Constantinople: The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire

by William Holden Hutton

THE IMPERIAL QUARTER

On January 13, 532, there began an insurrection called ever after the "Nika" (conquer), from the watchwords of the insurgents, which threatened the imperial throne, and went nigh to destroy the whole city. The præfect of the city led to execution some criminals belonging to both parties, three days before. The Greens, during the celebration of public games in the Hippodrome on Sunday, January 11, appealed to the Emperor against Calapodius, the imperial minister, and the most extraordinary dialogue occurred. "Be silent, Jews, Samaritans and Manichæans," cried Justinian's mandator, uttering imperial commands, but they renewed their complaints, and finally passed into insults, calling the Emperor tyrant and murderer. Justinian determined to show his indifference to the mob by the execution that night of criminals of both factions. Two were rescued, and the two factions determined to procure their pardon, and on the 13th, when the great games took place, they appealed to Justinian, but in vain. The two demes then declared themselves united, and having no answer from the præfect whose house they surrounded, they set fire to the prætorium, and then in the night spread the fire over the imperial quarter. The portico of the Palace, the Baths of Xeuxippus, the Senate-house, and the wooden church of S. Sophia were set on fire. Next morning they marched to the Palace and demanded the dismissal of the unpopular ministers. Justinian was about to yield, and indeed had given the order, when the insurgents determined to depose him. Anastasius had left three nephews, Probus, Hypatius and Pompeius. Failing to find the first the mob burned his house. The two other brothers remained in safety in the palace. Next day the greatest general of the age, Belisarius, who had but recently returned from a victorious campaign against the Persians, sallied forth from the palace with a body of barbarian troops, Goths and Heruls—for the garrison of the city could not be trusted—and fierce fighting occurred for two days in the streets. The clergy did their utmost to restore peace, but were utterly unheeded, and in the evening of the 16th the Church of S. Irene, built by Constantine, was burnt, though not to the ground, and the Hospice of Samson, which stood between it and S. Sophia, were also destroyed. On the 17th, Saturday, the fire spread still further, and almost all the centre of the city was reduced to ashes. At night Justinian determined to give up Hypatius and Pompeius to the mob, hoping no doubt that if they were conspiring against him they would be less dangerous outside than within the palace. In spite of their reluctance he drove them forth to their own houses. Next day, early on the Sunday morning, the Emperor himself went down to the Hippodrome and made what was little better than an abject submission. He swore on the gospels to forgive all that had been done, if order were now restored. "The blame is not yours but all mine. For the punishment of my sins I did not grant your requests when first you spoke to me in this place." Some cried out that he swore falsely, and no heed was taken of his words. A few hours later Hypatius was proclaimed Emperor, and as the mob surrounded the palace it seemed that there was nothing for the Emperor but flight. It was then, when Justinian was ready to yield and cross the Bosphorus to the safety of Chalcedon, that Theodora showed herself worthy of the purple. "No time is this," she cried, "to ask whether a woman should be bold before men or valiant when men are afraid. They who are in extremest peril must think of nothing but how best to meet what lies before them. To fly, if ever it be expedient, would now not be so, I declare, even if it preserved us. For a man born into this light not to die is impossible; but for one who has been Emperor to become an exile is not to be endured. Let me never come to be without this purple robe nor live that day when men shall cease to call me their sovereign Lady. If you, Emperor, wish to escape, it is no hard matter. Here is the sea, and there lie the ships. But consider whether you may not one day wish that you had exchanged your mean safety for a glorious death. For me I love the ancient saying, 'How brave a sepulchre a kingdom is!'"

Thus Theodora proved herself fit mate for a Cæsar, and worthy of her crown; and those who had counselled flight now found courage to resist. While Justinian's men planned an attack, the followers of Hypatius agreed upon delay, and he himself sent, it would seem, to make peace with the Emperor. As his messenger went, he was told that the Cæsar had fled, and then the unhappy pretender took upon him the dignity of Emperor. In a few hours Belisarius led his troops upon the multitude assembled in the Hippodrome, and before nightfall they forced their way in with fire and sword, and of all the citizens gathered in the Circus not one left it alive. Justinian was not told till too late that Hypatius had been willing to submit. The two brothers were dragged out with contumely, and the next morning before daylight they fell under the swords of the barbarian soldiers. The Emperor, it is said, would have spared them, but Theodora, "swearing by God and by him, urged him to have them killed." Zachariah of Mitylene says that more than 80,000 persons perished in the riot.

At midday on Monday, January 19, Constantinople was at peace; but it was in ruins. Three distinct conflagrations had reduced the grandest monuments of the city of Constantine to ashes. On the first two days of the riot all the buildings of the Augusteum were destroyed, and with them S. Sophia, the "Great Church," only its baptistery, it would seem, being saved. Two days later the buildings north-west of S. Sophia were in flames, and among them the Hospice for poor and sick folk, "founded in ancient times by a holy man whose name was Samson," and Constantine's Church of S. Irene. On the 17th the buildings round the Mesê, the street which connected the forum of Constantine with the Augusteum, and the "great porticoes leading up to the agora named from Constantine, and many houses of rich men, and large property, were burned." Thus, a great part of what had been the first Byzantium, which was adorned with the finest buildings of Constantine, was utterly destroyed. To one who saw the blackened ruins, they seemed like the masses of molten lava round the crater of a volcano. To Justinian, already a great law-giver, came the task of building anew the imperial city.

THE BURNT COLUMN

The Emperor began at once with the rebuilding of the Great Church of the Divine Wisdom. On the 23rd of February the work was begun: on December 26, 537, the new church was dedicated. "The procession," says Theophanes, who wrote from older materials in the eighth century, "started from the church of the Anastasia," where S. Gregory of Nazianzus had long preached to the men of Byzantium, "Menas, the patriarch, sitting in the royal chariot, and the King walking with the people." In 558 the eastern part of the dome with the apse was destroyed by an earthquake and was rebuilt. Agathias, a contemporary historian, thus describes the building and the restoration:

"Now the former church having been burnt by the angry mob, Justinian built it up again from the foundations, as great, and more beautiful and wonderful, and this most beautiful design was adorned with much precious metal. He built it in a round form, with burnt brick and lime. It was bound together here and there with iron; but they avoided the use of wood, so that it should no more be easily burnt. Now Anthemius was the man who devised and worked at every part. And when by the earthquake the middle part of the roof and the higher parts had been destroyed, the Emperor made it stronger, and raised it to a great height. Anthemius was then dead, but the young man Isidorus and the other craftsmen, turning over in their minds the earlier design, and comparing what had fallen with what remained, estimated where the error lay, and of what kind it was. They determined to leave the eastern and western arches as they were. But of the northern and southern they brought towards the inside that portion of the building which was upon the curve. And they made these arches wider, so as to be more in harmony with the others, thus making the equilateral symmetry more perfect. In this way they were able to cover the measurelessness of the empty space, and to take off some of its extent to form an oblong design. And again, they wrought that which rose up above it in the middle, whether cycle or hemisphere or whatever other name it may be called. And this also became more straightforward and of a better curve, in every part agreeing with the line; and at the same time not so wide but higher, so that it did not affright the spectators as before, but was set much more strong and safe."