The term " Byzantine " is applied to the style of architecture which was developed in Byzantium after Constantine had transferred the capital of the Roman empire to that city in A.D. 324. It is not possible, in the early ages of any style which is based on preceding or contemporaneous styles, to draw any hard and fast line of demarcation; and already before the Peace of the Church, a gradual transformation in the Roman style had been taking place, even in Rome itself. Thus the arch had gradually been taking the place of the lintel, either frankly as a relieving arch above it (portico of Pantheon), or introduced in the frieze just above the architrave (San Lorenzo), or by the conversion of the architrave into a flat arch by dividing it into voussoirs, as in the Forum Julium at Rome or in the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. In the palace built by Diocletian at Spalato, the architrave or Ijntel of the Golden Gate is built » ith several voussoirs, and the pressure is further relieved by an arch thrown across above it. Long before this, however, and already in the 2nd century A.D. in Syria, this relieving arch had been moulded and decorated, with the result of emphasizing it as a new architectural feature.
\nIn this same palace at Spalato, in order to obtain a wider opening in the centre of the portico, leading to the throne room, it was spanned by an arch, round which were carried the
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