Architecture provided one medium in which a true image of religious unity could be presented, and an extraordinary building programme lay at the centre of Justinian’s drive for reconciliation in post-conquest Africa. This project allowed the emperor and both secular and ecclesiastical religious elites to unite publicly around their shared commitment to doctrinal orthodoxy whilst at the same studiously ignoring the compromises and collaborations of the past.
Despite the scholarly scepticism about the very existence of a large-scale Justinianic building programme in Africa, recent excavations in Carthage indicate that, in the religious sphere at least, there was some kind of coordinated initiative that was clearly shaped by both architectural and liturgical influences from the eastern Mediterranean. At least eight churches and a number of Christian cult buildings in the city show clear traces of varying degrees of re-modelling in this period.57 There is a certain uniformity to many of these modifications that strongly hints at the powerful influence of the imperial government, if not its direct involvement. Particularly striking is the re-orientation of many of the basilicas towards the east through the construction of new (eastern) apses, something that had long been the architectural orthodoxy in the eastern Mediterranean.58 A renewed emphasis on the veneration of relics during this period also points to eastern Mediterranean influence. North Africa had long been the locus for the veneration of martyrs, of course, thanks to its strong and vexed history of martyrdom.59 Indeed, a major feature of fourth - and early fifth-century church architecture in the region had been the placing of relics in caskets that were deposited in a vault below the altar, or in a large vault below the apse. Usually they remained inaccessible underground, although in some cases the relics
Were accessible through a crypt.60 During the Justinianic period, however, the redevelopment of churches in Carthage reflected a marked change in the form in which these relics were venerated.
The Damous El Karita was a very large cemetery church and pilgrimage centre which lay just outside the city walls of Carthage, and provides a clear illustration of this process. During the Justinianic period, the basilica was expanded from nine to eleven aisles and a new eastern apse and atrium were also added. To the south, a subterranean rotunda was constructed which acted as the spiritual centre of the restored complex. Entering through a semi-circular forecourt screened by a portico, pilgrims would process into the circular martyrium. Access to and departure from the circular crypt, where the relics were housed under a marble ciborium, was gained by lateral, counter-rotating staircases. What is clear is that the rotunda at the Damous El Karita was specifically designed for large-scale circulation with a constant flow of pilgrims processing past the relics. The prototype for this architectural schema seems to have been the palace architecture of Constantinople.61
Figure 9.2 Isometric illustration of the Basilica at Damous El Karita. Reproduced courtesy of the Austrian Archaeological Institute
Damous El Karita was not the only Christian centre in Justinianic Carthage that was designed for pilgrim circulation. At Bir Ftouha, another large cemetery church just outside the city walls, a very large pilgrimage complex was constructed in the 640s. The overall architectural plan of the complex resembled a Latin cross with a baptistery at its head in the east, peristyle courtyards as the arms, a basilica as the main body and a usual nine-sided hall as its base. What the excavators of this extraordinary complex have demonstrated is that its plan was framed around the concept of movement, and particularly circumambulation. Starting from the nine-sided hall, pilgrims would process through a gallery into the main basilica where an ambulatory provided a path for pilgrims around the screened-off sanctuary, which contained the tombs of presumably martyrs and other saints. This architectural ensemble was connected to the basilica by peristyle courtyards, and culminated in a large baptistery. This was divided internally by a circular colonnade which may have allowed for further rotation. Architecturally, the baptistery acted as the counterpoint of the polygonal western complex of the church. As the excavators have pointed out: ‘Since the baptistery was the termination of the design, baptism was likely to have been the primary goal of some pilgrims, catechumens and penitents’.62 They conclude that: ‘As a newly-founded basilica ad corpus, Bir Ftouha may have commemorated Carthage’s official return to orthodoxy, this major metropolis having recently been incorporated into the Byzantine empire... a pilgrimage to Bir Ftouha may have been a statement of orthodoxy, a celebration of the victory over Arianism’.63
These large new Byzantine pilgrimage sites were also found inside the city walls of Carthage. The so-called Circular Monument, situated between Cardines II and III east and just south of the Decumanus IV north in the east end of the city, was comprehensively restored in the mid-sixth century and, according to its most recent excavators, acted together with the adjacent basilica as a church-memoria-complex rather like that at Damous El Karita.64 Another important basilica complex with an unusual ground plan was constructed at Bir Messaouda - an important central neighbourhood of Carthage, which straddled the Decumanus Maximus, the main thoroughfare of the city connecting the Byrsa Hill to the ports to the north, and Cardines IX and X east to the west and east respectively. This was a transept basilica with three north-south aisles 69 x 17 metres in size and five east west aisles of 34.5 X 22.5 metres. Where the inner colonnades of the east-west oriented aisles met the axis of the north-south colonnades stood four substantial pillars which supported a central tower or dome. At the central
Figure 9.3 Reconstruction of the Basilica at Bir Ftouha. Reproduced courtesy of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. Source: Stevens, S. T. et al. (eds.), Bir Ftouha. A Pilgrimage Church Complex at Carthage, JRA Suppl. 59 (Rhode Island, 2005). © JRA
Confluence of the aisles stood the altar, with some kind of canopy or ciborium over it. The building was orientated by an apse to the east of this central sanctuary. Like the other Justinianic era basilicas at Carthage, its floors and walls were richly decorated with mosaics, marble opus sectile and painted plaster. On the northern and southern flanks the basilica equidistant from the central nave of the east-west aisles were a very large baptistery with colonnaded walkways and a subterranean crypt with walls decorated with various motifs, including a Greek cross, which was clearly used to house martyr relics. Although it followed a very different architectural plan to Bir Ftouha, the two complexes were united by the emphasis on circulation through well-placed ambulatories that pushed the faith down channels created by ambulatories, chancels and colonnaded aisles between the baptistery and the saints’ memoria.65
Figure 9.4 Isometric illustration of the Basilica at Bir Messaouda
The design of these buildings suggests that African Christianity was becoming increasingly synchronized with current developments in the eastern Roman empire. Despite the differences in their ground plans, there was a shared emphasis on rotation, martyr veneration and baptism in these buildings. In the east there was a growth in interest in pilgrimage in the second half of the sixth century and a particular emphasis on what has been termed a ‘tactile piety’. This involved the faithful worshipping in close proximity to - or even handling - holy relics or an object that had been in contact with them. The east also witnessed developments in processional liturgies. Such parades had evolved in the great churches of Jerusalem in the fourth century ad before spreading to Rome and Constantinople, but had never been an important part of the African liturgy. By the sixth century in the eastern imperial capital, the Eucharistic service included two processions of the clergy during the service. Indeed in Constantinople many of the churches in whose construction or re-development Justinian was involved were specifically designed to accommodate elaborate liturgical processions. There were the processions that went from church to church through the various neighbourhoods of the city.66 Now, in post-conquest North Africa, the same liturgical blueprint seems to have been implemented through these ‘superchurches’. This period also witnessed a discernible growth in interest in eastern saints such as Tryphon, Theodore, Pantaleon, and Menas in Africa.67 It seems likely that the imperial authorities had played some part in this process.
