From Xenophon’s acquaintance with the Achaemenids the Greeks first learned of the near-eastern tradition, going back to the Egyptians and the Assyrians, of gardens as symbols of rulers’ power.  Through the Hellenistic monarchs (of whom the evidence is extraordinarily scanty) the concept reached the Romans, initially simply the rich but then during the principate some of the emperors themselves.

The Byzantines, as heirs of the Romans, continued the tradition with, it seems, even greater enthusiasm throughout most of their history; and received extra impulses from both the Christian emphasis upon a Garden of Eden and, in the ninth and tenth centuries, rivalry with the caliphal court (although this latter may have been chiefly in the invention of hydraulically powered automata to grace their hortulan fountains).  The most notable imperial garden architect, according to surviving literary evidence, was Constantine IX Monomachos in the eleventh century.

The Byzantines were never involved in the deliberate destruction of others’ gardens to assert their own power, as had been the case in the near east, but, as Henry Maguire has shown, they did add to their symbolism of power the symbolism of imperial renewal (first for buildings but later extended to gardens) and of imperial virtues.  Suburban game-parks had gardenly qualities and the emperor’s abilities to slay and tame, again inspired by the near east, symbolized his powers to overwhelm and pacify foes of the Empire, as did his gifts of animals from them to visiting emissaries of other states.

When the Spanish traveler Pero Tafur met John VIII in Constantinople in the 1430s, they discussed heraldry. Tafur claimed relationship with the imperial family, and thus noted that his family’s “true arms are checky (jaqueles).”  He enquired why the emperor did not wear those arms, as was formerly the custom, and was told that the emperor who had reconquered Constantinople from the Venetians

… could never be prevailed upon to relinquish the arms which he formerly bore, which were and are two links joined (eslavones asidos unos con otros), and to assume the imperial arms, which belong to the throne.  But he replied always that he had won the empire bearing those arms, and nothing would induce him to part with them, and so it is to this day.  Nevertheless the old arms, which were checky, can still be seen on the towers and buildings and the churches of the city. (Pero Tafur: Travels and Adventures (1435-39), trans. and ed. M. Letts (London, 1926), ch. 14)

My purpose in this paper is to give a new insight into the entertainments of the Hippodrome in Constantinople by focusing on the participation of the emperor and court officials. My approach will involve the comparison of visual material, objects, archaeological evidence and written sources.

Through a spiral staircase the kathisma, or imperial box,was directly linked to the imperial palace and served as a window of imperial power and magnificence onto the exterior world. I will attempt to draw a parallel between the setting of the entertainments in the Hippodrome and the receptions that took place behind the close doors of the Great Palace. The organs of the factions and the hanging textiles used in the decoration of the kathisma are among the reflections in the Hippodrome of the court ceremonial in the Great Palace. On some occasions, as for the visits of foreign embassies, spectacles were organized in the Hippodrome to complement the ceremonial in the Palace. The emperor watched the games surrounded by court dignitaries and state officials who, according to the established hierarchy, occupied the loges flanking the imperial box or special seats in the cavea. Ladies of the court had the privilege of watching from behind window grills in the rooms above the box, attendance in the ordinary seats being considered inappropriate for women.

Besides chariot-races, the Hippodrome was the setting for various other entertainments including animal fights and parades, acrobatic performers, dancers and musicians. In the second part of my paper, I will focus on these entertainments as reflections of favorite pastimes and taste at the Byzantine court and will consider their impact on artistic production in the Middle-Byzantine period. 

The Sultanahmet Jail was located to the east of Hagia Sophia and to the south of the Imperial Gate of Topkapı Palace until 1982. When the prison facilities moved elsewhere, the former building built by Architect Kemaleddin and identified by its inscription as Dersaadet Cinayet Tevkifhanesi 1337 (i.e. Dersaadet House of Detention for Murder 1918-19) today serves as Hotel Four Seasons. Archaeological excavations were initiated in 1997 in the hotel’s gardens by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums Directorate as per decision of the Board for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage.

A great portion of the excavation area is covered by the foundations of the university building commissioned by Sultan Abdülmecid and built by the Swiss Architect Gaspare Fossati in 1861 and this building had served as the Courthouse in the republic period until it was destroyed by fire in 1933. This courthouse building comprises two blocks with courtyards flanking the main entryway opening to Hagia Sophia Square. Excavations in 2003 concentrated in the south block and uncovered the chambers with thick and high foundations. The west wing of the south block is divided into six compartments by foundation walls on either side of the courtyard.

