Since the construction of the Castra Praetoria in 21-3, it had been usual in Rome to use brick to face concrete, late antique examples of this opus latericium being the basilicas of S. Sabina and SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Krautheimer 1986: pis. 133, 135). However, tufa facing was used in techniques called opus vittatum (or listatum) simplex or opus vittatum (or listatum) mixtum. In the former, the facing was of small coursed blocks of tufa alone, and in the latter, which was much more common, the courses of stone facing alternated with courses of brick facing (Adam 1994:135-44 for the techniques; Heres 1982:184 for the occurrences).
In Rome, three main sizes of brick were in use: the bessalis (c.20 cm square), the sesquipedalis (c.45 cm square), and the bipedalis (c.8o cm square). The bipedales were cut across the diagonals into four triangular pieces, the longest edge being visible in the facing of the finished wall. In northern Italy, however, much shorter, thicker bricks were used: witness in Ravenna the basilica of S. Giovanni Evangelista, the so-called mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and the Orthodox Baptistery, an exception being S. Vitale, where long thin bricks more typical of Rome and Constantinople were used (Deichmann 1976: 60-3; Krautheimer 1986: 234).
Brick had been extensively used in Roman Greece, the Balkans, and Asia Minor, presumably having been introduced from the West (Dodge 1987), but the metropolitan practice of using brick or stone to face a core of mortared rubble was only occasionally followed (e. g. the baths at Elaeusa-Sebaste) (Ward-Perkins 1958: 82). Generally, the use of brick in the provinces fell into one of two categories: solid brick construction (as in the Harbour Baths at Ephesos, the Kizil Avlu (Serapaeum) at Pergamon, and the towers of the walls of Nicaea), or banded construction, in which bands of mortared rubble faced with small stone blocks alternated with solid brick bands that passed right through the wall, serving as bonding and levelling courses (as in the aqueduct of Los Milagro at Merida, the baths at Ankara, and the curtain walls of Nicaea) (Adam 1994:143, figs. 339-40; Ward-Perkins 1981: 223 with n. 10; 1958: 87, 96). These techniques continued to be used into Late Antiquity: solid brick was used, for instance, in the Constantinian basilica at Trier (Ward-Perkins 1981: pi. 297), the fifth-century walls of Ravenna (Christie and Gibson 1988), and the sixth-century walls of Durres (Albania) (Gutteridge and others 2001: 394-402); the banded technique was adopted in the substructures of a basilical hall at Diocletian’s palace at Split, in the imperial baths at Trier (Ward-Perkins 1981: pi. 301), and in the rotunda, octagon, and fortifications at Thessalonike (Ward-Perkins 1958: 88, pi. 33 c, D, e).
In Constantinople the banded technique was used from the city’s foundation (as indicated by the Constantinian remains of the curved end of the Hippodrome) and continued to be employed through the fifth century (the Land Walls, the propylaeum of Theodosios II’s Hagia Sophia, the cistern of Aetios, the palace of Antiochos, St John of Stoudios, the cistern of Aspar). In the later fifth century, the church of the Theotokos in the Chalkoprateia displays solid brick masonry, but in the sixth century solid brick with a levelling course of limestone or greenstone blocks after about 20 brick courses became the standard technique (Sts Sergios and Bakchos, Hagia Sophia, Baths of Zeuxippos, North Church at Kalenderhane Camii) (Bardill 2004: 52-3).
Banded construction continued to be used in Constantinople after the so-called Dark Ages until the fourteenth century, with variations in the numbers of brick and stone courses (Vefa Kilise Camii, Christ Pantokrator). These variations are generally not specific to particular periods, but the ‘recessed brick’ or concealed course’ technique is largely limited to the late tenth to twelfth centuries. Although the earliest dated example of this technique in Constantinople comes from St George in the Mangana (1042-55), it had presumably developed there sometime before construction of the Destyatinnaya church in Kiev (996) and the Panagia Chalkeon in Thessalonike (1028). In this technique, every other brick course is slightly recessed and concealed behind mortar, with the result that the mortar beds appear extremely thick (Vocotopoulos 1979; Krautheimer 1986: 354, pis. 306, 307; Ousterhout 1999: figs. 136-9,154).
The bricks in Constantinople commonly measured about 310 mm square x 55 mm. thick under Constantine; 370 mm square x 45 mm thick in the fifth and early sixth centuries; 335 mm square x 40 mm thick in the later sixth century (Bardill 2004: 102-6). In subsequent periods much material was salvaged from ruined monuments. Such reuse complicates attempts to devise dating systems for Constantinopolitan masonry, which have examined brick dimensions, mortar course thicknesses, and the numbers of bands of brick and stone (e. g. Schneider 1936: 13-14; Mitchell, Aran, and Liggett 1982). Nevertheless, such efforts have had some success where there are inscriptions dating various construction phases, as in the Land Walls of Constantinople (Foss 1986). The chronology of brick buildings and the organization of brick production may be studied, in Constantinople and Rome in particular, by examining the inscriptions stamped on the bricks (see above, 1.2.18 Brickstamps).
In the provinces both the solid brickwork and banded brickwork techniques continued to be used into the Byzantine period. Banded brick was used in Basilica B at Philippi in Greece (shortly before 540), whereas solid brickwork was employed in St John at Ephesos (completed by 565) and in the Red Church at Perustica in Bulgaria (early sixth century). Both Basilica B at Philippi and St John at Ephesos used ashlar only for the main load-bearing piers. In Syria, where stone was the usual building material, brick was used occasionally, its occurrences there and in neighbouring Mesopotamia and Palestine having been surveyed by Deichmann (1979: fig. 1). The banded technique was used in the early fifth-century walls at Antioch-on-the-Orontes (Deichmann 1979: 481), in the palace and church at Qasr ibn Wardan of c.564 (where the brick bands alternate with bands of basalt blocks) (Deichmann 1979: 488-93, pis. 161, 163), and in the Kastron at nearby Anderin, dated by inscription to 558 (Deichmann 1979: 494-5, pi. 164). In northern Mesopotamia, fired brick occurs in bands alternating with ashlar-faced mortared rubble (Bell 1982: vii, 9, pis. 4, 120, 121, 122). An excellent example of the use of pure brickwork in the region is to be seen in the imposing Praetorium at Balis-Barbalissos (Eski Meskene) on the Euphrates (Deichmann 1979: 496-7, pi. 165).
At about the beginning of the eleventh century, in Greece and Macedonia in particular, the cloisonne technique was introduced. This involved surrounding the stone blocks used to face a wall with brick (Millet 1916: 224-44). Sometimes the brick cloisons dividing the stones were manufactured with decorative mouldings. Around the same time, walls were also adorned with brick friezes, making simple Greek letters or Christograms, complex decorative designs, meanders, and pseudo-Kufic inscriptions (Millet 1916: 252-61). Such ornaments appear to a lesser extent in Constantinople, for example, in the Eski Imaret Camii, Christ Philanthropos, the Lips monastery, and the Tekfur Sarayi (Ousterhout 1999: 194-200).
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