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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 84
And in the next year1 the Empress Eudoxia sendeth the pillars which she promised, marvellous and great, in number two-and-thirty (and they are called Carystian),2 the which are in the holy church shining like emeralds. But when they came into harbour,3 there was shown forth again the zeal and eagerness of the Christ-loving folk; for all when they heard it straightway ran to the shore, not only the men, but also women and children and old men (for the desire of the faith enabled all of them), and bringing wagons they laid each pillar upon a wagon and drew it and set it in the open part of the temple,4 and turned again and conveyed another until they had conveyed them all. Of these matters thus much.
Notes
- in the next year. A.D. 403.
- Carystian. ‘Cipollino’ from Carystus in Euboea. See G. R. Lepsius, Griechische Marmorstudien, Abh. der k. Akad., Berlin, 1890, p. 41. Professor J. L. Myres, to whom I owe this reference, informs me that the quarries are still open, several of them belonging to an English firm.
- came into harbour. καταπλευσάντων. But Nuth, p. 47, maintains that the word here means ‘were taken out of the ship’, which seems very doubtful.
- open part of the temple. ἐν τῷ ὑπαίθρῳ τοῦ ἱεροῦ. The double portico had been left standing, and Mark apparently uses the word which technically would mean the roofless nave of the temple for the whole space within the circle of the portico.