the holy table ran a semicircular row of seats for the officiating clergy, the stalls of silver-gilt, the columns dividing them of gold. In the chord of the bema stood the holy table with its _ciborium_ or canopy of gold. But in addition to the marble and alabaster which gleamed in various hues from wall and pavement, St. Sophia was bright with mosaics. On the great west arch was represented the Blessed Virgin and Sts. Peter and Paul; on the sides still exist the figures of St. Anthemius, Basil, Gregory, Dionysius the Areopagite, Nicholas of Myra, Gregory the Armenian, and the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, Jonah and Habakkuk. On the eastern arch is again a representation of the Virgin Mother, of St. John the Baptist and of John Palæologus, the last Christian restorer of the church; on the arch of the bema, Our Lord, His Mother and the archangel Michael. On great festivals the emperor went to St. Sophia in state, in embroidered robes, with purple buskins and close diadem. This diadem was a high cap of cloth or silk covered with jewels, the crown formed of a horizontal circle and two arches of gold, bearing at their intersection a cross or globe. With him went the rest of the imperial family, the cæsar or sebastocrator in open diadem and green buskins, the panhypersebastos, the protosebastos and the despots. In attendance were the great officers--the curapalata, or lord steward, with his silver rod; the great logothete, or chancellor; the great domestic, who commanded the infantry; the protostrator, who commanded the cavalry; the stratopedarch, or quartermaster-general; the protospathaire of the guards; the constable of the Franks; the æteriarch of the barbarians; the acolyte of the English or Varangians. In the Byzantine administration the great duke commanded the fleet, having under him the great drangaire and the emir or admiral, an Arabic designation borrowed from the Norman kings of Sicily. To this long array of officials and courtiers must be added the patriarch and his clergy in the magnificent vestments of the Greek Church, if we wish to form an idea of the splendid ceremonial which gave to dome and arch a life and a significance now lost in the simpler forms of Mohammedan worship.