Listed 27 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ISTANBUL Province TURKEY" .
Francis W. Kelsey and the Near East Expedition of 1919-1920
CHALKIDON (Ancient city) TURKEY
Chalcedon (Chalkedon: Eth. Chalkedonios or Chalkideus), a city of
Bithynia, at the entrance of the Pontus, opposite to Byzantium, as Stephanus (s.
v. Chalkedon) describes it; and a colony of the Megareis. (Thuc. iv. 75.)
The tract about Chalcedon was called Chalcedonia. (Herod. iv. 85.)
According to Menippus, the distance along the left-hand coast from the temple
of Zeus Urius and the mouth of the Pontus to Chalcedon was 120 stadia. All the
coins of Chalcedon have the name written Kalchedon, and this is also the way in
which the name is written in the best MSS. of Herodotus, Xenophon, and other writers,
by whom the place is mentioned. The distance from Chalcedon to Byzantium was reckoned
seven stadia (Plin. v. 32), or as it is stated by Pliny elsewhere (ix. 15), one
Roman mile, which is eight stadia. Polybius (iv. 39) makes the distance between
Chalcedon and Byzantium 14 stadia; which is much nearer the mark. But it is difficult
to say from what points these different measurements were made. The distance from
Scutari (Chrysopolis) to the Seraglio point in Constantinople (according to a
survey in the Hydrographical office of the Admiralty) is nearly one nautical mile.
In the same chart a place Caledonia is marked, but probaby the indication is not
worth much. Chalcedon, however, must have been at least two miles south of Scutari,
perhaps more; and the distance from Chalcedon to the nearest point of the European
shore is greater even than that which Polybius gives. Chrysopolis, which Strabo
calls a village, and which was in the Chalcedonia (Xenophon, Anab. vi. 6, 38),
was really at the entrance of the Bosporus on the side of the Propontis, but Chalcedon
was not. It is stated that the modern Greeks give to the site of Chalcedon the
name Chalkedon, and the Turks call it Kadi-Kioi. The position of Chalcedon was
not so favourable as that of the opposite city of Byzantium, in the opinion of
the Persian Megabazus (Herod. iv. 144), who is reported to have said that the
founders of Chalcedon must have been blind, for Chalcedon was settled seventeen
years before Byzantium; and the settlers, we must suppose, had the choice of the
two places. It was at the mouth of a small river Chalcedon (Eustathius ad Dionys.
Perieg. v. 803) or Chalcis. Pliny (v. 32) states that Chalcedon was first named
Procerastis, a name which may be derived from a point of land near it: then it
was named Colpusa, from the form of the harbour probably; and finally Caecorum
Oppidum, or the town of the blind. The story in Herodotus does not tell us why
Megabazus condemned the judgment of the founders of Chalcedon. Strabo (p. 320)
observes that the shoals of the pelamys, which pass from the Euxine through the
Bosporus, are frightened from the shore of Chalcedon by a projecting white rock
to the opposite side, and so are carried by the stream to Byzantium, the people
of which place derive a great profit from them. He also reports a story that Apollo
advised the founders of Byzantium to choose a position opposite to the blind;
the blind being the settlers from Megara, who chose Chalcedon as the site of their
city, when there was a better place opposite. Pliny (ix. 15) has a like story
about the pelamys being frightened from the Asiatic shore; and Tacitus (Ann. xii.
63) has the same story as Strabo. The remarks of Polybius on the position of Byzantium
and Chalcedon are in his fourth book (c. 39, &c.).
