ABSTRACT
The verse ekphrasis, written by Constantine of Rhodes, describing the church of the Holy Apostles is preserved in a single manuscript of the fifteenth century, Athos Lavra 1161, on fols. The ekphrasis of Constantine of Rhodes was first brought to scholars’ attention by K. Sathas in 1872 when he published a catalogue of the most important manuscripts held in the monasteries of Mount Athos. Although the work is prefaced by an epigram in which Rhodios dedicates the ekphrasis of the church of the Holy Apostles to Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, the text that follows does not appear to have reached the final form that would have been presented to the emperor. Preger observed that some of the fragmentary verses in Kedrenos cannot be traced to the ekphrasis and must surely have derived from a later version by Constantine that has not survived elsewhere.