Inside the compartments is a thick wall running parallel, on the east, to the Augusteum. The wall has an opening of 6.20 m. width opposite the remains of the Million. On either side of the opening are walls of large ashlars extending from the foundations toward the square and this suggests that this opening was a gateway. Adjoining the side of the wall facing the Augusteum extends a platform built with marble plaques, which reaches a marble pavement via three steps.

The exterior side of the platform has a profile. On the marble platform are clamp holes at equal spaces surrounded with circular traces indicating the presence of columns erected without any bases there. Between the traces of the columns are two marble pilasters on either side of the gateway, in which statues could be placed. The rectangular pilasters have round niches carved into their front sides and the niches terminate in steps. The stairs starting after the marble platform on which the pilasters rise have the first step wider than the next two steps, which are equal to each other. The stairs have a marble pavement before them.

This gateway situated opposite the Milion and opening into the Augusteum to the southeast of Hagia Sophia could possibly be the Chalke Gate, an important entrance of the Great Palace. The thick wall decorated with columns and pilasters on either side of the gateway and leading down to the square via stairs seems to be strong enough to support a two-story portico mentioned by W. Müller-Wiener (İstanbul’un Tarihsel Topografyası, Istanbul 1998, p.230) to be existing between Chalke, Magnaura and Hagia Sophia in the latter half of the 6^th century. The lateral gateway on the north side could have served for security of the palace and the gate.

Excavations at the former jail at Sultanahmet are certainly of great importance for they cover part of the imperial residence and administrative centre. Numerous repairs and changes in

Byzantine architecture as revealed in the course of excavations need to be dated as well as the need for precise dating of the renovations and reinforcements following earthquakes must be fulfilled by an interdisciplinary team. However, work limited with the excavation area only will be unsatisfactory and it is inevitable that the excavation finds need to be evaluated together within the frame of architectural remains in Sultanahmet and Cankurtaran quarters.

This short paper will attempt to map the physical and cultural space, which a Byzantine empress might claim between the fifth and the twelfth century. It intends to identify the potential power space in which she could exercise a female dominance. Every empress controlled her own living quarters within the Great Palace and her own servants, mainly eunuchs. In addition, numerous ladies-in-waiting looked after her appearance (hair, make-up, costume, shoes etc). Because these attendants worked in close personal proximity to the empress, they were often pressured by others to exercise persuasion. Some may have acted as guardians of tradition to restrict any inappropriate behaviour.

With her own income, however, the empress had the power to dispense funds in the construction of churches, monasteries and poor houses; she could patronise poets, historians, doctors and theologians, invite individuals to dine with her in her private dining rooms and send personal messages to individuals outside the palace. Her independence and initiative was a recognised factor both in court circles and among the people of Constantinople. A similar power could also be exercised by the mothers of the emperor and empress and other female relations.

The prevailing view is that most histories were from their beginning conceived as potential tools of propaganda for a variety of reasons - political, dynastic, religious  and the like. But even in laudatory historical works one can establish elements of Kaiserkritik, as an attempt from the part of the historian to assert his objectivity, I suppose, and this fact has been presented in well known studies that need no further comment. More interesting are, to be sure, histories that do not make clear the motives or the objectives behind their composition. Such works can be easily classed as oppositional and the question is how they came to be written. Were they influenced by  specific intellectual trends, fashioned after the times or was society already ripe for far reaching changes that affected even the image of the emperor? There were no professional historians (or trained for that purpose), and yet if they attempted to become subversive in their work, one wonders what was at stake for them? Ioannes Mauropous, in an autobiographical poem (so it seems) gave up the idea to complete a history because he could not put up with the eksousia. What made the others then so bold?

As Psellos (I, 132) once remarked  “two things in particular contribute to the hegemony of the Romans, namely, our system of honours and our wealth, to which one might add a third: the wise control of the other two, and prudence in their distribution.” Relying mainly on the material from Constantine VII’s Book of Ceremonies, this paper will consider the various ways and locations of court expenditures, their amount and economic significance. It will then analyse their motivation, purpose and achievements.

