 7, Louvain 1973)
4 Cf. N. Marr, "Kreûčenie Armjan, Gruzin, Abchazov svjatym Grigoriem" in: Zapiski Vostočnago otd. Imp. Russk. Archeol. Obûč. 16 (1905), pp. 63-211 (Arabic text with Russian translation pp. 66-148).
5 Cf. G. Garitte, Documents pour l'Žtude du livre d'Agathange (=Studi e Testi 127, Vatican 1946)
6 Because of lack of space I indicated just the most important editions.
7 For a detailed study cf. my forthcoming book: Das armenische Initiationsrituale, Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und liturgievergleichende Untersuchung der Quellen des 3. bis 10 Jahrhunderts (in print).
8 Cf. previous note.
9 Cf. n.7 and my article: "The History of the Syriac Prebaptismal Anointing in the Light of the Earliest Armenian Sources" (= 2nd Symposium of Syriac Studies held at Paris 1976) publ.in Orientalia Christiana Analecta (in print).
10 Cf. previous note and my article: "About the Original Meaning of the Pre- Baptismal Anointing and its Implications" (in print at Worship/ Jan. 1978).
11 Cf. Agathangeli Historia, n. 830.
12 Cf. n. 7.
Notes on the Archaeology of St. Sophia: The Rivers on the Floor and their Relation to the Chancel Barrier and Ambo
George P. Majeska, University of Maryland
A number of literary sources mention "rivers" on the floor of Constantinople's Church of St. Sophia. Scholars have regularly, and correctly, I believe, identified these "rivers" with the strips of green marble which cross the nave of the church at irregular intervals (Mango, Mathews, et al.). The irregularity of their placement and their lack of perceptible relationship to the architectural features or decorative scheme of the church argue against an esthetic justification for their presence. A recently published fragment by the late Byzantine liturgist Symeon of Thessalonica (REB, 1976) now aids in understanding the true purpose of these strips: they marked halting points for processions in the various rituals of the imperial cathedral of Constantinople.
Although the literary sources speak of "four rivers," the Byzantine floor of the church as preserved today seems to show five. In fact, however, two sondages below the present floor (partially Turkish) demonstrate that the two green transverse strips at the east end of the nave are in fact one continuous strip which begins at either side of the nave in the east, runs towards the center of the building and then turns west to join the sector of the incomplete strip which crosses the central section of the nave further west (intersecting the large opus sectile floor panel). The unusual configuration of this strip parallels the outline of the projecting bema of the Great Church posited by Xydis, and, indeed, is aligned with a portion of a green porphyry stylobate with dowel holes preserved in situ and thought to remain from the north side of the chancel barrier (Dirimtekin). Reconstructing the line of the chancel screen parallel to the meandering fourth river, and including thereby the existing fragmentary stylobate one discovers at the center of the west line of the screen an unusual arrangement of red marble strips approximately the size the central portal of the chancel barrier must have had, given the number of columns Paul the Silentiary records for the barrier (and the projected size of the barrier). These strips form three sides of a rectangle with the open end at the west. Moreover, in alignment with the two east-west strips of the pavement delineation of the central opening of the chancel screen is a break at the mid-point of the "fourth river" of the nave (which is echoed in short projections on the "third river"), suggesting very likely lines for the isthmus-like solea and the emplacement of the ambo in the building after the first reconstruction of the dome.
Ecclesiastical Appointments in Byzantine Iconography
Christopher Walter, Institut d'Etudes Byzantines, Paris
I. THE ICONOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTS
The nomination or ordination of deacons, priests and particularly bishops is represented in Byzantine fresco- and miniature-painting as well as upon icons. There is also an unique ivory from the so-called Grado Chair. The enthronement of Saint Peter may have been represented at Cividale, while Saint Peter ordains the Seven Deacons in the New Church of Tokali. Ordinations also occur in late fresco Lives of bishops, of Arsenius of Serbia but particularly of Nicolas of Myra. The two 9th- century illuminated Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus contain representations of episcopal consecration, as does the Georgian 12th-century version at Tiflis (A 109) and the unique commentary of Elias of Crete at Basle (A.N.I. 8). The Alexandrian Chronicle and the Madrid Skylitzes record the succession of patriarchs and sometimes illustrate them. Three "marginal" Psalters contain a miniature of a simoniac ordination. John Chrysostom's sacerdotal ordination figures in the frontispiece of his De sacerdotio in the 12th-century Paris. graec. 799. Such scenes also occur on a unique biographical icon of Basil of Caesarea and on the more numerous icons of Nicolas of Myra. Finally analogies may be found in Syrian, Armenian and Italian art (1).
II. THE LITURGICAL & DOCTRINAL SOURCES
Pre-Byzantine ordination ceremonies, as preserved in the Tradition of the Apostles, the Epitome and the Apostolic Constitutions, have been adequately published but this is not the case for Byzantine ceremonies. Development can, however, be traced from its pristine 8th-century simplicity through the introduction of a double ceremony--appointment and ordination--to the "conflation" of the two ceremonies at the end of the Byzantine period. To the essential stability of the actual ordination ceremony witness the De ecclesiastica hierarchia of the Pseudo-Denys and the commentaries by Maximus of Chrysopolis and George Pachymeres (m. ca 1310). For the late period the synodal Tome of 1409 and the Mystagogy of Symeon of Thessaloniki are valuable sources (2).
According to the Pseudo-Denys and his commentators, the principal elements of the ceremony are: the accessus ad altare, the genuflexion, the imposition of hands, the sign of the cross, the proclamation of the ordinand's name and the final kiss. Peculiar to the consecration of a bishop is the imposition on his head of the Gospel Book. To these elements may be added the enthronement of a bishop and the imposition of the omophorion, and acclamation by the faithful. Since they are not exploited in iconography, the elements of the appointment ceremony need not concern us here.
III. THE ICONOGRAPHY
The earliest representations of ordination of deacons (Tokali), of a priest (Chludov Psalter) of a bishop (Grado Chair) insist particularly on the imposition of hands. This, however, disappears subsequently, except, perhaps, from the sacerdotal ordination of Euthymius at Thessaloniki. For episcopal consecration the imposition of the Gospel Book is twice represented in Paris. graec. 510, but this also disappears; the only later witness is in an Armenian Ordinal (Venice San Lazzaro cod. 1657, dated 1248). Meanwhile, however, in Paris. graec. 510, f. 67v, blessing is combined with the imposition of the Gospel Book. The other 9th-century Gregory, Ambrosian. E. 49-50 inf., p. 128, shown Basil being blessed at his consecration. This becomes the essential element of virtually all other representations of the liturgical ceremony. The throne, however, occurs in chronicle illustration to denote the reigning patriarch. Finally, in accordance with the legend that she was present at the consecration ceremony, the Virgin gives Saint Nicolas his omophorion in the iconographical type of his portrait. Of accessory elements, perhaps only the acclamation of the faithful can be considered a genuine part of consecration iconography. The others form part of the stock in trade of liturgical ceremonies in Byzantine art. As a general rule, the ordinand wears the vestments of the order which he is about to receive, although there are exceptions.
IV. INTERPRETATION OF THE ICONOGRAPHY
The episcopal throne is already mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions; his enthronement is also described by Symeon of Thessaloniki. However this particular ceremony belongs rather to "official" iconography. The development of liturgical iconography in general is too vast a subject for the present paper. I limit myself, therefore, to the specific elements listed above. For their understanding perhaps Pseudo-Denys and his commentators are more helpful than the liturgical texts. First of all, they insist upon the hierosynē; that is to say, they treat the sacrament of Order as an entity, insisting more upon what is common to the three orders than upon distinctions. This may explain why, in episcopal iconography, one, two or three scenes may be represented: the hierosynē is implicit in them all, although, its fullness, episcopal consecration recurs most frequently. The practice of representing what is specific to episcopal consecration, the imposition of the Gospel Book, being inadequate as representing the hierosynē, is not perpetuated. Secondly, they give, among common elements to all ordination ceremonies, both the sign of the cross (blessing) and the imposition of hands.
The replacement by the sign of the cross of the imposition of hands may be an important witness to a development in Byzantine theology of ordination. Since only one gesture is normally represented, it may be supposed to be the essential act of ordination. It is clear that, when the synodal Tome of 1409 was drawn up, this essential act was not the imposition of hands. It seems that the essential act of consecration was the recitation of the two prayers which follow the epiclesis and which celebrate the dignity and designate the office of a bishop while invoking upon him divine grace. Is this the moment which is represented by the gesture of blessing, which predominates in the iconography of ordination from the 9th century onwards ?
NOTES
(1) The principal published iconographical documents: K. WEITZMANN, The Ivories of the So-called Grado Chair, DOP 26, p. 70, 85, fig. 10; G. de JERPHANION, Les Žglises rupestres de Cappadoce, Paris 1925-1934, I 2, p. 355-356, pl. 82,1; H. BELTING, Die Basilica dei Ss. Martiri in Cimitile und ihr frŸhmittelalterlicher Freskenzyklus, Wiesbadn 1962, p. 89-92, fig. 44, 45; V.J. DJURIĆ, Istorijske kompozicije u srpskom slikarstvu, Zbornik Radova 11, p. 103, fig. 8, pl. 17-20; Nancy PATTERSON ŠEVČENKO, Cycles of the Life of St. Nicholas in Byzantine Art (Doctorate thesis 1973), p. 237-248; Doula MOURIKI, The Frescoes of the Church of St. Nicholas at Platsa in the Mani, Athens 1975, p. 45, fig. 23, 72, 73; H. OMONT, Miniatures des plus anciens miniatures grecs de la Bibliothque Nationale, Paris 1929, p. 16, 31, pl. XXV, LX; S. AMIRANAÉVILI, Gruõinskaya miniatjura, Moscow 1966, p. 26, 51, pl. 54; Ch. WALTER, Un commentaire enluminŽ des HomŽlies de GrŽ- goire de Nazianze, Cahiers archŽologiques 21, 1972, p. 126, fig. 14, 15; A. BAUER & J. STRZYGOWSKI, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik, Vienna 1906, p. 121-122, pl. VI; Skyllitzes matritensis, ed. S. ESTOP"AN, Barcelona/Madrid 1965, fig. 7, 41, 163, 184, 196, etc.; Ch. WALTER, Pictures of the clergy in the Theodore Psalter, REB 31 1973, p. 241, fig. 6; Ch. WALTER, Exhibition review, Eastern Churches Review 6 1974, p. 192, fig. 2; J. MUYLDERMANS, Le costume liturgique armŽnien, Le MusŽon 39 1926, p. 252-324.
