Istanbul: Jewel of the Empire

In the United States, when we think of Rome, we almost exclusively think of western Rome: Italy, the Colosseum, Julius Caesar…and then the collapse in the 5th century AD. The end of Rome, the beginning of the “Dark Ages,” and soon, the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.

But the Roman Empire held on for centuries in the East, with the capital of Constantinople, today called Istanbul, as the center of this great empire. Historians often refer the Eastern Roman Empire as the Byzantine Empire to separate it from the Western Roman Empire, though this was not a name the east called itself. It was coined about 100 years after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, but I will use the names interchangeably. Eastern Roman Empire = Byzantine Empire.

The reason behind this bizarre new name for the Eastern Roman Empire is that before Istanbul was Constantinople, it was called Byzantium.

Byzantium first got it’s name in 660 BC when a Greek colony settled on the European side for it’s strategic location on the Bosphorus Strait.

The city passed into Roman hands in 196 BC, but it wasn’t until 330 AD when Emperor Constantine became the first Christian Emperor that he renamed the city after himself.

Constantine is an interesting character. To begin with, the Roman Empire had a lot of problems. During Constantine’s youth, the Empire was ruled by a tetrachry system. The empire was divided into two halves: the east and the west, each governed by an augustus. Each augustus had a caesar designated to be their successor, thus 4 men in power = a tetrarchy. Well, it always sounds better on paper, right?

When Constantine’s father, an augustus, died, his army declared Constantine augustus. Then Constantine fought it out with all the other possible augusti and caesares in both east and west and beat them all to be Emperor of everything. Before the battle against his final rival, Constantine is said to have seen a cross and the words “in this sign, conquer”, which partially motivated his later conversion. As a side note, Constatine didn’t make Christianity the official religion. He merely made Christianity legal, which gave Christians a break from the persecution they’d suffered for centuries. And he didn’t actually convert to Christianity until he was on his deathbed, though this became pretty common because baptism washes away your sins, so a lot of people got baptized only right before they died so they wouldn’t have time to commit any new sins.

a hallway that steps down every fifteen feet

Oh my gosh. I’ve sunk deep into the history hole and I promised I wouldn’t, at least not so soon.

But even in real life, I was already deep in the history trenches before we set down in Istanbul. On the flight, I read Lost to the West so that I could be prepared for the plethora of history that would be thrown at me in a short amount of time.

We arrived late in the evening, so had a quick dinner and fell asleep, eager to begin exploring the next morning. Our first stop in Istanbul: the Spice Market.

The Spice Market

The market was within a large building with long hallways and stores punched out from the stone walls. We oohed and ahhed at the tiny mountains of spices, the treats, and the rolls of Turkish Delight. We snacked on baklava and wove through the crowds, jostled from every side as tourists and locals alike hurried through the sweet smelling air.

We tried almond seeds, which are freaking delicious even though they are poisonous in large quantities (just like apple seeds) and bought a pound of dried figs for later. Yum!

Roman Remnants

Four sided and pointed Egyptian obelisk with hieroglyphics on each side

White base of the obelisk carved with rows of people

Unfortunately, as one of the oldest cities in Europe (and the only city to span two continents: Europe and Asia), there are few ancient remnants remaining in what was once a city to rival Rome. Constantinople was attacked many times, including by Latin Crusaders and later the Ottomans, so much was destroyed. Constant rebuilding and modern expansion has also dozed over many possible archeological sites.

This obelisk is all that remains from the hippodrome of Roman times. It was pretty underwhelming. Just standing in a concrete square.

However, it did get slightly more interesting when our guide explained that the obelisk is not even Roman. It was built in Egypt in 1600 BC and brought to Istanbul by Emperor Theodoseus in 390 AD to decorate his hippodrome.

Still, it’s surrounded by modernity, so not the most exciting thing. But the implications of the obelisk are interesting. It signifies that the Romans were intrigued by past civilizations, as I am. And, like colonizers, were adept at stealing cool cultural monuments to display in their own country rather than leaving them where they belong.

The base of the obelisks is Roman, though, and it the chariot races once held in the hippodrome. Each political party had their own sponsored team.

The Hagia Sophia

A little backstory on this impressive building. In 330 AD, Emperor Constantine renamed Bysantium as Constantinople and made it the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantine had already begun building up the city in an effort to rival Rome. For example, he ordered the Hagia Sophia (Church of Divine Wisdom) built in 325. However, the structure standing today is the rebuilt vision by Emperor Justinian I in 532. Way less impressive, right? To be standing in a magnificent building built in 532 instead of 200 years earlier. What a disappointment!

When you enter the Hagia Sophia, there is an image above one of the side doors (there are a lot of doors) showing Constantine offering the city of Constantinople to Mary and Jesus (left) and Justinian offering them the newly rebuilt and magnificent Hagia Sophia.