From a larger perspective my presentation is in dialogue with the greater discussion on the status of the artist in Byzantium. I will discuss the evidence relating to the emergence of intellectual artists in the late 13th and 14th centuries as a phenomenon concerning the early Palaiologan court.

A small number of fresco and mosaic ensembles of the late 13th and 14th centuries not only share with the literary production of the time the same aesthetic criteria, but also present structural similarities with it. Within works such as the Protaton frescoes on Mount Athos, or the Chora mosaics and frescoes, one encounters some exact pictorial equivalents to verbal rhetorical schemes and tropes. This may mean that the painters of such works were able to contribute with their own visual creations to a broader intellectual and artistic production, in the context of a specific cultural milieu. The courts of Michael 8^th and especially Andronicus 2^nd, which promoted intellectual and artistic activity in a spirit of humanism, were a particularly favorable ground for the emergence of this new breed of accomplished intellectual artists.

It has been argued that, with the advent of Christianity, the public use of space diminished in east Mediterranean cities. In fact, however, use of public space simply changed. Recent studies of markets, waterworks and harbours in Constantinople, for example, clearly indicate that far more space was used for public exchange  that had once been thought, though this space was dispersed rather than clustering around a single agora. Similarly, civic and religious celebrations remained central to urban life but, again, were dispersed rather than being localised to single sites. 

Remains of the Great Palace: New traces of the well-known Byzantine Imperial Palace were found in good condition underneath the lobby of Hotel Eresin Crown in Sultanahmet area, thanks to the decisions of the Istanbul board for cultural and natural heritage. The remains include in situ opus sectile flooring and a contemporaneous 6^th-century wall built with many spolia. In addition, other formerly unrecorded remains of the same palace were discovered in Kara Cehennem street behind Küçük Ayasofya.

Fourth-Century Mansions near the Theodosian Forum: In the course of our surveys in 2006, we discovered some vaults and a hypocaust underneath the Star İşhanı in Soğanağa quarter near the Theodosian Forum; a 6^th-century in situ impost of Ionic order gives us the dating. These must belong to the Late Roman mansions which existed here before the construction of the forum and must have undergone dramatic renovation in the 6^th century.

Remains of Helenianai Palace: The Helenianai quarter named after the mother of Constantine the Great was located at present-day Sancaktar quarter in Samatya. In the course of our surveys in 2004, here we identified some remains which we think belong to the palace built by Helene.

Remains of Philoxenus Palace: When Constantine the Great moved his capital from Rome to Constantinopolis, he forced some senators to move as well and to settle here. One such senator was Philoxenus, who had a palace for himself built together with a cistern for its water supply. The palace was located between the extant cistern and the Forum of Constantine. In the course of our surveys in this area we identified some building remains which we think belonged to the palace of Philoxenus.

Remains of Bonos Palace: Remains of the palace of Bonos, a military governor from the 7^th century, were identified underneath the Yavuz Selim Mosque in 1999 and were presented to the academic world.

Remains of Blachernai Palace: Unknown remains of this palace resided as of the 11^th century were identified in the courtyard of Ebu Zer Gıfari Mosque in Ayvansaray.

Remains of the Palace of Theodore Metochites: Remains of a palace, which we think belonged to the renowned statesman of the Late Byzantine period, were identified on “Tepe” in Fatih Molla Aşki quarter but the site was later covered with artificial turf by the Fatih Municipality.

Following the Latin conquest of Constantinopolis in 1204, the Laskarids, who considered themselves inheritors of the Byzantine throne like those at Trebizond and Epiros, were crowned at Nicaea (İznik) but established their social and administrative centers at Magnesia (Manisa) and Nymphaeum (Kemalpaşa). No doubt rapid Turkification of Anatolia lies behind this issue. The commercial and religious change observed at Anaia about this time is again related with this point. With the reconquest of Constantinopolis in 1261 did not hinder the rise of Anaia but rather the fortress seems to have lived better days, possibly with the privileges given to the Latins. Furthermore, the Byzantine palace in Constantinopolis must have been in contact with the customs officials due to tax and duty coming from Anaia and/or clergy.

