What do you know about the Hippodrome of Constantinople? If you’re like most people, the only ancient sports stadium you’ve heard of is the Colosseum in Rome. I don’t blame you. It’s huge, it’s famous, tourists love it, and it hosted gladiator combats. Unless you’re still angry at the Romans for their barbaric willingness to kill each other for sport, the Colosseum is a huge draw.
But in the Roman world, the Hippodrome didn’t take a back seat to any other stadium. Why, then, have you probably never heard of it?
Well, for one, it doesn’t exist anymore. You can’t go see it. That’s a big PR minus. Secondly, it’s primary purpose was chariot racing rather than gladiator shows. Guys racing each other doesn’t hold quite the drama of gladiators fighting to the death or bears dismembering criminals. Fatalities were rare. (Although they could happen—charioteers sometimes got run over after collisions.)
As a result, to my knowledge, no one has ever made a major movie featuring the Hippodrome. Ben Hur has a chariot racing scene, but the Hippodrome wasn’t built during the era in which that movie takes place. Maybe someone has done a movie about the Hippodrome, but I’m not a true cinephile. If there is one, it’s slipped past me.
What Was the Hippodrome Used For?
The main purpose was chariot racing. The Romans and Byzantines loved chariot racing and crowds were massive. The Colosseum held 50,000 to 80,000 spectators, and the Hippodrome was about the same according to estimates. But the Hippodrome was a far larger stadium. The racecourse was about 400 yards long, and wide enough for ten chariot teams (some sources say eight) to race at once. To learn about the races in detail, please visit this link for a post devoted exclusively to Byzantine chariot racing.
It had other purposes, too. The most notable was that when the Byzantine Empire crowned a new emperor, he received the acclaim of his subjects in the Hippodrome. The emperor had his own royal box, the Kathisma, from where he watched races and interacted with the populace. This was also a forum for the emperor to make his decisions known to the people. Military triumphs marched through the stadium, too, and it hosted the occasional public execution.
We should not underestimate the political importance of the Hippodrome. The chariot racers were divided into four factions, known as the Blues, Greens, Reds, and Whites. Of these, the Blues and Greens were the most popular and important.
These factions had several purposes. They provided entertainment between the races. This could be anything from mimes to acrobats to music to animal baiters. The factions also made the decisions of the emperor known to the crowd. During public ceremonies, they shouted the ritual acclamations to their members, who then shouted their approval to the emperor. The factions even provided public services like manning the city walls in times of danger.
But all was not sweetness and light with the factions. If angered, they could start riots. Younger members even formed street gangs, sometimes terrorizing civilians. So, emperors could favor one faction over another, but at the risk of the slighted faction brewing trouble in the city in return.
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Other Hippodrome Facts
The Hippodrome featured many spectacular public monuments. The emperors imported a massive obelisk from Egypt that was already 1,750 years old when construction of the Hippodrome was complete circa 330. It also housed the Bronze Serpent, the Plataean Tripod, and the Quadriga, a statue of four racing horses pulling a driver. (The first still stands in modern Istanbul. The Venetians stole the Quadriga during the Fourth Crusade. It now graces St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice.)
A giant bronze statue of Hercules stood in the middle of the racetrack, as did the Homeric beast Scylla. The Hippodrome housed other monuments, too, some located along the spina, the barrier in the middle of the track that charioteers raced around.
Sad to say, the Hippodrome also witnessed what was possibly the largest public massacre in Byzantine history. During the Nika Riots of 532, the reigning monarchs, Justinian and Theodora, came close to losing their throne when a riot lasting several days engulfed the city. Justinian was ready to flee. His empress, Theodora, declared she would die before giving up the throne. This strengthened Justinian’s resolve. The culminating event of the riot came when Justinian got word for help to one of history’s most talented generals, Belisarius. Belisarius rallied his men, surrounded the Hippodrome, and massacred 30,000 people to put down the riot.
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What Happened to the Hippodrome?
Work began during the reign of Septimus Severus in 203 and was not complete until the reign of Constantine in 330. For nearly 900 years thereafter, the Hippodrome filled for chariot races and political events.
One step toward its demise came in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade. After the Venetians toppled the Byzantine emperor from his throne, they popularized medieval jousting tournaments to take the place of the chariot races. The Venetians may have also done some damage to the structure itself.
For the next 250 years, the stadium and the city was in decline. Although the Byzantine emperors did reclaim their throne from the Venetians, the Fourth Crusade and other events had done irreversible damage to the empire. When the Ottomans captured the city in 1453, no further events took place in the Hippodrome. Some of the stone went for other building projects, although the space where the Hippodrome stood remains free of buildings. The Egyptian obelisk remains today, a faint reminder of the glory that stood for over a millennium.
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