Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The empire from Constantine the Great to Justinian

Literature, learning, education, and art 

Page 14

The city walls which surrounded Constantinople in the fifth century have survived to the present day. The Golden Gate (Porta Aurea), through which the emperors made their official entry into Constantinople, was built at the end of the fourth century or the early part of the fifth, remarkable for its architectural splendor, it is still in existence.

With the name of Constantine is bound up the erection of the Church of St. Irene and the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople. St. Sophia, the construction of which might have begun in his time, was completed in the time of his son Constantius. These churches were reconstructed in the sixth century by Justinian. In the fifth century another church embellished the new capital, the Basilica of St. John of Studion, which is now the mosque Mir-Achor djami.

A number of monuments of early Byzantine art have been preserved in the western parts of the Empire. Among these are some churches at Thessalonica (Salonika); Diocletian's palace at Spalato, in Dalmatia (early fourth century); some paintings in S. Maria Antiqua at Rome, dating apparently from the end of the fifth century; the mausoleum of Galla Placidia and the orthodox baptistery at Ravenna (fifth century); and some monuments in North Africa.

In the history of art the fourth and fifth centuries may be viewed as the preparatory period for the epoch of Justinian the Great, when the capital had attained a full self-consciousness and had assumed to itself a directive power, the epoch which has been justly described as the First Golden Age of Byzantine Art

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