The Horses of St. Mark's

by Charles Freeman

  It is usually possible to tell when this variant of the method has been used because the process leaves its mark on the bronze. When the wax is poured into the plaster it is then smoothed into every cavity with strips of wood. These leave their mark on the wax, which also varies in thickness. These variations are often reproduced on the plaster core and then reappear on the inside of the completed bronze. The indirect method was in use in Greece as early as the fifth century BC – the Riace warriors of c.460 BC, two male nudes possibly originally from an Athenian victory monument at Delphi, were cast in this way. So, too, were the horses of St Mark’s – a discovery which raises the possibility that they are direct copies of earlier statues; but, as we shall see in later chapters, there are far more remarkable features of their casting than this alone.

  Metal sculptures pose a particular problem for archaeologists in that metal is not in itself datable. The dates at which particular processes are known to have begun or to have fallen into disuse provide only broad guidelines. We know that the Greeks of Samos learned of the lost-wax process in the seventh century BC, though there is no large Greek bronze statue which survives from before the late sixth century (an Apollo, dated to 525, which was buried for safety in the Piraeus, the harbour of Athens, before the Persian sack of the city in 480 BC); thereafter the method continued to be used for centuries, both in ancient Greece and then under the Romans after their conquest of the eastern Mediterranean. Both Greeks and Romans cast quadrigae, albeit for different contexts – the Greeks as commemorative monuments to victors in the games, the Romans as symbols of imperial triumph. The impossibility of any direct dating of the metal in which they were cast has meant that the St Mark’s horses have been attributed to some of the great sculptors of the ancient world – Phidias of the Parthenon, working in the late fifth century BC, and Lysippus, the favourite of Alexander, working in the late fourth century – as well as to specific emperors such as Nero (first century AD) and Constantine (fourth century AD). Altogether, as a result of the lack of other evidence, the horses have, as we noted earlier, been provided with dates for their casting which have spanned nine hundred years.

  For the moment we must leave the mystery of the horses’ origin unresolved as we turn to their first known setting, in or near the hippodrome of Constantinople.

  These plates, from a study of bronze casting published in France in 1743, show where the conduits for the casting of a large equestrian statue were placed (here for a statue of Louis XIV) and the process by which the wax model was bound and then heated from below to allow the wax to run out so that the bronze could be poured in to replace it. The horses of St Mark’s must have been cast by a similar process. (Above: Procuratoria di San Marco: Archivio Fotografico. Opposite: The Art Archive)

  5

  WATCHERS IN THE HIPPODROME

  THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE HAS NOT ALWAYS HAD A GOOD press. ‘The universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, with scarcely an exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed.’ So wrote the Irish historian William Lecky in 1869, echoing the English historian Edward Gibbon’s thoughts of a hundred years earlier. The image of a corrupt and stagnant society prevailed into the twentieth century. Lecky’s compatriot W. B. Yeats’ poem, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ (1927), is an evocative account of a lethargic imperial court set against a backdrop of ‘hammered gold and gold enamelling’ – and even now the term ‘Byzantine’ conjures up an atmosphere of tortuous political plottings in gloomy palace passageways.

  Today’s historians, however, have a great deal more respect for the empire. If we date its beginning from Constantine’s foundation of Constantinople in AD 330, it survived for over eleven hundred years until the fall of the capital to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. For much of its history it had to keep itself intact as a multicultural society while defending itself against a mass of different enemies. Its boundaries shifted so often, as territory was lost or gained, that it was in a continual process of administrative reorganization. It is hardly surprising that the sources are dominated by intricate accounts of warfare and court intrigue – the remarkable fact is that it survived despite them.

  Byzantium was a theocratic empire. From the 380s the emperor Theodosius I enforced Christianity as the state religion through a series of decrees. As the empire consolidated itself, the emperors elevated themselves to a position closer and closer to God, and their imperial authority became intertwined with their status as God’s chosen representative. Constantine had envisaged himself the ‘equal of the apostles’, and his successors expected actively to convert their subjects. Justinian (AD 527–65) did this by ordering all citizens to come forward for baptism with their wives, children and households on pain of being stripped of their possessions. Although we know that many non-Christians, Jews and pagans, maintained their beliefs – no state in this period would have been able to assert a uniform authority effectively over so much territory and so many disparate cultures – any form of significant public participation in society was reserved for Christians.

  As the ‘divine’ emperors became ever further removed from their subjects, the only contact they retained with the people was in the hippodrome. It was comparatively easy for an emperor to assemble an audience, for himself or for the games, and to step into the imperial box, to which he had direct access from the palace, to be seen by the masses. However, large crowds and remote emperors did not always mix well. Whether our horses were originally in the hippodrome, above it on the starting gates or close by at the Milion, they certainly watched over a bewildering variety of events in the coming centuries, some of which, as we shall see, left blood pouring through the ransacked streets of the capital.

