Solomon, I Have Outdone Thee

The Nika Riots leave Constantinople a tabula rasa for Justinian's masterpiece cathedral, the Hagia Sophia. Although, not without petty rivalries, starchitects and a shrewd, Hebrew king's influence along the way. 

Transcript

T&J Episode 8
Solomon, I Have Outdone Thee 

Content Warning:

A head’s up. Old habits die hard and while many call it Hagia Sophia, I couldn’t shake my lifelong tendency of saying The Hagia Sophia and opted not to fight it while writing and recording this episode.  

Now, a quick content warning: there is swearing, but otherwise this episode is pretty tame. And if you enjoy it, please consider supporting the show by becoming a T&J patreon member or Apple podcast subscriber. All you have to do is go to patreon.com/tandjpodcast or just subscribe on Apple podcasts. Then, you’ll get access to amazing bonus material in the form of video as well as audio interviews with experts. For example, next episode is subscriber-only and is dedicated entirely to … Byzantine Cuisine! Yes, breakfast, wine, forks, sauce, breath fresheners, you name it. So, don’t miss out! Subscribe today.  

But most importantly and most of all, thank you so much for being here. Because I see you: downloading T&J from all over the world — Somalia, French Polynesia, Réunion, Lebanon, Trinidad and Tobago. Keep it up. Spread the word. And enjoy the show.  

Intro 

I once had an architect boyfriend. 

And during a walk one autumn day along Manhattan’s Upper East Side, this architect boyfriend shared with me something he had read. A theory – and boy, do I love a theory – which held that the very tallest buildings tell you what a society values most.

In effect, gaze at any skyline, at any time … and a people’s priorities will reveal themselves. 

Ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica had their pyramids; Mesopotamia, their ziggurats. These were funerary mounds and temples for their rulers and for their gods and very often, for their ruler-gods. 

Modernity was pretty much an aberration. That the tallest buildings could sometimes be houses of parliament or even halls of justice was as republican as it was radical. Even if the very tallest most often housed offices and were these monolithic centers of white collar, capitalist economic life. 

But on this walk, my then-architect boyfriend and I could clearly see, spelled out for us in the obtrusive, needle-point, luxury condos sprouting up along Central Park South, the answer to what we as a society appeared to value most: 

Our billionaires.

According to Byzantine scholar, Judith Herrin:

'Where and how Justinian acquired his passion for building remains unclear.

And yet, the Hagia Sophia — as constructed by the J or our T&J, with, of course, the advice and support of the T — ushered in a whole new skyline outline. 

One in which churches, or rather, cathedrals, were to be the tallest buildings on any proverbial postcard, or refrigerator magnet, for well over a thousand years. 

As I touched on in my ‘Gothic as a Modifier’ episode, the Hagia Sophia was the Romanesque — or Byzantine-style’s — most iconic structure. 

And yet, what is all-too-often overlooked, is its primary reference point, which was rooted in the First Temple in Jerusalem and Jewish tradition. Although not necessarily in the way one might think. 

Requiring just under six years to build, the Hagia Sophia rose up, like a motherfucking phoenix, from the ashes of the Nika Riots. But Justinian’s prized, and very pricey, cathedral did not appear out of nowhere. So what was it that drove Justinian to pursue such an ambitious project in the first place? And what exactly are the qualities that make the Hagia Sophia, to this very day, just so damn extraordinary?  

I’m Christine Laskowski and this is T&J, a limited series podcast devoted to sixth century Byzantium and the greatest recorded love story on earth – that between Empress Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian. This is episode 8: ‘Solomon, I Have Outdone Thee.’  

Part I. The Quietest Rivalry 

Anicia Juliana was absolutely as rich and blue blooded as they came back in T&J era Constantinople. 

It didn’t matter that her dad, Olybrius, had ruled for just eight months in 472 as Western Roman Emperor. It also didn’t matter that Anicia Juliana’s dad had never even been recognized by his Eastern counterpart, Emperor Leo, over there in Constantinople … 

And if you’re like, ‘Hold on a second. There were two emperors?’

Historically speaking, a co-emperor was not necessarily a novel thing for a Roman emperor to have. Marcus Aurelius had one. Caracalla had one …   

However, from 286 AD, or rather, from Emperor Diocletian onward, the Roman Empire was divided along an east-west axis, with each half ruled by their own emperors. More-or-less. 

