Spina

We already referred to you about the hippodrome which is close to our hotel.And now we want to give you information about monuments in spina which is in the middle of the Hippodrome.

The first of the monuments of the spina, beginning at the northern end, is the Egyptian Obelisk. This was originally commissioned by the Pharaoh Thutmose III (1549-1503 B.C.), who erected it at Deir el Bahri opposite Thebes in Upper Egypt to commemorate one of his campaigns in Syria and his crossing of the Euphrates River. As can be seen, the shaft of the Obelisk, which is now nearly 20 metres high, has been broken off; according to Sir Flinders Petrie, it was originally 30 metres in height  and weighed about 800 tonnes. The Obelisk was brought to Constantinople some time during the fourth century A.D., perhaps by Constantine the Great, but, though a mere fragment, it colud not be raised and lay for some years on the seashore. It was finally erected on its present  site by Theodosius the Great in 390. The Obelisk is mounted on four brazen blocks which rest on a marble basis with sculptured reliefs. These represent the Emperor and his family in the imperial box in the Hippodrome; on the South side he is watching the races depicted in the lower block;on the east he is crowning the victors; on the North he is assisting in the erection of the obelisk itself, the method of which is represented in the lower block; and on the west he is receiving homage from vanquished enemies. Inscription in Grek and Latin on the base praise Theodosius and his Prefect Proclus for erecting the Obelisk ; the Latin inscription tell us that 30 days were required to the job, while the one in Greek says that it took 32.(Were the Greek and Latin scribes not on speaking terms?) The total height of the monumement including the base about 26 metres and the bottom of it represents approximately the original level of the race-course, some 4.5 metres below the present surface of the ground.

The seconf of the three monuments on the spina is the Serpent Column. The three intertwined bronze serpents which from the column were the base of a trophy that once stood in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This trophy was dedicated to Apollo as a token of gratitude by the 31 Greek cities which defated the Persians in the battle of Platea (479 B.C.); according to tradition the bronze serpents were cast from the shields of the fallen Persian warriors. The names of the 31 cities are inscribed on the coils of the serpents near the bottom. The column was brought from Delphy by Constantine the Great; it seems to have stood at first in the courtyard of Haghia Sophia and to have been moved to the Hippodrome only at a later date. There are several stories about what became of the missing serpent heads, but the most likely one is that they were chopped off by a member of the Polish Embassy  one night in April of the year 1700. The upper part of one of the serpent heads was found in 1847 and is now, as we have seen , on exhibit at the Arceological Museum. Like the serpents themselves , it is a very beautiful and finished piece of bronze sculpture, as is to be expected of a Greek work of that period.

The third of the ancient monuments on the spina is roughly built pillar of Stone 32 metres high which stands near the southern end of the At Meydanı. The sixteenth-century French traveller, Gyllius, called it the Colossus, but most modern writers refer to it, incorrectly, as the Column of Constantine Porphryogenitus. Both names stem from the Greek inscription on its base, where it is recorded that the pillar is compared to the Colossus OF Rhodes, and where it is recorded that the pillar was restored and sheathed in bronze by the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r.912-959). But the inscription also says that the pillar was decayed by time, so that it must date vto an earlier period, perhaps to that of Theodosius the Great or Constantine the Great. It seems to have been a favourite pastimein the Turkish period to climb this column as an acrobatic feat – at least if one can judge by a Turkish miniature which shows a man at the vtop of it, another in the act of climbing the obelisk, and a monkey on a pole higher than both! And Gyllius tells a rather grim story of having, himself,seen two young men climb the pillar one after the other; the first came down safely but the second lost his nevre, jumped, and was, of course, instantly killed.

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