The Great Palace of Constantinople, in which the Byzantine Court had his physical centre for more than eighthundred years, expanded gradually from a rather compact fourth-century core into a vast complex of buildings, open spaces and passageways. The Great Palace served not only as the emperor’s residence, but also as the seat of govern­ment and the headquarters of the administration.

The aim of this paper is to give an overview how this develop­ment took place, with spe­cial regard to the following questions:

1) What was the layout of the palace area in the first phase of its existence? Was the core of the Great Palace actually designed as a copy of the palace of Rome, or rather not?

2) How did the crisis of the seventh and eighth century affect the buildings and institu­tions of the palace? What happened thereafter during its reconstruction?

3) What were the reasons for the shifting of the active centre of the Great Palace to the south-west of the palace area?

4) How was the physical space of the Great Palace area experienced in court ceremonial by processions and receptions?

5) Why was the Great Palace partially abandoned since the late eleventh century, and by what were its former functions replaced?

The Byzantine Empire went through both prosperous and stagnant and difficult times from its birth in the fourth century until its fall in the fifteenth century. However, art always retained its existence even in times of internal and external conflicts as well as economic difficulties. Although not as numerous as in prosperous times, construction of monuments continued, and works of art, bearing historical importance, of precious metals, ivory, glass, baked clay and textiles etc were continued to be produced.

These works of art produced at the imperial workshops were commissioned sometimes by the emperor himself, or sometimes by the empress or by courtiers. Beside the liturgical objects ordered for use at palatial churches there also are costumes and accessories, objects of status and gift items to be sent to the rulers of other countries and which can be perceived as show of power. These works of art do reflect the cultural and artistic setting formed between the Byzantine Empire and the states it was in contact with and in addition, point to the importance of objects of status within historic context.

Unlike what can be observed for medieval Western Europe, the minting of coinage in the Byzantine empire had always been an imperial prerogative. As such, there was a strong and direct connection between the mint and the palace: although the literary and archaeological evidence is scanty, it clearly indicates that the imperial mint of Constantinople was located within the premises of the Great Palace. Its products (mainly coins, but possibly also silver plates and bouloteria for imperial seals) formed an important component of court ceremony, while at the same time they conveyed the imperial ideology both within the boundaries of the empire, as well as beyond, by means of trade and diplomatic gifts.

The famous Great Palace mosaics in Constantinople comprise the most substantial remains of the famed imperial complex. The mosaics are noted for the refinement of their execution and their unusually wide range of subjects. Since their discovery in the first half of the 20^th century, arguments have raged over their date and meaning, as well as the identification of the building to which they belonged.  Amphora sherds excavated below the level of the pavement in the late 1980s suggested a date in the first half of the 6^th century, although this has been disputed too.

The notion of cosmopolitanism—the act of participating simultaneously in multiple socio-political domains and expressing identity through multiple cultural modes—is one of several concepts to emerge in recent years for defining the dynamics that undergird cross-cultural artistic interaction in the medieval world. Yet, the “cosmopolitan” nature of the middle Byzantine court has been recognized avant la lettre in art historical literature since the early twentieth century. In various studies that consider imperial and courtly art, André Grabar, for instance, notes the presence of motifs and themes that derive from foreign, especially Sasanian and Islamic sources. More recently, scholars including Anthony Cutler, Lucy-Anne Hunt, Robert Nelson, and Henry and Eunice Maguire have expanded understanding of how “other” artistic traditions contributed to the courtly environment of Constantinople.

Still, the degree to which non-Byzantine artistic elements participated in the direct expression of Byzantine imperial power has been less thoroughly considered. Objects and monuments depicting foreign styles and motifs are typically positioned within a category of unofficial art and are often associated with leisure practices of the elite, implying that they relate only to a domain of princely pleasures and do not contribute meaningfully to the more serious business of articulating ideologies of imperial rule. The latter task is generally judged to be carried out by imagery that presents a Christomimetic (or at least divinely sanctioned) concept of Byzantine imperial authority. While it is well-accepted that the medieval court of Constantinople was a cosmopolitan space, the question of whether the emperor himself was depicted as a cosmopolitan ruler requires further attention.

