Louis Navarrete Decoration: What I'm Looking At Today: The Hippodrome of Constantinople

One of the reasons that I travel is that I get to see wonderful, odd places, repurposed buildings and squares, materials reused and to experience scale, which a photograph really can't give you. Sometimes a grand building is really very small, the grandness comes from materials and proportion, other times the scale is vast, such is the Hippodrome....it must have been a wonder.

The original Hippodrome was built when the city was a provincial town called Byzantium. Septimus Severous expanded the town, added walls and endowed the city with a new arena for chariot races and entertainments.

Constantine the Great moved the seat of government to the New Rome in 324 but the name didn't stick so they named it Constantinople. The Emperor greatly expanded the city and he rebuilt/ renovated the U shaped stadium making it capable of holding 100.000 spectators.

The Emperor's box, the Kathisma was at the end of the track and was accessed from the palace. The boxes had four gilded horses, the Quadriga now in Venice, stood at the northern end. The lower curved part was called the Sphendone and still survives. The track was lined with bronze statues of gods, emperors and heroes, including the Herakles of Lysippos, Romulus and Remus with the she wolf and the Platean tripod. Most was sacked in the 4th Crusade or 'lost' over time.

The ruins of the Hippodrome of Constantinople

from an engraving by Onofrio Paninio dated to 1580. The spina that stood at the center of the race course originally held many monuments and ancient statues gathered by Constantine the Great to Justinian. This print shows the state of the ruins still visible in the 16th c. Today only three monuments remain.

Walking to the Hippodrome from the park between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

The German Fountain in the very center of the Hippodrome.

Theodosius the Great brought a pink granite obelisk from Egypt in 390 from the the Temple of Karnak.It was so large that he had it cut in three pieces. Only the top bit survives.....how do you lose two huge pieces of pink granite?

The base of the Thutmoses III obelisk shows the Emperor and his court.

A nice building where the stands would have been

The Serpent Column

Was the Tripod of Plataea and was cast to celebrate the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the 5thc BC. Constantine ordered it moved from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and set in the middle of the Hippodrome. The tripod held a golden bowl supported by three snakes. The bowl was stolen, now lost or destroyed during the 4th Crusade. The serpents heads remained intact until at least the late 17th c when they were chopped off. there are parts displayed in the Archeological Museum [ the rooms are currently under restoration].

The base of the column. The original street level can be seen.

An Ottoman drawing of what the column looked like.

The top severed with the walled obelisk behind. This monument was originally clad in bronze but was also despoiled by Dodge Dandolo during the 4th Crusade.