But like a hare with undiagnosed ADHD in a high-stakes tortoise race, that western Roman half started to lag seriously behind. The Vatican-based papacy was gaining influence; the Roman senate in Rome was historically weak, and the barbarians, we know, were sacking and encroaching.

So, in 476 AD, when a rogue Roman warlord named Odavacer seized control of the government in Italy by forcing the Western Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus to abdicate and no new guy was ever reinstated because Italy had been gifted to the Goths to manage …   

One begins to understand why some erroneously point to 476 as the moment when the Roman Empire fell. But of course, only, if one chooses to ignore the entirety of the Roman Empire in the east.

What the year 476 actually signifies is the end of the western Empire and western Roman emperors altogether. 

Which brings us back to Anicia Juliana in Constantinople. 

Sure, her dad had been a very temporary western emperor during the twilight years of its still being a thing. But more than that, Anicia Juliana was an Anicii. Spelled A-N-I-C-I-I. 

We are talking about a family, whose name had meant something at least as far back as the third century AD.  |

Here’s renowned Roman historian, Edward Gibbon: 

From the reign of Diocletian to the final extinction of the Western empire, the Anicii name shone with a luster which was not eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty of the Imperial purple … and in each generation the number of consulships was multiplied by a hereditary claim. The Anicii family excelled in faith and in riches: they were the first of the Roman senate who embraced Christianity … [and] the marbles of the Anician palace were used as a proverbial expression of opulence and splendor. The nobles and senators of Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that illustrious family. 

But that illustrious Anicii family, by the T&J era, was connected, by blood, to … gasp! a barbarian king. 

That’s right. Aristocratic Juliana and the Vandal King Hilderic, who we learned about Barbarian Makeover Pt. 2, were first cousins. They shared a biological western emperor grandfather in Valentinian the Third.

Meaning, even a Barbarian king over there in Carthage had more noble Roman blood coursing through his Vandal veins than our own T&J.

Which in Juliana’s eyes, was nothing short of an outrage.

As you may recall, Uncle Justin became Emperor Justin through some bribey, backstabbey, Byzantine maneuvering on the night Emperor Anastasius died suddenly in 518 AD. 

From where Juliana was standing, there had been absolutely no reason for this. Like, what about her own son, Olybrius Jr.? Or her husband, the General Aerobindus, who rioters had tried to crown once before? And if not one of them, there was Hypatius, Emperor Anastasius’ nephew, who was Juliana’s relative by marriage. I mean, so what if he was stuck on assignment in Antioch? 

There had been options. Better options. 

But no. Juliana’s ambition to have a family member, or, hell, anyone with any pedigree at all,  … by an elderly Thracian hick, who, you’ll recall Procopius described in the Secret History as having: 

Procopius: Never learned to tell one letter from another, and was, as the familiar phrase has it, ‘without the alphabet…’ [a thing which had never happened before among the Romans].

And, of course, there was his bigshot Thracian hick nephew a.k.a.:   

Procopius: The Lord of Demons.

Being groomed to take over.

Now, the Nika Riots, as we explored last episode, were partly a consequence of these early 6th century tensions imploding. That is, the tensions between the high society Juliana and even our dear Procopius represented and the outsider, upwardly-mobile Romans epitomized by T&J.

But for something to implode, according to my little brother Andrew — high school physics teacher and Beetist apostate — sufficient pressure from within must build.

A pressure that, in this case, would manifest through a petty and expensive …

ostentatious and years’ long … 

church-building competition.
One that would undoubtedly lay the groundwork for our groundbreaking Hagia Sophia. 

Part II. What the Hell is a Basilica, Anyway?

But first: a few basilica basics. 

A ‘basilica,’ if we go all the way back to pre-Christian Rome, was kind of a catch-all term for a large-roofed, public building. Over time, though, basilicas began to follow a certain form. 

For one thing, basilicas had to be rectangular. They also had to have a long, open hallway, or what’s known as a nave, which was typically lined with columns, or colonnades. At the end of one — or both sides — of the nave was a raised platform. 

As basilicas began to be used for judicial purposes, that raised platform got an upgrade in the form of a semicircular, half-domed protrusion thought to better accommodate a magistrate known as an apse.

By the time Rome’s early Christians were shopping around for a house of worship, they settled on a type of smaller basilica. One with side aisles extending the entire length of the nave and an apse only at one end.