(2) The principal published liturgical and doctrinal sources: L. DUCHESNE, Origines du culte chrŽtien, Paris 1920 (5th edition), P, 543-560; Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, ed. F.X. FUNK, Paderborn 1905; 0. BåRLEA, Die Weihe der Bischšfe, Presbyter und Diakone in vornicŠnischer Zeit, Munich 1969; J. DARROUZES, Recherches sur les offikia de l'Eglise byzantine, Paris 1970, p. 148- 152; PG 3, 509, 525; PG 4, 159; V. LAURENT, Le trisŽpiscopat du patriarche Matthieu Ier (1397-1410), Revue des Žtudes byzantines 30, 1972, p. 84-86, 140- 142; PG 155, 408-425.
Sacramental and Symbolic Realism in the Iconographic Programs of Two Early Palaeologan Sanctuaries
Thalia Gouma-Peterson, The College of Wooster
One of the dominant characteristics of Byzantine theology of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as Meyendorff has shown, is its emphasis on sacramental realism. During a period of religious unrest and doubt when, according to contemporary witnesses, many no longer attended church and did not baptize their children, theologians found it necessary to stress the importance and reality of the Sacraments, and the real presence of Christ within the church. This intent they conveyed to the painters whom they advised on the content and layout of iconographic programs. It is clearly reflected in the decorations of early Palaeologan churches which express the same trend toward sacramental and symbolic realism (i.e., the use of the symbol not as a substitute but as an illustration) that was later developed by Palamas in his writing. They express the dominant theological concerns of c. 1300 and show that Palamas' position of the mid-fourteenth century was fully anticipated some forty years earlier and had been formulated by those whom he acknowledged as his teachers, Athanasios I and Theoleptos of Philadelphia.
I will in this paper focus on two churches as examples of the trend toward liturgical and sacramental realism in Palaeologan painting of c. 1300: St. Clement in Ohrid (formerly the Virgin Peribleptos), 1294-1295 and the parecclesion of St. Euthymios in Thessalonica, 1303. Though the latter is a chapel of the Basilica of St. Demetrios it should be regarded as an independent structure in its decoration (as I have shown elsewhere) and will be considered as such in this paper. The two are related in several ways. The paintings of both are securely dated by dedicatory inscriptions which show that they belong to the early part of the reign of Andronicos II, the most creative phase of the Palaeologan period, and the donors were members of the Byzantine nobility, close to the Emperor. In other words, though not located in the capital of the Empire, these are not provincial examples and can give us insights into the major trends of monumental painting of the years c. 1294-1303, a period from which very little has survived in Constantinople.
I shall restrict my discussion to the iconographic program of the sanctuary of the two churches because it is in this area that the two programs have most in common and because it was especially in the sanctuary, where Christ is sacrificed anew every Sunday for the benefit of the faithful, that the reality of the liturgical sacrifice needed to be put within the most tangible pictorial context--a pictorial context which would stress that the liturgy is not a symbolic ritual but an act of recreation and participation, an act of real union with Christ.
In both sanctuaries, the lowest zone of the bema is occupied by the Melismos (the Church Fathers participating in the liturgy and about to sacrifice the Christ Child or Amnos) and the level immediately above by the Communion of the Apostles. This scheme originated in the twelfth century and becomes the rule from the late thirteenth century on. It stresses the historical reality of the liturgy at two different levels: the Patriarchs as the ancestors of the priest officiating in the church, and Christ as the first ministrant, and ultimate prototype of all priests, dispensing the sacraments. The image of the liturgy, occurring within the church, is thus repeated twice and carried to its ultimate origin within Biblical history. Also both levels reiterate the double role of Christ as he to whom we offer that which he has offered us, a symbolism of central importance in the liturgy. This symbolism is expanded at the level of the half dome of the apse where the iconographic scheme extends to the prothesis and the diaconicon. In both churches St. John the Baptist is represented in the niche of the diaconicon. His image becomes a pictorial equivalent of the importance of his words ("The Lamb of God is sacrificed. He who taketh away the sin of the world, for the life and salvation of the world") spoken by the priest during the Proskomide, as he detaches the central section, the Amnos, the bread of oblation, from the Prosphora. The Virgin and Child in the apse become the visual equivalents of the Prosphora and the Amnos. In both churches this has been stressed by the use of an iconographic type which emphasizes the reality of the Incarnation: in St. Euthymios the Seated Hodegetria, and in St. Clement the standing Virgin Orans on axis with the bust of the Emmanuel, flanked by medallions of two angels and of twenty-four Ancestors of Christ. In St. Clement the liturgical realism in the imagery of the sanctuary is reiterated through an image of the Vlachernitissa in the niche of the prothesis, and a group of images illustrating different aspects of Christ and related through their sacramental meaning. The paintings in the prothesis of St. Euthymios have been lost. But there can be little doubt that they were of a similar content and meaning.
In St. Euthymios the incarnational symbolism is reiterated on the triumphal arch in the Annunciation which has been combined with the Mandylion (Holy Kerchief), one of the most famous acheropoieta and a lasting testimony to the truth of the Incarnation. In both churches this testimony is reinforced through an allusion to Old Testament prophecies and types, both in the bema and in the side chambers (Isaiah's Vision, the Closed Door(?) and prophets in St. Euthymios; the Ancestors of Christ, the Hospitality of Abraham, the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace, Elijah and Elisha in St. Clement). Finally both program incorporate a scene, placed centrally over the bema, which provides a triumphant conclusion to the Christological drama and becomes a symbol of the divine inspiration of the church whose priests officiate below: the Christ in Glory, of the Ascension, in St. Clement, and the Pentecost in St. Euthymios.
In both churches the iconography of the sanctuary is constructed so as to demonstrate, beyond doubt, that, in the later words of Palamas, "the body of Christ is really the body of God, not a symbol."
VII. ARCHITECTURE AND MONUMENTAL DECORATION
The Cone Vault of St. Stephen at Gaza
Henry Maguire, Dumbarton Oaks
The orator Choricius is well known to art historians for his descriptions of two lost Justinianic churches in Gaza, St. Sergius and St. Stephen. The ekphrasis of St. Stephen is climaxed by an involved account of a "novel" form of wooden vault, which Choricius compares to a "half cone." This famous passage has prompted several scholars to reconstruct the appearance of the vault, but nobody has been able to satisfactorily account for all of the clues given by the description. This paper offers a new solution to the puzzle, which satisfies every requirement of the text and which is also appropriate in the context of sixth century ecclesiastical architecture.
Commentators have agreed that the church of St. Stephen had a nave with two side aisles and galleries. Choricius describes the wooden vault as follows: "On one band, I speak of the highest, is placed a novel form. In geometry I have heard this called the half cone."1 After an elaborate explanation that geometry borrowed the term from the shape of the pine cone, the orator continues: "A carpenter has cut five circles of the material given to him by his craft [i.e. wood] each equally into two, and has joined together nine of the segments to each other by their tips, but by their middles to the band which I have just called the highest. On these he has set an equal number of concave pieces of wood, which begin broad from below, but taper gradually to a sharp point, curving sufficiently to fit the concavity of the wall. And drawing together the tips of all the pieces into one and gradually bending them, he has produced a most pleasing sight. But while I have cut five circles in half, I have described the function of only nine of the segments, and am aware that you are naturally asking about the remaining part of the circle. This part, then, has itself been divided into two halves, and one being placed on one side and one on the other side of the nine, upon the two of them is placed an arch of the same material, hollowed out in front·."2
In 1931 F. M. Abel suggested that Choricius was here describing the ribbed vault of the eastern apse (Revue biblique, 40 [193l], 25-7). But he did not attempt to explain the arrangement of the nine semicircles, nor of the two remaining quarter circles. In 1950 Baldwin Smith and Glanville Downey proposed that Choricius was describing a dome, not an apse (The Dome [Princeton, 1950], 38-9 and 155-7). Thus the "half cone" would have been cut horizontally rather than vertically. Many objections can be brought against this interpretation. It has been rightly rejected by Cyril Mango, who again suggested that the vault was the semidome of the apse and further that the nine half circles were the ribs, joined to each other by their tips and thus "disposed like an accordion." However he was not able to account for the two wooden quadrants, nor for the "hollowed out" arch which they supported (The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453 [Englewood Cliffs, 1972], 71).
The solution proposed here is that the vault indeed belonged to the apse, but it was shaped like a pumpkin or melon dome cut in half. This vault had nine concave segments or gores, which rose from semicircular bases resting on the cornice of the apse wall (the "highest band") and which tapered to "sharp points" at the crown of the apse. The nine semicircles formed the scalloped lower border of the vault, and were thus joined to each other by their tips. On either side of the nine half circles, at the opening of the apse, were two quarter circles, above which rose curved half segments producing the effect of an arch "hollowed out in front." Precise parallels for this kind of apse vault can be found in North Africa, particularly at Kef, where the sixth century basilica preserves a semidome made up of concave segments, and at Matifou, where the ground plan of the apse implies a pumpkin shaped vault with a scalloped base comprising three semicircles flanked by two quadrants. In sixth century Byzantine buildings there appears to have been a renewed fashion for the pumpkin vault, which Choricius in his text refers to as a "novel" form.
1Miai zōnēi, tēn hypertatēn phēmi, kainon epikeitai schēma. Kōnon hēmisea touto kalousēs geōmetrias akēkoa·.Laudatio Marciani, II, 41.
2 Anēr xylōn dēmiourgos kyklous ex hēs autōi dedōken hylēs hē technē pente ton arithmon hekaston isa dyo temōn kai tōn tmēmatōn ennea synapsas ek men tōn akrōn allēlois, ek de tōn mesōn tēi zōnēi hēn artiōs hypertatēn proseipon isarithma toutois epestēse xyla koilanas katōthe men ex eureos arxamena, kata brachu de meioumena pros akron oxy kyrtoumena te tosouton hoson tēi koilotēti synarmosai tou toichou kai tas hapantōn koryphas eis mian synagagōn ērema te kampsas hēdi ston apedeixe theama. Alla gar pente men kyklous dicha temōn, ennea de monon tmēmatōn hypograpsas tēn ergasian epizētountas hymas eikotōs aisthanomai to leipon meros tou kyklou. Autou toinyn tou merous exisēs diēirēmenou kai tou men enthen, tou de enthen tōn ennea keimenou hapsis amphoterois ek tēs autēs hylēs epikeitai ta prosō koilainomenē·.Ibid., 43-45
The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople A Comparison of its Remains and its Typikon
Alice Taylor, New York University
Clear evidence of the topography of the Pantokrator monastery in Constantinople has recently been made available by publication of a new edition and translation of its Typikon (P. Gautier, "Le Typikon du Christ Saveur Pantokrator," Revue des Etudes Byzantines, 32, 1974 , 1-145) and of extensive photographs of the remain churches (T. Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul, University Park, 1976). A comparison of the archaeological and literary remains of the monastery reveals some of the lines of the monastic enclosure, confirms A.H.S. Megaw's opinion as to the original dedication of the churches ("Notes on recent work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 17, 1963, 333-371) and suggests an identification of some previously mysterious remains near the churches.
