in striking accord with the information already
derived from history. For we have seen (p. 89) that after the
destruction of the original Constantinian church by fire in the Nika
Riot, Justinian the Great erected a new sanctuary upon the old
foundations; that later in his reign another fire occurred which
necessitated the reconstruction of the narthex of that sanctuary; and
that some two centuries later, towards the close of the reign of Leo the
Isaurian, the church was shaken by one of the most violent earthquakes
known in Constantinople, and subsequently restored probably by that
emperor or by his son and successor Constantine Copronymus. Accordingly,
leaving minor changes out of account, it is safe to suggest that the
walls of the body of the church, up to the springing of the aisle
vaults, belong to the new church built by Justinian after the Nika Riot
in 532; while the narthex, the aisle vaults immediately adjoining it,
and the upper portion of the western end of the south wall, represent
the repairs made probably by the same emperor after the injuries to the
fabric caused by the fire of 564. The earthquake of 740 must therefore
have shaken down or rendered unstable all the upper part of the
building, but left standing the narthex, the gallery above it, and the
lower part of the walls of the church. Consequently, the upper part of
the building, the apse, the dome-arches, the dome-vault, and the dome
with its drum, belong to the reconstruction of the church after that
earthquake.

The buttresses to the apse where it joins the main eastern wall are
later additions, and still later, but before Turkish times, are the
short walls at the north and south-eastern corners forming the small
eastern chambers.

Of the building erected by Constantine the Great the only possible
vestige is the square projection at the north-eastern angle of the apse,
but that is an opinion upon which much stress should not be laid.

In harmony with these conclusions is the evidence afforded by the
mosaics found in the church. Those of the narthex are of the same
character as the mosaics in S. Sophia, Constantinople, and may well have
been executed under Justinian. On the other hand, the mosaics in the
apse are characteristic of the iconoclastic period, the chief decoration
there being a simple cross. For, as Finlay[143] has remarked, Leo the
Isaurian 'placed the cross on the reverse of many of his gold, silver,
and copper coins, and over the