Walking through Constantinople in 1453 AD. What would you have seen?

Imagine it is the year 1453, before the siege of Constantinople began on the 6th of April of that year, for example in March. Imagine you could walk through Constantinople when spring began in March of 1453. What would you have seen? Would you have seen a magnificent and splendorous city, as is so often depicted in movies that portray that fateful year? Would you have seen splendorous monuments of the old Roman past from a thousand years earlier? Would you have seen the city full of people, a giant metropolis of the end of the middle ages? And how would it have looked in the aftermath of the fall? How would the city have changed if you would walk again through Constantinople a few months after the fall, when the city had been taken by the Ottomans? So many questions which we're going to try to answer in this video. Many people imagine the fall of Constantinople as this grand fall of an epic civilization in its prime, and Constantinople being this incredibly magnificent city, which then was brutally conquered by the Turks. This of course makes for a nice cinematic experience, as we all know that cinema loves to exaggerate historical occurrences. But what if I told you that Constantinople in 1453, even before the fall of the city, wasn't this giant metropolis with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, but that the city was in reality more like an agglomeration of villages with large fields in between, and which just happened to have very old protective city walls. 900 years had passed since the peak population of the city under Emperor Justinian, before the plague hit in 541, and more than 400 years had passed since the second revival of the city around the year 1000. Back then, Constantinople had more than half a million people living inside the city walls. The population density was very high, the streets were filled with shops and vendors, there were people everywhere from all around the Mediterranean, there were houses built very near to each other, old roman style insular apartment buildings, filled with people, and in 540, the old roman monuments were still standing impressively and magnificently. Save for the old greek temples on the Acropolis of course, they had been abandoned and were given price to ruin, having been possibly dismantled at some point in the 5th century. But even in the year 1000, though many of the old roman monuments were by then already in ruins, still many were maintained, and the old hippodrome was still very much intact. Ceremonial horse races were held there from time to time, and in the old oval forum there still was the column of Constantine, and the city was filled with countless churches and triumphal archways. But 453 years later, you would have encountered a desolate sight, when seeing the old capital of the romans, which for 1123 years at this point had been the capital of the eastern roman empire. Gone were the filled streets, gone were most of the people. The streets almost empty, almost abandoned, save for a few places where people still flocked to. Imagine you are standing near the Hagia Sophia in 1453. What would you have seen? Well, it would have been a pretty sorry sight. Yes, the Hagia Sophia was still standing, and it was one of the very few buildings from the old times which was still well maintained, and standing pretty much undamaged since 900 years by that time. Luckily, this impressive building still stands, and one can visit it even today. But many of the surrounding buildings were in pretty bad shape, if they even existed at all. The central place where the Hagia Sophia stood was since old times called the Augustion. There we could see the new senate house, the Magnaura. But in 1453, the building was already since long abandoned and falling into decay. Directly there at the Augustion we could also see the Cialche, the old entrance to the great palace. But the great palace had been abandoned long ago. Already in the late 11th century, the emperors had moved their residents to the Blachernae Palace near the northwestern city walls. Already in 1261, when the city was retaken by the Romans, the great palace was already in disrepair. But almost two centuries later, the palace was in even worse shape. It was half in ruins, its great halls empty and desolate, sometimes given price to the elements, as the ceilings had collapsed in parts. The Cialche itself, the old entrance gate, didn't look too well anymore as well in March of 1453. And now to something different, the SPQR shop. They make amazing rings, amazing pendants, attributes, terracottas, coin replicas. They make a lot of wonderful replicas of Roman items, and it's all 100% handcrafted. Let me tell you, the level of craftsmanship is absolutely incredible. You can even buy the one and only Majorianus ring. And you can only get it on the SPQR shop. But there are of course many other rings and amazing items that the SPQR shop crafts with an incredible attention to detail. And with a code in the description, you will get a 20%, I repeat a 20% price reduction on every purchase on the SPQR shop. So don't hesitate and buy something nice for you or someone else as a present who also happens to like Roman history. Thanks for your attention and back to the video. Also at the Augustaion, the old central place of the city which once used to be full of people, but now much more empty, were the old baths of Soixipos. But they too were, as you might have guessed, in pretty bad shape. First of all, they hadn't been used as baths anymore since the early 8th century. Their last mention as baths was from 713 AD. Later, the baths were converted at some point into a prison, while other parts of giant baths were also used as a silk workshop. But by 1453, the old silk workshop was probably long gone. Only the prison part might have still been in use. But this is speculation, as we don't know exactly which parts of this old structure were still in use. It might have been partially collapsed. At