Yet these new developments were more than the one dimensional top-down implementation of doctrinal and liturgical conformity. These processions and ceremonies provided a finely orchestrated affirmation of the sacred and secular order that governed the new order in postconquest Africa. In these awe-inspiring structures, the faithful witnessed the representatives of the emperor and their ecclesiastical and lay elites processing in a carefully planned sequence.
Although it is very unlikely that the emperor had any direct involvement with or contributed any funds to these projects, the construction of major ecclesiastical structures in important cities would certainly have required imperial blessing. Procopius’ comment that ‘it was impossible to build or to restore a church except with imperial support, not only in Constantinople but everywhere in the empire’, was probably more accurate than modern commentators have often suggested.68 Justinian’s legislation suggests that he saw his role as the overall co-ordination of his grand religious project, rather than the direct control of specifics. In Novella 67, for example, the emperor ordered potential evergates to turn their attentions to the necessary task of repairing the decaying churches of Constantinople and the provinces, rather than endowing yet more small churches.69
The well-documented process of imperial rebuilding following the Byzantine conquest of Italy sheds important light upon the contemporary situation in North Africa. Here, church building and renovation was generally undertaken on the joint initiative of local ecclesiastical and secular elites (who usually funded the projects) and the imperial officials sent to govern them. Structures such as the basilica of San Vitale at Ravenna were loci for a complicated confluence of local, regional and imperial interests, both secular and religious.70 There is no reason to suppose that the situation in Africa was any different. Certainly inscrip-tional evidence from outside Carthage reveals the considerable input of Solomon, Justinian’s Praetorian Prefect in Africa, for two separate spells in the 530s and 540s.71 In cities such as Sufetula inscriptions indicate that local clergy were involved in the construction of churches and baptisteries in the Byzantine period.72 Rather more epigraphic evidence exists for the construction of forts in Africa in this period. A variety of institutions seem to have taken responsibility for these constructions, including the imperial administration and the praetorian prefecture as well as local military and civil authorities.73
Each group had much to gain. The ambitious building schemes that followed the re-conquest were not merely about the reconfiguration of the urban landscape but also the past. This vision of Christian orthodoxy gloriously restored helped to shift the focus away from compromises and collaborations that had been the reality of the recently departed Vandal regime. At Bir Messaouda, Dermech I and many of the other basilicas built in Justinianic Carthage, the old churches that symbolized the collaborations and compromises under the Vandal regime were quite literally subsumed under these new superstructures. All that would remain would be carefully selected vignettes that told of terrible persecution and brave resistance. New buildings were constructed to hold the relics of Nicene churchmen reputed to have been martyred by the Vandals such as the baptistery-chapel of bishop Iucundus and perhaps the baptistery of Vitalis at Sufetula.74
Most famously in Carthage, at the so-called Monastery of Bigua, an inscription to the seven Macchabeen brothers, martyrs of the Old Testament who died in the second century bc in Antioch, was laid into a mosaic floor.75 The decision to commemorate the seven Macchabees in North Africa may at first seem bizarre, but the anonymous account of the seven monks of Gafsa who were martyred in ad 483 provides a possible context. According to this text, the monks were killed and thrown into the sea, but their bodies miraculously found their way back to the shore and were buried in the monastery. The writer repeatedly compared these two sets of martyrs and mentioned them in the same context. Some of the remains of the original Macchabeen martyrs had been brought to Constantinople in the mid-fifth century ad.76 One might therefore speculate about whether some of these relics were subsequently brought from the imperial capital after the Byzantine conquest once the popular association had become known. Whatever that particular connection, it seems likely that this was intended as a reminder of the martyrdoms suffered during the Vandal persecutions.
In the great new churches of Carthage, pilgrims would not just be reminded of Christian orthodoxy gloriously regained but also the part that the emperor, his high officials, the African Nicene Church and the lay elite had supposedly played in that great victory. In the cemetery churches such as Bir Ftouha, as pilgrims processed towards the great baptismal font past the sanctuary and apses screened off by a grille, they might catch a glimpse of the tombs of these honoured people close to the sacred relics of martyrs. At Bir Messaouda and Dermech I, it would have been the living representatives of these groups who stood in glorious seclusion behind the chancels. The message, like that of the great mosaic at S. Vitale, was a simple one. It was these groups under the protection of God, Jesus and the martyr saints who had restored Africa to peace, security and doctrinal orthodoxy.
World History
