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Imperial Imitations in Art and Architecture: Constantine I and The Macedonians

The tenth-century vestibule mosaic in Hagia Sophia is one of only a few in situ  Constantinopolitan mosaics remaining from the Middle Byzantine period. It depicts the emperors Justinian and Constantine, identified by inscriptions, presenting models of Hagia Sophia and Constantinople to the Virgin and Child. The mosaic was conserved in the 1930s and described in 1977 as a commemorative image; this interpretation has gone unchallenged. Its placement in the southwest vestibule, once a liminal space between the imperial and Patriarchal palaces, has focused more recent scholarly attention on issues of liturgy and ceremonial. It is now accepted as a standard representation of imperial patronage and piety, tied to the space in which it was placed, functioning as a speculum princeps.

I re-examine this work in the context of Macedonian imperial ideology, and suggest a new reading and thus a new original function.  I suggest that the mosaic offered a visual corrective to emergent Macedonian imperial ideologies opposed by the Church.

I demonstrate the ways in which this is evident:  in the choice to depict Constantine without Helena; in the rank and status accorded to the emperors in their inscriptions; in the types and forms of imperial regalia; in the representation of age. Taken together, these elements create an imperial image that, I argue, could not visually serve as a model for middle Byzantine imperial rulership. The figures of Justinian and Constantine are archaizing; no middle Byzantine emperor looking at the mosaic would see himself reflected as a “new Constantine,” a standard trope of Middle Byzantine art and rhetoric. Why there was a need to convey such a message will be my primary focus.

Session chair

How to imitate Christ in the Tenth Century: Civic Religion of the Macedonian Emperors

It is often said that the Byzantine emperors engaged in Christomimesis throughout the history of the empire, and that this was a key aspect of Byzantine Imperial ideology.  While it may be true that many eastern Roman emperors tried to imitate Christ, that in itself does not say much because Christ can mean so many different things to different people and so many contradictory behaviors can all be identified as attempts to imitate him.

The different ways people go about imitating Christ reveal how they imagine him to be and what aspects of Christianity are particularly important to them. Even Christians confessing the same creed can have radically different ideas about the nature of the Godhead and what is entailed in being a good Christian. Identifying an emperor as engaged in Christomimesis is therefore the beginning rather than the end of the discussion.

By examining tenth-century texts such as the Ceremony Book and the Life of Basil I, this paper explores what Macedonian emperors did when they tried to be like Christ.  Here Christ was imagined as a cosmic ruler and the emperor imitated Christ as a cosmic ruler, putting everything in order and keeping everything stable.  We learn from the Ceremony Book that as soon as the emperors woke up in the morning, they prayed before an image of God in the form of God and Man seated on a throne: they prayed to Christ the ruler, not Christ the Teacher, the Shepherd, or the Sacrifice.

That this image of Christ was not universal, even among medieval Roman emperors, is shown through the contrast with two twelfth-century texts, Anna Komnene’s Alexiad and Alexios Komnenos’s law on the clergy, which portray the emperor as imitating Christ by suffering on behalf of his people. Here Christ was imagined as the Man of Sorrows who suffered for our sins, as a Sacrifice, and as a Teacher.  Alexios I was described as imitating Christ by suffering on behalf of the Empire and providing moral guidance.  Both the emperor and Christ had become suffering men.

While both Basil I and Alexios were portrayed as engaged in Christomimesis, their actions reflected radically different understandings of what Christ, and salvation, meant. The decline of the Macedonian emperors’ conception of Christ as divine ruler entailed a change in medieval Roman religion. Not a change in formal theology, but nonetheless a change in what the religion meant for participants.

That the Macedonian emperors seem to have imagined Christ and God as cosmic rulers, siting on thrones, surrounded by courtiers, giving justice, and creating order, indicates that they saw government as holy business. Their well-known efforts to arrange their earthly court and government to mirror the heavenly court further constructed their government as an aspect of their religious practice.  This intertwining of government and religion is not ‘imperial ideology’ but rather a form of civic religion particular to their era.