Chalcedon, however, was a place of considerable trade, and a flourishing
town. It contained many temples, and one of Apollo, which had en oracle. Strabo
reckons his distances along the coast of Bithynia from the temple of the Chalcedonii
(p. 643, and p. 546). When Darius had his bridge of boats made for crossing over
to Europe in his Scythian expedition, the architect constructed it, as Herodotus
supposes, half way between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance of the Pontus,
and on the Asiatic side it was within the territory of Chalcedon (Herod. iv. 85,
87). But the Chalcedonia extended to the Euxine, if the temple of the Chalcedonii
of Strabo (pp. 319, 563) is the temple of Zeus Urius as it seems to be. The territory
of Chalcedon therefore occupied the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. Strabo, after
speaking of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis and the temple of the Chalcedonii, adds,
and the country has, a little above the sea, the fountain Azaritia, which contains
small crocodiles: then follows the sea-coast of the Chalcedonii, named the bay
of Astacus, a part of the Propontis. According to this the Chalcedonii had once
the bay of Astacus, which is very unlikely, for there was Astacus, a colony of
the Megareis and of the Athenians, in this bay. The passage of Strabo is probably
corrupt, and might easily be corrected. It is not likely at any rate that they
had more than the north side of the bay of Astacus. Chalcedon was taken by the
Persian Otanes, after the Scythian expedition of Darius (v. 26). When Lamachus
led his men from the river Calex in Bithynia (B.C. 424), where he lost his ships
by a flood in the river, he came to Chalcedon (Thucyd iv. 75), which must then
have been on friendly terms with the Athenians. It afterwards changed sides, and
received a Lacedaemonian Harmost (Plut. Alcib. c. 29); but the Athenians soon
recovered it. However, at the time of the return of the Ten Thousand, it seems
to have been again in the possession of the Lacedaemonians (Xenophon, Anab. vii.
1, 20). Chalcedon was the birth-place of the philosopher Xenocrates.
Chalcedon was included in the limits of the kingdom of Bithynia, and
it came into the possession of the Romans under the testament of Nicomedes, B.C.
74. When Mithridates invaded Bithynia, Cotta, who was the governor at the time,
fled to Chalcedon, and all the Romans in the neighbourhood crowded to the place
for protection. Mithridates broke the chains that protected the fort, burnt four
ships, and towed away the remaining sixty. Three thousand Romans lost their lives
in this assault on the city. (Appian. Mithrid. 71; Plut. Lucull. 8.) Under the
empire Chalcedon was made a free city. The situation of Chalcedon exposed it to
attack in the decline of the empire. Some barbarians whom Zosimus (i. 34) calls
Scythians, plundered it in the reign of Valerian and Gallienus. It was taken by
Chosroes the Persian in A.D. 616, and a Persian camp was maintained above ten
years in the presence of Constantinople. (Gibbon, Decline, &c. c. 46.) But Chalcedon
still existed, and its final destruction is due to the Turks, who used the materials
for the mosques and other buildings of Constantinople. Chalcedon, however, seems
to have contributed materials for some of the edifices of Constantinople long
before the Turks laid their hands on it. (Amm. Marc. xxxi. 1, and the notes of
Valesius.)
This place is noted for a General Council, which was held here A.D.
451.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
CHRYSOUPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
SILYMVRIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Selymbria (Selubrie, Herod. vi. 33; Selubria, Xen. Anab. vii. 2. §
15, &c.; Strab. vii. p. 319; Ptol. iii. 11. § 6; Selumbria, Dem. de Rhod. lib.
p. 198, Reiske), a Thracian town on the Propontis, 22 miles east from Perinthus,
and 44 miles west from Constantinople (Itin. Hier. p. 570, where it is called
Salamembria), near the southern end of the wall, built by Anastasius Dicorus for
the protection of his capital. (Procop. de Aed. iv. 9).
According to Strabo (l. c.), its name signifies the town of Selys;
from which it has been inferred that Selya was the name of its founder, or of
the leader of the colony from Megara, which founded it at an earlier period than
the establishment of Byzantium, another colony of the same Grecian state. (Scymn.
714.) In honour of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Arcadius, its name was changed
to Eudoxiupolis (Hierocl. p. 632), which it bore for a considerable time; but
its modern name, Silivri, shows that it subsequently resumed its original designation.
