The Chrysotriklinos Seen through De Cerimoniis*

Michael J. Featherstone Whether constructed originally by Justin II or reconstructed by him out of a pre-existing building of Justinians Palace of Hormisdas, the Chrysotriklinos had become by the tenth century the centre of court life as a result of the emperors shifting their residence from the older buildings on the Upper Ter1 race to newer ones closer to sea level. Most probably to be sought near the pavement found in 1983 just above the harbour of the Bukoleon, the Chrysotriklinoss position vis--vis the other buildings of the Lower Terrace can be 2 deduced on the basis of the descriptions in De Cerimoniis. This octagonal hall was the interface between the public parts of the Palace and the private apartments of the emperor, the . In the De Cerimoniis we see the Chrysotriklinos as a throne room, not for grand audiences of state as in the 3 Magnaura with its phantasmagoric throne of Solomon, but for other functions such as the promotion of imperial officials, banquets and, especially, the so-called everyday procession. As we have remarked elsewhere, this latter was apparently the Byzantine survival of the Roman Salutatio Augusti or, more particularly, the Cottidiana Officia, for which imperial officials assembled in the morning and took their places according to rank in proces 1 Many thanks to Cyril Mango for his help with the Chrysotriklinos and to Anuscha Monchizadeh for her great patience in getting the article, and especially the sketch-plan, into the recalcitrant computer. Suda attributes the building to Justin II (Adler 2, 646, 7-8). A disputation between Orthodox and Monophysite bishops was held in 532 in a heptaconch triclinium of the Palace of Hormisdas, cf. Acta Conc. Oec. IV/2, 169,4-6 (cited by C. MANGO, The Church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus Once Again, in: BZ 68 [1975] 386). This palace, where Justinian resided with Theodora, stood between the old Upper Palace and the Monastery of Hormisdas (for whose monks SS Sergius and Bacchus was subsequently built, cf. MANGO, ibid., 385-392). After Justinians succession the Palace of Hormisdas was connected with the Upper Palace, cf. E. BOLOGNESI RECCHI-FRANCESCHINI, Il Gran Palazzo, in: Bizantinistica. Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi. Serie seconda 2 (2000) 236-238 and EADEM/ M. FEATHERSTONE, The Boundaries of the Palace: De Cerimoniis II, 13 (hereafter Boundaries), in: TM 14 (2002) 37-38. For the location see C. MANGO The Palace of the Bukoleon (hereafter Bukoleon), Cahiers archologiques 45, 1997, 45-46 and fig. 5; for the relation to the other buildings see BOLOGNESI/FEATHERSTONE, Boundaries, sketch plan . For a recent ideological interpretation of the various places and modes of the emperor sitting on the throne, see G. DAGRON, Trnes pour un empereur (hereafter Trnes), in: . . . Athens, 2003, 180-203.

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sion on benches in the adjoining halls of the Lausiakos and Ioustinianos, to 4 await possible summons by the emperor. It is surely no coincidence that octagonal halls have been found in positions of articulation between private apartments in other late-Antique palaces: in Constantinople itself, in the (Upper) Palace of the Daphne, in the Lateran palace (later converted into the 5 Baptistery of Constantine), at Gamzigrad and elsewhere. Quite simply, an octagonal space lent itself very well to a system of side chambers and curtains whereby the coming and going of the sovereign from his private apartments and his appearance to his subjects could be invested with the appropriate solemnity. So much by way of introduction. Our purpose in this short paper is not to discuss the origins or significance of the Chrysotriklinos but to give a summary description of it as it appears in De Cerimoniis, taking into account 6 certain details not mentioned in the studies of Beljaev and Ebersolt. The Central Space and the Windows That the Chrysotriklinos consisted of eight vaulted elements () 7 opening onto a central space is clear from De Cerimoniis II, 15. Elsewhere in this same chapter and in II, 1 the element on the Eastern side is more precisely called a a proper apse whereas the other seven sides are al-

