“Then the part which is occupied by the Holy Well, and all about the thysiasterium, and the place of the ambo, and the middle of the nave, was the house of a certain eunuch, Antiochus, which was valued at thirty-eight librae. He was offended because the emperor had not offered him a proper price for it. Now the emperor was much distressed, wondering what to do. But the Magister Strategius--a guardian of the treasures, the adopted brother of the emperor--promised that the emperor should gain his point by a little guile, and that the other should sell his house. Now this Antiochus was an eager frequenter of the Circus, and especially favoured the blue faction. When the games were about to be given, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Praetorian prison. Then Antiochus called out from the prison that if he could only witness the games he would do whatever the emperor wished. He was then led by the emperor’s orders to his empty seat, and made to sell his house before the games commenced, the Quaestor and the whole Senate being witness. Now there used to be the custom, that as soon as the emperor ascended to his seat the charioteers should begin, but because they stopped then, until the eunuch had accomplished his deed of sale, even to the present day the chariots for the races are accustomed to enter at a slow trot. “The whole of the right-hand part of the Gynaeceum[222] up to the column of S. Basil, and some portion of the nave, was the house of an eunuch, Chariton, nicknamed Chenopolus, who sold it as a favour for double its value, which was twelve librae. “The left part of the Gynaeceum[222] up to the column of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus was the house of one Xenophon, a cobbler. When they wanted to buy this house, besides asking twice the value, which was fourteen librae, he also demanded that, on the day of the games, the four charioteers of the four factions should do obeisance to him as well as to the emperor. The emperor decreed that it should be done as he had asked, but made him a laughing-stock for ever. For on the day of the games he was set midway in the boundaries, so that the charioteers, by way of joke, bowed to his back before beginning their courses, and so it is still done, and the man is styled ‘Chief of those below.’ He wears a white chlamys, woven with byssus. “On the area of the naos, the four nartheces, the louter, and the parts adjacent, was the house of Damianus, a noble of Seleucia, the value of which he estimated at ninety librae, and gladly gave to the emperor.