Respecting the history of Selymbria, only detached and fragmentary
notices occur in the Greek writers. In Latin authors, it is merely named (Mela,
ii. 2. § 6; Plin. iv. 11. s. 18, xxix. 1. s. 1; in the latter passage it is said
to have been the birthplace of Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates). It was here
that Xenophon met Medosades, the envoy of Seuthes (Anab. vii. 2. § 28), whose
forces afterwards encamped in its neighbourhood (Ib. 5. § 15). When Alcibiades
was commanding for the Athenians in the Propontis (B.C. 410), the people of Selymbria
refused to admit his army into the town, but gave him money, probably in order
to induce him to abstain from forcing an entrance. (Xen. Hell. i. 1. 21) Some
time after this, however, he gained possession of the place through the treachery
of some of the townspeople, and, having levied a contribution upon its inhabitants,
left a garrison in it. (Ib. 3. § 10; Plut. Alcib. 30.) Selymbria is mentioned
by Demosthenes (l. c.) in B.C. 351, as in alliance with the Athenians; and it
was no doubt at that time a member of the Byzantine confederacy. According to
a letter of Philip, quoted in the oration de Corona (p. 251, R.), it was blockaded
by him about B.C. 343; but Professor Newman considers that this mention of Selymbria
is one of the numberous proofs that the documents inserted in that speech are
not authentic. (Class. Mus. vol. i. pp. 153, 154.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
USKUDAR (Town) TURKEY
Chrysopolis (Chrusopolis: Eth. Chrusopolites: Scutari), in Bithynia,
near Chalcedon, on the right to one who is sailing upwards, that is, from the
Propontis into the Thracian Bosporus. (Steph. s. v. Chrusopolis) It belonged to
the Chalcedonians. Dionysius of Byzantium, in his Anaplus of the Bosporus, says
that it was called Chrysopolis either because the Persians made it the place of
deposit for the gold which they collected from the cities, or from Chryses, a
son of Agamemnon and Chryseis. Polybius (iv. 44) says that those who intend to
cross from Chalcedon to Byzantium cannot make a straight course on account of
the current which comes down the Bosporus, but they make an oblique course to
the promontory Bus, and the place called Chrysopolis, which the Athenians having
seized by the advice of Alcibiades, set the first example of levying tolls on
vessels bound for the Pontus; and those which sailed out of it too. (Diodor. xiii.
64.) Pliny (v. 32) says of Chrysopolis, fuit.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
CHALKIDON (Ancient city) TURKEY
A Greek city of Bithynia, on the coast of the Propontis, at
the entrance of the Bosporus, nearly opposite to Byzantium, was founded by a colony
from Megara in B.C. 685. After a long period of independence, it became subject
to the kings of Bithynia, and most of its inhabitants were transferred to the
new city of Nicomedia (B.C. 140). Under the Romans it regained much of its former
importance. Here was held the fourth Ecumenical Council of the Church, in A.D.
451.
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CHRYSOUPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Now Scutari; a fortified place on the Bosporus, opposite to Byzantium, at the spot where the Bosporus was generally crossed. It was originally the port of Chalcedon.
SILYMVRIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
(Selumbria) or Selybria (Selubria, Doric, Salambria). Now Selivria. An important town in Thrace situated on the Propontis. It was a colony of the Megarians, and was founded earlier than Byzantium
VYZANTION (Ancient city) TURKEY
A celebrated city of Thrace, on the shore of the Thracian Bosporus,
called at a later period Constantinopolis, and made the capital of the Eastern
Empire of the Romans. It was founded by a Dorian colony from Megara, or, rather,
by a Megarian colony in conjunction with a Thracian prince. For Byzas, whom the
city acknowledged, and celebrated in a festival as its founder, was, according
to the legend, a son of Poseidon and Ceroessa the daughter of Io, and ruled over
all the adjacent country. The early commerce of Megara was directed principally
to the shores of the Propontis, and this people had founded Chalcedon seventeen
years before Byzantium, and Selymbria even prior to Chalcedon. When, however,
their trade was extended still farther to the north, and had reached the shores
of the Euxine, the harbour of Chalcedon sank in importance, and a commercial station
was required on the opposite side of the strait. This station was Byzantium. The
appellation of “blind men” given to the Chalcedonians by the Persian general Megabazus,
for having overlooked the superior site where Byzantium was afterwards founded,
does not therefore appear to have been well merited. As long as Chalcedon was
the northernmost point reached by the commerce of Megara, its situation was preferable
to any offered by the opposite side of the Bosporus, because the current on this
latter side runs down from the north more strongly than it does on the side of
Chalcedon, and the harbour of this city, therefore, is more accessible to vessels
coming from the south. On the other hand, Byzantium was far superior to Chalcedon
for the northern trade, since the current that set in strongly from the Euxine
carried vessels directly into the harbour of Byzantium, but prevented their approach
to Chalcedon in a straight course. The harbour of Byzantium was peculiarly favoured
by nature, being deep, capacious, and sheltered from every storm. From its shape,
and the rich advantages thus connected with it, the harbour of Byzantium obtained
the name of Chrysoceras, or "he Golden Horn,"which was also applied
to the promontory or neck of land that contributed to form it. And yet, notwithstanding
all these advantages, Byzantium remained for a long time an inconsiderable town.
