The Blackberry Walk

Welcome to part two of the guide, continuing just from where we left off last week. The Hippodrome As you can see from the image used, the Hippodrome is no more. It's knocked down, demolished, gone. I've seen YouTube videos detailing some of the stones in the vicinity which are believed to be part of the Hippodrome structure, but these stones have been repurposed, quarried from the great racecourse, not seated in their original location. The Hippodrome, I haven't explained what it is yet. The Hippodrome was the great chariot race course of Constantinople, a vibrant home to heated rivalries, most notably the rivalry between the Blues and the Greens. These two factions or teams were drawn down theological lines, the Blues had a Chalcedonian Christology, meaning they believed Christ had two natures and was fully divine and fully human (this is the orthodox view), whilst the Greens had a Monophysite Christology, meaning they believed that Christ had one nature, and that His humanity was subsumed by His divinity. Absurd! Absurd that sports teams could be parted by theological nuances. Absurd until you realise here in England we too historically have the same; in football, there's traditionally Catholic teams, like Everton, Birmingham F. C., and Manchester City, pitted against Protestant teams, like Liverpool F.C., Aston Villa, and Manchester United. And just as the fans on these derbies can get heated and violent, the chariot races of the Hippodrome were no different: these chariot racing hooligans were forever at one another's throats. But on one fated day in 532 A.D., in a time of political instability, both Blues and Greens chanted in unison "Nika! Nika!" meaning "Victory! Victory!" as the emperor of the time, Emperor Justinian, looked on from his royal box in the Hippodrome. The riot spread through the city, torching the older Hagia Sophia, now needing to be rebuilt. Justinian was afraid. He turned to his generals, and put down the revolt with decisive action. The army shepherded the remaining rioters back into the Hippodrome, and were ordered to massacre them. 30,000 were slain. That was nearly one-and-a-half thousand years ago. Today, as I've said, little remains. What does remain is the Hippodrome's track, now neatly plotted out with a pedestrianised road. You can walk the whole track and view the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque which stand just beside it. There are also, wedged into the ground three peculiar monuments. These three monuments are from Byzantine times and have stood in spot ever since. The first you see approaching from the South is the least interesting. Known as the 'Walled Obelisk', it was built by Emperor Constantine VII in the 10th century A.D. The obelisk was originally plated in bronze before the Venetians pilfered it along with much of Byzantium's riches in the Fourth Crusade; but without its plates, it just looks unimpressive. Then as you walk up the square, next monument you'll spy is a coiled bronze serpent. This serpent - well, actually three serpents coiled together - was brought to the Hippodrome by Constantine the Great, but it is in fact far older. In the 5th century B.C., the Persian emperor Xerxes the Great attempted to conquer the Greek city states to his West. The Greek city states, understandably anxious, formed a grand alliance, headed by the Spartans, to repel this Persian invasion. And against all odds, they succeeded. After the Battle of Palataea, the final battle of the war, the Greeks gathered together the Persian bronze from armour and weaponry, smelted it down, and cast this great monument to their victory, planted beside the oracle of Delphi. Rehoused, of course, to the Hippodrome to decorate the race course. Then as you walk further up the square and reach the North side, you'll find the final, and oldest of the monuments. This monument, pictured above, is ancient Egyptian from the time of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom. That places it from the 15th century B.C. The polished granite, I'm not sure if they're restoring it regularly or what, but it looks as if it were carved yesterday, minus the birds who deface the monument in a way only a bird can. It got me thinking, looking at these monuments: we have so many ancient treasures, so why can't we too have great treasures from the ancient world in our stadia? Why can't we wrap Wembley Stadium with the Elgin Marbles, or place the Rosetta Stone at Ascot? It is just a thought. The Hagia Sophia The Hagia Sophia really needs little introduction. Built after the aforementioned torching, the Hagia Sophia was truly the greatest marvel the world had ever seen. A small emerald stud on a globe with little yet in the way of man-made magnificence. St. Vladimir, the prince of the Kievan Rus, visited the Hagia Sophia in