page_title: Basilica
section_title: Leonid period
hierarchical_section_title: Basilica / Late Antiquity / Leonid period
caption_attribution_description: English: Church of the Acheiropoietos (Thessaloniki) by Joy of Museums, see www.joyofmuseums.com
context_page_description: In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name to the architectural form of the basilica.
  Originally, a basilica was an ancient Roman public building, where courts were held, as well as serving other official and public functions. Basilicas are typically rectangular buildings with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles, with the roof at two levels, being higher in the centre over the nave to admit a clerestory and lower over the side-aisles. An apse at one end, or less frequently at both ends or on the side, usually contained the raised tribunal occupied by the Roman magistrates. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the forum and often opposite a temple in imperial-era forums. Basilicas were also built in private residences and imperial palaces and were known as "palace basilicas".
  In late antiquity, church buildings were typically constructed either as martyria, or with a basilica's architectural plan.
context_section_description: On Crete, the Roman cities suffered from repeated earthquakes in the 4th century, but between c. 450 and c. 550, a large number of Christian basilicas were constructed. Crete was throughout Late Antiquity a province of the Diocese of Macedonia, governed from Thessaloniki.
  Nine basilica churches were built at Nea Anchialos, ancient Phthiotic Thebes (Ancient Greek: Θη̑βαι Φθιώτιδες, romanized: Τhḗbai Phthiṓtides), which was in its heyday the primary port of Thessaly. The episcopal see was the three-aisled Basilica A, the Church of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and similar to the Church of the Acheiropoietos in Thessaloniki. Its atrium perhaps had a pair of towers to either side and its construction dates to the late 5th/early 6th century. The Elpidios Basilica – Basilica B – was of similar age, and the city was home to a large complex of ecclesiastical buildings including Basilica G, with its luxurious mosaic floors and a mid-6th century inscription proclaiming the patronage of the bishop Peter. Outside the defensive wall was Basilica D, a 7th-century cemetery church.
  Stobi, (Ancient Greek: Στόβοι, romanized: Stóboi) the capital from the late 4th century of the province of Macedonia II Salutaris, had numerous basilicas and six palaces in late antiquity. The Old Basilica had two phases of geometric pavements, the second phase of which credited the bishop Eustathios as patron of the renovations. A newer episcopal basilica was built by the bishop Philip atop the remains of the earlier structure, and two further basilicas were within the walls. The Central Basilica replaced a synagogue on a site razed in the late 5th century, and there was also a North Basilica and further basilicas without the walls. Various mosaics and sculptural decorations have been found there, and while the city suffered from the Ostrogoths in 479 and an earthquake in 518, ceasing to be a major city thereafter, it remained a bishopric until the end of the 7th century and the Basilica of Philip had its templon restored in the 8th century.
caption: Leonid basilica Church of the Acheiropoietos, Thessaloniki, 450–60.
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