Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (4 page)

During the first two years after his victory Constantine conceived the grand scheme which would affect world history for the next millennium: the re-establishment of the Roman Empire with Byzantium as its capital. After he made his decision Constantine set out to rebuild and enlarge and adorn the old town to suit its imperial role. Work began on 4 November in the year 326, when the Emperor personally traced out the limits of the new city. The defence walls with which Constantine enclosed the city on the landward side began at a point on the Golden Horn somewhat upstream from the present Atatiirk Bridge, and extended to the Sea of Marmara in a great circular arc, ending in the bay of Samatya. Constantine’s city was thus more than five times as large as the town of Septimius Severus, and it was to be infinitely more grand.

The imperial building programme proceeded rapidly, and in less than four years the new capital was completed. On 11 May in the year A.D. 330, in a ceremony in the Hippodrome, Constantine dedicated the city of New Rome, soon after to be called Constantinople. Three years thence the old town of Byzantine would have been 1,000 years old.

During the century following the reign of Constantine the city grew rapidly and soon expanded beyond the limits set by its founder. In the first half of the fifth century, during the reign of Theodosius II, a new and much stronger line of defence-walls was built nearly a mile farther out into Thrace, replacing the older walls of Constantine. These walls have delimited the size of the old city up to the present day, so that subsequent expansion was restricted to the suburban districts along the Marmara, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The area thus enclosed included seven hills, the same number as in Old Rome, a matter of some mystical significance in Byzantium. Although the contours of these hills have been obscured by modern roads and buildings, they can still be discerned and form convenient reference-points for studying the old city. Six of the seven hills can be seen from the Galata Bridge, marching in stately line down the Golden Horn, each of them crowned with a Byzantine church or an Ottoman mosque, giving an imperial quality to the skyline of Stamboul.

Great changes took place in the Roman Empire in the two centuries following the reign of Constantine the Great. After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the Empire was divided between his two sons, with Honorius ruling the West from Rome and Arcadius the East, with his capital at Constantinople. The western part of the Empire was overrun by barbarians during the following century, and in the year 476 the last Emperor of the West was deposed, leaving the Emperor in Constantinople sole ruler of what was left of the Empire. This soon brought about a profound change in the character of the Empire, for it was now centred in lands populated largely by Greek-speaking Christians. And so, although Latin remained the official language of the court up until the beginning of the sixth century, the Empire was becoming more and more Greek and Christian in character, and began to sever its connections with the classical traditions of Athens and Rome. As the great churchman Gennadius was to write in later times: “Though I am a Hellene by speech yet I would never say that I was a Hellene, for I do not believe as Hellenes believed. I should like to take my name from my faith, and if anyone asks me what I am, I answer, ‘A Christian’. Though my father dwelt in Thessaly I do not call myself a Thessalian, but a Byzantine, for I am of Byzantium.”

A new epoch in the city’s history began during the reign of Justinian the Great, who succeeded to the throne in the year 527. Five years after his accession Justinian was very nearly overthrown by an insurrection of the factions in the Hippodrome, the famous Nika Revolt, which was finally crushed only after widespread destruction and terrible loss of life. Immediately after the suppression of the revolt Justinian set out to rebuild the city on an even grander scale than before. When he had finished his reconstruction apparently within just a few years, the city of Constantinople was the greatest and most magnificent metropolis on earth, an imperial capital beginning the first of its golden ages. The crowning glory of Justinian’s new city was the resurrected church of Haghia Sophia, whose venerable form can still be seen on the acropolis, a symbol of the ancient city of which it was so long the heart.