  Perhaps the most important ceremony that took place in the hippodrome was the presentation of a new emperor to his people so that they could acclaim him in his role as the chosen of God. In the third and fourth centuries, when the empire was under almost constant attack, most emperors emerged from within the army, and their initial acclamation had been by their own troops. Constantine, for instance, had been acclaimed as ‘Augustus’ by his father’s troops in York when his father had died there in 306. The ceremony of acclamation involved placing the new emperor on a shield and lifting him above his men. By the fifth and sixth centuries the Byzantine emperors tended to emerge from within the court, often from within the imperial family, and they employed generals to do their fighting for them; but the ceremony of acclamation was preserved, and it was in the hippodrome in Constantinople that it was enacted. When the emperor Justin II was proclaimed there in 565 he was lifted on to a shield by soldiers before the assembled crowds. ‘The crowds sang “May you conquer, Justin.”’ Then:

  the huge uproar grows, and mourning departs from the palace as new joy comes. The sound arouses everyone. All the elements support Justin, everything rejoices with him. Called forth by the clamour, all the Senators approach. Light fills the sacred palace … God Himself gave clear signs and confirmed the election, to place on Justin’s head the glorious crown of empire.

  In short, the emperor is God’s representative on earth and obedience is expected from the people for that reason alone. The hippodrome is the place where he displays his power. When Justinian’s general Belisarius arrived back from a successful campaign in north Africa it was in the hippodrome that he held his triumph – but the event was carefully staged so that Belisarius remained on foot and offered his captives and booty to the emperor, who had to be acknowledged as the true victor.

  Throughout these years the hippodrome continued to be used for sport as well as ceremony; but all too often the intense rivalry between what were now the two main chariot-racing teams, the Blues and the Greens, led to serious riots. The hippodrome had become the only venue in Constantinople where large crowds could gather, and when there was social or political tension in the city the atmosphere became very unsettled. It was common for scuffles to break out at the end of each games as the supporters of the two teams ta
unted each other, and if the authorities mishandled things these could quickly degenerate into mass violence.

  The most horrific such event, the Nika riots, took place in 532 in the reign of Justinian. After a minor fracas two supporters, one Green and one Blue, were to have been executed. The hanging was bungled and both men dropped to the ground unharmed. In the excitement of the moment word spread of a miracle; the men were rescued by the mob and hurried off to the safe asylum of a church. Justinian was still determined to carry out the executions, but at the next race meeting the crowd yelled for the men to be pardoned. The shouting went on through the afternoon, up to the twenty-second of the twenty-four races. Then, suddenly, something unheard-of happened. Blues and Greens swallowed their differences and started shouting together: ‘Long life to the merciful Blues and Greens!’ Centuries of rivalry had dissolved in a moment and the crowds took to the streets, burning and looting with cries of ‘Nika!’, victory. They released all the prisoners they could find and then began demanding the resignation of the emperor’s chief ministers. Justinian, panicking, gave in to the demands, but this was now seen as a sign of weakness. The crowd sought out one Hypatius, the nephew of a former emperor, Anastasius, and dragged him off to be crowned in the hippodrome as the new emperor.

  Everything seemed lost – until a remarkable intervention by Justinian’s empress. Theodora, who had made her way into the imperial bed after a notorious career as a sexually voracious circus artiste, refused to surrender her gains, announcing: ‘May I never be separated from this purple, and may I not live that day on which those who meet me shall not address me as mistress.’ As for her husband, she proclaimed that once one has been an emperor one could never endure being a fugitive: ‘The royal purple was as good a burial shroud as any.’ Confronted by this extraordinary outburst the beleaguered courtiers took courage, and Belisarius himself was sent into the hippodrome to confront the rioters. The historian Procopius relates that some thirty thousand of them were killed in the vicious suppression that followed. The horses had watched over a massacre.

  The Nika riots had been made worse by Justinian’s capitulation to the rioters’ demands. It is likely that the proclamation of Hypatius in the hippodrome was engineered by senators determined to find some way of restoring order through an imperial figurehead when it appeared that Justinian had in effect abdicated. Either way an imperial state would have survived. Even so, it had been a frightening moment and showed just how active the emperors had to be if they were to control the crowds. Justinian and his successors learned their lesson (Justinian himself ruled for over thirty more years), and in the years to come there is an interesting shift in the use of the hippodrome. We find both the number of games and the number of races held in each session being gradually reduced, with stage-managed imperial ceremonies filling the gaps.