The Typikon tells of two distinct ecclesiastic communities. The monks, strictly cloistered, use the catholicon, dedicated to the Pantokrator. The Eleousa church, which employs women, is involved in a weekly public procession. These two churches, so clearly separated in function, are connected by the church of St. Michael. The monastery wall, therefore, must have met the outer wall of this series of churches, so that the catholicon was entered from the monastery courtyard, and the Eleousa, from the public street.
The Typikon implies that four doors gave access from the Eleousa to the street. Tour doorways are still visible on the north side of the north church. Indeed, the Typikon could refer to no other doors, for the east ends of the churches consist of a series of closed apses, the west ends of nartheces, and chambers, described by Megaw and visible in Mathew's photographs, abut the south end. The north church, then, was dedicated to the Virgin Eleousa, and the south church was the catholicon, dedicated to the Pantokrator.
The remains immediately south of the Pantokrator may now be identified. Furthest east is a small chamber, much like the diakonika. The Typikon refers to a "little bema to the right," identifying this chamber as an auxiliary chapel. The west faade of the Pantokrator continues south several bays beyond the church itself, then turns east, forming part of a second enclosure south of the south church. Remains within this enclosure show that it may have contained access to the narthex gallery. Could this have been the reception room for the Emperor? That the room is not mentioned in the Typikon may result from the haitus of at least a folio which occurs at the first, and only, mention of arrangements for the Emperor at the monastery.
The general form of the monastery is now clear. The catholicon occupied one corner of the main courtyard, which gave access to the other monastic buildings. To the north, the Eleousa church opened onto a public road, which turned south to pass between the apses of the churches and the edge of a terrace. The monastery hospital must have lain to the south and west of the churches. This configuration contrasts with the centralized, fort-like rural monasteries which form the majority of those standing today.
The Middle Byzantine Chancel Barrier
Joseph D. Alchermes, New York University
Since roughly the turn of the century, scholars have attempted to determine the date of the transformation of the chancel barrier from the open, Early Byzantine spatial divider to the modern iconostasis, or "icon-wall", which visually separates the sanctuary from the main body of the church. Of those who have recently addressed the problem, Grabar and Lazarev proposed that the practice of complete closure of the bema was not adopted until the Palealogan period. In support of this hypothesis, Grabar adduced the pointed chancel walls of the church at Staro-Nagoričina, introduced as part of renovations undertaken by Milutine in the second decade of the fourteenth century.1 Chatzidakis postulated a much earlier date for visual obstruction of the bema: his conclusion rests on information gathered from the charters and inventories of monasteries in Italy, Thrace and Asia Minor, and physical evidence preserved in monuments far removed from the capital, for example, the Enkleistra of H. Neophytos near Paphos.2 Both Chatzidakis and Grabar assume that this new provincial practice reflects a change in Constantinopolitan usage; however, archaeological and literary evidence for churches in the capital suggest that as late as the Latin Occupation, the barrier blocked access but not view of the bema.
Later Greek and Turkish remodeling have obliterated nearly every trace of the Constantinopolitan chancel screen, but excavations provide some indication of its appearance in the Middle Byzantine period. The only barrier of which sufficient fragments are preserved to warrant reconstruction is that of the south church of the Pantokratōr monastery, whose typikon was granted by John II Comnenos in 1136. On the basis of marble fragments discovered in the sanctuary area, Megaw reconstructed a screen composed of four vertical supports (colonnettes resting an small piers) which carried an architrave; the central intercolumniation, left open, served as the entrance to the bema, while the remaining four were closed with parapet slabs about one meter high.3 A few sculptural fragments which seem to have been part of chancel barriers have been discovered elsewhere in the capital: these scant remains, comparable in form to those found at the Pantakratōr, imply that the Pantokratōr divider represents a standard means of sanctuary closure in Constantinople.4 Fortunately, contemporary documents contain information which confirms and complements the sketchy picture supplied by the physical remains. Especially enlightening are monastic typika as well as more interpretive texts such as the Historia ecclesiastica of Germanus and Nicholas of Andida's Protheoria.
Modern authors have tended to use the Orthodox Greek term iconostasis for all sanctuary barriers, regardless of their period or appearance. The word eikonostasion, which seldom appears in medieval texts, to my knowledge never refers to a permanent wall of icons screening the bema from the nave. Its literal meaning, "icon-stand", is borne out in usage, and occasionally this word seems to denote a chapel or oratory.
Byzantine writers of the eighth through fifteenth centuries call the chancel barrier a templon. In the Historia ecclesiastica, Germanus enumerates its essential components: columns and parapet slabs delimit the bema, accessible only to priests and their companions. To judge from the descriptions of Photius, there is little appreciable change in the structure of the barrier in the ninth century; in fact, literary and archaeological evidence for the church of Christ Pantokratōr suggests that the appearance of the templon remained similar in the Comnenian period. The Deed of' Concession to the Genoese (1202), refers neither to icons nor curtains suspended the intercolumniations.
From only one document can it be inferred that the bema was invisible to those gathered in the naves in the Protheoria, Nicholas of Andida remarks that for a few moments the sanctuary doors were closed and curtains were drawn. However, Nicholas states that this closure was only temporary, and implies that it was an innovative monastic practice rather than an accepted Constantinopolitan custom.
1 A. Grabar, "Deux notes sur lâhistoire de lâiconostase dâaprs des monuments de Yougoslavie", Zbornik Radova Vizantoloki Institut, 7, 1961, 13-22. V. Lazarev, "Trois fragments dâŽpistyles peintes et le templon byzantin", Deltion tes christianikes archaiologikes Etairias, 4, 1964, 117-143.
2 M. Chatzidakis, "LâŽvolution de lâicone aux 11e-13e sicles at le transformation du templon", XVe Congrs International dâŽtudes byzantines, III, Art ArchŽologie, 1976, 156-192.
3 A. H. S. Megaw, "Notes on Recent Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 17, 1963, 344-346.
4 Such fragments have been discovered in the monastery of Constantine Lips, the Kalenderhane Camii and the church of the Theotokos Pammakaristos.
Domed Bemas in Byzantine Churches: Architecture vs. Iconography
Slobodan Ćurčić, University of Illinois
Students of Byzantine architecture and art have long considered the relationship between Byzantine church architecture and the iconography of its decorative program as a harmonious reflection of theological teachings of the Eastern Church. While such a notion is accurate in a general sense, numerous deviations from the "ideal system" are no less significant for our understanding of Byzantine church architecture and its decorative program. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine some of the architectural and iconographic aspects of the dome in Byzantine church architecture, and to demonstrate that throughout the long course of its history a basic conflict between the architectural and iconographic concepts of the dome was never fully resolved. This conflict is evident in a number of architectural variants, hitherto inadequately explained, which appear in all phases of the Byzantine architectural development.
The integration of a domed component into Byzantine church architecture appears to have begun in the second half of the fifth century. During the reign of Justinian I this development is considered to have reached the point of "standardization". Despite such apparent consistency, churches of this period reveal conflicting ideas with regard to the placement and meaning of the dome. At least three significantly different alternatives stand out: 1. the dome centered over the naos (e.g., Hagia Sophia in Constantinople), 2. the dome situated over the bema (e.g., Basilica "B" at Philippi), and 3. a sequence of domes covering all major spaces of the church (e.g., Church of St. John at Ephesus). These groups are distinguished not only by differences in the architectural disposition of their domes, but also by their differing iconographic implications. The early examples of churches, where the domed unit appears literally juxtaposed with the basilican body of the church (e.g., "Domed Basilica" at Meriamlik), suggest that the preferred iconographic position of the dome may have been over the bema. I propose that such solutions were architecturally undesirable, from the aesthetic, and especially from the structural point of view. In churches with large domes placed over the bema such an arrangement must have invariably resulted in critical buttressing problems (e.g., Basilica "B" at Philippi). Such solutions, therefore, must have soon been recognized as infeasible. It is in church architecture after the reign of Justinian I that one witnesses the final resolution of the problem marked by strict architectural rationale displayed in churches of the "domed- cross" type.
The post-Iconoclastic era saw the emergence of the "ideal" iconographic program in apparent harmony with the architecture of the church. One cannot dispute the overwhelming popularity of the "cross-in-square" church type in which the dome dominates the central space of the naos. At the same time, however, one should not overlook the renewed appearance of secondary domes over church bemas. This phenomenon may be explained by the still unresolved question of the iconographic meaning of the dome within the church, as well as by the substantial reduction in the scale of buildings, whereby the structural problems plaguing earlier churches would have been eliminated. A number of churches displaying secondary domes over bemas appear over a large territory-- Constantinople (Middle Church of the Pantokrator Monastery), Greece (Katholikon of Hosios Loukas), Serbia (Bogorodica Ljeviûka, Gračanica) and Bulgaria (St. John Aleiturgetos and Pantokrator at Mesemvria).
An interesting and illuminating sidelight of this phenomenon is seen in a western architectural development under Byzantine influence. A significant number of medieval churches in Southern Italy and Sicily dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries reflect the Byzantine conflict regarding the location of the dome. Churches with domes over the central portion of the naos (e.g., S. Giovanni a mare at Gaeta) appear together with those where the dome is situated over the altar area (e.g., S. Filomena at S. Severina, or S. Pietro at Itala), as well as those where two domes are characteristically juxtaposed, one over the naos, the other over the sanctuary (e.g., SS. Pietro e Paolo at Forza d'Agro).
The apparent conflict between architectural and iconographic conceptions of the dome was never fully resolved in Byzantine church architecture. The earliest examples of domed churches indicate that the preferred iconographic placement of the dome was over the bema. Such solutions, however, must have been rejected on structural grounds in monumental church architecture of Justinian in favor of an architecturally sound solution featuring the dome over the central portion of the naos. During the Middle and Late Byzantine periods, with the reduction in the scale of buildings, the structural problems related to the placement of the dome were minimized if not eliminated. Significantly, at this time secondary domes over bemas reappear, suggesting that the basic architectural-iconographic conflict had never been resolved in a satisfactory manner.
The Church of the Holy Apostles at Peć: An Ecclesiastical Mausoleum?
Ellen C. Schwartz, Eastern Michigan University
The Patriarchate of Peć, well-known as the seat of the Serbian Orthodox church in Yugoslavia, houses a church founded by St. Sava, the first archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian church. It is stated in the sources that Sava wished to have the church of the Holy Apostles built to house the archbishopric, then located in an exposed position at Ziča.1 A different motive, however, seems to have originally influenced Sava in his foundation and decoration of this church--his desire to build a personal mausoleum in the tradition of his family, the ruling Nemanjić dynasty. Sava's sudden death in 1235/36 prevented his burial in the place of his choice, however. His relics were transferred from Trnovo where he died, and were buried at Mileûeva in the mausoleum of his nephew, the emperor Vladislav.2
Several factors support the theory that Peć was founded by Sava as his mausoleum. Foremost is the evidence of the decorative program. The scenes in the central square copy decoration which Sava saw on his first pilgrimage to Palestine. These and other preserved scenes further represent Christ's promise of salvation, achievable through the triple road of faith, saintly intervention, and the sacrament of the liturgy, a theme most appropriate for a burial church. These two themes are stressed by the placement of the scenes in the apse, bema, prothesis, and central square of the church, the most significant areas from both the liturgical and visual standpoints.
