102 



KNOWLEDGE 



[May, 1903. 



Be the exact relationship between the creodouts and the 

 marsupial carnivores what it may, the evidence fully 

 justifies the belief that the two have a common ancestry, 

 and that the latter have given rise to the herbivorous 

 members of the same great group. The most generalised 

 marsupials now living appear to be the American 

 opossums, which we know from fossil evidence to be an 

 ancient family; and it is believed by some that the arboreal 

 type of foot possessed by these animals was a feature of 

 the ancestral marsupial stock. It follows from this (if it 

 be well founded), that if marsupials are derived from 

 t-reodonts, the ancestral members of the latter group must 

 likewise have possessed feet of the arboreal type, but there 

 is no evidence that such was the case. 



It has thus been shown that, apart from details, palaeon- 

 tology enables us to refer such widely divergent groups as 

 the modern marsupials and cai-nivora, as well probably as 

 the insectivora, to a common ancestry ; the ancestral type 

 being not improbably represented by the early Tertiary 

 creodonts, or by nearly allied forms which may have 

 existed at a still earlier epoch. 



But the importance of the creodonts does not by auy 

 means end with their resemblances to the true carnivora 

 on the one hand and to the carnivorous marsupials on the 

 other. They are equally nearly related to the early 

 Tertiary ancestors of the modern ungulata or hoofed 

 mammals, the so-called condylarthra of the American 

 palaeontologists. And, indeed, the great difficulty con- 

 nected with the study of the early Tertiary mammals of 

 all kinds is not to discover relationships, but to point out 

 differences ; all the modern ordinal groups appearing to 

 merge more or less completely into one another at that 

 comparatively early ejjoch of mammalian history. To 

 describe the generalised character and mutual resem- 

 blances of these early Tertiary mammals in an article like 

 the present would, however, be difficult as well as weari- 

 some, and it must suffice to record the important fact that 

 the further we recede in time from the present epoch, the 

 less differentiated become the different groups of mammals. 

 (To be continued.) 



ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE. 



By E. M. Antoniadi, f.r.a.s. 



Illustrated from 



iriginal drawings hy the Author. 

 lY. 



We have seen that a representation of the sky itself was 

 deemed the only vaulting worthy of Justinian's church ; 

 and it now remains to show that it was not really jiossible 

 to imitate the firmament, with ))rick and mortar, better 

 than we find it realized in St. Sophia. A flattened dome, 

 resting on emptiness, is the general impression which the 

 sky leaves to mankind. But the impossibility of a close 

 architectural reproduction of that impression necessitated 

 an appeal to indirect methods ; and thus was it that a 

 recession of the supports became the only available struc- 

 tural equivalent of emj)ty space. 



In this connection, it is important to remember that auv 

 increase in number of the supporting arches entailed a 

 corresponding diminution in the projection of the penJen- 

 tives ; and that the concomitant effect tended to defeat. 

 in some measure, the very idea of the dome, first by 

 exaggerating the visibility of its supports, and then bv 

 causing it to rest directly on earth, through an uncouth 

 cylindrical drum or tower. Considerations like these must 

 have been always present in the mind of Anthemius ; and 

 his solution of the problem was stamped with that direct 



simplicity so characteristic of the master mind. He 

 obtained the " flattened "' appearance liy limiting to 108'^* 

 the arc subten<leil l)y the cujiola, whose height thus 

 equalled only one-fourth of its diameter : and he secured 

 a maximum of aeriality to the supports by inci'easing the 

 projection of the triangular peudentives to a maximum, 

 and by limiting to a minimum of fi>ur the ninnber of 

 supporting arches. The gentle, but I'onilile. lightness of 

 the effect produced liy those lofty walls, so boldly pro- 

 jecting into space, is further enhanceil by the vast expanse 

 of the semi-domes to east and west and the arches to north 

 and south, undermining, so to say. on all points the effec- 

 tive supports of the hemisphere. Kesting thus everywhere 

 on sharply receding surfaces, and further alleviated by 

 forty windows opened at its liase, the lofty dome of St. 