Which is why, when Emperor Constantine enshrined religious tolerance for all Romans in 313 AD with The Edict of Milan … 

Constantine : We gave to Christians and to all people … [a free ability to follow the worship practices that each one wished ...

Constantine commemorated the event by building three Christian basilicas in the city of Rome. Among them, you may have already guessed, was St. Peter’s Basilica.

Although Emperor Constantine’s St. Peter’s was not the same St. Peter’s you’ll find in the Vatican today — for reasons I’ll get to later in the episode — what’s important here is something Constantine added. 

It was a brand new feature that turned his showcase basilicas into … crosses.   

This feature is what’s known as a transept, and it was a lateral aisle that crossed the nave right before the apse. This cross-shaped plan would be the standard church design in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages.  

Even with their cross-ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and rose windows, gothic cathedrals all basically followed Emperor Constantine’s cross, or t-shaped, basilica formula: nave, colonnade, side aisles, transept, and apse.  

A formula that the Hagia Sophia would deviate from as we’ll discover in a bit …  in some very crucial ways.  

Part III. Procopius, but in Buildings

It takes a very special sort of person, to look out over the smoldering ashes of their razed capital, the product of a revolt that not only sought to end their reign but also their life, and say: ‘You know what? I can do better.’ And then, actually, do better. 

Because before we get to Justinian’s post-Nika riots masterpiece masterplan, we need to consult our dear Procopius, who, in fact, tells us a great deal about the creation and aesthetics of the Hagia Sophia, albeit through a different book. One that was … not so secret. 

Back in Episode One,  I explained how Procopius had been hired by Justinian to chronicle T&J’s many achievements in two epic, multi-volume works. The first was titled Wars and the second was titled Buildings, which were each published sometime around 553 and 555 AD, respectively. 

The Secret History, which is this podcast’s primary reference, was likely written in or around 550. And in it, Procopius had this to say about Justinian’s … methods.  

Procopius: As for seizing property and murdering men, he never got his fill of them, but after plundering numerous homes of affluent men, he kept seeking new ones, straightaway pouring out the proceeds of his earlier robbery in making presents to sundry barbarians or in erecting senseless buildings.

This episode is all about those senseless buildings, so it makes sense to explore his official history, or encomium, on the subject. Even if Buildings, the book, is objectively the least exciting of Procopius’ three works.

Have you ever have a job where there was a task or an aspect of it where you were like, ‘Yeah, I’m not learning how to do that.’ 

Well, that was clearly Procopius’ attitude with respect to accuracy and structural jargon. 

Even the translator of the 1940 edition I’m drawing from, will, at times, have to jump in with footnotes to say things like:

H.B. Dewing: Procopius’ account is not entirely clear, either because he did not understand what had happened, or because he was unable to describe the processes in technical language, or possibly because he wished to avoid a complicated technical description.

Ouch. But what was the most surprising to me, Procopius’ insouciance aside, was the enormous amount of focus Buildings places on infrastructure. 

Earlier in the series, I mentioned how the grain for all of Rome’s free bread shipped out from Alexandria in Egypt. 

And how Justinian had constructed these grain silos in this strait known as the Dardanelles so that it could be safely stored. If the winds were no good.  | Lullaby
Well, that was just a teeny, tiny  piece, the iceberg’s tip, in fact, of the infrastructure and maintenance work Justinian oversaw when he was emperor. Because it wasn’t just silos; it was entire cities. 

Here’s one example from Procopius in Buildings. 

Procopius: Above all Justinian made Antioch … both fairer and stronger by far than it had been formerly … As for the circuit wall, where the city was dangerously spread out, he changed its course by drawing it inward as much as possible … And the River Orontes, which had flowed past the city [of Antioch] in a winding course, Emperor Justinian thrust over so that it ran in a new bed, hugging the circuit wall … He also built baths and reservoirs on these hills inside the wall. And he dug a cistern in each tower, remedying by means of rainwater the want of water which had previously existed there. 

Now, it’s clear to me when reading Buildings just how much Justinian loved this stuff and concomitantly, just how much Procopius was in it for the paycheck. Which likely explains his ample use of writing flourishes in Buildings you don’t really see in his other works. To wrap. Things. Up. 

Procopius: It will suffice us to have said this much. 
Procopius: In such a way was the work carried out by this Emperor.
Procopius: This, then, was done as I have said. 
But the one I adore the most, and the most common by far, is the phrase:

Andrew Dalby (Pronunciation in Greek)

Translation: ‘So much, then, for this.’ 

