Most Roman cities had a Hippodrome and Constantinople was no exception ; Bread and Circuses were the staples allotted to the Proleteriat and the Circus built by Septimius Severus was typical, serving up a diet of Gladiator contests, exotic animals and chariot races, most of which featured death in its goriest guise.

The original layout is preserved to this day and tourists now promenade around the arena where men fought to the death and massacres were not uncommon. The Emperor's box is long gone and the tourist office now stands where a magnificent bronze quadriga once dominated. Liberated by the Venetians in the 4th Crusade the horses are now a feature of San Marcos in Venice. There is a fountain at one end called The German Fountain where Kaiser Wilhelm 11 visited in 1898 and the Hippodrome is now a very pleasant place to visit.

The centre of any Circus is called the Spina and there are three monuments in the centre of this one --they all have varied histories.

The Brazen Obelisk

The column in the bottom left of the picture was so called due to the sheaths of embossed bronze plates which completely enclosed the brickwork. Erected in 390 A.D. by Theodosius, there was also a masterpiece among weathervanes of a gilt maiden and she turned around with each passing zephyr. The 4th Crusade of 1204 saw the Christians remove the bronze plate and melt it down while the maiden was pulled off her plinth to vanish forevermore. In later years, the Janissaries used the column as a test of bravery, clambering to the top. This and the weather have contributed to worsen its condition but it is truly wondrous that any of these artifacts are here at all given their venerable age.

The Serpents Column

The Serpents Column was originally part of a Greek statuary at Delphi in 479 B.C. erected to commemorate the victory over the Persians at Plataea ; the metal is cast from the captured Persian weapons. It was removed to the Hippodrome in the 3rd century A.D. Originally, the column supported 3 snakes heads which in turn supported a cauldron. Incredible as it may seem, the column remained intact until the 18th century when after surviving Crusaders, riots and invaders it was finally desecrated by drunken souvenir hunters. One of the snake heads is in Istanbul Museum, one is missing and one is in The British Museum { I wonder how it got there ? }. Constantine was responsible for erecting the column in the Spina and once again Istanbul retains the ability to stagger the senses with the sheer age of all around.

The Hippodrome ---15th Century

The Egyptian Obelisk

The Obelisk was originally a part of the Temple of Karnak in Egypt. It was brought over to Constantinople and erected in 390 A.D. by Theodosius. The column in the Hippodrome is only the top of the stele and the original was far taller than this but the whole thing broke into pieces when being unloaded from the docks.

The above artifacts are only a small part of what used to be --in its heyday the Circus was full of statues from all over the Roman Empire; the finest of them all being the San Marcos horses.

I always find it strange using words like Hippodrome, Coliseum, Alhambra, Forum, Rialto and such-like -- fabled names of fabled places of which I once had little knowledge. But in the far-off 50s all the cinemas in my city once resounded with names such as these and for many years I had the vague notion that the foreign places I only knew from stamps were named after the cinemas. Over the years, the fog dissipated and it came as something of a shock to realise La Scala was an Opera house and the Rialto bridge had been in existence long before our local flea-pit. In the light of subsequent experience, one can only marvel at the unashamed brashness of the local entrepreneurs.

At the far end of the Hippodrome is the German fountain. This was erected in 1898 to commemorate the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm the Second of Germany. At the time Germany was courting Turkey for political and trading reasons but the ramifications of their entente were to have tragic consequences during the First World War when the Young Turks trained and advised by German officers defeated the Anzacs at the Dardanelles.

The Empress Theodora and her Courtiers