It has been shown that four of the five scenes on the lunette walls of the central square depict events which are reputed to have taken place on the site of the church of Holy Sion in Jerusalem.3 These same events were, in fact, illustrated in wall paintings at the various sites within the Sion church at the time of Sava's first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, ca. 1230-32. Only Sava, with his devotion to the places and practices of Palestine, would have designed such a program for a church; his personal stamp is visible in this theme, as is the unmistakable stamp of a funerary monument in the second theme, that of salvation and resurrection.
The miraculous appearances of the risen Christ and the Ascension in the central part of the church reaffirm Christ's promise of salvation for the faithful at the end of time. The Raising of Lazarus on the southern tympanum offers a type for the true believer. Other figures representing true faith are Mary and Martha in the same scene, and the Old Testament prophets represented in medallions on the northern arch of the central square. The scene of the Doubting Thomas to the south contains an admonition to the skeptical.
The Deesis in the apse depicts the intervention of saints on the behalf of mankind, as it illustrates both the Last Judgement in abbreviated form and the prayer of intercession recited during the liturgy. The medallions which decorate the southern and western arches of the central square depict saints who, as martyrs, may intercede on the behalf of the faithful for their salvation.
The liturgy, the third road to eternal life, is represented four times: the historical introduction of communion is depicted in the scene of the Last Supper on the northern tympanum, while the Communion of the Apostles in the bema presents a symbolic version of the same event. The procession of Church fathers in the apse converging on the amnos and the scene of Sava and Arsenije officiating in the prothesis decorate the space reserved for the clergy with two more depictions of the Divine Liturgy.
After Sava's death, the Holy Apostles church underwent an expansion of its original funerary function, for the church became the preferred place for the burial of archbishops and patriarchs. After Sava, all archbishops between Arsenije (d. 1266) and Nikodim (d. 1324) were buried there. Later archbishops and patriarchs were buried in the adjacent churches and the exonarthex, while the relics of others were transferred there by their successors. A burial in the complex at Peć, particularly in the Apostles church, was regarded as a tradition, and attributed to Divine inspiration itself.4
This tradition of burying high church officials together in a church dedicated to the Holy Apostles appears to imitate the custom of Patriarchal interment in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The tradition of this church in the place for the interment of patriarchs was reported as the wish of the founder Constantine, by the historian Sozomen, on the occasion of the translation of the relics of John Chrysostom in 438.5 In addition to Chrysostom, ten other patriarchs were buried there at one time of another, over the succeeding centuries, including such illustrious figures as Gregory of Nazianzus, Nicephoros, and Methodius.6 The identical dedication which may not have been the original dedication for the church at Peć, and the number of ecclesiastical burials clustered there suggest that the Serbian church fathers had this custom from the capital in mind. That they chose a building originally designated a personal mausoleum in the Serbian dynastic tradition points up the struggle between the desire to establish indigenous traditions and the spiritual dependence on Byzantium in the nascent state of Serbia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
1 Jane Éafarik, "Srbskii˘ lietopisats izââ pochetka XIV g" stolietia," Glasnikââ druûtva srbske slovenosti V (1853), 41.
2 Domentijan, Úivoti svetoga Save i svetoga Simeona, transl. L. Mirković (Beograd, 1938), 214-16; and Teodosije, "Úivot svetoga Save," Stare srpske biografije, transl. M. Baûić, (Beograd, 1924), 240-49.
3 Ellen C. Schwartz, "The Church of the Holy Apostles in the Patriarchate of Peć" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), chapter 4, 5-10.
4 Danilo II i drugi, Úivoti kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih (Beograd, 1866), 318.
5 Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica 2, 34 (PG 67, col. 180).
6 See R.Janin, La geographie ecclesiastique de l'empire byzantin, 1e partie, iii (Paris, 1953), 41-50; Jean Ebersolt, Constantinople: Recueil d'Žtudes d'archŽologie et d'histoire (Paris, 1951), 38; and idem, Sanctuaires de Byzance (Paris, 1921), 34, 38.
Prophets in the Drums: A Study of Prophet Cycles in Palaeologan Churches in Serbia and Macedonia
Ljubica D. Popovich, Vanderbilt University
A typical feature of monumental fresco decoration in Byzantine churches from the Middle Byzantine period through the Palaeologan era is the representation of prophets in the drum of the central dome. Such cycles preserved in the Byzantine world outside Yugoslavia have been at least partially studied,1 but little attention has been accorded these images in Yugoslavia.2 Their high position and frequently damaged condition have made study difficult, and the prophets have often been assumed to be a rather uniform feature of late Byzantine church decoration. But detailed study of thirty-eight Serbian and Macedonian churches reveals that in actuality the familiar cycles of prophets are far from being monotonously repeated. Indeed no two have been found to be identical. The number to be represented, the choice of prophets to be portrayed, their compositional arrangement, and choice of texts all are subject to considerable variation.
The number of prophets represented varies from only four (Veljusa), to twenty-four in very late programs (Resava). Selection of the number to be included is not necessarily commanded by the number of sides of polygonal domes, but the eight-sided dome being most common, the portrayal of eight prophets is naturally frequent (Gračanica, Dečani). The cycles start precisely on the eastern axis of the church, or just to the north or south of it. Isaiah most often leads the frieze of figures but that is not his exclusive privilege. The four major prophets are those most often represented, but all may not appear in any one cycle. The next most popular are Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jonah, and Joel. Always the cycle of prophets appears with the Pantocrator in the calotte, while the apostles either accompany the Pantocrator, or the iconographically archaic scheme of the Ascension (Holy Apostles, Peć). Compositions vary in their relation to the image of the Saviour, and the relation of the prophets one to another. The most frequently used scheme is that of a single figure placed between two windows, but prophets may occur in pairs (Gradac), or triads (Virgin Peribleptos), and superimposed zones with figures are also known (Resava). A feature appearing to be rare before the middle of the fourteenth century is the introduction of certain Old Testament patriarchs into the prophet cycle (Arilje Cathedral). Originality exists in the choices of texts inscribed on the prophets' scrolls (Jeremiah 23:5, or 31:31). At times the quotations appear to have been chosen so as to themselves create a new idea of doctrinal teaching (Dečani).
Amidst the great variety of prophets certain constant features remain. Despite stylistic changes, the traditionally honoured iconographic types of the heads of the prophets are respected, thus keeping the idea of the icon. Certain gestures familiar as unique characteristics of a given prophet are maintained (Habakkuk, hand raised by ear). Traditional, too, are the classical age types: the old sage, the mature man, the beardless youth.
Examination of the prophet cycles preserved in Yugoslavia opens up a little-studied area of monumental painted programs. The message, forms and functions of the prophet cycles are elucidated, and also their purposes in relation to other iconographic features, including the Divine Liturgy and the Pantocrator.
The material contained in this paper represents only partial results from research on Byzantine dome decoration in general, and cycles of the prophets in particular.
1 Cyril Mango, The Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, VIII (Washington, D.C., 1962), 58-62. David Talbot Rice, The Church of Hagia Sophia at Trebizond, (Edinburgh, 1968), 114-116. Xyngopoulou, Ē psēphidōtē diokosmēsis tou naon tōn agiōn apostolōn thessalonikēs (Thessalonikē, 1953), 35-40.
2 In general studies as well as in the more recent monographs, the cycles of prophets in Serbia and Macedonia are mentioned only in most general terms: Svetozar Radojčić, Staro Srpsko Slikarstvo, (Beograd, 1966), 28, 46, 106, 110, 116, 123, 134, 144, 147, 154, 156, 168, 188, 197. Vojislav Djurić, Vizantiske Freske u Jugoslaviji, (Beograd, l974), 11, 14, 18, 27, 43, 44, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 64, 65, 66, 70, 72, 81, 86, 87, 89, 94, 97, 98, 99, 105. Stevan Tomić, ed., Manasija, (Beograd, 1964), 74-76; Milan Ivanović, "Crkva Bogorodice Odigitrije u Pećskoj Patrijarûiji", Starine Kosova i Metohije, II-III, (Priûtina, 1963), 149-150; Gordana Babić, Bogorodica Ljeviûka, (Beograd, 1975), 50.
VIII. BYZANTINE HISTORY
A.D. 476, The View from Constantinople
Brian Croke, Dumbarton Oaks
One of the most significant period markers of history is the year A.D. 476. Whilst convenient in some respects, scholarship no longer finds in the deposition of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer the serious rupture it was once thought to designate. Yet the historiographical context of the date and its meaning is of extreme interest. When did the notion that the Western empire fell in 476 arise? Is it contemporary? The first person to mark 476 as the end of the empire in the West was an Illyrian living in Constantinople, comes Marcellinus, who recorded the fact in his Chronicle written in c. 518/519. This opinion next appears in identical form in 551 in the Roman History of Jordanes, also written in the Eastern capital. Where did Marcellinus and Jordanes get this information from? Whose point of view does it represent?
In 1948 W. Ensslin proposed the idea, through a comparison of Marcellinus and Jordanes, that both merely copied the lost history of Q. Aurelius Symmachus, the consul of 485 executed by Theodoric in 523 (Des Symmachus Historia Romana als Quelle fŸr Jordanes Sitz. Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss, Munich 1949). Accepting this thesis as proven M. Wes pursued the implications of Ensslin's conclusions in Das Ende des Kaisertums im Westen des ršmischen Reichs (The Hague 1967) and argued that 476 as the end-point of the Western empire must be seen to represent the view of the senatorial aristocrary of Italy under the overlordship of Odoacer and Theodoric. It was only understandable that the tradition of senatorial historiography should see in 476 a year of fatal significance. Wes' impressive case has now been generally accepted.
I wish to explain, on the contrary, that this thesis can only be sustained by ignoring vital sources, the proper historiographical context of the information and much salient previous research, as well as by basing too much on careless and unfounded assumptions.