Getting the Message Out: Macedonian Imperial Ideology on Coins and Seals

The Macedonian dynasty expressed and disseminated its imperial ideology in many different ways, but two of the most widely circulated visual media it employed were coins and seals. Over the roughly two hundred years during which the Macedonians ruled Byzantium the emperors and empresses of the dynasty, and those who usurped power from them, used a variety of images and inscriptions to highlight their legitimacy. Ranging from the staunchly conservative to wildly radical the various choices of the imperial regimes of the ninth-eleventh centuries cast light on the realities and projection of imperial power and ideology. In terms of design, Byzantine coinage cannot be thought of as a monolithic block. Each metal and denomination, whether the gold nomisma, silver miliaresion, or copper follis, reached a different audience, circulated in different areas, and presented imperial ideology in different ways. Similarly, the gold and lead seals with which the emperors secured their documents and authorized their actions present yet another level of imperial image projection to a further subset of the Byzantine population and also to the empire’s neighbours. Examining how the message engraved on each medium was tailored to its audience allows an exploration of how the various members of the Macedonian dynasty manipulated and expressed specific elements of imperial ideology depending on the recipient. This paper will consider the use of the imperial image on coins, especially the evolution and use of what might be termed portraiture beginning with the coins of Leo VI and Constantine VII and the seals of Romanos I.

The Macedonian dynasty had a colourful history. The decedents of Basil I frequently had to share power with usurpers and at the end ruled through men who married or were adopted into the imperial family. The assorted routes that these rulers took to the throne led them to present themselves differently on their coins and seals. Whether through experimentation with the imperial image, such as on the ‘Maria’ nomismata of Leo VI or the final seal design of Romanos I, pairings with the divine, for example John Tzimiskes and the Mother of God, or through unusual inscriptions, like those found on the seals of the final Macedonians, the quest for legitimacy and expressions of dynastic continuity can be seen on the full range of denominations and imperial seals. This paper will consider how each of the groups that made up the Macedonian dynasty emphasized certain elements of imperial ideology on their coins and seals at different times and for different audiences.

Sainted Dynasty: the Menologion of Basil II

The Menologion of Basil II is one of the most famous Byzantine manuscripts (Vaticanus Graecus 1613). This luxury artefact is renowned for its extensive depictions of saints and the question of how it was produced. This paper, however, will consider it as a dynastic artefact. Produced by or for the Macedonian emperor Basil II in the late tenth or early eleventh century, the Menologion is in fact a synaxarion, comprising accounts and depictions of saints or feasts by the days of the year. Only the first volume of the Menologion survives (September to February). It comprises 430 miniatures, each accompanied by a text (always of 16 lines); thus some days of the year have more than one saint/feast to commemorate. From a dynastic point of view, it is noteworthy that the Menologion is based on the Synaxarion of Constantinople, a hagiographic collection produced under an earlier Macedonian emperor, generally thought to be Constantine VII but possibly Leo VI. Thus the Menologion already has a dynastic character. The dynastic aspect of the manuscript will be explored further through the dedicatory poem within it. The poem refers to the manuscript itself but also celebrates the emperor. Basil is said to mirror Christ in his character, and is described as ‘ruler of the whole Earth, Sun of the purple, reared in purple robes, excelling both in victories and in learning’. The saints and other divine agents depicted in the manuscript are presented as ‘active helpers [of the emperor], sustainers of the State, allies in battles’. Since most of the saints are martyrs, the majority shown suffering brutal deaths, there is the possibility that this reflects the perceived imperial persona of Basil II himself, as a terrifying warrior. A further way the dynastic dimension of the manuscript will be analysed is through its selection of particular saints. It is notable that several of the most recent figures included in it are individuals connected to the history of the Macedonian dynasty: these are Theodora the mother of Michael III, the eunuch Ignatius who was twice patriarch of Constantinople (the second time under Basil I), Theophano the first wife of Leo VI, and Antony Kauleas, patriarch of Constantinople (893-901) under Leo VI. The inclusion of these individuals and the texts provided about them will be analysed to consider what they reveal about the dynastic concerns of the artefact. What is particularly interesting is the fact that they were included at all. It is striking that the latest saints included by the contemporary Metaphrastian Menologion are the Graptoi brothers (9th century) and Luke the Younger of Greece (died c. 946) (it is also interesting that Basil II reputedly had the Metaphrastian Menologion destroyed for including material hostile to the Macedonian dynasty). Thus the paper will argue that the dynastic aspect of the Menologion Basil II has been neglected and that the artefact is also significant for what it reveals about ideological concerns of the Macedonian dynasty.

