by Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (ruled 717–741) or by his son, Constantine V (r. 741–775). They were however saved by two pious brothers and brought to the island of Lemnos, from where they were brought back in 796, after the end of the first Iconoclasm period, by Empress Eirene (r. 797–802). The church survived until the end of the Byzantine Empire, being redecorated in the late 13th century with frescoes in the Palaiologan style. Description Original architecture of the palace The original palace consisted of two sections, a southern and a northern. The southern one, inaccessible to the public today, featured the large apsed hexagonal hall which was later converted into the Church of Saint Euphemia, connected to a wide semicircular portico, some 60 m in diameter and enclosing a courtyard paved with marble. The hexagonal hall originally served probably as a dining hall (triclinium). The diameter of the hall is some 20 m, with each side of the hexagon 10.4 m wide. Each side featured an absidal niche, polygonal on the exterior and semicircular in the interior, each 7.65 m wide and 4.65 m deep, thus providing space for a semicircular bench (sigma or stibadium) and a dining table. Each apse also had a door that communicated with small circular rooms, situated between the apses. A marble pool was located in the center of the hall, a feature common in Late Antiquity. The hexagonal triclinium was flanked by other rooms, grouped along the outer curve of the great portico, including an elaborate vestibule with a circular room at its center. The northern section, located between the street that ran along the western wall of the Hippodrome and the Mese thoroughfare, was until recently misidentified as the Palace of Lausus. It comprised a large rotunda of 20 m diameter with niches on the wall, which seems to have functioned as an audience hall for Antiochos. It was attached to a south-eastwards facing, C-shaped portico open to the street along the Hippodrome. A small bath house, also accessible from the street, lay next to the southern side of the portico. In the 5th century, when the palace was imperial property, an elongated hallway was added to the rotunda in the west, accessed through a double-apsed vestibule. Its shape points to its use as a triclinium. It was 52.5 m long and 12.4 m wide with an apse at its end,