Research on the sources of Marcellinus (ignored by Ensslin and Wes) shows that he relied almost entirely, especially for Western affairs, on the local fasti of Constantinople or some similar chronicle. Although written in Latin the chronicle stands in the same tradition as Malalas, the Paschal Chronicle and Theophanes. Secondly, the Ensslin-Wes thesis assumed that Jordanes used Symmachus as a Hauptquelle so that all his sources, even when named, are at second-hand. This is demonstrably wrong and fails to take account of the fact that Jordanes' bias is essentially eastern. In addition, it cannot even be demonstrated that the lost history of Symmachus actually predates the chronicle of Marcellinus, a basic presupposition of the Ensslin-Wes thesis. So too the evidence is plain that the Roman senate enjoyed a resurgence, not an erosion, of influence and power under Odoacer and Theodoric. Moreover, that the end of the Western empire in 476 is an official view fails to take account of the fact that after 476 Nepos was still recognised in the West and coins were minted in his name by Odoacer. Finally, by concentrating on Western sources, Wes overlooked the Byzantine statements which record the fall of the Western empire in 476-- Evagrius, Theophanes (and related excerpts) and Cedrenus--all of which can be traced to the same source or complex of sources as Marcellinus. All the earliest records of the significance of 476 (including Marcellinus) are Constantinopolitan and not a single one is actually western. It was not, therefore, the view of the 'Romans of Rome' but of the 'Romans of Byzantium.'
Zosimus and the Arabs
Irfan Shahid, Georgetown University
The Arabs figure in the Historia Nova on three occasions, all of which are memorable in Roman history: two during the Imperial Crisis of the third century, involving Philip the Arab and the Palmyra of Odenathus and Zenobia, and a third pertaining to the Gothic War of Valens's reign.
In his account of the reign of Philip, which is a relatively detailed one, Zosimus omits two important facts, which should have been of special importance to him, namely, Philip's Christianity and his celebration of the Secular Games.
Unlike his account of Philip, the one on the Palmyrene Arabs has been carefully analyzed by those who have written on the Historia Nova, and it has been shown that this account functions as an illustration of the working of pronoia in the third century. And yet the unusual interest of Zosimus in the Palmyrene crisis, as his account runs through many sections of Book I, is striking and suggests that more could be said on that account in connexion with the viewpoint from which Zosimus wrote his History.
His account of the Saracen contribution to the Gothic War is a valuable one written from a strictly technical, military, point of view. But there is serious omission of facts which must have been well known to him and which were relevant to include.
An examination of the sections in the Historia Nova in which the Arabs appear or are made to appear reveals that the choice or rejection of data pertaining to them was governed by the degree to which these data contributed towards validating or invalidating Zosimus' thesis on the process of Roman decline, and justifies the view of his eighteenth-century commentator, J. F. Reitemeier, that Zosimus wrote an histoire raisonnŽe.
The Emperor Philippikos in History and Legend in East and West
Dorothy deF. Abrahamse, California State University, Long Beach
The brief reign of the emperor Philippikos Bardanes (711-713) has been, regarded by Byzantinists as an episode in the breakdown of the empire in the early eighth century, of interest as the last expression of monothelite sympathy or as a preview of Iconoclasm. It has not received a separate treatment. However, the figure of Philippikos is reflected in an unusually rich variety of sources for this age, both eastern and Roman, allowing the historian an insight into the historical events surrounding his rise and the popular legend which attached itself to him. This paper analyzes his place in the religious and social currents of the Byzantine 'dark ages'.
Eastern sources for Philippikos include the chronicles of Theophanes and Nicephoros and the chartophylax Agatho's addendum to the documents of the Sixth Ecumenical Council which he copied in 713-714. It can be shown that the accounts of Theophanes and Nicephoros, fuller than for other rebellions, use contemporary material and, in part, include independent sources. Agatho's statement also provides independent contemporary evidence. Through a comparative analysis of all three texts, the evidence for Bardanes? background, relationship with the army, church leaders, aristocracy and the people of Constantinople will be considered. Of particular interest is Theophanes' story (confirmed by Agatho) attributing the exile and subsequent acclamation of Bardanes to the prophecy of a hermit monk. This story will be analyzed in light of parallel accounts of prophecy in later rebellions.
Western sources for the reign include the Liber Pontificalis, Agnellus and a Roman miracle of 713 attached to a collection of miracles of the martyr Anastasios. Political response to Philippikos is dominated by hostility to his monothelite sympathies and symbolic action to counter his removal of the portrait of the sixth ecumenical council. Popular legend here takes the form of the miracle story, in which Philippikos is identified as the demon in possession of the soul of the daughter of a bishop, cast out by the relics of the martyr Anastasius and his namesake, Philippikos's successor to the throne, Artemius-Anastasios. This story as well, when analyzed in terms of its milieu, offers important insight into Roman popular religious attitudes of the early eighth century.
Taken together, this paper argues, the sources suggest that the rise of Philippikos took place against a background of popular religious fervor unmatched in immediately preceding or subsequent rebellions. Although the common historical parallel with the rise of Leo III has some validity, a comparative study of the sources shows instructive differences in the treatment of the two men and their supporters. The study of his rebellion and reign as reflected in contemporary tradition, however, affords not only a deeper understanding of the religious and social climate of Byzantium on the eve of Iconoclasm, but also of a developing tradition of the rebel leader in Byzantine society.
A Newly Discovered Historical Work of Michael Psellos
Kenneth Snipes, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Chronographia of Michael Psellos is one of the best known works of Byzantine literature. The previous editors believed that the text survived in only one manuscript, Parisinus graecus 1712. While preparing a new critical edition of the Chronographia for the Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae, I discovered that a fragment of five folios of the Chronographia (fifteen pages in the Renauld edition) has survived in a manuscript from Mt. Sinai, Sinai gr. 1117 (482) following a work described as Historia syntomos tōn para tēi presbyterai Rhōmēi basileusantōn kai authis tēi neōterai, and attributed to ho erikōdestatos hypertimos ho Psellos. The description of this work in the catalogue of Beneshevitch has escaped the notice of subsequent scholars, and this work is nowhere listed among the works attributed to Psellos. The Historia syntomos (twenty-four large folios of text) begins with the foundation of Rome by Romulus and continues through the joint reign of Basil II and Constantine VIII, the point at which the Chronographia, as it has been preserved in the Paris manuscript, begins. The authenticity of this Synopsis is strongly supported by the description of the historical work of Psellos in the preface to the chronicle of Skylitzes. Skylitzes cites a certain Sikeliotes didaskalos and Psellos as examples of historians who wrote in a short, annalistic style. This description hardly applies to the Chronographia, but it is quite appro- priate as a description of the Synopsis. The sources used by Psellos for his Synopsis, the content of the chronicle, and his choice of information will be discussed. A comparison of the style and vocabulary of this newly discovered chronicle with the Chronographia is an interesting study of a single Byzantine historian writing in both the "low" style (the chronicle) and the "high" or Atticising style of historians like Leo the Deacon, Nikephoros Bryennios, and Anna Comnena. This short chronicle is also an important document for a study of the development of Psellos as an historian.
IX. MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATION AND ILLUSTRATION
The Canon Tables of the First Bible of Theodulf (London, BL Add. 24142) and their Significance
Lawrence Nees, University of Massachusetts, Boston
The earliest of the three Bibles written for Theodulf of OrlŽans, now preserved in London (BL Add. 24142) contains a large and richly decorated series of canon tables which have so far attracted little attention from scholars. Only May Vieillard-Troiekouroff has studied these canon tables in any detail (in Stucchi e Mosaici alto medioevali [Milan 1962] and in Synthronon [Bibliothque des Cahiers archŽologiques, II; Paris, 1968]), and her conclusion that they were derived from Visigothic prototypes is on several grounds unconvincing; for example, the text of the book is not so purely and consistently Spanish in affiliation as she implies (cf. Fischer, in Karl der Grosse II, 175ff.), nor is the personal involvement of Theodulf in itself a strong argument for a Spanish prototype. Moreover, her comparisons to the canon tables of the ninth-century Visigothic Bible of la Cava dei Tirreni are more generic than specific, and manuscripts from other sources offer equally close comparisons. Yet it seems difficult to offer a more convincing alternative to her Visigothic hypothesis, since on the limited basis of only the form and decoration of the canon tables it is hazardous to posit derivation exclusively from a single locale or tradition.
Fortunately, however, a study of the actual distribution of the ten Eusebian Canons in Theodulf's London Bible, which Vieillard-Troiekouroff did not consider, provides additional evidence, clearly indicating a close connection with a small group of Greek manuscript of the ninth and tenth centuries (Vienna theol. gr. 240, Athos Lavra A. 23, and Venice San Lazzaro 887 [this actually Armenian rather than Greek but illuminated in Thrace by a Byzantine artist following Byzantine models]), and with two manuscripts, one Greek and one Latin, stemming from or definitively linked to sixth-century Ravenna (Vienna 847 and Munich Clm. 6212). The consequent inference that the model of the London canon tables stems from a Greek tradition which reached the Latin West via the art of sixth-century Ravenna is fully consonant with surviving Ravennate works and may be elaborated at length.
Within this small group of manuscripts with nearly related canon tables it is further noteworthy that several contain standing Evangelist portraits and several a separate wreath-Hypothesis page, thereby suggesting the existence of a single illustrative cycle of which Theodulf's Bible reproduces only one part, the canon tables. However, the entire illustrative cycle must have been known in the West, as the so-called Gundohinus Gospels in Autun (BM MS. 3), which contains the only canon table series in the West whose form and ornamental decoration unquestionably belongs to the same family as Theodulf's Bible, also presents standing Evangelist portraits very close to those in the previously cited Greek manuscripts, as well as a large wreath miniature, in the form of the second- oldest Maiestas Domini image in Western book illumination. Thus the canon tables of Theodulf's London Bible provide the critical and heretofore unnoticed link forging a chain that leads toward a new understanding of the sources of a fundamental Western image and manuscript cycle and of the degree of dependence of that image and cycle on early Byzantine art.
Problems in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Cosmas Indicopleustes
Anna D. Kartsonis, Dumbarton Oaks
The manuscripts of the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopluestes are a veritable compendium of most problems possible in the study of Byzantine book illumination. A lot of the work devoted to the solution of this puzzle has ultimately aimed at the reconstruction of the illuminated archetype of the Topography. Such efforts, however, may be premature, since only the miniatures whose subject derives from the Octateuch have been scrutinized closely from an art historical viewpoint. Nevertheless, the importance of the date and quality of the Vatican copy in particular have required an evaluation. Some of the resulting observations on the illustration of the Topography have either been commonly accepted or left unexplored. This paper aims at reopening the discussion on two such issues on the basis of internal evidence provided by the surviving Greek manuscripts.
One of the accepted interpretations concerns the method of composition employed in the illustration of the archetype. The preference of the Sinai Cosmas for frieze compositions is taken as evidence of the compositional principle of the Cosmas archetype, while the Vatican artist is credited with rearranging these friezes into full page miniatures. As a consequence, the full page miniatures of the Vatican codex are thought to postdate the frieze compositions of the Sinai manuscript. The Hezekiah illustrations are cited as an example of this transition. Although it is indeed true that the Vatican artist should be credited with the creation of full page miniatures, it does not necessarily follow that the full page miniatures of the Vatican codex postdate the corresponding frieze compositions of the Sinai manuscript. Thus, contrary to the current interpretation, a closer examination of the Hezekiah miniatures proves that the frieze illustrations of the Sinai manuscript followed rather than preceded the full page format of the Vatican miniature. Therefore, the frieze compositions of the Sinai Cosmas do not in themselves constitute proof of date in an evaluation of the Cosmas illuminated manuscripts.
