d a continuous narthex. They were equal in size and in the richness of
the materials employed in their construction, and together formed one of
the chief ornaments of the palace and the city. There was, however, one
striking difference between them; SS. Sergius and Bacchus was a domical
church, while SS. Peter and Paul was a basilica. Styles of
ecclesiastical architecture destined soon to blend together in the
grandeur and beauty of S. Sophia were here seen converging towards the
point of their union, like two streams about to mingle their waters in a
common tide. A similar combination of these styles occurs at Kalat-Seman
in the church of S. Symeon Stylites, erected towards the end of the
fifth century, where four basilicas forming the arms of a cross are
built on four sides of an octagonal court.[87]

The saints to whom the church was dedicated were brother officers in the
Roman army, who suffered death in the reign of Maximianus,[88] and
Justinian's particular veneration for them was due, it is said, to their
interposition in his behalf at a critical moment in his career. Having
been implicated, along with his uncle, afterwards Justin I., in a plot
against the Emperor Anastasius, he lay under sentence of death for high
treason; but on the eve of his execution, a formidable figure, as some
authorities maintain,[89] or as others affirm, the saints Sergius and
Bacchus, appeared to the sovereign in a vision and commanded him to
spare the conspirators. Thus Justinian lived to reach the throne, and
when the full significance of his preservation from death became clear
in the lustre of the imperial diadem, he made his deliverers the object
of his devout regard. Indeed, in his devotion to them he erected other
sanctuaries to their honour also in other places of the Empire.[90]
Still this church, founded early in his reign, situated beside his
residence while heir-apparent, and at the gates of the Great Palace, and
withal a gem of art, must be considered as Justinian's special
thankoffering for his crown.

With the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus was associated a large
monastery known, after the locality in which it stood, as the monastery
of Hormisdas, [Greek: en tois Hormisdou]. It was richly endowed
by Justinian.[91]

NOTE

There is some obscurity in regard to the church of SS. Peter and Paul.
According to Theophanes,[92] the first church in Constantinople built
in honour of those apostles was built at the