One of the surprising aspects of my Sunday tour of Istanbul was when our Sunday guide stopped literally right in front of my hotel door and pointed to a huge wall across the street. This was the foundation to the hippodrome of ancient times, the center of the city’s entertainment area. He did a short summary of the major hippodrome monuments that the emperors brought to Constantinople from the distant parts of the empire. The idea was to help reinforce their rule through displaying power monuments from all over their empire.
The most famous monument was the obelisk that I mentioned in an earlier post. The base of the monument was what we spent our attention on with the tour. Several Byzantine specialists in the group talked about the issues of power represented in the carved marble base.
One side had a dedication of the monument written in Latin. Another side had its translation in Greek. Yet another side had the emperor shown in the chariot racing imperial spectator box with his body guards. A retired German professor in the group pointed out how the hairstyle of the bodyguards showed that they were Germanic.
Yet another image on the monument displays the emperor with his senators (remember the Roman connection) with crowds of people below including dancing girls at the very bottom.
No comments:
Post a Comment