The declining commerce of Megara, and the character which Byzantium still sustained
of being a half-barbarian place, may serve to account for this.
At a subsequent period, the Milesians sent hither a strong
colony, and so altered for the better the aspect of things that they are regarded
by some ancient writers as the founders of the city itself. When, at a later day,
the insurrection of the Asiatic Greeks had been crushed by Darius, and the Persian
fleet was reducing to obedience the Greek cities along the Hellespont and the
Propontis, the Byzantines, together with a body of Chalcedonians, would not wait
for the coming of the Persians, but, leaving their habitations, and fleeing to
the Euxine, built the city of Mesembria on the upper coast of Thrace. The Persians
destroyed the empty city, and no Byzantium for some time thereafter existed. This
will explain why Seylax, in his Periplus, passed by Byzantium in silence, while
he mentions all the Grecian settlements in this quarter, and among them even Mesembria
itself.
Byzantium reappeared after the overthrow of Xerxes, some of
the old inhabitants having probably returned; and here Pausanias, the commander
of the Grecian forces, took up his quarters (B.C. 479). He gave the city a code
of laws, and a government modelled, in some degree, after the Spartan form, and
hence he was regarded by some as the true founder of the city. The Athenians succeeding
to the hegemony, Byzantium fell under their control, and received so many important
additions from them that Ammianus Marcellinus, in a later age, calls it an Attic
colony. The city, however, was a Doric one, in language, customs, and laws, and
remained so even after the Athenians had the control of it. The maintenance of
this military post became of great importance to the Greeks during their warfare
with the Persians in subsequent years, and this circumstance, together with the
advantages of a lucrative and now continually increasing commerce, gave Byzantium
a high rank among Grecian cities. After Athens and Sparta had weakened the power
of each other by national rivalry, and neither could lay claim to the empire of
the sea, Byzantium became an independent city, and turned its whole attention
to commerce. Its strong situation enabled it, at a subsequent period, to resist
successfully the arms of Philip of Macedon; nor did Alexander, in his eagerness
to march into Asia, make any attempt upon the place. It preserved also a neutral
character under his successors. The great evil to which the city of Byzantium
was exposed came from the inland country, the Thracian tribes continually making
incursions into the fertile territory around the place, and carrying off more
or less of the products of the fields. The city suffered severely also from the
Gauls, being compelled to pay a yearly tribute amounting at least to eighty talents.
After the departure of the Gauls it again became a flourishing
place, but its most prosperous period was during the Roman sway. It had thrown
itself into the arms of the Romans as early as the war against the younger Philip
of Macedon, and enjoyed from that people not only complete protection, but also
many valuable commercial privileges. It was allowed, more over, to lay a toll
on all vessels passing through the straits--a thing which had been attempted before
without success--and this toll it shared with the Romans. But the day of misfortune
at length came. In the contest for the Empire between Severus and Niger, Byzantium
declared for the latter, and stood a siege in consequence which continued long
after Niger's overthrow and death. After three years of almost incredible exertions
the place surrendered to Severus. The few remaining inhabitants whom famine had
spared were sold as slaves, the city was razed to the ground, its territory given
to Perinthus, and a small village took the place of the great commercial emporium.
