The four marble pillars that stand up out of the parapet at the western gallery of S. Sophia (Fig. 41) must always have carried lights on metal branches at the top, much as at present; and the long metal stakes with hook ends, that project from the first cornice at the angles of the exedras, and from which chandeliers hang, are possibly original in some cases. The multiplication of small lights is the most brilliant system of illumination, for not only is there light everywhere but flame, and hence no shadows. Whoever sees the great church lighted for the solemn services of Ramazan, when, according to Fossati, “six thousand lamps are suspended at various heights,” may imagine the splendour of the lighted interior in Byzantine times. When, after one of the services, the lamplighters walked round and extinguished the lamps with a whisk from long fan-shaped brooms, we saw the need of the passages above the different cornices; and leaving Constantinople one April evening, as we slowly wound round the point, while the circle of windows in the lighted dome seemed to hang above the city, we realised that it was no idle saying of the poet’s that the mariner guided his laden vessel “by the divine light of the church itself.” CHAPTER VII LATER HISTORY AND LEGENDS § 1. HISTORY. From the date of the completion of Justinian’s restored church it has had to withstand the frequent earthquake shocks which, as we have so recently seen, devastate the city from time to time. Von Hammer[201] calculates, from the accounts of the Byzantine historians, that from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the fifteenth century there were twenty-three severe earthquakes, one of which, in 1033, lasted intermittently for 140 days. In the Turkish records, from 1511 to 1765, ten earthquakes are mentioned. It is remarkable that in this length of time the delicately poised construction of the church should only have required restorations which are relatively unimportant. It is difficult to say how far the church suffered during the struggles about image worship, which raged for more than a century. The question will be considered more fully when we deal with the mosaics of the vaults. The restoration of images was finally accomplished in 842,[202] by Theodora and Michael. A belfry was built in the centre of the west front about the year 865:[203] and the eastern walk of the atrium was probably transformed into an exonarthex at the same time. The first regular restoration was also undertaken in the second half of the ninth century, under Basil the Macedonian: “For the wide and lofty western arch of the great church called S. Sophia was showing rents and threatening to fall. With the help of the workmen he girded it round and rebuilt it, so that it was safe and strong. And on it he figured the Virgin with her Child on her arms, and Peter and Paul, the chief of the apostles, on either side.”[204]