Just as in Roman times the senators and high officials were divided according to rank and apparently spread out over several rooms in the so-called vestibulum on the Palatine, see P. ZANKER, Domitians Palace on the Palatine and the Imperial Image, Representations of Empire [Proceedings of the British Academy 114]. Oxford, 2002, 116 and BOLOGNESI/FEATHERSTONE, Boundaries, 40 and n. 19; on the Cottidiana Officia: A. WINTERLING, Aula Caesaris. Studien zur Institutionalisierung des rmischen Kaiserhofes in der Zeit von Augustus bis Commodus. Munich, 1999, 117-118. About the development and use of centrally-planned halls in villas and palaces, see R. KRAUTHEIMER, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (hereafter Architecture). Pelican, 1986, 77. For the relation of the Octagon to other buildings of the Daphne see R. GUILLAND, tudes de topographie de Constantinople Byzantine. Amsterdam, 1969, 499-503 and BOLOGNESI/FEATHERSTONE, Boundaries, 41-42 and sketch plan; for the Lateran, G. B. GIOVENALE, Il Battistero Lateranense (hereafter Battistero). Rome, 1929, fig. 68 (with adjacent buildings since pulled down); for Gamzigrad, M. CANAK MEDIC, Gamzigrad. Belgrade, 1978, 97-114 and fig. 81 (with adjacent hall and corridor). D. F. BELJAEV, Obzor glavnyh castej bolsago dvorca vizantijskih carej [Byzantina 1]. St Petersburg, 1891, 11-45; J. EBERSOLT, Le Grand Palais de Constantinople (hereafter Grand Palais), Paris, 1910, 77-92 and IDEM, Monuments dArchologie Byzantine. Paris, 1934, 22 and Notice 51 (144). 580, 15-18 Bonn.

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ways referred to as or , that is curtains, by which these other 8 side vaults were shut off from the central space. Around the building on a level beneath the dome ran a great cornice upon which could be suspended (or attached?) the platters and large bowls of a silver set from the Karianos at intervals corresponding to what would appear to be windows glazed with alabaster ( [ Lipsiensis] ). Above, in the dome, there were sixteen window vaults ( ) presumably two corresponding to each of the eight sides each 9 large enough to accommodate seven of the smaller bowls of the silver set. Now, the window vaults in the dome clearly opened into the central space of the building, but the mentioned in connexion with the cornice must, like this latter, have been high up in the side vaults, and their light would have passed into the central space through openings presumably arches above the curtains which shut off the side vaults at floor level. Unfortunately, no late-Antique palace octagon has been preserved in its original form. The Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus, S. Vitale in Ravenna and the Palatine Chapel in Aix are often proposed as a possible parallels, and the configuration of interconnecting side galleries indeed appear to be similar to 10 that of the side vaults of the Chrysotriklinos. But SS Sergius and Bacchus, S. Vitale and the Palatine Chapel at Aix were constructed as free-standing buildings whose side galleries, each with large windows, are divided into two storeys and separated from the central space by rows of multiple col11 umns as in St Sophia. The Chrysotriklinos, on the other hand, like the other palace octagons mentioned above, was not free-standing. Its side vaults, as we shall see, would have had no windows at floor level, but only doors opening into adjacent structures, and would have had no source of light other
8 De Cerimoniis (hereafter Cer.) II, 15, 581,12-16 and II, 1 passim Bonn. 9 Cer. II, 15, 582,16-22 Bonn. I am grateful to Cyril Mango for explaining the probable meaning of and the configuration viv--vis the cornice. 10 For SS Sergius and Bacchus, see H. SVENSHON/R. H. W. STICHEL, Neue Beobachtungen an der ehemaligen Kirche der Heiligen Sergios und Bakchos (Kk Ayasofya Camisi) in Istanbul, in: Istanbuler Mitteilungen 50 (2000) 400-407 and figs. 1 and 4; for S. Vitale, R. KRAUTHEIMER, Architecture, figs. 187, 192 and J. LOWDEN, Early Christian and Byzantine Art. London, 1997, figs. 75 and 76; for Aix-la-Chapelle, W. BLASER/ M. STUCKY, Drawings of Great Buildings. Boston, 1983, 53. 11 In Aix there are three registers of columns, two on the upper storey.