Repenting soon after of what he had done, Severus rebuilt Byzantium, and adorned
it with numerous and splendid buildings, which in a later age still bore his name;
but it never recovered its former rank until the days of Constantine. Constantine
had no great affection for Rome as a city, nor had the inhabitants any great regard
for him. He felt the necessity, moreover, of having the capital of the Empire
in some more central quarter, from which the movements of the German tribes on
the one hand, and those of the Persians on the other, might be observed. He long
sought for such a locality, and believed at one time that he had found it in the
neighbourhood of the Sigaean promontory, on the coast of Troas. He had even commenced
building here when the superior advantages of Byzantium as a centre of empire
attracted his attention, and he finally resolved to make this the capital of the
Roman world. For a monarchy possessing the western portion of Asia and the largest
part of Europe, together with the whole coast of the Mediterranean Sea, nature
herself seemed to have destined Byzantium as a capital.
Constantine's plan was carried into rapid execution (A.D. 330).
The ancient city had possessed a circuit of forty stadia, and covered merely two
hills, one close to the water, on which the Seraglio at present stands, and another
adjoining it, and extending towards the interior to what is now the Besestan,
or great market. The new city, called Constantinopolis, or "City of Constantine,"
was three times as large, and covered four hills, together with part of a fifth,
having a circuit of somewhat less than fourteen geographical miles. Every effort
was made to embellish this new capital of the Roman world: the most splendid edifices
were erected, including an imperial palace, numerous residences for the chief
officers of the court, churches, baths, a hippodrome; and inhabitants were procured
from every quarter. Its rapid increase called, from time to time, for a corresponding
enlargement of the city, until, in the reign of Theodosius II., when the new walls
were erected (the previous ones having been thrown down by an earthquake), Constantinople
attained to the size which it at present has. Chalcondylas supposes the walls
of the city to be 111 stadia in circumference; Gyllius, about 13 Italian miles;
but, according to the best modern plans of Constantinople, it is not less than
19,700 yards. The number of gates is twentyeight--fourteen on the side of the
port, seven towards the land, and as many on the Propontis. The city is built
on a triangular promontory, and the number of hills which it covers is seven.
Besides the name of Constantinopolis (Konstantinou polis), this city had also
the more imposing one of New Rome (Nea Rhome), which, however, gradually fell
into disuse. According to some, the peasants in the neighbourhood, while they
repair to Constantinople, say in corrupt Greek that they are going es tam bolin
(i.e. es tan polin), "to the city," whence has arisen the Turkish name
of the place, Stamboul. Constantinople was taken by the Turks under Mohammed II.
on the 29th of May, A.D. 1453.
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CHALKIDON (Ancient city) TURKEY
CHALKIDON (Ancient city) TURKEY
City in Bithynia, across the Bosporus from Istanbul. The site appears
to have been originally occupied by Phoenicians and Thracians; the Greek city
was founded by Megarian colonists led by Archias in 685 B.C., 17 years before
Byzantium. Since they overlooked the far superior site a mile or so across the
water, Chalkedon became known as the city of the blind. As a member of the Delian
Confederation the city paid a tribute varying between nine talents and three,
and in 416 B.C., as an independent city, Chalkedon attacked and defeated the Bithynians
(Diod. Sik. 12.82.2). It passed to the Persians in 387 B.C., but was liberated
by Alexander and remained free until Philip V subjected it for a short time. After
his defeat the city obtained freedom and an alliance from Rome, and became wholly
Roman when in 74 B.C. Nikomedes IV bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. In the following
year Aur. Cotta, barricaded in Chalkedon, was attacked and decisively defeated
by Mithridates. A free city under the Empire, Chalkedon was raided and plundered
by Scythians during the reign of Valerian (Zosim. 1.34). The coinage extends from
the early 5th c. B.C. to the 3d c. A.D.
The site is described by Dionysios Byzantios (GGM II, 93, fr. 67).
It stood on a peninsula close above a river also called Chalkedon, with a harbor
on either side of the isthmus, E and W, and an oracular shrine of Apollo. The
river is the stream, now mostly built over, which flows into Moda Bay; the city
stood on the higher ground between the Kadikoy boat station and Moda Point. The
harbors have filled up and the isthmus has disappeared. Remnants of the ancient
city were still to be seen in the 16th c., but nothing remains today. Some Greek
sherds have been found on Moda Point, and a few fragments of ancient wall are
said to have been visible until recently, but nothing more.
