Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Anthemius of
Tralles (c. 474 - before 558) was a Greek professor of Geometry in
Constantinople (present-day Istanbul in Turkey) and architect, who
collaborated with Isidore of Miletus to build the church of Hagia Sophia
by the order of Justinian I. Anthemius came from an educated family, one
of five sons of Stephanus of Tralles, a physician. Of his brothers,
Dioscorus followed his father's profession in Tralles; Alexander became
at Rome one of the most celebrated medical men of his time; Olympius was
deeply versed in Roman jurisprudence; and Metrodorus was a distinguished
grammarian in Constantinople. As an architect he is best known for
replacing the old church of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople in 532; his
daring plans for the church strikingly displayed at once his knowledge
and his ignorance. His skills seem also to have extended to engineering
for he repaired the flood defences at Daras. Anthemius was also a
capable mathematician. He described the string construction of the
ellipse and he wrote a book on conic sections, which was excellent
preparation for designing the elaborate vaulting of Hagia Sophia.
