God's Gold (21 page)

The Vandal palace's
dining platform,
stibadium,
on Byrsa
Hill, Carthage, with
its apse and remains
of marble veneer
(left)
and a rectangular
foundation for a
fountain
(right).

The second-phase
triconchal dining
room in the Vandal
palace, denoted by
the apse, with the
lower
stibadium
platform
behind.

In AD 534, the Byzantine emperor Justinian granted General Belisarius a Roman-style
triumph in Constantinople's hippodrome in honor of his victory over the Vandals. The
Temple treasure of Jerusalem was shipped to Constantinople and paraded in the hippodrome
on this occasion.
(Onofrio Panvinio, c. 1450)

The ghost of an Ottoman building overlying the walls
and an arched entrance to Constantinople's Byzantine
hippodrome.

The hippodrome was also a
museum of antique artwork,
including a bronze serpent
column originally dedicated at
the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
in 479 BC.

The southern
Byzantine
monument
and Theodosius's
Column
in the center
of Constantinople's
hippodrome.

The base of Theodosius's
Column in Constantinople's
hippodrome. The emperor
Valentinian II hands out a
laurel wreath to a sporting
victor from the royal box,
the Kathisma. Below, the
crowd watches a chariot
race. Although sculpted in
AD 390, the scene captures
the atmosphere of the triumph
of AD 534, when the
Temple treasure arrived in
the Hippodrome.

A hippodrome chariot race
on the base of Theodosius's
Column, Istanbul.

The ruins of the
Church of Saint
Polyeuktos, built
by Princess Anicia
Juliana in AD 527,
using the royal
biblical cubit of
King Solomon's
Temple. This house
of God accommodated
the Temple
treasure of Jerusalem
while it was in
Constantinople.

Sculpted vine leaf and grape
motifs in the Church of Saint
Polyeuktos recalled the decoration
of King Solomon's
Temple in Jerusalem.

The emperor Justinian's royal
apartments in the Byzantine
palace of Constantinople.

The Monastery of Saint
Theodosius in the West
Bank. Its superior, Modestus,
spirited the Temple treasure
away from Church of
the Holy Sepulchre around
AD 614 into the wilderness
to escape the clutches of
Persian invaders and their
Jewish allies.