Page:The Greek Anthology, Vol. 1.djvu/33

Rh

I, servant Sophia, O Christ, offer this gift to thy servants. Receive thine own, and to my emperor Justin give in payment therefor victory on victory over diseases and the barbarians.

I the House of the Trinity, and three generations built me. First Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius, having escaped from war and the barbarians, erected and dedicated me to God in acknowledgement of her rescue from distress. Next her daughter Placidia with her most blessed husband adorned me. Thirdly, if perchance my beauty was at all deficient in splendour, munificent Juliana invested me with it in memory of her parents, and bestowed the height of glory on her mother and father and her mother's illustrious mother by augmenting my former adornment. Thus was I made.

I loveliness before, but now in addition to my former beauty I have acquired greater splendour.

did Juliana, after her mother and grandmother, scrape off my coat of old age, and I have new bloom.

was then something more beautful than beauty, since my fabric, even formerly of world-wide celebrity, was advanced to a beauty greater than its former splendour by Juliana, so that now it rivals the stars.