G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
VYZANTION (Ancient city) TURKEY
City at the S end of the Bosphorus. The original Greek settlement
was located at the elevated E apex of a roughly triangular peninsula bordered
on the S by the Propontis (the Sea of Marmara, linking the Bosphorus with the
Hellespont or Dardanelles) and on the N by a grand, elongated natural harbor,
the Golden Horn (Strab. 7.6.2). The peninsula was in part cut NW-SE by a stream,
the Lycus. In late antique times the city expanded W across the hills and valleys
of the peninsula, filling it out; the area across the Golden Horn to the N and
the nearer European shores of the Bosphorus were built up somewhat, and settlements
across the straits in Asia were claimed as suburbs. The commercial significance
(shipping, fishing, tolls) of its location and the strategic importance it gained
from its superb defensive position (Cass. Dio 75.10; cf. Paus. 4.31.5) explain
the considerable role Byzantium played in Classical times and, together with its
proximity to the troublesome Danubian and E frontiers, Constantine's decision
to devalue Rome's functions and make of Byzantium, henceforth Constantinople,
the chief city of the Roman Empire.
There is evidence for prehistoric settlement on the site, but Byzantium
proper was founded, sometime in the 7th c. B.C., by Megarians who were probably
assisted by groups from other Greek cities. In the late 6th and early 5th c. B.C.
it was under Persian control. Subsequently it was usually an Athenian ally, and
as such it strenuously resisted Philip II of Macedon in a celebrated siege (340-339
B.C.). During the 2d c. the town sided with Rome in her E wars, and thereafter
strategic and economic considerations commended it to Rome's care. In the late
2d c. A.D., however, Byzantium sided with Pescennius Niger, and as a result was
besieged by the forces of Septimius Severus for more than two years (Cass. Dio
75.12); after its capitulation Severus all but destroyed it. But it was too important
a site to ignore, and soon afterward he began its reconstruction and even enlarged
it, and subsequent rulers gave it additional buildings. During the Tetrarchy Byzantium
was overshadowed by Nicomedia, but in A.D. 330, after several years of construction
on a much enlarged site, it became at Constantine's direction a new and Christian
city, for eleven centuries thereafter the seat of the Eastern Roman, Byzantine
Empire.
Archaeological information about Greek Byzantium is scarce. Little
excavation has been done and little can be, largely because of the superimposition
of later structures. The perimeter of the site in Greek times, enclosing the heights
upon which the Haghia Sophia and the Ottoman Serai now stand, seems to have been
a little less than 2 km in length; the exact line of the walls, with their several
gates and 27 towers, cannot now be established (Cass. Dio 75.10.3; cf. Paus. 4.31,
and Dion. Byz. 6ff). Almost certainly the Megarian acropolis was within the limits
of the Serai. Inside the city walls, chiefly in the N part of the town, there
were several temples and sanctuaries, among them those of Zeus, Athena, Poseidon,
and Dionysos. Near the center of the W limit of the walls was a square called
the Thrakion (Xen. Anab. 7.1.24). Just to the N of this was a strategion. The
agora was in the vicinity of Haghia Sophia Square and contained a bronze statue
of Helios (Malalas 291ff), also apparently known as the Zeuxippos, a name perpetuated
in the area in Byzantine times. Other Greek constructions, such as cisterns, gymnasia,
and a stadium are also recorded; there seems also to have been a theater. All
these monuments have disappeared, though remains of shrines to Artemis, Aphrodite,
and Apollo have been found in excavations between the Haghia Sophia and the Haghia
Eirene.
Equally little is known of Roman Byzantium, though it is apparent
that practical and political buildings were erected by the Roman government; we
hear, for example, of an aqueduct built in the time of Hadrian. The plan of the
Roman town cannot be recovered, though some facts about the Severan rebuilding
are known; parallels with Severus' enlargement and aggrandizement of Leptis come
to mind. At Byzantium he doubled the walled area, moving the land-side N-S wall
nearly half a km W of the old Greek line--its N extremity reached the Golden Horn
at a point a little to the E of the present Galata Bridge. It was perhaps then
that the agora was given porticos all around, gaining the name of tetrastoon.