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than the at the level of the cornice, above the roofs of the adjacent structures. A more useful comparison is perhaps the sixteenth-century engraving by Lafrry of the Lateran Baptistery before its reconstruction under 12 Paul III. If we ignore the font below and the upper part of the dome, we might still imagine the windows of the dome of the Chrysotriklinos opening as here over the roof of the side vaults; and these latter, consisting of a single storey, with small windows for light () high up in the outside walls, above the level of the curtains hung in the interstices between the single columns which outlined the central space. As an illustration we include here a modified version of Ebersolts recon13 struction by Cyril Mango (Fig. 1):

Let us now examine the side vaults individually. The Side Vaults or Curtains We are fortunate in that descriptions of the Chrysotriklinos in De Cerimoniis give quite precise directions as to East-West and always from the perspective of someone looking toward the Eastern apse right-left. The orientation of the Chrysotriklinos appears not to have been exact. The Eastern apse must have faced North-East. This is the only way to fit the building into configuration with the entrances of the Ioustinianos and Lausiakos from which one could pass into the Western (= South-Western) side of the Chrysotriklinos. This was the main entrance, through an outside porch called the Tripeton, in which there was a clock, or sundial, the Horo14 logion.
12 GIOVENALE, Battistero, fig. 49. 13 Based on the drawing in the folding plan (no. 35) of EBERSOLTS Grand Palais. 14 Cer. I, 20 (11) = Constantin Porphyrognte. Le Livre des Crmonies, ed. A. VOGT (hereafter VOGT). Paris 1935-1939, I, 78, 10-14 ; I, 73 (64), idem, II, 95, 22-26; I, 23 (14), idem, I, 84, 11-17; cf. BOLOGNESI/FEATHERSTONE, Boundaries, 41 and sketch plan.

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As we have said, all the side vaults except the Eastern apse were shut off from the central space of the Chrysotriklinos by curtains. The curtains which divided the vault with the main entrance on the Western side from the central space were unlike the others in that they were always referred to as the cur15 tains which are drawn ( ) or raised ( ). This double name is confusing, but the mention of the histopodia on which the Western curtain is raised would suggest that the drawn and raised curtains were one and the same, and that they were opened not by drawing the two panels apart horizontally at the top or raising them vertically from the bottom, but by drawing them back from the centre and raising the lower 16 inside edges on the histopodia to the right and left. It was through these curtains that one passed on the way into the Chrysotriklinos to do reverence 17 to the emperor who sat in the Eastern apse opposite. On other occasions when the emperor was not sitting on the throne, imperial officials and guests could walk straight through the Chrysotriklinos, going in the Western doors and out the other main doors on the Eastern side, evidently in the Eastern apse, which gave on to the Heliakos, or terrace, of the Pharos and which, 18 like those of the Western entrance, were of silver. The decoration of the Eastern Apse and the disposition there of the vari19 ous thrones and sellia has recently been very well presented by G. Dagron. The other seven side vaults must have been relatively shallow. They all apparently contained doors which opened to adjacent structures and the usual formula for naming them is the vault leading to.... The vault immediately to the left of the Eastern Apse was that in front of the chapel of St Theodore, which was connected with the Phylax, or Skeuophylakion, of

15 16 17 18

Cer. II, 1, 519,4-6 Bonn; II, 3, 526,4-5 Bonn; I, 57(48), VOGT II, 51,15-17. Cer. II, 15, 587, 9-11 Bonn. E.g. the praepositoi in Cer. II, 24, 623, 5-6 Bonn. E.g. the Tarsan ambassadors pass through: Cer. II, 15, 586,6-9 Bonn; the patriarch passes through: I, 30 (21), VOGT I, 115,5-6; officials go out the Eastern doors: I,40 (31), VOGT I, 158, 9-10; the emperor goes out the Eastern doors I, 73 (64), VOGT II, 99,5-15 (amongst the other doors going out to the heliakos (ll. 8-10) was that of the Phylax, see below). According to Theophanes Continuatus, the silver doors of the Chrysotriklinos were made by Constantine VII, apparently at the same time that he outfitted the Aristeterion (about which see below), 450,21 - 451,3 Bonn. 19 Trnes, 193-196. .