Part IV. St. Polyeuctus 

In the heart of Constantinople was the regal, Anicia Juliana’s lavish home. 

And it was on her estate, no doubt replete with courtyards and fountains that Juliana — then in her mid-60s — finally finished the church that her great-grandma, the Eastern Empress Eudocia, had first built. 

And not a moment too soon. 

This prestige project on her property was called St. Polyeuctus Church, and it was to be the monument to her family’s prominence and royal heritage. 

Now, St. Polyeuctus, the man, was — and continues to be — an obscure saint. Nevertheless, the original St. Polyeuctus church had been built to house the relic of the martyred saint’s skull. 

But once Juliana’s numerous male relatives had been robbed of their rightful place on the Roman throne in 518 AD, Anicia Juliana became determined to use her new St. Polyeuctus to prove a point. 

That it was on Anicii grounds, and not the emperor’s, where true imperial class and power lay. 

Juliana unveiled her new St. Polyeuctus, sometime on or before 527 AD, and when she did, the church was more ornate and lavish and positively screaming largess than had ever been seen in the city prior.

We’re talking ivory and mother of pearl detailing, mosaics and marble columns with geometric patterns inlaid with amethyst and green glass. It was covered with naturalistic palm and grape vine designs showcasing skilled craftsmanship with these delicate, raised veins in the leaves. Rather than angels or cherubim motifs, as was customary, Juliana, who apparently dug the Persian style, and was like, ‘I want peacocks.’ And there were so, so many peacocks. There was also gold.

And if a T&J-era Frankish historian named Gregory of Tours is to be believed, then the entire ceiling of St. Polyeuctus was covered in it.

Now, this is not the last we’re going to hear from Gregory of Tours spelled T-O-U-R-S. But for now, what I want to focus on is what these design elements of St. Polyeuctus were referencing. What even the dimensions of the church itself were referencing. And how we came to know it. 

As it happens, no ego-driven Constantinopolitan church of the T&J era could seriously call itself complete without what is known as an epigram. 

And an epigram, by definition, is a witty and insightful statement written on objects that is also … short. 

Juliana’s epigram for St. Polyeuctus, however, was not short. It was really, really long.  

And we know this because Juliana’s epigram for St. Polyeuctus had been recorded, in Greek, inside of a tenth century manuscript. And for nearly a millennia, that was all we had. 

Until 1960, when construction workers building an overpass in Istanbul unearthed the foundations of a mysterious, late antique church. One that, it turned out, had lots of these richly carved blocks with inscriptions on them. Which is how, amidst the grape clusters and peacock feathers …  

Anicia Juliana: ‘Even you do not know how many houses dedicated to God your hand has made.’ 

The inscriptions were found to be an identical match … 

Anicia Juliana: ‘For you alone, I think, have built innumerable temples throughout the whole earth …’ 

to sections of Juliana’s epigram recorded in that tenth century manuscript! 

And thanks to one pivotal proclamation, Juliana’s epigram holds another key. 

Anicia Juliana: ‘She alone has overpowered time and surpassed the wisdom of the celebrated Solomon …’ 

Before we explore the foundation that Solomon first laid, we’re going to take a short break. What you’ll hear next is a 1920 recording of a Yiddish comic song performed by Jacob Jacobs titled ‘War Tax.’  

Instrumental Break
War Tax  – Jacob Jacobs (1920)  | War Tax 

Part V. The Temple of Solomon

King Solomon, son of David, had a reputation. He was shrewd. He was a successful military leader. He was also a builder. One who gave his people, the Israelites, their very first great house: the First Temple of Jerusalem. 

Erected in 957 BC to properly store the original Ten Commandments, Solomon’s Temple was not only a very important place of worship, but symbolically, it was a living monument to the greater Jewish family and to their unique — at least at the time — monotheistic faith.   

Which is why it was so devastating when the King of the Babylonians, Nebuchadrezzar II, completely destroyed it in 587 BC.

Now, there would be a Second Temple erected much later on — because if ever there was a theme for this episode it’s that, in antiquity, there was oh-so-often a 2.0 — and the Second Temple of Jerusalem would go on to meet a similar fate. 

This time, at the hands of the Romans. Who then looted the temple treasure inside and took it back with them to Rome. This horde included a massive silver candelabra known as the Temple Menorah, whose eventual whereabouts I’ll get to momentarily.