From it Severus ran a porticoed avenue W to his new wall, presumably to a gate
therein. He also began a hippodrome to the SW of the tetrastoon; this, some 450
m long in its final form, was enlarged and finished by Constantine. Severus also
built a theater, probably near where the Serai kitchens now stand, and baths,
apparently in the style and toward the scale of the imperial baths of the capital;
these were placed hard by the NE end of the hippodrome, next to the tetrastoon.
Constantine's estimate of the value and importance of the site after
he besieged Licinius there in 324 was even more favorable than that of Severus.
He razed the latter's walls, and from about 325 vast resources of men and money
were provided to frame and pursue his goal of a new capital, an almost entirely
new city five times the area of the Severan town. The new land walls were laid
out some 3 km W of the Severan walls, and within this huge enclosure there progressed
one of the largest and most important exercises in city-making ever undertaken
by Western man, to be continued off and on by Constantine's successors for more
than two centuries. In a sense Rome was the model--there were seven hills, fourteen
administrative regions, a comparable building typology and an idealized distribution
thereof--but there were also more specifically Hellenistic and eastern influences
at work. Most of this astonishing undertaking has disappeared, but fortunately
we have texts that enumerate many buildings and works of art and that describe
imperial ceremonies more or less topographically; also, there are precious descriptions
by pilgrims and visitors made during and after Byzantine times, and drawings made
relatively soon after the Turkish conquest of 1453 which record remains no longer
in existence (Richter, Unger, Preger, Ebersolt, Gyllius, Freshfield, etc.).
There were provided a capitolium, a golden milestone, and two senate
houses. The tetrastoon became an imperial square, an Augusteon, and Constantine
added a large forum of curved plan about 600 m to the W, just beyond the line
of the former Severan wall. There a great column of porphyry was erected which
carried a statue showing Constantine with the attributes of Apollo; the mutilated
shaft still stands (Cemberlitas). The Constantinian city plan cannot be recovered.
We know only that the new forum was connected with the Augusteon, probably by
a continuation of Severus' avenue, and that to the N and W of the forum arteries
fanned out to the Golden Horn and across the widening peninsula to the major gates
in the new land walls.
Just N of the Augusteon a large church of basilican plan was begun,
the forerunner of the celebrated Haghia Sophia of Justinian's time; Constantine
began several other major churches. To the S of the Augusteon, toward the present
Mosque of Sultan Ahmed (the Blue Mosque), Constantine built his palace, the Daphne,
entered from the Augusteon through a bronze gate (the Chalke) and a guards' quarter.
The Daphne was also connected with the hippodrome in that the elevated kathisma
or imperial loge there was a part of the palace; in these dispositions (as in
others in the new city) one can clearly see the inspiration of Rome, in respect
to the physical and symbolic relationships there among the forum, the palace on
the Palatine, and the Circus Maximus (with its loges high in the facade of the
Domus Augustana above). The sphendone or curved SW end of the Hippodrome, raised
on powerful piers and vaults above the ground that falls steeply towards the Marmara,
was made into a cistern, as were, then and later, a number of declivities in the
city, which were cut to rectangular shape and lined, sometimes vaulted over, in
the Roman way.
Everywhere Constantine's people placed works of art and historical
monuments brought from other parts of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. At the vast
hippodrome one could see, for example, the bronze monument dedicated at Delphi
by the victors of Plataiai in 479 B.C.; its spiral stem is still there, standing
on the line of the spina of the race course. At the NE end of the hippodrome,
near where the fountain of Wilhelm II stands today, the carceres or starting stalls
were surmounted by a bronze quadriga, supposedly wrought by Lysippos, whose horses
now decorate the facade of San Marco in Venice. Round about, and in the Augusteon,
the new forum, and the Baths of Zeuxippos, there were scores of such trophies,
giving to the new city the quality of a museum, of being the steward of the past.