This paper explores select instances in which the image of the middle Byzantine emperor might be said to have projected a cosmopolitan ideal through a visual vocabulary that incorporated non-Christian motifs, foreign iconography, and exotic stylistic features. By showing not only the capital and empire but the ruler himself as participating in the earthly domain, these works of art and architecture root imperial authority in this world, rather than the divine sphere, and in a diversity of cultural modes, rather than an exclusively Roman-Christian tradition. They suggest that imperial authority was understood—and to some degree represented—as relational and responsive, rather than absolute and unchanging. While the latter point has been extensively explored in textual and historical studies of Byzantine imperial ideology, it has yet to receive comparable consideration in art historical scholarship.  

When Sultan Mehmet Fatih entered Constantinople in 1453, one of the first places he visited was the Church of Saint Sophia and the dilapidated remains of the imperial palace. Although Mehmet soon had Saint Sophia restored and converted into an imperial mosque, he neither renovated the ruins of the Great Palace nor the Blachernai Palace.

Next year the sultan began to build a traditional Ottoman palace where the University of Istanbul stands today. However, soon after, Mehmet decided to build yet another palace. This one was a much more monumental structure, which the sultan called the New Palace (Yeni Saray), today known as the Topkapı Sarayı. But why build a new palace so soon?

This paper argues that the building of a new palace was motivated by the new imperial image of the sultan that had crystallised while Constantinople was being transformed into the Ottoman capital: Mehmet saw himself as the heir to the Eastern Roman Empire. This had to be reflected in palace ceremonial and architecture. The New Palace was situated close to two great imperial monuments, Saint Sophia and the Hippodrome, now used for Ottoman festivities. The palace was clearly distinguished from the Byzantine imperial palace to stress the rule of a different dynasty, while the perpetuation of Byzantine ceremonial communicated a message of timeless order and stability, bestowing permanence and legitimacy.

The palace at the Myrelaion in Istanbul has last been excavated by R. Naumann in 1965/66. Naumann reported the excavation in the same year (Istanbuler Mitteilungen 16, 1966, 199-216), but most of the finds were not included in the report and have never been published. Floor mosaics show the mythological hunter Akteon wielding a spear. The iconography can be compared with the Great Palace Mosaics and may have been the model for the Megalopsychia panel at the Yakto Complex in Daphne near Antiochia.

Marble revetment has been imported from Dokimon on the Anatolian High Plateau, as has been confirmed by archaeometric analysis (W. Prochaska, Leoben). A series of 21 pilaster capitals each have a different decoration and exemplify the aesthetic principle of ’varietas’. This early Byzantine innovation has so far been ascribed to the reuse of varied spolia in Rome. The ‘varietas’ of the newly carved revetment at the eastern capital does now point to an Anatolian origin of this aesthetic innovation.

Education in Byzantium was a matter of individual choice and there was never such a thing as statutory school attendance. The Byzantine Empire never imposed a compulsory education on its subjects, while education was always open to those that desired it and had the wherewithal to pay for it. And while the state was well aware that its functionaries had need of at least a rudimentary education, education in itself was never a prerequisite for holding an imperial post. On the other hand, when it was present, education was a highly-regarded element in anyone’s make-up, but was especially highly-regarded in holders of high office. The school retained a fixation with Byzantium’s Graeco-Roman intellectual heritage throughout the entire history of the Empire, but that it also proved impressively flexible in adapting itself to circumstances down the centuries. 

During the Roman Empire water was a key element in urban display, it was required for the great imperial thermae and for the private baths of the wealthy. Fountains such as the Meta Sudens, near the Colosseum, were displays of imperial ingenuity and prestige, matching the later mostra of the Papal city. Water was also a crucial decorative element of elite housing and imperial palaces, from the Palatine to Tivoli; pools, lakes and fountains provided cool vistas and refreshing settings for statuary and architecture. The New Rome reflects some of these themes, although far less is known from the archaeological record for public water displays, bathing establishments or for the use of water within the imperial palaces. Our recent research has been able to document the complex network of water channels extending over three hundred kilometres outside the city and this paper attempts to examine how our model for the distribution of the main water channels within the city  can inform our knowledge of the main palace sites. We will consider the changing patterns of distribution and discuss how the Great Palace and the Blachernae were supplied and continued to be provided with water throughout the Byzantine period. Finally we will assess the legacy of the Byzantine water supply system for the later Ottoman city and in particular the provision of water for the new Ottoman palaces.