the 10th century A.D. under the reign of Basil II, looking for a faith. He had already investigated Judaism through their neighbours the Khazars, Islam through the Bulgars, and the Latin rite of the Germans. But, dazzled by the beauty of the Hagia Sophia, Russia from St. Vladimir forward follow the Eastern rite. Approaching the Hagia Sophia today, it is gargantuan. A behemoth. And also a bit of a mess. It has stood for fifteen-hundred years, but the architects have not been idle in that time. Around a thousand years after its construction, the Islamic architects who inherited the structure reckoned it was going to collapse any moment now, and set about building brick buttresses around the ancient cathedral. And I must say, these brick buttresses are really rather ugly, a far cry from the West's flying buttress. Then, the Islamic architects began mosque-ifying the structure, adding extra domes and those four minarets every mosque has. And now, when you look upon the Hagia Sophia it looks like a bit of a mess. You cast your eyes directly behind you, and see the Blue Mosque, a perfectly proportioned mosque, deliberately built using mosque ratios and architecture; then you look back and see the Hagia Sophia, a mess. By mess, I don't mean ugly however. The Hagia Sophia is an endearing architectural mess, and the longer you look at the discontinuous building materials which comprise it, the more you begin to appreciate the age and - dare I say - wisdom of the building. The Hagia Sophia has really stood for fifteen-hundred years, in an earthquake prone zone, no less, and has been continually in use that whole time. How many other structures have such an achievement? None, to my knowledge. It is in a class of its own. And of such an achievement, the Turkish government are aware. They charge a high entrance fee to go in, the queues go on for a long time too. We queued at open, buying our tickets ahead of time, and only had to wait for fifteen minutes. The queue was far, far longer looking as we left. Inside, you are only allowed to look around the upper balcony, not the ground floor, because the ground floor is for prayer only. But not for all Muslims: bafflingly prayer on the lower floor is available only to Turks. Why, I couldn't possibly say, such a move appears far from Islamic in motivation. But even though only the upper balcony is available, calling it an upper balcony doesn't do justice to the sheer size and sense of space. So many tourists were admitted and funnelled through, but due to the size of the Hagia Sophia - at least at the time I went - I never felt crowded or rushed. Some parts did have queues however. In the bottom right photo above, you'll see an icon of the Theotokos (see, keeping it Byzantine) with Christ, hidden behind a curtain. That icon can only be glimpsed at an angle from a specific nook, you'll see people queuing to see it. I didn't know what the queue was for at first, but, like the good Brit I am, I joined the queue only to be amazed by the mosaic I saw. The curtain is for Islamic prayer times, so they can hide all the faces when praying, which I thought was quite a good compromise. This was the first thing that amazed me about the Hagia Sophia, that so much of the Christian iconography remains. The first thing you'd expect the Turks to do upon their invasion, in line with Islamic tradition, is deface all of the icons and scrape off all the likenesses. That they haven't is both a mystery and an act of grace. The second thing that amazed me was the beauty, of course. But it wasn't the kind of beauty born of brush strokes; it was instead a beauty of materials. Materials and texture seem to be going out of fashion in art. Everything is digital now, of course, and the furniture most buy is Ikea smooth flat monocolour wood which seeks to look as 2D and digital as it can. The Hagia Sophia is painted, but the paint isn't the point, it is a kind of filler. The true beauty is the marble. The marble is beautiful. So many kinds of marble, some white marble, some pink, some green, all arranged in complement to one another. This I find to be supremely appealing. The natural colour of the rock used and their natural freckled patterns build in concert a real feeling of the glory of God, I feel. It is the beauty not of make-up or paint, covering up blemishes to make a perfect mask, but instead the beauty of polished nakedness, allowing the qualities of the different marbles to express their natural beauty. And what's more, the patterns of these different types of stones all cohere so appealingly and naturally as if - and I say only as if - they were designed to in their creation. What I saw of the Hagia Sophia radiated opulence and the grandeur of God; it is no surprise St. Vlad was as taken aback as he was. Looks like this will require a third part next week.