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Event details

installation	Palace of Hieria Cistern (Fenerbahçe)
name	Palace of Hieria Cistern – Restoration
event type	Restoration
start date	886
end date	887 (Fixed date)
date comments	-
persons	Basil I - Restorer (867-886)
description	The cistern had been turned into an ochard and garden by Heraclius. (r. 610-641).
comments	-

Literature connected to this Event

#	Code	Page	Excerpt
1	Theophanus Continuatus 961	237	(Bekker 338) And in the palace of Hiereia, he (Basil I) built a sacred oratory of the same prophet Elijah, which as regards beauty and prettiness is judged second to no other. When he stayed there on his imperial circuit he also saw a great and spacious cistern (dexamene hydatos), which was a work of the emperor who had first adorned this place, but which was filled with earth by the emperor Heraclius and which had been planted with trees and vegetables, just like those inside the imperial palace, the one in front of the Magnaura and the one between the banqueting hall of Justinian and that of the Ekthesis, which also had had water in abundance and fish that were bred in order to delight the emperors and in order to be caught by them but which had been turned into dry land by the same emperor and which had served for the creation of gardens because the mathematician Stephen who established the horoscope of the aforementioned emperor had said that he would die through water. For this reason then the cistern in Hiereia was turned into a garden. When the famous emperor Basil saw that the palace had sufficient and adequate space for planting gardens but was somewhat lacking in water that was drinkable and clean he dug out the earth again through the employment of many hands and with zeal and he returned to its original shape the meadow that shortly before had been full of plants and instead of a garden he made it a receptacle of abundant and sufficient water.