During the course of Justinian’s reign his generals succeeded in reconquering many of the lost dominions of the Roman Empire, and by the time he died in 565 the borders of Byzantium stretched from the Euphrates to the Pillars of Hercules. But the golden age did not last long, for within a half-century after the death of Justinian his empire had fallen apart, assaulted from without by the Lombards, Slavs, Avars and Persians, ravaged from within by anarchy, plague and social unrest. The Empire was saved from total destruction by the Emperor Heraclius, who ruled from 610 till 641. In a series of brilliant campaigns, Heraclius defeated the Persians, the Avars and the Slavs, and succeeded in regaining much of the territory which had been lost in the previous half-century. Shortly after the death of Heraclius, however, much of the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire was overrun by the Arabs, who on several occasions in the seventh and eighth centuries besieged Constantinople itself. But Byzantium held off the Arab advance and prevented them from gaining a foothold in eastern Europe, just as they were finally stopped at about the same time in the West by Charles Martel. In the ninth and tenth centuries the Byzantine Empire was invaded by the Bulgars, who gained control of large areas of the Balkans and twice laid siege to Constantinople. But on both occasions they were defeated by the great Theodosian land-walls, which continued to shelter Byzantium from its enemies across the centuries.

Despite these numerous wars Byzantium was still strong and basically sound as late as the middle of the eleventh century, controlling an empire which stretched from western Persia through Asia Minor and the Balkans to southern Italy. But then in the year 1071 the Byzantine army, led by Romanus IV, suffered a catastrophic defeat by the Selçuk Turks at the battle of Manzikert and much of eastern Asia Minor was permanently lost to the Empire. In the same year the Normans captured Bari, thus bringing to an end Byzantine rule in Italy. The forces were now gathering which would eventually destroy the Empire.

A decade after these defeats Alexius Comnenus ascended the throne of Byzantium. For the next century he and his successors, the illustrious dynasty of the Comneni, successfully defended the Empire against the attacks of its numerous enemies. During that period the Empire was being subjected to increasing pressure by the Latins of western Europe, whose armies first passed through Asia Minor in the year 1097 during the First Crusade. As time went on it became increasingly apparent that the Latins were less interested in freeing the Holy Land from the Saracens than they were in seizing land and wealth for themselves. And the prize which attracted them most was the rich and magnificent city of Constantinople. By the time the Comneni dynasty came to an end in the year 1185, the Normans had already captured Thessalonica and were advancing towards the capital. Two decades later, in the year 1203, the Latin armies of the Fourth Crusade made their first assault upon Constantinople. Although they were not able to take the city at that time they did so in a second attack the following year. On 13 April 1204 the Crusaders breached the sea-walls along the Golden Horn and took the city by storm. They then proceeded to ruin and sack Constantinople, stripping it of its wealth, its art treasures and its sacred relics, most of which were shipped off to western Europe. As wrote the French knight Villehardouin, describing the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders: “Of holy relics I need only say that it contained more than all Christendom combined; there is no estimating the quantity of gold silver, rich stuffs and other valuable things – the production of all the climates of the world. It is the belief of me, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, marechal of Champagne, that the plunder of this city exceeded all that had been witnessed since the creation of the world.” And as the Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates wrote in his lament: “Oh city, city, eye of all cities, subject of narratives all over the world, supporter of churches, leader of faith and guider of orthodoxy, protector of education, abode of all good. Thou hast drunk to the dregs the cup of the anger of the Lord, and hast been visited with fire fiercer than that which in days of yore descended upon the Pentapolis.”

The Latin Kings ruled in Constantinople from 1204 till 1261, at which time Michael Palaeologus succeeded in recapturing the city and restoring the Byzantine Empire. But the Empire was now only a fragment of what it had been in former days, comprising parts of Thrace, Macedonia and the Peloponnesus, with most of its former possessions in Asia Minor occupied by the Ottoman Turks, and much of its land in Europe lost to the rapacious Latins. Within the next century even these dominions were lost, as the Turks crossed over into Europe and advanced far into the Balkans. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the Byzantine Empire consisted of little more than Constantinople and its immediate suburbs, with the old city decaying within the great walls which had protected it for so long. Nevertheless, the indomitable Byzantines hung on for another half-century, fighting off several attempts by the Turks to take the capital. But by the middle of the fifteenth century it became increasingly obvious that the city could not hold out much longer, for it was by then completely surrounded by the Ottoman Empire.

