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The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople

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The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 THE URBAN IMAGE OF LATE ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE SARAH BASSETT Wayne State University iii P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru,UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org C Sarah Bassett 2005 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2005 Printed in the United States of America Typeface Bembo 11/15 pt. and Trajan System LATEX 2ε [tb] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bassett, Sarah, 1954– The urban image of late antique Constantinople / Sarah Bassett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-521-82723-x 1. Sculpture, Classical. 2. Sculpture – Turkey – Istanbul. 3. Public spaces – Turkey – Istanbul – History. 4. Istanbul (Turkey) – Buildings, structures, etc. I. Title. nb85.b375 2004 733.09398 –dc22 2004040673 isbn 0 521 82723 x hardback iv P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 CONTENTS List of Illustrations page ix Periodicals: Abbreviations xi Primary Sources: Abbreviations xv Preface xix Introduction 1 1 The Shape of the City 17 2 Creating the Collection 37 3 The Constantinian Collections 50 4 Theodosian Constantinople 79 5 The Lausos Collection 98 6 Justinian and Antiquity 121 THE CATALOGUE Introduction to the Catalogue 139 Amastrianon 143 Artopoleion 145 Augusteion 146 Augusteion Senate 148 Basilika 152 Baths of Constantine 156 Baths of Zeuxippos 160 vii P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 CONTENTS Chalke Gate 186 Forum of Arkadios 187 Forum of Constantine 188 Forum of Theodosios/Forum Tauri 208 Golden Gate 212 Hippodrome 212 Lausos Collection 232 Milion 238 Palace of Marina 241 Philadelphion 242 Strategeion 242 Unspecified Location 244 Notes 251 Select Bibliography 269 Index 285 viii P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure numbers designate images accompanying the text. Plate numbers refer to images in the catalogue. figures 1: Legend for plans of Constantinople 20 2: Byzantium under the Severan dynasty 21 3: Constantinople under the Constantinian House 23 4: Comparative plans of the Hippodrome, Constantinople and the Circus Maximus, Rome 25 5: Plan of the Baths of Zeuxippos 27 6: Onofrio Panvinio, view of the Hippodrome 59 7: Drawing of the Column of Arkadios (south side) 60 8: Drawing of the Column of Arkadios (west side) 61 9: Constantinople under the Theodosian House 81 10: The Built Obelisk, Istanbul 87 11: Relief on the base of the Obelisk of Theodosios I (south side) 117 12: Silver plate with Kybele and Attis (Parabiagio Plate) 119 13: Constantinople during the reign of Justinian 123 plates 1: Reclining Herakles 145 2: Telamone 147 3: Artemision Zeus or Poseidon 151 4: Herakles after Lysippos 153 5: Tyche of Rome 157 6: Tyche of Constantinople 159 ix P1: KOD/... P2:KOD CB722-FM CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 20, 2004 14:1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7: Doryphoros after Polykleitos 161 8: Aischines Base from the Baths of Zeuxippos 162 9: Aischines 163 10: Statue base from the Baths of Zeuxippos 167 11: Demosthenes 169 12: Head of a goddess from the Baths of Zeuxippos 171 13: Hermes (Sandalbinder) 172 14: Homer (Hellenisitic Blind Type) 173 15 : Homer (Epimenides Type) 175 16: Reconstruction of the Menander portrait 177 17: Hekube base from the Baths of Zeuxippos 180 18: Detail of the inscription from the Hekube base 181 19: Constantinopolis and the Column of Constantine from the Tabula Peutingeriana (twelfth century) 193 20: Column of Constantine, The Freshfield Album (sixteenth century) 194 21: Bronze statuette of Constantine 195 22: Cameo showing Constantine with the Roman Palladion 196 23: Column of Constantine, Istanbul 197 24: Tiberius 207 25: Bronze goose from the Hippodrome 217 26: Obelisk, Hippodrome, Istanbul 221 27: Horses of San Marco, Venice 223 28: Serpent Column of the Platean Tripod, Istanbul 225 29: View of the Hippodrome, The Freshfield Album (sixteenth century) 226 30: Head from the Serpent Column 226 31 : Column of Arkadios (west side), The Freshfield Album (sixteenth century) 227 32: Aphrodite of Knidos, after Praxiteles 234 33: Eros after Lysippos 235 34: Kairos after Lysippos 237 35: Reconstruction of the Zeus by Pheidias at Temple of Zeus, Olympia 239 36: Tetrarchs, San Marco, Venice 243 37: Skopas, Bacchante (Dancing Maenad) 247 x P1: KOD/KFR P2: IYD-KOD 052182723Xint CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 18, 2004 17:36 INTRODUCTION rom its foundation in the fourth century by constantine