Another aspect of these manuscripts has been left largely unexplored despite Professor Weitzmann's warnings. It concerns the differentiation of stages in the evolution of the illustration of the Topography, which was conceived as an illuminated text according to Mme Wolska-Conus. Rather than inquire into the question of the miniatures which accompanied the illuminated archetype, we chose to follow the opposite line, and search for miniatures which could not have been included in the archetype. It is possible to demonstrate that fol. 76r of the Vatican codex was not part of the archetype and thus prove that individual miniatures were added to the Topography at a later date. This should open the road to a more sophisticated understanding of the different stages in the history of the Topography's illumination.
The object of this talk is to reopen the investigation of these two aspects of the Cosmas puzzle, and to indicate that the answers were found exclusively within the surviving Cosmas manuscripts.
The Later Impact of a Group of Twelfth-Century Manuscripts
Robert S. Nelson, University of Chicago
A group of illustrated Byzantine manuscripts from the twelfth century have recently been the subject of studies by H. Buchthal, J.C. Anderson, and I. Hutter. They are known by the names of the most prominent members of the group, the Codex Ebnerianus, Vat. Urb. gr. 2, or the copies of the Homilies of the Monk James in Paris and Rome. Most of the books may be assigned to the second quarter of the twelfth century, because of the imperial portraits of the Emperor John II and his son Alexius in Vat. Urb. gr. 2. This general date is further confirmed by the evidence of a Gospels in Oxford, Christ Church Gr. 32, for the latter has an heretofore unnoticed entry on f. 287r about a birth that took place sometime in the ten year period, 1132-41. It is unfortunately impossible to be more exact, because the last digit of the date is destroyed, but this decade is a terminus ante for the book. Other twelfth century notes on the page mention the children of one Isaac Comnenos, an unidentified nobleman, so this manuscript like others in the group has aristocratic connections. The chronological range of these books is not precisely known, but some may be as late as the third quarter of the century.
The influence of this style, however, was more long lasting. The evangelist portraits served as models for the illuminators of Gospel books of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, including specifically Mt. Athos, Lavra A21; Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery W531; and Venice, Bibl. Marc. gr. 1, 8. The portraits of the latter, though painted in the fourteenth century, are especially faithful copies of the Codex Ebnerianus, all of which is entirely plausible, because the latter was in Constantinople in the late fourteenth century, when the well-known scribe, Joasaph of the monastery tōn Hodēgōn added liturgical notations to it.
It is, however, the new fashions for initials and headpieces introduced by the Ebnerianus group manuscripts, which were ultimately more influential. The ornamental carpets in Gospels, such as Paris, B.N. gr. 71, or in the Homilies manuscripts, are the sources for the designs of Gospels of the twelfth century (Sinai, gr. 179 and Mt. Athos, Lavra A21) and of the thirteenth century (Mt. Athos, Iviron 5). The distinctive initials of the Gospel books of the group or the clearly related Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus, Sinai, gr. 339, are composed of interlocking dogs, rabbits, and birds, and these letters, once established, became quite popular. Examples survive from the twelfth (Sinai, gr. 179; Mt. Athos, Lavra A21; Venice, Bibl. Marc. gr. Z 540; Vat. gr. 1851; Tiblisi, Art Museum, H 1335) and thirteenth (Sinai, gr. 38; Jerusalem, Taphou 51; Manchester, John Rylands Lib. gr. 17; Williamstown, Mass., Williams College, Gospels of 1295 at Chapin Library; Meteora, Monastery of Transfiguration, Ms. 545) and fourteenth centuries (Oxford, Bodl. Lib. MS. Auct. T 5.34, and Christ Church, gr. 28). Derivative designs are found in several of the so-called Nicaea manuscripts (Mt. Athos, Dionysiou 4; Mt. Athos, Iviron 55; and Mt. Sinai gr. 149), as well as late books like Moscow, State Hist. Mus. cod. Vlad. 155 and Patmos, Roll no. 2 of 1429. Finally as D. Wright demonstrated in a paper given at the XVth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, these types of animal initials even influenced a Russian manuscript in Cambridge, Mass., though the inventive animal initials by the illuminators of later Russian books, such as the Khitrovo Gospels, surpass the Byzantine accomplishments.
The difference in longevity between the ornamental and figural motifs of the Ebnerianus group is partly to be explained by the subsequent history of Byzantine art. While elements of the late Comnenian dynamic style are present in some members of the group, such as the Vatican copy of the Homilies, artists of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries went far beyond the early experiments in greater movement, more active drapery, and psychological interaction. In contrast, however, the initial and ornamental styles exercised a continuing appeal, because of their richness and love of fantasy, qualities appreciated in any period.
An Eleventh-Century Illustrated Edition of the Metaphrastian Menologium
Nancy P. Ševčenko, Cambridge, Massachusetts
In April of 1063, the scribe of a Menologium in Moscow (State Hist. Mus. Gr. 9) wrote that "this the last volume of the ten books of the Rephrasings by the Logothete (i.e. Symeon Metaphrastes) has reached an end". The manuscript does indeed correspond to the tenth and final volume of the standard edition of the Metaphrastian Menologium; it comprises the Lives of the saints celebrated between the beginning of May and the end of August, the last month of the church year. This Moscow manuscript is richly illuminated: every one of its twelve texts has some form of accompanying illustration.
In the library of Mt. Sinai, there is a Menologium for the first half of November (Sin. Gr. 500) which I believe was written by the same scribe as the Moscow codex, and illustrated by the same artist. The two manuscripts are then volumes 3 and 10 of the very same edition.
In both manuscripts, the texts are illustrated with a simple portrait of the saint in question, or by a scene or sequence of scenes relating to his life. The miniatures are framed and placed at the beginning of the appropriate Vita. There is a maximum of four scenes in any one cycle.
If we look at other manuscripts of the Metaphrastian Menologium, we find that they are seldom as richly illustrated as are these two codices. Out of the nearly one thousand surviving manuscripts of this type described by Msgr. Albert Ehrhard1, I know of only eight manuscripts--this figure includes the Moscow and Sinai codices--which preserve an actual cycle of scenes illustrating any single text. The cycles are usually. quite short, limited, as in the Moscow/Sinai edition, to a maximum of four scenes.
Two of these eight manuscripts do have cycles of greater length. They are Athos, Esphigmenou 14, and Turin, Nat. Lib. B II 4, both well known through the researches of Professor Weitzmann.2 However, these two manu- scripts differ from the others not only In the extraordinary richness of their illustration, but in their content as well. For neither manuscript belongs to the standard ten-volume edition of the Menologium. The Esphigmenou and Turin manuscripts are each special productions designed for a specific purpose, and should not be considered typical examples of the illustrated Metaphrastian Menologium. Even the Moscow/Sinai edition of 1063, with its relatively concise series of narrative scenes, is itself the exception, rather than the rule.
1 Albert Ehrhard, Uberlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche, II (1938), pp. 306-659; III (1940), pp. 1-722.
2 Kurt Weitzmann, "The selection of texts for cyclic illustration in Byzantine manuscripts", Byzantine Books and Bookmen, A Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium, Washington, D.C., 1975, pp. 84-86.
Heterogeneous Iconographic Traditions in a Palaeologan Psalter
Christine Havice, University of Kentucky
Among the numerous problems presented by the yet-unpublished Hamilton Psalter (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett 78.A.9) is that of the interrelationship of its stylistically distinct groups of miniatures, the obviously Constantinopolitan frontispiece series and the cruder marginal illustrations to the Psalms and Odes. The former, composed of donor page, eight miniatures for the 151st Psalm, and author portrait of King David, constitutes a physical entity separate from the rest of the manuscript and an iconographic unit prefatory to the Psalms, analogous to what is found in many of the so-called aristocratic Psalters. As DerNersessian has suggested, several of these miniatures point to the existence of a David cycle loosely based on the text of Psalm 151 and at least as old as the eleventh-century Theodore Psalter. The first three miniatures in the Hamilton series, however, have no precedent in any surviving cycle and can be shown to have been assembled from time-honored pictorial types in order to illustrate the supernumerary text more literally than ever heretofore. The multitude and variety of sources from which these types were drawn--marginal and "literal" Psalters, the Book of Kings, and others--confirm the stylistic indication of an origin in Constantinople, while certain formal details and compositional problems suggest that the cycle was given shape only in the later thirteenth century and, indeed, for the first time in the present gathering.
Equally rich and varied is the iconography of the marginal miniatures, which by turns shows affinities to each of the extant marginal Psalters. Thus Hamilton cannot be explained as the issue of any one or even several of the Psalters representing the known recensions. This fact, coupled with the strong ties to the "literal" Psalter, Vaticanus graecus 1927, and to the two ninth-century Western Psalters, in Stuttgart and Utrecht, points to a pre- Iconoclastic archetype. A descendant of this archetype, evidencing Middle Byzantine and Paleologan accretions, must have served as the immediate prototype of our Psalter, for a good late-thirteenth century model shines through, especially in the competent underdrawings, in such details as movement, drapery, and architecture. The image at Psalm 91,12 may serve as an example of this stemma: the righteous is shown with a palm on his head, which literal illustration of the verse is found only in the Verona Psalter, probably made in Italy in the seventh or eighth century. This unique connection was noted by Goldschmidt in 1900; its implications for the existence of a pre-Iconoclastic marginal psalter were first enunciated by Cutler more recently. The righteous man in our miniature is also associated with St. John Chrysostom, an identification made only in the eleventh century Theodore and Barberini Psalters and an example of Maris' "irruption of saints."
If the preliminary drawings of the marginal miniatures in Hamilton are competent, their execution may be characterized only as unenlightened. This awkwardness stands out particularly in the manuscript's single full-page miniature which precedes the first Ode of Moses. An ungainly, unframed composition, this illustration contrasts oddly with the frontispiece miniatures, yet it is obviously intended as the pendant to that cycle in the manner that the aristocratic Psalters contain full-page miniatures preceding both the Psalms and the Odes. This "adaptation" of the marginal Psalter to a format generally analogous to that found in the class sometimes labeled "frontispiece Psalters" seems to have been effected only at the time of the execution of the present manuscript, rather than in the model, for the composition of the page is far more naive and seamed than any in the prefatory cycle. Further, the iconography of this Moses page may be traced to the peculiar type found in several early thirteenth- century Psalters of the Family 2400 group, pointed out by Carr; this is the only instance of "aristocratic" influence on any of Hamilton's 300-odd miniatures.
