whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is
unsparing efforts to nourish the destitute.

The inscription is not mere flattery to the founders of the church.
Justinian and Theodora were devout after the fashion of their day, and
took a deep interest in the poor. The empress erected an asylum for
fallen women, hostels for strangers, hospitals for the sick, and homes
for the destitute. 'On the splendid piece of tapestry embroidered in
gold which formed the altar cloth of S. Sophia, she was represented with
Justinian as visiting hospitals and churches.'[110]

[Illustration: FIG. 20. INSCRIPTION ON THE FRIEZE.]

To the rear of the southern straight side of the octagon two columns
stand under the gallery, with wide fillets worked on both sides of their
bases, shafts, and capitals, showing that a frame of stone or wood was
once affixed to them. The capitals are of the ordinary cushion type and
bear on opposite faces the monograms Justinian, Basileus.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.
(1) SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING NORTH-EAST.
(2) SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS. PORTION OF THE ENTABLATURE.
_To face page 74._]

Two feet above the cornice, or twenty feet from the floor of the church,
the level of the gallery is reached.[111] Here the columns are smaller
than those below, and are bound together by arches instead of by an
architrave. Their capitals represent the type known as the
'Pseudo-Ionic' or cushion capital, in view of its broad head. It appears
appropriately here as the form of capital required to carry the impost
of an arch upon a capital. At one time, indeed, that demand was met by
placing upon the capital a distinct block of stone, a fragment, so to
speak, of the horizontal architrave. It is the device adopted in San
Vitale at Ravenna, S. Demetrius of Salonica, and elsewhere, but never it
would seem in Constantinople, except in the underground cisterns of the
city. It was, however, too inartistic to endure, and eventually was
superseded by capitals with a broad flattened head on which the wide
impost of an arch could rest securely.[112]

A free form of acanthus, deeply undercut on the face towards the central
area of the church, covers the capitals, and in the centre of that face,
on all the capitals except the eighth (counting from the north-east) is
carved the monogram of the title Basileus, or of Justinian, or of
Theodora.

In the south side of the gallery stand two columns corresponding