But going back to the First Temple, that is, Solomon's Temple. This is where, it is widely believed, our dear, blue-blooded Juliana got her blueprint for St. Polyeuctus from. Because some of the dimensions and decoration for the First Temple of Jerusalem are actually noted in the Old Testament, like here, in Second Chronicles: 

2 Chronicles: Now these are the foundations, which Solomon laid, to build the house of God, the length by the first measure sixty cubits, the breadth twenty cubits. And the porch in the front, which was extended in length according to the measure of the breadth of the house, twenty cubits. And the height was a hundred and twenty cubits. And he overlaid it within with pure gold. 

St. Polyeuctus had a gold ceiling because the First Temple had a gold ceiling. If Solomon’s throne was sheltered by a vine, well, Juliana’s entire church would be covered in them. Even the deep foundations of St. Polyeuctus appear to support a structure that was noticeably elevated. Just like Solomon’s.

Juliana would live just long enough to see her St. Polyeuctus completed and hailed as the largest and most beautiful church the city of Constantinople had ever seen. Because Juliana would die soon after its unveiling, in 527, at the ripe old age of 65. RIP. She would never even know about the Nika Riots, let alone Justinian’s Hagia Sophia, which was all probably for the best. 

Intriguingly, however, the Hagia Sophia would have been under construction during a fascinating overlap of interests for both Justinian and the empire’s Jewish population.

If you’ll recall at the end of Barbarian Makeover Part 2, the General Belisarius’ historic triumph through the streets of Constantinople in 533 involved showing off all of that sweet, sweet Vandal loot.

And included in that Vandal loot was a lot of other people’s loot they’d acquired by sacking capitals, like Rome, which, according to Procopius in Wars, included:

Procopius: The treasures of the Jews, which Titus … had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem.

Who was Titus, you ask?

Titus, back in 71 AD, was the Emperor who had taken the Second Temple treasure from Jerusalem to Rome. Then, about 400 years later, when the Vandal King Gaiseric sacked Rome, he had taken that treasure with him back to Carthage; along with some of Juliana’s illustrious female ancestors … which is how she ended up with a Vandal king for a cousin.

Thanks to Belisarius’ successful siege of the Vandal capital, that Temple treasure had now reached Constantinople, where … it would not remain for very long. It also probably no longer included the famed Temple Menorah. But just the same, the news of its presence electrified the Jewish community there.

In what strikes me as a brilliant ploy to get the Temple treasure back to Jerusalem, Constantinople’s Jewish leaders were like, ‘Hey, Justinian, are you sure you want to keep it here? I mean, every city that’s held onto it has been captured.’

And Justinian was apparently like, ‘Good, god, man. You’re right!’ and ships it off to Jerusalem ASAP. Only, he places the items inside … churches. Where they remain until the year 618, when prophecy, or in this case, the Persians, come a ‘knocking, and loot them, too.

One important note about the reality of being Jewish in Justinian’s orthodox Christian republic is that while they didn't have it as badly as some, like the Samaritans, Jews were still seen as religious heretics. Legally-speaking, they were treated as second-class citizens, who, according to historian Robert Browning: 

'Justinian regarded as a feature, albeit a regrettable one, of the divine dispensation.'

While it’s unclear if this referencing, or competing, with the sagely Jewish King Solomon was en vogue for the elite in Constantinople at the time. Or simply a flourish of Juliana’s that Justinian felt the need to keep up with … 

What we do know to be true is that while Constantinople, the city, was often thought of as the ‘New Rome,’ another moniker had been gaining popularity, starting around the fifth century. 

One whose pop culture lineage continues to this very day. You see, long before singer Lauryn Hill would use it in her 1998 classic ‘Every Ghetto, Every City’ to pay homage to Newark, New Jersey, Constantinople was actually the very first ‘New Jerusalem.’

Every ghetto, every city
And suburban place I been
Make me recall my days in
The New Jerusalem

One in need of its own Solomon and its own temple.

Part VI. Justinian’s Practice Churches

I believe that if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then rivalry is the sincerest form of fuckery. 

And Justinian, he did not waste any time fucking around with snooty, blue blooded Juliana Anicia and her spectacular, over-the-top St. Polyeuctus. In what would amount to practice churches … in the lead up to his big, Hagia Sophia finale. 

