Notes on the “Antiquities” of Constantinople

Abstract

This article discusses some antiquities of Constantinople, described in the patriographic texts from the eighth to the tenth centuries. For the first time in Russian, it presents a detailed description and filiation of such texts as: Brief representations from the chronicles, Diegesis of the Great Church, and Patria Constantinopoleos. The exact dating of Παραστάσεις σύντομοι χρονικαί to the mid-eighth century has been proposed. Topographical and other details are clarified regarding the Hippodrome (bronze obelisks with ovae and the Underground Gates), the Senate (the astronomical construction where the Arians killed Archdeacon Arkadios), the Milion (the trial measure as “Stateros”), the Forums of Constantine and Taurus (the silver statue of Theodosius I and the “rough statues”), the Chalke gate (the statue of Ariadne), Artopolia (the person of Aristides), Myrelaion (the problem of Psarelaion and of the “two Myrelaia”), Pege (the legend of the construction of Theotokos church), the statues of Eudoxia (at St. Euphemia in ta Olybriou and on the Augustaion) and Janus (counting with the fingers of the hands). The genesis of the tradition of Apostle Andrew’s preaching in Byzantium has been reconstructed: from the apocryphal Acts of Andrew through the List of Disciples by Pseudo-­Epiphanius of Cyprus to Epiphanius the Monk and the attempts of his followers to localize the Theotokos church on the Acropolis.