After Constantine's death in 337, work on the new city slowed down.
Valens (364-78) added an aqueduct, a grand nymphaeum, baths, and apparently a
cistern. The aqueduct, along with the Theodosian walls the most visible of the
Roman urban constructions, still stands in a section between two of the hills
of central Istanbul; this great arcade is almost 1 km long. Theodosius I (379-95)
and his family returned to the policies of Constantine. In the 390s a new forum,
the Forum Tauri, was built about 700 m W of Constantine's, along the line of the
Mese or High Street leading W from the Augusteon (today the Divan Yolu and its
extensions). Supported along its S edge by vaulted substructures, the vast Forum
Tauri may have been inspired by the Forum of Trajan in Rome; details are lacking.
The Forum Tauri contained a huge sculptured column of the Trajanic type of which
only bits and precious drawings remain. There was also an elaborate monumental
gateway, perhaps in the form of a tetrapylon, of which fragments have been excavated
and restored on the Ordu Caddesi in the vicinity of the modern university. Probably
the best known of Theodoslus monuments in Constantinople is the obelisk he caused
to be placed upon the spina of the hippodrome in the traditional manner. The shaft
proper is from Heliopolis in Egypt and dates from the 18th dynasty. It stands
on a tall square marble base, the four faces of which are carved in relief. In
the bottom zones the circus games are shown, together with a scene of the triumphant
raising of the obelisk. Above, at larger scale, the court is shown at the circus.
Between are dancers, organ players, and a dense crowd of spectators. This is almost
a definitive monument of late antique art, where the qualities of frontality and
diagrammatic hierarchy are softened in a style that has not forgotten the humanism
and classicism of the Graeco-Roman past.
Arcadius (395-408) added still another forum (in the XII Region, towards
the S or Marmara limit of Constantine's land wall). Again the details are unknown,
but the mutilated base of Arcadius' column there still exists, together with drawings
and comments made by intrepid observers after the Conquest. It was Theodosius
II (408-50) who gave Constantinople its most stupendous surviving monument, the
great land walls of 413 and 447. They were built ca. 1.5 km W of Constantine's
walls and nearly doubled the enclosed area of the city. Subjected to numerous
earthquakes, to dilapidation, much repair, and understandable neglect, they still
stand, traversing some 7 km from the upper reaches of the Golden Horn to the Marmara
shore. In the first campaign the prefect Anthemius built the main wall and its
massive towers; in the second the Praetorian Prefect Constantine built the outer,
lower walls with their towers, and the ditch or moat. Altogether some 400 towers
were constructed (including those of the sea walls). In the late 430s a stout
single wall was run around the sea perimeter of the city (lengthy stretches are
still visible); these Theodosian fortifications traverse in all almost 20 km.
The main curtain of the great land wall is between 3 and 4 m thick
at the base and it rises to an average height of 13 m. Its 96 towers, of varying
shapes, are from 16 to 20 m high. To the W of this main construction were the
successively lower walls and the moat, the whole system averaging nearly 70 m
in width. There were a number of posterns and ten major gates, the most celebrated
and elaborate of the latter being the Porta Aurea, quite well preserved today.
This, the chief ceremonial entrance to the city, is towards the S extremity of
the land walls, about 500 m from the Marmara shore.
The unsculptured column of the emperor Marcian (450-57), standing
in the center of old Istanbul, and the lost column of Justinian (527-65) that
stood in the Augusteon, continued the imperial traditions. But the many churches,
palaces, mosaics, and individual works of art of post-Theodosian date that are
still to be seen in Istanbul (or are known through the writers referred to above)
lie outside the scope of this article. The Museum of Antiquities, inside the Serai
walls, is exceptionally rich in pre-Classical, Greek, and Roman art and finds,
not only from Byzantium-Constantinople but from other sites in Turkey as well.
In the courts of the Serai there are major architectural elements of the late
antique period, and other fragments of the past are scattered around old Istanbul,
often lodged in structures of later date. Also, a number of portable works were
removed to Venice in the 13th c.
W. L. Macdonald, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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