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the Palace. Like the Octagon beside the of the Daphne, the vaulted 21 chamber in front of St Theodores served as a vestry for the emperor. Proceeding counter-clockwise, the next vault, the central one on the left (Northern) side, was that in front of the Pantheon, and the next, that immediately to the left of the Western entrance, articulated with a structure called 22 the Diaitarikion. Behind the curtain of this vault was the bench on which 23 the Papias placed the keys once he had opened the Chrysotriklinos. In addition to the main doors of the Western entrance and the Eastern apse, there were two other entrances to the Chrysotriklinos on this Northern side. From the Lausiakos officials could pass by way of the Thermastra probably on a subterranean level through a gate which opened into the Diaitarikion and, traversing the vault in front of the Pantheon thus behind the curtains which shut off the central space of the Chrysotriklinos go out a single door (24 ) to the Heliakos of the Pharos. In another passage it is clear that this 25 single door went out from the Phylax, that is the chapel of St Theodore. It is apparently through this same door that the patriarch, upon coming through the corridors of the Triconchus (of the Forty Martyrs) from the Upper Pal26 ace, could enter and sit to wait in the vault in front of the Pantheon. However, for solemn entries to the Chrysotriklinos on returning from the Upper Palace, both patriarch and emperor would enter the Eidikon on coming out of the corridors of the Triconchus and, descending stairs to enter the Lausiakos, traverse this latter from East to West, to enter the Chrysotriklinos by the 27 main Western entrance through the Tripeton. This well illustrates the alignment of the Lausiakos on the Northern side of the Chrysotriklinos. The vaults on the opposite, Southern, side of the Chrysotriklinos were those which articulated with the private apartments of the emperor and empress. The entrance to the of the emperor appears to have been in the wall of the central vault on the Southern side. There was a bench behind the 28 curtain here, and the doors to the were of silver. We think that this
20 Cer. II, 23, 622,5-6 Bonn. 21 Cer. I, 57 (48), VOGT II, 51,3-8 and I,73 (64), VOGT II 98,8-10. 22 St Theodores, the Pantheon and the Diaitarikion all had their own permanent decorations: II,15, 580,21 - 581,4 Bonn. 23 Cer. II, 1, 519 4-6 Bonn. 24 Cer. I, 73 (64), VOGT II, 98,25-29. 25 Cer. I, 29 (20), VOGT I, 111,5-9. 26 Cer. I, 28 (19), VOGT I, 107, 26-28 and I, 29 (20), ibid., 110,12-15. 27 Cer. I, 23 (14), VOGT I, 84,11-17 and I, 41 (32), ibid., 163,1-16. 28 Cer. II, 1, 519,10-12 Bonn.

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must have been the central vault because the choristers of St Sophia and the Holy Apostles who sang during the banquet in II,15 stood in the vaults in front of the Pantheon and emperors respectively, and it stands to reason that the two choirs would stand opposite one another, on either side 29 of the central space. The vault immediately to the right of the Western entrance is mentioned as the place where the patriarch divested himself of his omophorion after blessing the meal at the banquet on the Thursday after 30 Easter, and in the wall of this same vault there was a direct entrance to the 31 of the empress. It is clear also that the Kainourgios must have stood beside this vault of the Chrysotriklinos, to the right of the Western entrance, for from the Tripeton the empress could go through the Kainourgios on the 32 way to her . There remains, then, the third vault on the Southern side, just to the right of the Eastern apse. We suggest that it was here that Constantine VII in33 stalled his Aristeterion. Referred to as a vault () in the inventory of 34 decorations from St Theodore, the Pantheon, and the Diaitarikion, the Aristeterion also had a curtain, behind which the praipositoi took the rector to invest him with his garment of office after he received it from the emperors hands, viz. in the Eastern apse; and it is said to be in front of the em35 perors . As a summary of our description we offer the following sketch map (Fig. 2):

29 30 31 32

Cer. II,15, 585, 10-14 Bonn. Cer. I, 23 (14), VOGT I, 87,14-17. Cer. II, 24, 623,13-15 Bonn. Cer. II, 15, 596,11-13 Bonn. A similar connexion is apparent in II, 21, 618, 11-12, where the zostai patrikiai are brought from the Kainourgios into the of the empress. 33 Theophanes Continuatus, 450,22 - 451,3 Bonn. 34 Cer. II, 15, 581,3-4 Bonn. 35 Cer. II, 4, 529,5-7 Bonn. Since the passages referring to the vault in front of the cited in notes 27 and 28 above make no mention of the Aristeterion, we may assume that another vault is meant there. Surely the adjoined the entire Southern side of the Chrysotriklinos, and just as there was a door to that of the empress in the vault beside the Western entrance, so must there have been a second one into that of the emperor in the Aristeterion, whereby the emperor and members of the imperial family could have entered directly, as in Cer. II,18, 603,2-5 Bonn.

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door to the Empresses

Kainourgios

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The Chrysotriklinos and surrounding buildings

Aristeterion

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CHRYSOTRIKLINOS

Pharos Heliakos of the Pharos

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Stairs Stairs down

single door to Heliakos St. Theodore / Phylax Lausiakos

Diaitarikion Diaitarikion
Gate to Thermastra

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bench where Papias puts Papias puts keys

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