Panelists

Byzantine Fortifications Beyond Incastellamento: The Example of Sardis

The southern ridge of the Acropolis summit (ca. 400 m asl) above the ancient city of Sardis (modern Sart, western Turkey) is dominated by a single curtain wall, 253 meters long and three meters thick, to which is joined a brick-vaulted interior space at its eastern end. Faced entirely with well-coursed, spoliated blocks from Roman buildings in the lower city, the wall is a textbook example of early medieval (“dark age”) fortification. Taken jointly, new analyses of the preserved fabric alongside older excavations of the adjoining medieval settlement encourage revision of standard models of Anatolian “incastellamento” in response to seventh or eighth century Arab invasions.

Although an excellent plan of the wall was prepared by surveyors in the 1970s, study of the elevation has been hindered by overgrowth and (especially) topography. Under the auspices of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, we conducted a systematic, face-by-face documentation of standing remains, employing remote aerial (“drone”) photography when necessary. The resulting dossier permits conclusions regarding the nature of builders’ interactions with an erosion-prone substrate bedrock, the volumes of materials transported from the lower city, and the specific Roman structures that served as sources (for example, architectural sculpture from the Bath-Gymnasium Complex, and seats from the stadium and theater). Analyses of materials, their sources, local topography, and the expertise and labor required, strongly suggest that construction was sponsored by the state; analysis of the fabric indicates that it was limited to a single phase.

A single intensive investment of state resources accords well with a response to Arab incursions in western Anatolia. However, and even if the wall was built by the state, nothing suggests that it was designed to defend against prolonged siege, or that it ever sheltered a permanent military settlement. From the side of the texts, we note that Sardis was never a thematic capital, and that the fourteenth-century history of George Pachymeres describes the residents of the Acropolis as farmers. From the side of the archaeology, we may consider the excavations of the acropolis summit, which were undertaken between 1960 and 1975. Although these uncovered roughly 3000 square meters (of ~7500 square meters total), including multiple phases of dense Byzantine occupation, our preliminary analysis of the fieldbooks and archival plans suggests a settlement that was entirely civilian in nature.

In their foundational studies of Anatolian fortifications, Hugh Barnes and Mark Whittow distinguished between state-built “theme castles” and locally-built “communal fortifications.” Our study of the medieval Acropolis of Sardis suggests that it was somewhere in-between: a resource-intensive investment driven by reasons of state that ultimately served the very different needs of a local community. It accordingly suggests an understanding of Anatolian castles less as temporary refuges, more as the anchors of new, permanent settlements.

Panelist

Zooming in and out at Medieval Antioch: Kozkalesi (Antakya/Turkey) in its regional context

‘Medieval Antioch/Antakiya’ is a difficult concept to define. One reason for this is the complexity created by the dynamic interaction of numerous cultures, while this aspect is certainly not limited to Antioch. This said, the essential difficulty that impacts our understanding of medieval Antioch and its close vicinity is the scarcity of the archeological evidence. The recent regional surveys in the area were highly beneficial for identifying regional/temporal patterns and putting forward significant questions. However, a perspective merely based on a regional scale cannot be considered sufficient on its own. The number of adequately studied ‘medieval’ sites in and around Antioch still remains too few, obstructing the possibility to test or revise the macro-scaled results from the regional surveys.

The present paper focuses on Kozkalesi as a case study to augment regional surveys with the detailed examination of individual sites to in order to establish a better understanding for medieval Antioch. Kozkalesi is a crusader castle identified as Cursat/ Cursarium in the primary sources, located ca. 15 km from Antioch at the northernmost edge of the Kuseyr Plateau. It is conventionally dated to the 12th and 13th centuries through textual evidence.

The significance of Kozkalesi in the proposed discussion is based on several issues. The first is straightforward; there are not yet any Crusader settlements in and around Antioch that have been examined in detail. Moreover, Kozkalesi offers a significant example due to its strong ties with the city: it belonged to the Antiochene patriarchate throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. Kozkalesi served as the summer residence for the patriarchs, and Aimery of Limoges resided there for five years, from 1165 onwards. Thus, the life at the castle can be a mirror of the life in the city itself, while its relationship with the hinterland of Antioch needs to be considered as well.