The Hamilton Psalter has been assigned a Cypriot origin by BeŽs and Buchthal, who based their contention upon the ex libris of the fifteenth- century Charlotte, Queen of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia, on f.1v, and upon a litany for a church in Famagusta, which is appended to the Psalter. This attribution has been generally accepted and in actual fact there is nothing to militate against it, even though the evidence occurs in quires which are physically and codicologically distinct from those of the Psalter proper. The organization of the Psalter according to both Greek and Latin usage, the bilingual (and synchronous) text, and the paleography point to a Greek province held by the Latins, and this provincial origin is corroborated by the indifferent quality of the miniatures, although there is nothing in the iconography or style which may be identified as specifically Cypriot. Both Greek and Latin paleography allow us to date the manuscript to around the year 1300, to which date the frontispiece miniatures may also be ascribed by stylistic comparison with Constantinopolitan works. One might therefore postulate that the frontispiece series was ordered especially for this manuscript and, with the immediate model of the marginal miniatures in the Psalter proper, came from Constantinople at about the turn of the century. In the re-copying of the marginal illustrations to the present bilingual text, the rather clumsy effort to adapt the marginal Psalter to the elaborate prefatory cycle be means of the incongruous Ode illustration was made.
Thus the Hamilton Psalter reflects a substantial amount of freedom for Innovation within the Paleologan scriptoria of both the capital and the provinces. It evidences three heterogeneous iconographic traditions, each of which received some reworking during this period, and, largely through the travail of the provincial artist who "created" the Moses page, these three traditions are integrated into one book which is a unicum in Byzantine painting.
X. THE MACEDONIAN ERA
The Suda on the Pagan Gods
Emily Albu Hanawalt, Boston University
If a tenth century Byzantine had opened the Suda, a contemporary lexicon, to read about the pagan Greek pantheon, he would have found a bewildering variety of definitions for the Twelve. The items under Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, and Ares emphasize grammar. The first two give only the genitive singular and vocative, respectively. The other three offer additional definitions as well, but only the main entry to Apollo explains the role of the god, as the prophetic voice of his father Zeus. In vivid contrast to the previous five items, the lexicon specifically attests to the divinity of Artemis (hē theos) and Athena (hē thea·). The main entries to Zeus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Hestia present the characters and functions of these gods by describing and interpreting classical statues of them. The lexicographer introduces Hephaistos, however, as a mortal Egyptian king worshipped as a god because of his mystic powers and prowess in war.
Is this hodgepodge of attitudes and viewpoints characteristic of the Suda's presentation of the pagan gods? Does a uniform impression materialize from this great variety? What utilitarian functions would such definitions serve? To answer these questions I am using Ada Adler's index to the Suda and examining all references to the gods and goddesses of the pagan Greek pantheon.
My preliminary study indicates that the compiler has adopted entries that reflect a variety of attitudes, from uncritical recital of accepted pagan tradition to disdainful rejection. Best illustrating the latter view, the long item Adam describes the Creation and contentment in Paradise until the Devil arrived and created havoc by usurping the name of God and distributing it to many, even daring to give the sacred name of God to females. The article proceeds to present a scorching condemnation of all pagan philosophy and religious thought.
Other entries employ the three following approaches and attitudes: syncretism, linking the deities from different cultures; euhemerism, repeating the belief that gods were really human beings worshipped because of their remarkable powers or philanthropic exploits; and allegory, e.g. defining Ares as war and Aphrodite as lust.
This variety of viewpoints shows that the compiler of the Suda has made no systematic attempt to reconcile conflicting statements. Instead he has simply reproduced earlier accounts without substantially changing them to fit any preconceived scheme. The casual disorder dramatically demonstrates how comfortable the compiler and his audience were with pagan ideas, and how little the Byzantines of the Macedonian Renaissance perceived these ideas as threatening, despite occasional polemics against paganism.
While the entries do not represent a random sample from the Suda, since each must contain a classical reference, still they offer great insight into the literary interests and opinions of tenth century Byzantium. A few of the items investigated ( e.g. theus Arēs and Thourras) concern Eastern divinities, showing the broadened cultural horizon of the age. Yet significantly, most other entries lead back to classical literature, specifically to the poets and especially to Homer. Homeric epithets abound. Hērē explains an Ionic (Homeric) form; both tlē dâ Hērē and Haimatos elucidate quotes from Book V of the Iliad (lines 392 and 289). Some explanations facilitate the scansion of poems in the old, qualitative meters, giving the declensions of proper names and even vowel length; others elucidate complex classical proverbs, legends, place names and anecdotes. A smaller but significant number turn explicitly to prose authors, explaining quotations from Thucydides and Plato. The descriptions and allegorical interpretations of statues of gods (Zeus, Hermēn, Aphroditē, Hestia) indicate a revitalized, if sometimes distorted, appreciation for classical art, as well as literature.
With the broad variety of its entries, the Suda was helping its readers to understand the ancient world, a world in which pagan gods and goddesses were lively participants. The Byzantine lexicon accordingly describes without comment Zeus' alleged role in Athenian-Spartan strife (under Aneilen) and the premature rotting of ships built with lumber from sacred Olympic groves (Alsos). Despite isolated misinformation and confusion, the Suda exhibits little prejudice except a genuine desire to aid classical studies and especially the reading of ancient Greek literature.
The Bryas Palace of Theophilus
Carol Manson Bier, New York University
According to the Continuation of the chronicles of Theophanes the Bryas palace of Theophilus (829-842) was built in imitation of an Arab palace. The present inquiry into its Islamic source offers a new interpretation of the Bryas Palace within the context of Middle Byzantine secular architecture and the development of court ceremonial.
Previous studies have concentrated upon locating Bryas in efforts to determine the extent of Islamic impact on the architecture of Byzantium. The most recent attempt, put forth by Dr. Semavi Eyice, tentatively links the unexcavated ruins at KŸŸkyalī, a suburb of Istanbul on the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmara, with the literary description of Bryas palace. The plan of the ruins as they exist today indeed bears a similarity in general layout to throne room complexes in Abbasid and Umayyad palaces. Can the prototype for Theophilus's palace be identified?
The passage which describes Theophilus's palace explains that it was inspired by the embassy of John the Synkellos to the Abbasid court. Historical circumstances place the embassy between AD 829 and 832, during the reign of Caliph al-Maâmūn (AD 819-833). Textual sources indicate that he had three palaces in Baghdad. None of them has been identified, but the plans and general features may be suggested through an examination of available archaeological evidence for early Abbasid palaces, supplemented by literary references to the caliphal residences of al-Ma'mūn, his father, Hārūn al- Rashid, and his brothers, al-'Amīn, and al-Mu'tasim, his predecessors and successors in Baghdad.
A configuration of architectural forms is seen to emerge as characteristic, defined in terms of function designated by literary sources as serving in the audience and reception of the caliph. The origins of the architectural forms and the ceremonial traditions for the king's appearance are not of direct concern to a consideration of the Bryas palace; what is important, however, is that these features seem to be directly related to court ceremonial.
Despite the fact that a source for the Bryas palace cannot at this point be documented archaeologically, it is clear that both the Byzantine palace and its Islamic prototype shared the characteristics of early Abbasid palace architecture. The similarity of the Byzantine ruins at KŸŸkyalī to the architectural precepts identified in this study offers support to Eyiceâs conclusions.
In view of the analysis presented by this research, it is suggested that the Bryas palace not only exemplifies the influence of Islam in Byzantium, but more importantly, its architectural forms reflect in a secular monument the tendency towards more rigid ceremonial which is already evident in the church architecture and liturgy of the Middle Byzantine period.
The Rediscovery of the Hellenistic Epigram at Byzantium
Alan Cameron, Columbia University
We owe to the labours of the scribes responsible for Pal. gr. 23--the Palatine Anthology (AP)--the greater part of our knowledge of the Greek epigram as a literary genre. Competent palaeographical opinion dates the MS to the first half of the tenth century--a conclusion fully borne out by a number of informative marginalia by the scribes known as J and C.
The original collection on which AP was based was put together ca. 900 by Constantine Cephalas, a teacher in th-e New Church at Constantinople. C and J refer often to Cephalas as a man personally known to them recently dead, and J writes in the same way of Gregory of Campsa, apparently Cephalas' senior colleague in the same school. C used a copy made by "the blessed lord Michael the chartophylax" from Cephalas' own MS. These and other notes, not so far exploited in this connection, make it clear that AP cannot be later than ca. 940, certainly one of the earliest Byzantine MSS devoted to ancient Greek poetry.
Now the latest poet included in AP is a man of the next generation, in all probability still alive ca. 940, Constantine the Rhodian. Unlike Cephalas, Gregory and Michael he is not spoken of as if dead ("the blessed"). On the contrary, the first poem ascribed to him, written in the hand of J, calls him "the humble" (tou tapeinou), normally a self-ascriptive formula. In addition, J deleted and rewrote metrically the unmetrical last line of the poem, a unique form of correction in AP. For these and other reasons it seems likely that J is Constantine the Rhodian. AP is his own anthology of ancient poetry. It will ~_e remembered that Constantine revived the ecphrastic poem. AP contains almost all the early Byzantine ecphrastic poetry (Paul Sil., John of Gaza) we have.
It is possible to compile a long list of writers of the late ninth and early tenth century who either quote ancient epigrams (via Cephalas) or actually essay a few halting elegiacs of their own. It is also possible to trace a number of different redactions of Cephalas during this period. But after about 950 interest in the epigram seems to wane, until it was revived again, definitively, by Planudes' Anthology of 1299. Planudes himself could not find a complete Cephalas. The only even nearly complete copy to have come down to us is AP, significantly dating from ca. 940.
Such a short-lived vogue might seem surprising in a society not conspicuous for rapid changes of literary fashion. But perhaps it is less the popularity of Cephalas' book we are faced with than his influence as a teacher (both he and Gregory lectured on epigrams, as we know from C and J). Less a Zeitgeist than a temporary feature of the school curriculum.
XI. BYZANTINE ARCHAEOLOGY
The Excavation of Anemurium (Isauria): A Case Study of a Small City of the Early Byzantine Period
James Russell, University of British Columbia
Since 1966 excavations have been conducted by Canadian teams at Anemurium, an ancient city of Rough Cilicia (later Isauria), situated on Cape Anamur, the southernmost point of Asia Minor. The field of ruins is extensive but the most striking features are the various substantial public buildings that cluster at the south end of the site and the several hundred tombs of the necropolis. Most of these structures belong to the city's most flourishing period from the first to the mid-third century after Christ. Although the work thus far has concentrated on the Roman buildings, the excavations, especially in recent seasons, have also shed considerable light on the character and fortunes of the community in the following centuries, so that Anemurium may now usefully serve as a case study of a typical small city of the Byzantine Empire in the period before the Arab invasions.
