Bk. IX. Ch. III. CONSTANTINOPLE. 441 example, at least, is found in the Hauran, at Chagga, and there may- be many more. Still, in the Hauran they never seem quite to have fallen into the true Byzantine system of construction, but preferred one less mechani- cally difficult, even at the expense of crowding the tioor with piers. In the church at Ezra, for instance, the internal octagon is reduced 882. Plan of Church at Ezra. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. MS3. Section of Church at Ezra. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. to a figure of sixteen sides before it is attempted to put a dome upon it, and all thought of beauty of form, either internally or externally, is abandoned in order to obtain mechanical stability — although the dome is only 30 feet in diameter. As the date of this church is perfectly ascertained (510) it forms a curious landmark in the style just anterior to the great efforts Justinian was about to make, and which forced it so suddenly into its greatest, though a short-lived, degree of perfection. Constantinople. As before mentioned, all the churches of the ca])ital which were erected before the age of Justinian, have perished, with the one excep- tion of that of St. John Studios mentioned above (page 421). This may in part be owing to the hurried manner in which they were con- structed, and the great quantity of wood consequently employed, which might have risked their destruction anywhere. It is, however, a curious, but architecturally an important, fact that Byzantium pos- sessed every conceivable title to be cliosen as the capital of the Empire, except the possession of a good building-stone, or even apparently any suitable material for makinsr Sfood bricks. Wood seems in all times to have been the material most readily obtained and most extensively used for building purposes, and hence the continual recurrence of fires, from before the time of Justinian down to the present day. That monarch was the first who fairly met the difficulty ; the two churches erected during his reign which now exist, are constructed wholly
