“Eight porphyry columns from Rome, which, according to Plutarch, Justinian’s secretary, a widow Marcia had received as dowry, were transmitted to Constantinople. They had formerly stood in a temple of the Sun built by Valerian, who surrendered himself to the Persians. Eight others of green, of marvellous beauty, were quarried and sent from Ephesus by the praetor Constantine. The Marcia, whom I have just mentioned, wrote to the emperor as follows: ‘I send thee, master, eight columns from Rome of equal length and size, and the same weight, for the safety of my soul.’ “Of the other columns some were brought from Cyzicus, some from the Troad, others from the Cyclades and Athens. And when sufficient was collected for the work seven and a half years had been spent. Then in the twelfth year of Justinian’s reign, the church built by Constantine was destroyed with the foundations; the old materials were put aside, as a sufficient amount of fresh had been prepared; and Justinian began to buy up the neighbouring houses. The first of these was one belonging to a widow named Anna, of which the price was estimated at eighty-five librae. She was however unwilling to sell it to the emperor, and refused to give it up under five hundred librae; nor did the emperor gain his purpose by sending the nobles of the court to win her over. He finally went himself and begged her to sell her house at any price. But when she saw him as a suppliant, she fell at his feet, saying, ‘Lord and King, I can accept no moneys for my house from thee; I ask only that I may obtain reward in the day of judgment, and that I may be buried in a tomb near the future church, so that the memory of my gift may live for ever.’ The emperor promised that when the church was finished she should be buried there, for the land which she had given up, that the memory of it might live for ever. The part which she gave to the great church is that now occupied by the skeuophylakium, and the chapel (_naos_) of S. Peter.