VI. These were the works of the Emperor Justinian in Cilicia. At Jerusalem he built a church in honour of the Virgin,[97] to which no other can be compared. The inhabitants call it the ‘new church.’ I shall describe what it is like, prefacing my account by the remark that this city stands for the most part upon hilly ground, which hills are not formed of earth, but are rough and precipitous, so as to make the paths up and down them as steep as ladders. All the rest of the buildings in the city stand in one place, being either built upon the hills, or upon flat and open ground; but this church alone stands in a different position; for the Emperor Justinian ordered it to be built upon the highest of the hills, explaining of what size he wished it to be, both in width and in length. The hill was not of sufficient size to enable the work to be carried out according to the Emperor’s orders, but a fourth part of the church, that towards the south wind and the rising sun, in which the priests perform the sacred mysteries, was left with no ground upon which to rest. Accordingly those in charge of this work devised the following expedient: they laid foundations at the extremity of the flat ground, and constructed a building rising to the same height as the hill. When it reached the summit, they placed vaults upon the walls and joined this building to the other foundations of the church; so that this church in one place is built upon a firm rock, and in another place is suspended in the air—for the power of the Emperor has added another portion to the (original) hill. The stones of this substruction are not of the size of those which we are accustomed to see: for the builders of this work, having to contend with the nature of the ground, and being forced to raise a building equal in size to a mountain, scorned the ordinary practices of building, and betook themselves to strange and altogether unknown methods. They cut blocks of stone of enormous size out of the mountains which rise to vast heights in the neighbourhood of the city, cunningly squared them, and brought them thither in the following manner: they built waggons of the same size as these stones, and placed one stone upon each waggon. These waggons were dragged by picked oxen, chosen by the Emperor, forty of them dragging each waggon with its stone. Since it was impossible for the roads leading into the city to take these waggons upon them, they made a passage for them by cutting deeply into the mountains, and thus formed the church of the great length which it was the Emperor’s pleasure that it should have. After they had built it of a proportional width they were not able to put a roof upon it. While they were inspecting every grove and place which they heard was planted with tall trees, they discovered a thick wood, producing cedars of enormous height, with which they made the roof of the church, of a height proportional to its length and width. These were the works[98]