The Hippodrome

Visiting the Hippodrome amazed me! It sits just between the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. It was adjacent to the palace of the Caesars who followed Constantine in the Eastern Roman Empire. Of course it was important. Chariot races were to the ancient Romans what television is to us--entertainment. However, it was significant historically because of the Nika Riots in 532 A. D. and the iconoclastic controversies in the early church. Yet all of this history occurred in a space about the size of a city block. It is truly amazing how much history occurred in such a small place. There is a helical bronze monument, which was trucated only recently. It can be traced back to the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B. C. There is an obelisk that came from Egypt. If Constantinople was the capital of the world for a thousand years, then this city block was its heart.Read more