COLUMN OF CONSTANTINE. TRIPOD. EGYPTIAN OBELISK.
The Turks are extremely jealous of this interesting remain, as they have a tradition that, when it is either destroyed or displaced, Constantinople will fall once more into the hands and under the power of the Christians; and so universal is this superstition, that a pretty little girl of about eight years of age, who saw us examining it, approached us, and said earnestly; “You may look, but you cannot buy this with all your gold, for it is our talisman, and you are Franks and Infidels.”
About one hundred paces beyond the Tripod, the lofty monument of Constantine, denuded of the coating of metal by which its coarse masonry is said to have been once concealed, rears its head ninety feet from the earth; and appears, from its immense height and small circumference, superadded to the apparently careless and insecure manner in which the stones are put together, to stand erect only by a miracle.
But far more curious than either of these is the Tchernberlè Tasch, or Burnt Pillar, situated at a short distance from the Tower of the Seraskier. It was originally brought by Constantine from the Temple of Apollo, at Rome, and was placed upon an hexagonal pedestal, within which were built up several portions of the Holy Cross; whence the small square in which it stood became a place of prayer. When first transported to Constantinople, it was surmounted by a statue of the God, from the chisel of Phidias, of which the head was surrounded by a halo. But the conqueror appropriated the figure, and caused to be inscribed beneath it, “The Justice of the Sun to the Illustrious Constantine.”
The destruction of the statue is diversely explained by different writers. Genaro Esquilichi declares it to have been destroyed by a thunderbolt; Anna de Comnena asserts that it was overthrown by a strong southerly wind during the reign of Alexius de Comnena, and that it killed several persons in its fall; while other authors mention that it was merely mutilated by the first accident, and utterly ruined by the second. The pedestal bears an inscription now nearly obliterated, which may be thus rendered from the original Greek:
“O Christ, Master and Protector of the World,
I dedicate to Thee this City, subject to Thee;
And the Sceptre, and the Empire of Rome.