Here’s historian Brian Croke:

'Once he occupied the Hormisdas palace in 518, Justinian lost no time in maximizing the opportunity to build a memorable and significant church on his new property.'

For Justinian’s first church, a basilica he named Saints Peter and Paul, Justinian called on a higher power. Not God, but close.

Utilizing his country bumpkin Latin…

Palace Scribe: Oh my God. His Latin is so embarrassing!

Justinian penned a letter to the pope. And was like, ‘Pope Hormisdas, listen. I’m going to be the next emperor, and I’m gonna need some relics for my new church. How about whatever you can spare of Peter and Paul and maybe also throw in some of St. Laurence while you’re at it.’ 

And Pope Hormisdas was like, ‘Sure. You’ll have ‘em by the end of the year.’ 

Relics, though, they weren’t going to out-spectacular Juliana’s St. Polyeuctus. So once T&J became emperor and empress, Justinian began work on his second basilica, called the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus — I mean, why name a church after just one saint when you can name it after two? Which is when Justinian and Theodora decided to get out of the relics game altogether and focus on a different approach.

Now, regarding exactly how much influence Theodora had on these and subsequent building projects, like the Hagia Sophia, there are … receipts.  Justinian always made a point of crediting her. Her monogram appears not only on the capitals of the Hagia Sophia, but those in churches all across the empire.  |

And there you have it, Justinian is one of the earliest, most high-profile examples of earnest, spousal credit sharing … from a man. 

But back to the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. 

Unlike Juliana, T&J themselves had no noble background to tout on the epigram of their new church. But rather than let that get them down, they were like, fuck it, and just made up their own epithets. Things like ‘sleepless sovereign’ for Justinian and ‘god-crowned’ for Theodora. Labels which would later become standardized Byzantine imperial titulature.

But there is no mention of Solomon. Or outdoing him. At least, not yet. 

No, Saints Sergius and Bacchus church would redefine Byzantine history in another way.

You see, before Justinian, ecclesiastical architecture in Constantinople had been defined by traditional timber-roofed basilicas. St. Polyeuctus, it’s widely believed, followed this convention, as did Justinian’s Saints Peter and Paul.

But Saints Sergius and Bacchus, which you can still visit today, did not have a traditional timber-roofed basilica. 

It had a dome. 

Justinian did not invent the dome. But he and his builders did reinvent how the dome could be implemented in a church, and Saints Sergius and Bacchus was his first go at it; translating the concrete of the second century Roman Pantheon’s dome into sixth century Byzantine brick. 

Domes, though, they could be tricky.   

Something we’ll learn about more as we dive into the creation of the Hagia Sophia itself, after another brief ear cleanse. Coming up is a 1920 recording of soprano Lily Pons performing the ‘Bell Song’ from the opera, Lakmé.  

Instrumental Break
Lakmé-Où Va La Jeune Indoue (Bell Song) (Act 2) –  Lily Pons (1920)

Part VII. Career-grooming entrenchment and Ur-architects 

‘Star-chitect’ was a term I first heard back in the mid-2010s … straight from the Australian lips of my then-architect boyfriend. And I recall it having something to do with the architect Peter Marino, who, unmistakably clad in tight, black leather just so happened to be dining a couple tables over from us, during brunch in the West Village one Sunday. It must be said my then-architect boyfriend refutes the possibility that ‘star-chitect’ and ‘Peter Marino’ were ever in the same conversation.

Let me put it this way. If you, dear listener, are not an architect, but can name one: Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas … Then, they are most definitely a starchitect. 

But capital A architecture — as we know it today, and from which this clever portmanteau is made — did not exist in the 6th century. While builders, masons, mathematicians, and engineers were doing a lot of that work, architecture, as its own distinct discipline, did not emerge until the Renaissance. 

But if one were to apply the word architect, or hell, even starchitect, to anyone in late antiquity, I think there’s a strong case to be made for the two men credited with building the Hagia Sophia: Isodorus the Younger and Anthemius of Tralles. 

Now, there isn’t a ton on record about Isodorus the Younger other than he was Milesian, or from the central Turkish city of Miletus.

And that’s because it’s pretty clear that Isodorus was basically the Sonny to Anthemius’ Cher.

You know those super obnoxious, high-achieving families where every single one of the children is wildly successful in their own field?

Anthemius of Tralles hailed from one of those.

