parade it seems more than likely that the preliminaries were also carried out according to his instructions. The funeral procession was led by Constantius, with detachments of soldiers in full battle array; then came the body itself in its golden coffin, surrounded by companies of spearmen and heavy-armed infantry. Vast crowds followed behind. From the Great Palace it wound its way round the north-eastern end of the Hippodrome to the Milion, and thence along the Mese to a point some quarter of a mile short of the Constantinian walls, where it turned off to the right to the newly-completed church of the Holy Apostles. 'This building,' Eusebius tells us,
[Constantine] had carried to a vast height and brilliantly decorated by encasing it from the foundations to the roof with marble slabs of various colours. The inner roof he had formed of finely fretted work, overlaying it throughout with gold. The external covering .. . was of brass rather than tiles; and this too was splendidly and profusely adorned with gold, reflecting the rays of the sun with a brilliancy that dazzled those that beheld it, even from a distance. And the dome was entirely surrounded with delicately carved tracery, wrought in brass and gold.
But that was only the beginning:
He had in fact chosen this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with extraordinary fervour of faith that his body would share their title with the
i The distressing lack of imagination shown by Constantine in the naming of his children has caused much confusion among past historians, to say nothing of their readers. The latter can take comfort in the knowledge that it lasts for a single generation only - which, in a history such as this, is soon over.
Apostles themselves and that he should then become, even after death, the object with them of the devotions which should be here performed in their honour. He accordingly caused twelve sarcophagi to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars, in honour and memory of the number of the Apostles, in the centre of which was placed his own, having six of theirs on either side of it.
For the last few years of his life Constantine had regularly used the title Isapostolos, 'Equal of the Apostles'; now at his death he gave, as it were, physical substance to that claim. From the moment that the idea first took shape in his mind, his agents had been scouring the Eastern Mediterranean for alleged relics of the Twelve to place in their respective sarcophagi; and his choice of his own position in the midst of his peers, with six of them on each hand, strongly suggests that he saw himself as yet greater than they - a symbol, perhaps of the Saviour in person: God's Vice-Gerent on earth.
It was, indeed, a fine resting-place; but Constantine was not to occupy it for long. In his capital, as in so many cities of the Empire, he had tried to build too much, too quickly. There was in consequence a chronic shortage of skilled workmen, and a general tendency to skimp on such things as foundations, wall thicknesses and buttressing. The Church of the Holy Apostles, for all its outward magnificence, was at bottom jerry-built. Within a quarter of a century of its completion, the state of the fabric began giving cause for alarm. Before long the great golden dome was in imminent danger of collapse, and the unpopular Patriarch Macedonius gave orders for the Emperor's body to be removed to safety in the nearby Church of St Acacius the Martyr. Unfortunately, there were many in the city to whom such a step was nothing short of sacrilege, and many others who gratefully seized any weapon with which to attack the Patriarch; serious rioting broke out, in the course of which -according to Socrates — several people were killed, and 'the courtyard [of the church] was covered with gore, and the well also which was in it overflowed with, blood, which ran into the adjacent portico and thence even into the very street'.
The Church of the Holy Apostles did not,
[Constantine] had carried to a vast height and brilliantly decorated by encasing it from the foundations to the roof with marble slabs of various colours. The inner roof he had formed of finely fretted work, overlaying it throughout with gold. The external covering .. . was of brass rather than tiles; and this too was splendidly and profusely adorned with gold, reflecting the rays of the sun with a brilliancy that dazzled those that beheld it, even from a distance. And the dome was entirely surrounded with delicately carved tracery, wrought in brass and gold.
But that was only the beginning:
He had in fact chosen this spot in the prospect of his own death, anticipating with extraordinary fervour of faith that his body would share their title with the
i The distressing lack of imagination shown by Constantine in the naming of his children has caused much confusion among past historians, to say nothing of their readers. The latter can take comfort in the knowledge that it lasts for a single generation only - which, in a history such as this, is soon over.
Apostles themselves and that he should then become, even after death, the object with them of the devotions which should be here performed in their honour. He accordingly caused twelve sarcophagi to be set up in this church, like sacred pillars, in honour and memory of the number of the Apostles, in the centre of which was placed his own, having six of theirs on either side of it.
For the last few years of his life Constantine had regularly used the title Isapostolos, 'Equal of the Apostles'; now at his death he gave, as it were, physical substance to that claim. From the moment that the idea first took shape in his mind, his agents had been scouring the Eastern Mediterranean for alleged relics of the Twelve to place in their respective sarcophagi; and his choice of his own position in the midst of his peers, with six of them on each hand, strongly suggests that he saw himself as yet greater than they - a symbol, perhaps of the Saviour in person: God's Vice-Gerent on earth.
It was, indeed, a fine resting-place; but Constantine was not to occupy it for long. In his capital, as in so many cities of the Empire, he had tried to build too much, too quickly. There was in consequence a chronic shortage of skilled workmen, and a general tendency to skimp on such things as foundations, wall thicknesses and buttressing. The Church of the Holy Apostles, for all its outward magnificence, was at bottom jerry-built. Within a quarter of a century of its completion, the state of the fabric began giving cause for alarm. Before long the great golden dome was in imminent danger of collapse, and the unpopular Patriarch Macedonius gave orders for the Emperor's body to be removed to safety in the nearby Church of St Acacius the Martyr. Unfortunately, there were many in the city to whom such a step was nothing short of sacrilege, and many others who gratefully seized any weapon with which to attack the Patriarch; serious rioting broke out, in the course of which -according to Socrates — several people were killed, and 'the courtyard [of the church] was covered with gore, and the well also which was in it overflowed with, blood, which ran into the adjacent portico and thence even into the very street'.
The Church of the Holy Apostles did not,
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