  There is a fascinating record from the eighth century which shows how a confident emperor could now ‘use’ a crowd. It describes a ceremony conducted in the hippodrome by the emperor Constantine V (r. 741–75) in 763. This Constantine was a fervent iconoclast, determined that representations of divine figures be expunged from the churches. One of his opponents was an influential monk, Stephen, abbot of a monastery near Nicomedia. A courtier of Constantine’s, George Syncletus, had gone, either of his own accord or on the emperor’s orders (the sources disagree), to Stephen’s monastery and there been admitted as a monk. Constantine appeared in the hippodrome and announced to the crowd that he would ‘have nothing to do with that band hated by God [the iconophiles]’. The crowd in the hippodrome chanted, from what seems to have been a planted text, that none [of ‘that band’] remained in the city. The emperor then went on to outline his complaints, culminating in the charge that his opponents had snatched his favourite courtier, George. Two days later the citizens were called back to the hippodrome. Constantine announced that God had heard his prayer and that he was now victorious. (The crowd: ‘When does God not hear you?’) God, Constantine went on, had revealed George to him. ‘Punish him!’ shouted the crowd. Again it must have been a planted response, as George was immediately produced, still in the habit of a monk. This was stripped from him; then he was given a new baptism, as if to wipe away his admission as a monk, and was dressed as a soldier. No further harm was done to him. Two years later, when Stephen himself came to Constantinople he found himself set upon by a mob and lynched. The emperor appears to have manipulated the crowds in his favour and in such a way as to transfer the responsibility for dealing with his enemies to the people.

  The process of replacing races with rituals continued. A Book of Ceremonies dating from the tenth century tells us that by then the imperial rituals took so long that there was time for only eight races in a day instead of the usual twenty-four. By the twelfth century chariot races were usually held only when the emperor had a victory to celebrate, in other words at a time when he could be sure that his authority would not be challenged. So we can see that the horses presided over an arena which was gradually transformed over the centuries from a cockpit of potential unrest into an ordered ceremonial stage.

  The fortunes of Constantinople declined dramatically. In the early years of Justinian’s reign there may have been half a million inhabitants, but by 750 this seems to have dwindled to forty thousand. As the prosperity of the classical world had faded and the ancient trade routes of the Mediterranean atrophied, the resources needed to sustain such a large city were no longer available. Disease played its part, too: plague became a permanent feature of urban life, a single visitation often wiping out a third of a city’s population. Justinian himself almost died in its first appearance of 542. Gradually whole sections of Constantinople were abandoned, and after 600 there is virtually no record of any public building beyond the renewal of essential defences. Matters were not helped by an intense distrust of profit on the part of the most influential elites. Even as Mediterranean trade revived after 1000, it was the clergy rather than the merchants who extended their hold over Constantinople, and their priority was not the expansion of commerce but the rebuilding of ancient churches and the spread of private monasteries into deserted parts of the capital. Constantinople was increasingly a city whose opulence lay in the relics and treasures of its churches, the most dazzling of which was Santa Sophia, rebuilt by Justinian after the Nika riots and still intact today.

  By the tenth century it was the enterprising merchant cities of Italy – Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice – that were seizing the initiative in the eastern Mediterranean. They managed to get toeholds in Constantinople itself, where they were eventually given walled enclaves from which they could conduct their business. The city’s relationship with one of these communities, the Venetians, was particularly important because Venice was technically part of the empire; and yet it was from Venice that the first successful attack on Constantinople since its foundation was to take place, in 1204.

  Up to now the horses had been watchers of events; now they were to find a starring role.

  6

  THE FOURTH CRUSADE AND THE SACK OF CONSTANTINOPLE

  This race did not seek refuge in these islands for fun, nor were those who joined later moved by chance; necessity taught them to find safety in the most unfavourable location. Later, however, this turned out to their greatest advantage and made them wise at a time when the whole northern world still lay in darkness; their increasing population and wealth were a logical consequence. Houses were crowded closer and closer together, sand and swamp transformed into solid pavement … The place of street and square and promenade was taken by water. In consequence, the Venetian was bound to develop into a new kind of creature, and that is why, too, Venice can only be compared to itself.

  J. W. GOETHE, Italian Journey (1786–8)

  THE CITIZENS OF VENICE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT in spirit, their self-reliance and industry encouraged by the birth of the city as a refuge for mainlanders. The first permanent inhabitants of the scatter of islands were probably driven there by the Lombar
d invasions of northern Italy in the sixth century, although the Venetians themselves preferred more romantic stories of origin. Stung by taunts that theirs was not a classical foundation, they put about a tale that the Rialto – the rivo alto or ‘the high bank’, later the commercial centre of the city – had been settled by refugees from the fall of Troy (traditionally dated, if it took place at all, to about 1250 BC), thus giving the city a heritage even older than that of Rome! Another legend told of the early Venetians fleeing Gothic invaders and setting up their city on 25 March AD 421, precisely at midday – 25 March was the feast day of the Annunciation, and so this legend explains the role of the Virgin Mary as a special protectress of the city. Those who wished to highlight the Christian origins of Venice developed a story concerning the ancient Christian city of Aquileia, on the Adriatic coast east of Venice, where, by tradition, the evangelist Mark had preached. It was said that when the city had been sacked by the pagan Attila the Hun in 452, Christianity had been preserved by certain of its pious inhabitants who had taken their faith with them to the Venetian lagoon. A medieval legend strengthened the link between the city and Mark by telling how the evangelist had spent a night on an island in the lagoon and had been told in a dream that his body would finally rest there. All these stories jostled in the Venetian consciousness, one myth gaining prominence when the city wished to highlight its antiquity, another when it wanted to show off its Christian credentials. The Venetians had a flair – shared, perhaps, with Constantine – for manipulating the symbols of the past to their advantage.