Fashioning Sixth-Century Constantinople

The Buildings is a sixth-century text by Prokopios of Kaisareia (Caesarea Maritima) on the building works attributed to the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (r. 527-65 CE), extolling the virtues of good rulership through praise of architecture. Book I centres on the imperial capital Constantinople: rich in its use of rhetoric and aesthetics, it portrays the emperor as a builder-patron, but also p...