In the almost total absence of literary texts, the history of the city in late antiquity is based on the archaeological, numismatic and epigraphic evidence so far discovered and analysed. This material covers a period of four centuries from the city's capture by the Persians ca. A.D. 260 after the battle of Edessa until its virtual eclipse ca. A.D. 660, presumably as a result of Arab harassment of the coast of Asia Minor. Although the city's fortunes during these centuries can be stated only in broad terms, three distinct periods may be identified. a) A long period of uncertainty that continued into the early fifth century. For some time during the latter part of this period, as epigraphic and numismatic evidence makes clear, the city was garrisoned with imperial troops, doubtless to protect it from the Isaurians. b) A period of stability in the later fifth and much of the sixth century. This corresponds with the experience of other parts of the Empire and gave to Anemurium the physical appearance of a small Byzantine city with its several churches and bath complexes, each competently adorned with marble revetment and mosaic floors. These contrast with the coarser construction of the houses and the commercial enterprises, many of them still housed within the derelict shells of the Roman buildings. Inscriptions give us some indication of a continuing tradition of benefactions within the city in this period. c) A final period of decline during the seventh century when the city contracts in size and prosperity, though still retaining wide trading connections right up to the end. The discovery of two hoards, one of lamps and another of coins, however, is symptomatic of increasing danger.
A selective account of the physical appearance of the Byzantine city, with special emphasis on the excavated buildings (two churches, two baths, private homes and industrial facilities), their masonry and mosaic decoration, will reinforce the general impression of modest prosperity that prevailed especially in the fifth and sixth centuries. Worthy of special note in this period is the necropolis church whose plan poses some interesting problems. The same church has also produced a mosaic floor depicting the Peaceful Kingdom of Isaiah, together with appropriate text (Is. 11.6).
A partial reconstruction of the economic and social life of the city may also be attempted based on the considerable quantity of late Roman pottery, both fine and coarse wares, approximately 1,000 late Roman and early Byzantine coins, and the considerable variety of other small finds discovered in the course of excavation. These include objects of glass, metal, and terracotta to illustrate aspects of dress, commerce, industry, agriculture and entertainment.
The Excavation of a Sixth-Century Administrative Structure at Caesarea Maritima Robert J. Bull, Drew University
The chance uncovering of a tesselated surface containing an inscription from Romans 13:3 on the seacoast south of the Crusader Fortress at Caesarea Maritima led to subsequent stratigraphic excavation of the remains of several Byzantine structures in that location. The excavation was undertaken by The Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima with the support of The American Schools of Oriental Research.
Under duned sand and a Crusader cemetery, a heavy destruction layer was found lying directly over the remains of an eight room building. Within that layer were vast quantities of pottery from the late 6th and early 7th century A.D. This and other evidence allowed the excavators tentatively to date the destruction of the building to the Omayyad conquest of the city in 639/640 A.D. The 18.35m. wide by 15m. long eight room structure was oriented to the east and was entered through two doorways from a tesselated portico. Within the structure a 5m. wide central hall ran east and west in the center of the building and three rooms were found on either side of the hall. A seventh room extended across the western end of the central hall. All of the rooms of the building had tesselated floors and six floors had inscriptions incorporated within them. One inscription in the floor of the room at the western end of the hall identified the structure as a skrinion. The same inscription indicated that a certain Ampelios was a chartoularios and a certain Mouswnios a nomerarios. This inscription among others plus some six seals found in one room serve to identify the structure as an administrative building.
The structure is located on a north south street where regularly spaced column bases and fallen columns have been found. These plus a late Corinthian capital permits a tentative reconstruction of the hexastyle facade of the building. Beneath the tesselated floors of the building are three, and in some cases four, earlier tesselated floors. The occupation debris and foundation make-up of these floors have not as yet been examined completely but tentative examination of that material suggests that the building was in use during the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries until its destruction in the early 7th century. The relationship of the building to a large contiguous 5th and 6th century apsidal structure will be examined.
Byzantine Coins from Caesarea Maritima: The Campaigns of 1975 and 1976
Robert L. Hohlfelder, University of Colorado
The first phase of the excavations at Caesarea, the Roman and early Byzantine capital of Palestine, consisted of six seasons of explorations (1971- 1976) conducted by the Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima under the direction of Professor Robert J. Bull of Drew University. During the course of these six campaigns, several thousand coins were uncovered in all zones of excavation. Of this total number, approximately 400 coins were discovered during the field work of 1975 and 1976.1 With the exception of a badly worn Seleucid tetradrachm, an antoninianus, and two Crusader issues, all coins uncovered were either copper or bronze. No hoards or significant deposits came to light in either season. While only the finds for these two campaigns have been studied in detail, a preliminary examination of all other numismatic material suggests that they are representative of the entire body of coins uncovered to date.
All periods of Caesarea's history from its foundation in 13 B.C. to its final destruction in A.D. 1291 are represented in the coin finds of 1975 and 1976. The greatest concentration of legible and illegible coins dates from the early Byzantine period to the capture of the city by the Arabs in A.D. 640.2 While any observations regarding the coins found at Caesarea can only be tentative and speculative at this time, it is interesting to note that:
1. Antiochene folles of Maurice seem to be the dominant Byzantine series. Conversely, there does not appear to be an unusually large concentration of folles struck by Justin II at Nicomedia or Constantinople. This latter distribution phenomenon was first noted by A. R. Bellinger in his comments on the coins found at Gerasa and has been confirmed by other site finds from this region.3
2. No folles of Justinian issued after the reform of A.D. 539 were uncovered, although issues prior to this date were fairly common. Although the reasons for the conspicuous scarcity of post-reform issues in site finds of this region are disputed, this pattern has been noted elsewhere.4
3. A large number of 12 nummi pieces from the Alexandrian mint, along with 6 nummi and 3 nummi fractional coins of the same series, appeared in the finds.
4. A few countermarked folles of Heraclius, some bearing three countermarks, were found.
5. Several folles were discovered which feature engraving errors that suggest possible Persian or Arabic imitations of Byzantine issues.
Although the study of the Caesarea excavation coins has just begun, it does not seem incautious to suggest that the archaeological investigations at this site will ultimately produce one of the largest bodies of early Byzantine coins uncovered anywhere and that the historical and numismatic importance of these coin finds will be considerable.5
1 A total number of coin finds either for a particular season or for all the campaigns is not yet available owing to the preliminary state of study of the numismatic material. Moreover, any total proffered will represent only an estimate. The meticulous sifting of all archaeological fill through a four centimeter screen has produced an extraordinarily large number of tiny coin fragments which defies easy assessment and quantification.
2 Many of the coins from the early Byzantine period are minimi in a deplorable state of preservation. Several of these illegible pieces have been pierced in the middle, perhaps to permit storage or transport on a cord or thong.
3 Alfred R. Bellinger, Coins from Jerash, 1928-1934, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, Vol. 81 (New York, 1938) p. 13 and Philip Grierson, "The Monetary Reforms of Anastasius and Their Economic Consequences," International Numismatic Convention Jerusalem, 27-31 December 1963 (Tel Aviv, 1967) p. 296, especially n. 41.
4 cf. Grierson (supra n. 3) p. 296 and D. M. Metcalf, "The Metrology of Justinian's Follis," NC6 20 (1960) p. 216.
5 Since publication of the Caesarea coin finds is not imminent, scholars working on questions which might benefit from specific data from these site finds are encouraged to write directly to me (Department of History, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309).
Archaeology and Sigillography
John W. Nesbitt, University of Kentucky
Focusing on an interdisciplinary approach to archaeology, our panel allows a rare opportunity to consider areas where archaeology and sigillography stand to benefit from a pooling of information and expertise. A major area where sigillographers and archaeologists share a common interest is with regard to seal finds and their date. For the sigillographer seals which are found in a securely dated context can be of significance. They may aid in refining criteria by which seals are dated. A good case in point is a seal from Caesarea Maritima. It reflects on the appearance of family names for judging the date of early Byzantine lead seals. The sigillographer offers to the archaeologist a fund of knowledge which can serve to assist in dating a site or level from seal finds. In this regard, it is worthwhile to note that it is not uncommon for seals to be handed over to numismatists for purposes of reading and dating. In the past, such procedures were necessitated by the fact that few scholars, particularly in the United States, had any familiarity with Byzantine seals. Needless to say, numismatics and sigillography have little in common and, judging by reports of seal finds, the forced marriage of the two has not had, on occasion, happy results. Consequently, the archaeologist who is not familiar with recent project developments at Dumbarton Oaks may find of interest that institution's intention to catalogue and publish its collection of 17,000 lead seals. The Dumbarton Oaks seal project presents the archaeologist with an opportunity to consult with specialists concerning their seal finds and arrive at perhaps more accurate conclusions concerning the date, reading and possible significance of their finds.
A New Grave at Stobi: Its Archaeological Implications
Ruth E. Kolarik, St. Louis, Missouri (with James R. Wiseman, Boston University)
The Episcopal Basilica at Stobi is currently being excavated by a Yugoslav-American team. The work is sponsored by Boston University and the National Museum of Titov Veles and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The Basilica is noted for the quantity and quality of its preserved architectural sculpture, frescoes, and mosaics, as well as its unusual plan. Comparable in scale to the Basilicas of the Virgin Acheiropoietos and St. Demetrius in Thessalonica and Basilicas A and C at Nea Anchialos, it is the only monument of a related group of fifth century basilicas which has a date provided by archaeological evidence. Therefore, the current excavations assume importance not only for the understanding of the complex phasing of the Stobi Basilica itself, but for the implications of its mid fifth century date for the tangled chronological problems of contemporary monuments, especially those from nearby Thessalonica.
The methodology of the excavations illustrates the importance of careful stratigraphic excavation and traditional artifact analysis for the understanding of architecture, but also reveals the usefulness for Byzantine archaeology of scientific techniques: the chemical analysis and radiocarbon dating of mortars, petrographic and thin section analysis of marble and geological surveys.
During the excavations in the Episcopal Basilica during the summer of 1977, an intact grave was discovered in the south aisle of the Basilica. The grave, sealed by a re-used classical inscription, contained the remains of a man who had been buried in a coarse tunic and leather shoes. A rectangular structure, raised above the level of the mosaic floor, marked the location of the grave which was a vaulted chamber lined with huge sandstone blocks. By careful analysis of the relationship of the grave to the stratigraphy, floors, and building phases of the Basilica it is possible to determine that the grave was added together with the last decorative phase in the late fifth or early sixth century. The history of the Basilica, established by archaeological evidence, illustrates a changing relationship between church and grave during the fifth and sixth centuries. No graves were located in the original basilica except for the grave or relic placed in the crypt. When the church was rebuilt in the third quarter of the fifth century a vaulted grave was built into the south terrace wall, just outside the church proper. Finally in the late fifth or early sixth century, the newly excavated grave of some obviously eminent churchman was set in a place of honor in the east end of the south aisle.
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