His brothers Dioscorus and Alexander were gifted physicians. His brother, Olympius, was a talented lawyer. Metrodorus excelled at literary studies. And then, of course, there was Anthemius — mathematician, physicist, starchitect, who, it turns out, could really harbor a grudge. Because it turns out Anthemius of Tralles was as good at designing landmarks as he was at exacting revenge. Nerdy physics revenge. 

You see, Anthemius of Tralles had a neighbor in Constantinople. An orator named Zeno. And under circumstances I think many of us can relate to, Zeno was also … Anthemius’ personal enemy. 

Apparently, Zeno had taken Anthemius to court over some issue or another and Anthemius had lost, and then Anthemius was like, ‘Game on, Zeno. Game fuckin’ on.’

So, as one does, he builds a secret contraption under Zeno’s property that harnesses the power of steam to generate fake earthquakes, which was apparently not terrifying enough. So, Anthemius devises a second system of some kind to annoy Zeno with very loud noises, followed by a third to blind him via a sophisticated configuration of mirrors.

Zeno eventually figures it out and drags the starchitect to the palace, thus bringing the squabble before the emperor. Who was Justinian. Who was like, ‘Thank you. This is by far the  best thing anyone’s brought to me in months.’   

A different T&J era historian, presented the Emperor’s reaction this way:

Agathias: Justinian observed that he was unable to combat the combined power of Zeus the Thunderer and of Poseidon the Maker of Earthquakes.

Sadly, Anthemius would not live to see his Hagia Sophia completed. In fact, he would pass away only two years into the project. But Anthemius’ genius prevailed long after he was gone.  

Part VIII. The Hagia Sophia, Finally 

The original Hagia Sophia, which burned to the ground during the Nika Riots, was destroyed in a matter of days. Construction on the new Hagia Sophia took exactly five years, ten months and four days. Work on the structure, which occurred between the years 532 and 537 AD, was so phenomenally swift, popular legends around it grew that angels must have flown down from heaven to pitch in.   

The experience of the Hagia Sophia from inside was other-wordly. And I believe this because it clearly has the power to turn our dear crankypants historian of record, Procopius of Caeserea, practically into a poet: 

Procopius: Who could recount the beauty of the columns and the stones with which the church is adorned? One might imagine that he had come upon a meadow with its flowers in full bloom. For he would surely marvel at the purple of some, the green tint of others, and at those on which the crimson glows and those from which the white flashes, and again at those which Nature, like some painter, varies with the most contrasting colors.

From the multi-colored marble and the silver adornments, to the way light seems to play differently, the Hagia Sophia was a completely new physical and sensory event. It possessed this almost mystical combination of proportion and magnitude, of harmony and breath-taking splendor.

Design-wise, the Hagia Sophia broke with Emperor Constantine’s basilica conventions. While it had an apse, it did not have a traditional transept. The Hagia Sophia’s plan was not cross-shaped, but rather, more like a big, big box.

With a big, big dome on the top.

But how did one successfully build a circular dome of this scale on top of a square base? No one had ever done it before.

Well, lucky for us, it was an engineering puzzle that our Late Antique starchitect Anthemius of Tralles basically geometried his way out, and his solution was revolutionary.

He built four massive columns at the corners of the square, and on top of those columns, he built four arches; filling the spaces between the arches with masonry to create these 3-D curved, triangular shapes called pendentives.

The dome was then constructed on top of this pendentive cradle. And the dome was special. With a ring of forty windows lining its base. Creating the sensation that the dome itself was hovering.

Procopius: For it seems somehow to float in the air on no firm basis, but to be poised aloft to the peril of those inside it.

Interesting that Procopius should mention peril. Because as I said earlier, domes … could be tricky.

This dome, it turned out, was too shallow, and was unable to withstand the force of an earthquake that would later strike in 559. Rebuilt to a smaller scale, and reinforced from the outside … Dome 2.0 is the very same dome you’ll see when you visit the Hagia Sophia today.

When he first entered the finished building, Justinian reportedly uttered:

Justinian: Solomon, I have outdone thee.

Like Solomon’s Temple and like Juliana’s St. Polyeuctus, Justinian’s Hagia Sophia boasted an entire ceiling covered in gold. But other than that detail, Justinian choices don’t seem all that preoccupied with matching the Hebrew King.   

Because his church, the Hagia Sophia, or the Holy Wisdom, was an innovation. Justinian had actually stretched design past its known limits, and he and everybody knew it.