The final point concerns the question of the likely occupation at Kozkalesi prior to the 12th century and after its siege by Mamluks in 1275. The name Cursat, which is the Latinized version of Arabic Qusayr (the small castle) suggests a (Byzantine?) defensive structure prior to the 12th century occupation. The present study will propose that some sections can tentatively be dated to prior to 12th century Crusader phase and will evaluate the site’s significance as a part of the castle network that extended throughout the region. The post-1275 developments on the site are also critical; there seems to be sufficient evidence to suggest that the fortress was destroyed except for a tower at its southwest corner. This suggests a rupture unlike that observed at other regional crusader castles such as Bakras, which should be discussed in the context of Mamluk occupation.

Organizer and session chair

Panelist

Mass Production Techniques in Byzantine Cyprus

Architecture reflects society. Changes in construction and design may indicate a shift in the population, culture, economy, and technologies of a region. During the seventh and eighth centuries, several construction techniques appear in Cyprus that had no previous history on the island. Archaeologists have uncovered two monuments decorated with relief sculpture made from molded gypsum plaster; this was surprising since the island had a long tradtion in stone carving. Likewise, a new type of technique was developed in which rubble masonry courses were constructed using wood framing, similar to the construction technique known as pisé (rammed earth) more common in Central Asia. What would prompt Cypriot builders to adopt these new architectural forms?

Centuries prior to the establishment of the Byzantine Empire, considerable architectural methods were developed in Persia and Egypt.  Mudbrick, pisé, plaster and clay relief molding played, and continues to play, a role in construction especially in arid regions where lack of precipitation prevents erosion and foliage from taking root on roofs and walls. The island of Cyprus and other Byzantine provinces, such as Egypt and Syria, have had a long tradition of mudbrick construction, but these have rarely been recognized as significant by architectural historians. Even so, mudbrick construction and mass-produced relief moldings had several advantages, such as their inexpensive production costs, locally-resourced ingredients, light-weight, and relatively faster manufacturing and construction process, when compared to fired brick and ashlar masonry.  Advanced construction techinques, such as vaulting and double-shell domes, may have first been experimented in mudbrick and, after their forms were observed to be stable, later translated into fired brick and ashlar buildings.

Architectural innovation often includes the advancement of more efficient means of production both in terms of time and funding. In assessing the evidence of mass production of plaster decoration and mudbrick in Byzantine Cyprus, this presentation will provides an overview of these technologies in Sassanid Persia, Byzantine Egypt, and Umayyad Palestine.  My main thesis is that these construction techniques were rooted in ancient building traditions and continued to be employed across several cultures. The resulting architectural forms would influence the design and decoration of monuments in subsequent centuries.  By studying these methods we can better understand the continuity of building traditions and incremental changes in technology and design.

Panelist

Byzantium in a point cloud. Potentials and Limitations of Augmented Reality (AR) for Byzantine Architectural Studies

Although excavation projects and museums have put 3D tools to good use in recent years, archaeological research is still characterized by two-dimensional “mechanical reproductions” of its three-dimensional research objects. Technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) offer potentials for architectural research at universities that have not yet been fully recognized.

The paper discusses two new projects at the department of Byzantine Archaeology at Freiburg University (Germany), one focused on research, the other on teaching. The aim of the project “Making Sense of 3D-printing: The reassembly of St. Polyeuktos Church” is to carry out scans of the most significant marble components of St. Polyeuktos church in Istanbul, Venice, Barcelona, Vienna and Milano. These components can be virtually restored and reassembled. The result will be 3D-printable scale models of the northern and southern central exedrae of the building with accurate placement of the famous epigram verses.

The goal of the second project, “MARBLE - Mixed and Augmented Reality in Blended Learning Environments,” is the implementation of three-dimensional imaging processes in object-related fields of study. In MARBLE it will be possible for researchers and students of Byzantine Archaeology to undertake virtual fieldtrips and directly walk on ancient mosaics to examine their images and inscriptions in small teams. Built and Cave-architecture can be walked around in the seminar room. Beyond that, places can be visited virtually, which are difficult or impossible to access in real life due to conservation fragility (caves, catacombs) or armed conflicts (Syria). One key is to understand the project not only in technical manner, but to develop MARBLE primarily as a didactic, curricular and structural research project. The paper will present first methodological and practical results of the project and discuss the potentials and limits (!) of AR for Byzantine Archaeological Studies. The paper will present first methodological and practical results of the project and discuss the potentials and limits (!) of AR for Byzantine archaeological studies.