During the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the church was looted by Crusaders who never made it to the Holy Land. But, in 1453 when the Ottomans finally took Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire, Sultan Mehmet II told his soldiers they could burn and pillage the rest of the city, but not to touch the Hagia Sophia. Mehmet had the iconic church turned into a mosque.

A sprawling mosque with several domes and minarets

When Turkey became a secularized country in 1923, the founder, Atatürk, decided to make the Hagia Sophia a museum. It bonds Christianity and Islam. See the Virgin Mary and Jesus flanked by the names of Allah and Muhammed on either side?

a half dome with a painted virgin and child flanked by two circles with the names of Allah and Muhammed

I’ve never been in a church as old as this one, though I’ve certainly been in many that are it’s match in grandeur: vaulted ceilings, gold foil, blazing chandeliers. But standing below the name of the prophet and an orthodox painting of Mary and Jesus was surreal. How was it that Ataturk, back in 1925, could see that both religions can exist peacefully, but today we struggle so? He saw that beauty and peace and worship are the same whether directed to God or Allah, that a building’s history as a church and history as a mosque mattered equally. He had a grand monument, a symbol of ancestry, history, and grandeur–and instead of continuing it’s use a mosque, as a powerful symbol of Islamic Turkey, he choose to respect both Islam and Christianity. Tell me France or America would have been so tolerant.

It’s beautiful, and it’s heartbreaking that so many Christians and Muslims are at odds today when we are far more similar than we are different.

The Basilica Cisterns

Beneath a corner of the Hagia Sophia is another vast public works project ordered by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century: an enormous cistern to provide water for the entire city. The underground cistern has 336 columns (12 rows with 28 columns each) and can hold 100,000 tons of water. Each column was reused from other ancient structures rather than being constructed purely for this purpose. This hodge-podge hardly detracts from the majesty of the vaulted underground hall.

dimly lit row of columns over a damp floor

upside down carved medusa head with a pillar on top

sideways stone Medusa head with a pillar on top

Some of the looted/reused columns were too short, so the workers found things to put underneath them. In several cases, they used stone Medusa heads. By Justinian’s reign, the official religion in the Roman Empire was Christianity, so these pagan symbols were placed upside down and sideways.

They just don’t make cisterns like they used too.

Topkapi Palace

After hitting the Roman highlight tour, we moved into later history: the Ottoman Empire.

In 1453, when Sultan Mehmet II finally conquered Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire, he had Topkapi palace built on a hill overlooking the city. It has a 3.5 mile outer wall and three gates to enter before reaching the home of the Sultan.

half circle arch of a gate of Topkapi Palace — The Three Gates

turreted gate to Topkapi Palace — The Three Gates

We started our tour of Topkapi Palace in the Harem quarters, where the sultan’s rooms, his mother’s rooms, and the entertainment rooms were located. Harem means means ‘forbidden place.’ No unrelated males were allowed inside unless they were eunuchs.

A marble and gold alcove with a faucet and rectangular bathing pool — The Queen Mother’s Bath Tub

marble and gilt wall fountain inlaid with blue, gold, and orange — The Queen Mother’s Bath Tub

Arch door to a courtyard tiled with blue and yellow

Starting with Mehmed II, over 30 sultans ruled from Topkapi palace and added on to the existing structures that Mehmed had commissioned. The sprawling palace is brimming with colorful tiles, marble, and gold, but the colors contrasted with a lot of white space are soothing. The grandeur is beautiful but not over the top. Unlike the Baroque style so popular in later years in Europe, Topkapi Palace felt elegant and refined rather than over-the-top gaudy. Rooms were airy, the gardens were gorgeous but not pruned to within an inch of their life.

If it ever comes down to it and I had to pick a palace to live in, my preferences seem to be Ottoman rather than European.

The Imperial Hall functioned as the Sultan’s reception hall and place of entertainment. The Sultan’s throne sits in this room, while the women, headed by the Queen Mother, would occupy the galleries. There is also a secret door behind a mirror that allowed the Sultan safe passage.

Crystal chandelier hangs in the middle of a blue, red, and gold chamber tiled with Arabic calligraphy and hosting a covered sofa

The grounds of the palace:

A circular path around a garden with flowers and a tree overlooking the veranda of of the palace

The Bosphorus Strait

For the afternoon, we hopped on a boat to cruise along the coastline of the city. Because of the city’s strategic location sprawled across the hills on either side of the Bosphorus Strait, most conquerers arrived by ship to attack the city. I imagine an armada cruising up and down the coast, staring up at the walls of the city and feeling quite hopeless that they could breach them–that they had even deigned to imagine they could conquer the jewel of the empire, the city of Constantinople.