The Church Fathers · 563
Description of Hagia Sophia
Paul the Silentiary · d. c. 575
What it is
A poem recited before Justinian at the rededication after the dome fell and was rebuilt: over a thousand lines on marble quarried from every province, on the silver screen and the altar, and on the lamps at night making the church visible to sailors far out at sea.
Why it lasted
The fullest description of any ancient building by someone standing inside it, and the only record of Hagia Sophia's original furnishings before the Latin sack and the Ottoman conversion removed them.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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