On 13 February 1451 the young Sultan Mehmet II ascended to the Ottoman throne and almost immediately began preparations for what would be the final siege of the city. During the summer of the following year, 1452, he constructed the fortress of Rumeli Hisar
ı
on the Bosphorus, just across the narrow straits from the Turkish fortress of Anadolu Hisar
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, which had been built around 1395 by Sultan Beyazit I. The two fortresses thus completely cut off Constantinople from the Black Sea, the first step in the blockade of the capital. In March of 1453 the Ottoman navy sailed into the Sea of Marmara, cutting off Byzantium from the West and completing the blockade. Then, in the first week of April in that year, Sultan Mehmet massed his armies in Thrace and marched them into position before the land walls of the city, thus beginning a siege which was to last for seven weeks. The Byzantines and their Italian allies, who were outnumbered more than ten to one, defended the city valiantly, until their strength and resources were nearly gone. Finally, on 29 May 1453, the Turks forced their way through a breach in the shattered land walls and poured into the city. Constantine XI Dragases, the last Byzantine Emperor, fought on bravely with his men until he was killed on the walls of his fallen city, thus bringing to an heroic end the long and illustrious history of Byzantium.

According to the custom of the age, Sultan Mehmet, now called Fatih, or the Conqueror, gave over the city to his soldiers to pillage for three days after it was captured. Immediately afterwards the Sultan began to restore the city, repairing the damage it had sustained during the siege and in the decades of decay before the Conquest. A year or so later, Sultan Mehmet constructed a palace on the Third Hill, on the site of which the Beyazit Fire Tower now stands. Some years afterwards he built a more extensive palace, Topkap
ı
Saray
ı
, whose domes and spires still adorn the First Hill, the ancient acropolis of the city. By 1470 he had completed the great mosque which bears his name; Fatih Camii, the Mosque of the Conqueror. This mosque, which was comparable in size to Haghia Sophia, was the centre of a complex of pious foundations, religious and philanthropic institutions of one sort or another. Many of Fatih’s vezirs followed his example, building mosques and pious foundations of their own, each of which soon became the centre of its local neighbourhood, together developing into the new Muslim town of Istanbul. Fatih also repeopled the city, which had lost much of its population in the decades preceding the Conquest, bringing in Turks, Greeks and Armenians from Asia Minor and Thrace and settling them in Stamboul and Galata. Later in that century large numbers of Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to the Ottoman Empire by Fatih’s son and successor, Beyazit II, and many of them settled in Istanbul. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, then, Istanbul was a thriving and populous city, once again the capital of a vast empire.

During the first century after the Conquest, Turkish armies swept victoriously through the Balkans and the Near East, while buccaneering Ottoman fleets dominated the Mediterranean. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire stretched from Baghdad in the east to Algiers in the west, and from lower Egypt to the southern borders of Russia, rivalling in extent the Byzantine Empire in the days of Justinian. The Empire reached the peak of its power during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520 till 1566. Süleyman personally led his armies in a dozen victorious campaigns, failing only in his attempts to take Vienna and Malta, which thereafter set the limit to Turkish expansion to the north and west in Europe. The loot from these campaigns and the tribute and taxes from the conquered territories enormously enriched the Empire, and much of this wealth was used by Süleyman and his vezirs to adorn Istanbul with mosques, palaces and pious foundations. The grandest and most beautiful of these structures was the Süleymaniye, the mosque which was completed for Süleyman in the year 1557 by his Chief Architect, the great Sinan. This magnificent edifice stands on the crest of the ridge above the Golden Horn to the west of the Stamboul end of the Galata Bridge, dominating the whole skyline of the city. The Süleymaniye is the symbol of the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, just as Haghia Sophia represents the triumph of Byzantium in the days of Justinian. These two great buildings, separated in foundation by more than 1,000 years of history, stand only a mile apart in Stamboul. Looking at them both at once from the Galata Bridge, we are reminded that this old town was twice the capital of a world empire.