A source for Anicia Juliana’s palace-church
p. 141-142
Texte intégral
1The church of St Polyeuktos in Istanbul was discovered in 19601 and excavated from 1964 to 19692. It had been the palace-church of Anicia Juliana, built in 524-7 on a sumptuous scale, and known chiefly from the long eulogistic poem which adorned its walls and which is preserved in its entirety, thanks to a medieval copyist, as Anthologia Palatina I, 10. In this poem (11. 47-9) it is claimed that Anicia Juliana « by her building had surpassed the wisdom of Solomon ».
2Only the foundations of the church survived, choked with debris fallen from the superstructure, including many superb fragments of ornate marble sculpture. The church, which appears to have been a domed basilica, was an approximate square, with length of 51.45 m. and width of 51.90 m.
3The unit of measurement appears to have been the long or royal cubit, which measured just under 0.52 m in length3. The church was thus a 100-cubit square. The Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem had also been laid out by the long cubit and, moreover, was 100 cubits overall in both length and, including the platform, breadth4. Other dimensions may also correspond.
4Prominent in the carved decoration of St Polyeuktos are palm-trees, capitals in the form of lilies, capitals overlaid with network, pomegranates, and open flowers5. These are all found in the descriptions of the Temple, which thus appear to have been the source6.
5Why would Anicia Juliana have sought to re-create the Temple of Solomon ? The answer lies in a threefold appreciation, of the ancestry and aspirations of Anicia Juliana, of the significance which the Temple would have had to her, and of the historical context.
6Anicia Juliana’s family can be traced back over seven centuries and was throughout this time one of the most illustrious in the Roman Empire7. More recently, in 472, her father, Flavius Anicius Olybrius, became Emperor, and on her mother’s side both her grandparents were directly descended from Theodosius I. Her husband, Areobindus, had briefly been proposed as Emperor in 512 in a religious riot, and their son married Ariadne, daughter of Anastasius I. Anicia Juliana, a highly cultivated princess, whose commissions include the superb illustrated manuscript of Dioscorides now in Vienna, saw Justin I, the illiterate soldier-son of an Illyrian swineherd, succeed to the throne in 518.
7Solomon was the king par excellence, anointed by Zadok the priest, and his Temple, which is specified in exact detail both as to dimensions and as to elaborate and costly ornament, was also a sort of palace-chapel. Anicia Juliana was seeking to demonstrate her royalty and her title to the throne. The language of the poem, with its references to the dynasty, make this clear, as does the sumptuous decoration, including re-iteration of that royal bird, the peacock8. This claim may seem presumptuous, but Anicia Juliana was no ordinary woman, and allusion was a characteristic of the age9.
Notes de bas de page
1 C. Mango, I. Ševčenko, « Remains of the Church of St Polyeuktos at Constantinople », DOP 15 (1961), pp. 243-7 ; cf. also I. Ševčenko, apud J. Lafontaine, « Fouilles et découvertes byzantines à Istanbul de 1952 à 1960 », Byzantion 29-30 (1959-1960), p. 386 (cf. also pp. 358-60).
2 R. M. Harrison, N. Firatli, « Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul », in DOP 19 (1965), pp. 230-6 ; 20 (1966), pp. 222-38 ; 21 (1967), pp. 273-8 ; 22 (1968), pp. 195-203. The final report is in press at Princeton.
3 I owe this suggestion and that of the biblical implications to Mr. M. J. Vickers. I should also like to record my thanks for helpful discussion to my colleague Prof. J. F. Sawyer. For the length of the cubit, see R. B. Y. Scott, ʽWeights and Measures of the Bibleʼ, The Biblical Archaeologist 22, 2 (1959), pp. 22-41.
4 For descriptions of the Temple, see Kings I, 6 and 7, and Chronicles II, 2-5 ; compare the Vision of the Temple by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40-43). Ezekiel (40, verse 5, and 43, verse 13) confirms that the unit was the long cubit, and (41, verses 13-14) gives the dimensions of the Temple as 100 cubits in length externally and (including the flanking courts) 100 cubits in width. For a recent discussion, see Encyclopaedia Judaica 15 (1971), s.v. ʽTempleʼ.
5 See DOP 21 (1967), p. 276 and fig. 13 (palm-trees) ; 21 (1967), p. 276 and fig. 14 (basket-capital with lily-like split-palmettes) ; 22 (1968), p. 198 and fig. 4 (basket-capital with reticulate decoration) ; 20 (1966), p. 227-8, 235, and figs. 4, 5, 30 (pomegranates) ; 20 (1966), p. 228 and fig. 13 (open flowers).
6 E.g., Kings I, 6 and 7.
7 For a recent biographical study, see C. Capizzi, « Anicia Giuliana (462 ca-530 ca). Ricerche sulla sua Famiglia e la sua Vita », Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, n.s. 5 (xv), (1968), pp. 191-226. Although this is a useful survey, it fails in the last analysis : Anicia Juliana was manifestly not ʽCome tutte le donne...ʼ (p. 217).
8 Cf. DOP, 15 (1961), p. 243 and figs. 3, 4 ; 20 (1966), p. 228 and figs. 6, 8, 9 ; 21 (1967), p. 276 and figs. 8, 10. These birds can connote an Empress in Roman imperial iconography. Could they also, with their wings and many eyes, also connote the cherubim of Solomon’s Temple ? Cherubim, whose form is nowhere very explicit, have a royal function too, are zoomorphic, and have wings and many eyes.
9 The substance of this short paper was first communicated at a meeting in Paris of the European Science Foundation’s Byzantine Historical Geography Committee, presided over by Mme H. Ahrweiler, on 16th December 1982.
Auteur
The University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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