_To face page 246._]

The esonarthex is in three bays covered with barrel vaults, and
terminates at both ends in a shallow niche. The outer arches spring from
square buttresses. From each bay a door conducts into the church, the
central door being set in a marble frame and flanked by two Corinthian
columns, which support a bold wall arcade.

The drum of the dome is a polygon of twelve sides, and was lighted by
the same number of windows. It rests on four columns, which were
originally square, but now have large champs at the angles, dying out at
top and bottom. Barrel vaults cover the arms of the cross, and dome
vaults surmount the chambers at its angles. As in the Pantokrator (p.
235), the eastern arm is pierced by two windows in the vaulting surface.
The central apse is lighted by a triple window, having oblong shafts,
circular on their inner and outer faces, and bearing capitals now badly
injured. A niche indents the northern, eastern, and southern interior
walls of the apsidal chapels. The windows in the northern and southern
walls of the church have been built up almost to their full height,
leaving only small openings for light at the top. There can be little
doubt that they were triple windows with a parapet of carved marble
slabs between the shafts. On the exterior the apse shows five sides, and
is decorated by an arcade of five arches and an upper tier of five
niches. The lateral apses do not project beyond the face of the eastern
wall, but are slightly marked out by cutting back the sides and forming
angular grooves. Bayet[426] assigns the church to the ninth or tenth
century, the age of Leo the Wise and Constantine Porphyrogenitus.
Fergusson[427] is of the same opinion so far as the earlier portions of
the building are concerned. But that date is based on the mistaken view
that the building is the church of the Theotokos erected by Constantine
Lips. Diehl[428] assigns the church to the second half of the eleventh
century.

[Illustration: PLATE LXXII.
S. THEODORE. SOUTH CROSS ARM (EXTERIOR), FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]

[Illustration: S. THEODORE. THE EAST END, FROM THE SOUTH.
_To face page 248._]

[Illustration: FIG. 82.--S. THEODORE. PLAN AS GIVEN BY TEXIER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 83.--S. THEODORE. PART OF SOUTH ELEVATION SHOWING
THE SIDE CHAPEL AS GIVEN BY TEXIER.]

In the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in London,
are four volumes of Texier's sketches and drawings of b