376 Johnson
Chalke and any possible dining hall above it was not “By the Sea” but on the
side of the palace opposite from the sea. The location of a mosaic on a “pin-
nacle”, usually translated as ‘gable’ also suggests that it was on the exterior of
the building, where a gable or pediment would normally be found. If one can
accept the description as referring to two images, then one of them was in the
gable of the Chalke and it was the representation of this image that was oblit-
erated during the Orthodox ‘sanitizing’ of the Palatium mosaic.
Whichever interpretation, the passage remains important for its description
of yet another evocation of Roman imperial imagery on the part of Theoderic.
Images of the emperor with personifications were common, and if there were
an image above the Chalke entrance it would have imitated the practice begun
by Constantine of placing images of himself above the entrances to his palace.73
Modifications to the palace mosaic carried out after the Orthodox recon-
ciliation, identifiable due to the use of a mortar different from the original,
may be noted. Several figures that stood in the arches were obliterated except
for portions of their right arms that extended over the columns.74 The centre
of the pediment was also reworked; it perhaps contained a representation of
Theoderic, either the one described by Agnellus or another. The entrance is
filled with gold mosaic, and though some have suggested that there were also
changes in this part of the mosaic that view is not supported by a technical
analysis of the mosaic itself.75 A figure standing in the gate of the city wall on
the right of the mosaic was also filled in.
Mosaics also decorated the west wall of the nave interior, but all that remains
is a fragment showing a middle-aged man from the waist up who wears a
crown and a mantle pinned with an elaborately jewelled fibula (Figure 14.15).
The name above his head is “Justinian”, but that is a 19th-century addition. An
investigation of the underlying mortar revealed that the face was set during
the period of Theoderic, but the crown and fibula were set in the Byzantine
period. Speculation is that this was a portrait of Theoderic later modified into
one of Justinian, but there is really no basis for assuming the original mosaic
represented Theoderic as opposed to another man.76
Did the mosaics have an Arian message? When the church was reconciled
to the Orthodox tradition, only limited changes were made and those changes
73 Sources collected in Johnson, “Theoderic’s Building Program”, p. 87.
74 Urbano, “Donation”, p. 96 suggests that the arms were deliberately left to remind viewers
of the damnatio memoriae of images of Theoderic and his court.
75 Longhi, “Statua”, p. 191, argues the mosaic here was changed; Carile, Vision, p. 143 says no
changes have been made in this area.
76 Bernardi, “Ritratto”; Baldini Lippolis, “Ritratto”.