 Sophia has well remained to this day the most successful 

 architectural approach to the air-borne vault of the 

 universe. t 



A restoration of the eastern bay of St. Sophia, prior to 

 1204, is given in Plate II. The view point is the same as 

 in Plate I., but the angle embraced is much smaller; and, 

 in order to show as clearly as possible the details of tlie 

 choir, the confusing ocean of lamps has been to a large 

 extent eliminated. 



In the centre we find the Ambo, from which the Gospel 

 was read, and where the Grreek emperors were crowned, t 

 Much uncertainty is veiling the form of the pulpit, § and 

 the representation here given of it does nothing to clear 

 matters. The Ambo has been di-awu out westwards in 



* This value was increased to 160° is the reconstruction. 



t It is perhaps unnecessary to revert to the fact that the cross, 

 mentioned by the poet, towered majestically above the dome, as the 

 logical coronation and trophy of the Great Church of Christendom ; 

 and that the All-Ruler (Uavroxpiirap) adorned in mosaic the inner 

 circular crown. The arguments given by the writer on pp. 30, 84 and 

 91, which luck of space has rendered laconical, have established these 

 truths on a strong basis. Still some additional evidence would not be 

 out of place here. Three hundred years after the second dedication 

 of »St. Sophia, Basil tlie Macedonian raised a large and beautiful 

 church in the palace of Constantinople, and we hear from tlie patriarch 

 Photius that no cross, but a Pantocrator, was depicted inside the 

 dome of the new church. Considermg that St. Sophia was the 

 standard for imitation, and that its example was law in such matters, 

 the fact mentioned by Photius assumes the force of a grave objection 

 to Mr. Burkitt's theory that the cross was inside, and that the dome 

 of St. Sophia, destitute of its outer cross, looked very much like a 

 modern astronomical observatory. But it is possible to bring forward 

 arguments of a much more decisive character against that artificial 

 position. Du Cange, whose extraordinary accuracy caused liim to 

 write nothing without proofs, says : — " In interiore tholi. . . centre. . . 

 lustinianus opere musivo Christum in Lride sedentcm, orbem judi- 

 cantis efiigie, describi cm'avit, ut oiToirrai testantur" (.S'. Sophia. § 33). 

 AVhat more can we ask, as corroboration of the fact that the Panto- 

 crator was originally in the dome, than this proof of ocular witnesses 't 

 Notwithstanding this converging cWdence, perhaps the strongest 

 ]iroof that the cross was outside is afforded by an examination of the 

 Silentiary's poem. If, as suggested by the writer (on the authority of 



Homer, II. P, 599-600: "ypi^fitv 8e oi iurriav ixp's olxfxi) Hov\u5o(iai'T05," 



"' and tlie lance of Polydamas cut him as far as the bone "), tYP«*« was 

 used by the Silentiary as meaning incised, carved, it would then be 

 probable that the same sense may occur more clearly in another part 

 of the poem. Checking our anticipation by the evidence of the 

 hexameter, we find it verified to the letter : thus between verses 274 

 and 294 we learn that vp«*">' is used as a synonym of xop""'""'', to 

 incise, to carve, to engrave, and that x<>P<i<f<'«"' means to cut right off, 

 to hew, in verse 246 of the "Descriptio Ambonis." And last, but not 

 least, we find the poet, in his description of the Ojmt Sectilc of the 

 gallery (composed, as we know, of inlaid pieces of marble), connecting 

 the verb typa^t with its subject AaoTopoi, sculptor, whose office was 

 certainly not to paint, but to tiore, and to cut, stones with a chisel. 



I Cantacuzemi.i, ed. Bonn, pp. 196-202. 



§ It is not certain that the Ambo of St. Sophia differed very much 

 from the great pulpit of St. Mark's, Venice, which also has two seta 

 of colonnades. It must have been, however, much larger, as holding 

 many people at tlie coronation ceremony. 