the great Fto its sack by the army of the Fourth Crusade in the thirteenth, the city of Constantinople boasted a collection of ancient statuary unrivaled by any of the great medieval cities east or west. The self-conscious creation of the emperor and his advisors, this collection, composed largely of antiquities of pre-fourth-century manufacture, was created by transporting the sculptured riches of the cities and sanctuaries of the Roman Empire to the newly founded capital.1 There, in a series of discrete yet interrelated gatherings spread throughout the city’s public spaces, the sculptured patrimony of antiquity was marshaled to create a civic identity for the city, describing its history and in so doing explaining its unique right to urban preeminence. What was initiated by Constantine was continued by his successors in the later fourth, the fifth, and the sixth centuries. Constantine’s son, Constantius, appears to have completed a good deal of the initial work set in motion by his father, and over the course of the next two hundred years, additions continued to be made to extant gatherings around the city. With the expansion of the city limits and the concomitant development of new urban spaces under the aegis of the Theodosian house, new ensembles also were formed in the latter decades of the fourth and in the early fifth centuries. It was only in the sixth century, during the reign of Justinian, that the habit of reuse finally died out, by which time hundreds of ancient monuments graced the city’s streets and public gathering places. Although individual pieces inevitably were destroyed, felled by such natural and man-made disasters as fires and earthquakes or the occasional economic exigency that prompted the sacrifice of statuary for coin, the monuments that had been gathered for display in late antiquity stood largely undisturbed throughout the early middle ages.2 Eventually, however, piecemeal attrition gave way to systematic, wholesale 1 P1: KOD/KFR P2: IYD-KOD 052182723Xint CB722-Bassett-sv1 May 18, 2004 17:36 THE URBAN IMAGE OF LATE ANTIQUE CONSTANTINOPLE destruction as war replaced accident and imperial cupidity as the force behind the collection’s demise. Two cataclysmic events shattered the city and with it the col- lection of antiquities: the 1204 sack of Constantinople by the army of the Fourth Crusade and the capital’s fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In April 1204 the army of the Fourth Crusade, after having laid siege to and captured Constantinople, spent three days pillaging the city. Churches, palaces, and public buildings were raided, their sacred relics and riches scavenged. Public mon- uments also were assaulted: statues ancient and Byzantine were toppled, some to be destroyed, others to be carried away. There is no question but that the better part of the Constantinopolitan collection was destroyed at this time. Indeed, the wealth of Byzantine artifacts that first appeared in western Europe in the thirteenth century, among them not only relics and reliquaries but also the Horses of San Marco in Venice, confirm the extent of looting and destruction.3 What the Crusaders did not destroy was probably ransacked in May 1453, when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks. As in 1204, the conquering army was granted three full days of looting and slaughter. At the end of this period the central areas of the city are said to have been little more than rubble, a sight reported to have caused the conqueror, Sultan Mehmet II, to weep.4 The havoc wrought by these great sacks means that a gathering of antiquities that once numbered in the hundreds can now be counted on the fingers of one hand. In Istanbul only three monuments survive in situ: the Serpent Column of the Platean Tripod (cat. no. 141), the Theodosian Obelisk (cat. no. 138), and the porphyry Column of Constantine (cat. no. 109). Archaeological excavation, limited because of centuries of continuous habitation and the growth of the city in modern times, has expanded upon this picture only slightly. Excavations carried out in and around the city have yielded only a handful of antiquities associated with the collection: four statue bases (cat. nos. 31 , 47, 75, 144), a sphinx (cat. no. 104), a dolphin (cat. no. 110), a portrait of Tiberius (cat. no. 116), a bronze goose (cat. no. 132), and the colossal head of a goddess (cat. no. 57).5 Although its destruction was virtually complete by the end of the fifteenth century, the Constantinopolitan collection has been the source of speculation and commen- tary from as early as the sixteenth, when it first began to pique the imagination of renaissance humanists.
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