"Now the former church having been burnt by the angry mob, Justinian built it up again from the foundations, as great, and more beautiful and wonderful, and this most beautiful design was adorned with much precious metal. He built it in a round form, with burnt brick and lime. It was bound together here and there with iron; but they avoided the use of wood, so that it should no more be easily burnt. Now Anthemius was the man who devised and worked at every part. And when by the earthquake the middle part of the roof and the higher parts had been destroyed, the Emperor made it stronger, and raised it to a great height. Anthemius was then dead, but the young man Isidorus and the other craftsmen, turning over in their minds the earlier design, and comparing what had fallen with what remained, estimated where the error lay, and of what kind it was. They determined to leave the eastern and western arches as they were. But of the northern and southern they brought towards the inside that portion of the building which was upon the curve. And they made these arches wider, so as to be more in harmony with the others, thus making the equilateral symmetry more perfect. In this way they were able to cover the measurelessness of the empty space, and to take off some of its extent to form an oblong design. And again, they wrought that which rose up above it in the middle, whether cycle or hemisphere or whatever other name it may be called. And this also became more straightforward and of a better curve, in every part agreeing with the line; and at the same time not so wide but higher, so that it did not affright the spectators as before, but was set much more strong and safe." [Illustration: S. SOPHIA AND THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE FROM THE SEA] A more minute account of the work must be reserved till we pass from history to description. Here we have only to summarise and characterise the work of the great architects whom Justinian employed to rebuild his city. The opportunity was a great one. Constantinople was now the centre of the civilised world. Thither came in the sixth century a crowd as motley as those gathered together on the day of Pentecost, or as may be seen now on the bridge of Galata. Men of Mesopotamia and Syria, Persians, Greeks from the islands and the Peloponnese, men of Sicily and Africa, Alexandrines and Palestinian Jews, met with the Roman and with the barbarian subjects of the now again undivided empire. Of this vast gathering of the nations Byzantine art was the result and the reflexion. But adaptive as it was of every influence that came before the eyes of its great masters, it was, above all, like the city where it reached its highest glory, pre-eminently religious and Christian. The new style has been called "historical-dogmatic," and indeed it combined in a marvellous manner the traditions of different races under the uniting power of the Catholic faith.