The Hagia Sophia was the largest building and the grandest building in the entire world at the time.  A title it would hold for over a millennium … bested by St. Peter's Basilica 2.0 in 1615. 

And while she could no longer pester him with private churches, Justinian, it appears, had learned a valuable lesson. He made sure that any potential future rivals, like Juliana, would be unable to build a church, monastery, or house of prayer in Constantinople or elsewhere … ever again. 

That the competition door was closed.  

Conclusion 

I must, before I leave you, revisit the New York days of my then-architect boyfriend to summon one final theory. Of my own. 

You see, like anyone trying to make it in New York in their 20s and 30s without family money or connections to buttress you, my then-architect boyfriend worked. A lot. But he was genuinely passionate and like all architects, he was a total masochist, so it was all fine until around 2017, when I began to notice him really doubting himself … in a bleak, eternal Monday sort of way.

Which is when I had an idea. I would write a letter … to Peter Zumthor.

For the unfamiliar, Peter Zumthor was, and still is, a Swiss architect, who was far-and-away this then-boyfriend’s favorite. 

According to my vision, I would purchase the fanciest stationery, write with my smoothest, inkiest black pen and reference Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ in an impassioned plea. One that I would personally mail to Peter Zumthor’s atelier in Switzerland with the hope that he might lift then-architect boyfriend’s spirits by answering the simple, yet fundamental question: What advice would you give a young architect?

And, dear listeners, not only did I mail this letter, but Peter Zumthor … he answered me. 
Here is then-architect boyfriend reading The Letter.  

Aug Savage:

Monday, 29 May 2017

Dear Christine,
Thank you for your thoughtful words. To the question what advice would you give to a young architect I used to answer: observe carefully, learn by understanding and gradually try to become yourself. Five years ago I changed. Now my advice: Do every building so that your mother would like it.
With best regards to you and Augustine.
Peter
P.S. I think when I was at Pratt, I had a girlfriend who lived at Clinton Avenue.

There is so much that I love about this letter, but the ‘Do every building so that your mother would like it’ philosophy breaks the Hagia Sofia wide open for me. At least conceptually. 

Because the Hagia Sophia is one of the most building-your-mother-would-like … buildings maybe ever.  And its success — it’s longevity — I’d argue, stems from this very quality. 

The Hagia Sophia endures; having far outlasted even the empire that created it. 

So, what did ultimately tear the empire down? That would be a catastrophe that the world, by that point, had never known. And tragically, one we are all too familiar with today. Join me for another T&J podcast two-parter on … the Plague. 

Outro/Wrap

Research, scripting, narration, and editing for this episode were all done by me, Christine Laskowski.

Scoring and musical arrangements for T&J were also written and performed by me in collaboration with the immaculate Jack Butler. The T&J logo was designed by Meredith Montgomery. 

Procopius of Caesarea was voiced by Michael de la Bedoyere, Edward Gibbon by Sean Rameswaram, H.B. Dewing by Sophus Helle. Anicia Juliana was voiced by Avery Trufelman, Agathias by Matt Moore, Second Chronicles by Owen Miles, and Justinian by Oliver Sachgau. 

Special thanks to Augustine Savage, Andrew Dalby and David Parnell. Additional sources for this episode are available in the show notes.

If you liked what you’ve heard, spread the word and leave a nice note in the review section wherever you’re getting your podcasts. Follow and donate on Patreon – that’s patreon.com/tandjpodcast. It’ll really help me keep the show going and give you access to all upcoming T&J episodes in addition to other objectively delectable perks. 

Now, enjoy the outro because I wrote it just for you. 

The Lord is in the Dome
The Devil’s in the details
The Lord is in the dome
The Devil’s in the details
The Lord is in the dome

Gotta have a dome …

Anicia Juliana had a lofty name
A Western Emperor daddy
plus a massive estate
Her precious Polyeuctus
was a golden display
It’s now rubble in a suburb
by the interstate

The Devil’s in the details
The Lord is in the dome
The Devil’s in the details
The Lord is in the dome

Justinian came along not one
to haw and hem
His true competition
the Temple Jerusalem

Anthemius and Isidorus
geometried non-stop
With incentives to pendentive
‘til innovation went pop

This is a tale of audacity
and empire-building tenacity
But first better lace up your Asics
Cuz it’s time for basilica basics

Nave, colonnade, side aisle, transept, apse…

Hagia, Hagia Sophia …