the Augustaion, there was also the old Minion, which was a very impressive triumphal arch in form of a quadrifons. It was still standing in 1453, one of the very few monuments from the old Roman times which were still intact. The Minion was built by Septimius Severus in the early 200s AD, and after Constantinople was made the new capital of the Roman Empire, it became the zero mile marker. Thus, distances to all other major cities of the empire were measured with regards to the Minion. Another structure that was still standing from the old times was the Column of Justinian. Indeed, this impressive column was still standing in 1453. It was a massive column, on top of which was erected a large equestrian statue of the emperor Justinian. This is a size comparison to actual people, which gives you a good impression of how massive this column and the statue on top must have been. Between 1422 and 1427, the world apple, which the statue of Justinian had held in his left hand, had fallen down, which was seen as an ill omen. A not completely unfounded fear, as we now know in hindsight. Towards the north, you would not see much. The old area of the Acropolis had long vanished, and of the old theater there was also no trace anymore. This whole area was abandoned in 1453 and overgrown by dense vegetation in many parts. Only one or the other solitary church was to be found here. Going back to the Minion and onto the central street of the city, the Mese, to the left you would see the grand old Hippodrome. Or better, the remains of the Hippodrome. Because of course, like most other large buildings from the Roman era, this one too had fallen long since into disrepair and was in a ruined state. In the sack of 1204, it was damaged and since then not used anymore, and thus had fallen into neglect. By 1453, large parts had collapsed and it must have been a sorry sight, seeing this grand old building slowly decaying. Now you might ask, where were the inhabitants actually living? They lived along the old main streets of the city, first and foremost of course along the Mese, which had since long been the central street, but along some other large ones as well. However, many of the streets had long since been abandoned and entire quarters had devolved into cow pasture and grassland, quite similar to what had happened to old Rome centuries earlier. If you would continue your path along the Mese, you would still see some shops in the old colonnaded porticos, but the density of course of people must have been a lot lower. And also many of these colonnaded porticos were collapsed as well. The people lived in the old insular type of buildings from Roman times, but of course heavily modified over the centuries and as soon as you would stray further from the central street, you would immediately find abandonment, ruins and areas overgrown with vegetation. You would go further and arrive at the oval forum, which in the old days was called the forum of Constantine. You would enter through a triumphal arch and in the midst of the forum you would still find standing in still pretty good shape the column of Constantine. However, on top of the column you would not find anymore the statue of Constantine as the sun god Sol, but a cross, because the sun god had been damaged by lightning a few hundred years prior and fallen off. Here there was still activity in 1453. You would have still seen people selling wares, merchants and in general a few people, as much as a city with barely 50 000 inhabitants could muster, a city which once housed 10 to 15 times as many people. Thus at no point in 1453 will you have seen activity and commotion as dense and ubiquitous as in say 1020 AD or in 530 AD. These times were long gone. In the forum itself there were no statues anymore. In 1204, when the city was sacked by the crusaders, still quite a few old impressive statues were decorating the of Constantine. There were some equestrian statues from the olden days, but there were also some statues brought from all across the eastern roman empire. It is even speculated, however this can't be proven, that the statue of Athena Promachos among others was actually brought to the forum of Constantine at some point in the late 400s AD. Because we know that there was a 10 meter tall bronze statue in the forum and this could well have been the old statue of Athena from the Acropolis of Athens. However, tragically it was destroyed by the crusaders who melted down the bronze statues in the forum. In 1453 then you would not have found any of the old statues left. The old senate house was in ruins as well. Here the senate of Constantinople would have convened before the Nica riots, so from 330 to 532 AD. But this building had been also abandoned since long and simply left decaying. Many other fora were in much worse shape though. The outlying fora, for example such as the forum of Arcadius, were completely abandoned. The forum of Arcadius was basically a complete field of ruins by 1453. But of course the Theodosian land walls were still standing and maintained because of their strategic importance. And the palace of the Blachernae where the emperors resided was of course also well maintained. As were some small pockets in this giant former city which now had become an agglomeration of several villages with several centers where people lived and vast stretches of fields and grassland in between. So in March of 1453 the state of Constantinople was really not great. Thus the fall of Constantinople was not the fall of a grandiose city, but the fall of a city which long before had fallen into ruin. A city whose great days were centuries past. A city which was only a shadow of its former self. So when the city fell after an almost two month long siege in late May of 1453, something fell which in reality had already fallen long before. In fact the sack of 1204 had been much more devastating to the city. Of course the fall of 1453 was still very devastating. The last vestiges of an old dying civilization fell and thousands of eastern Romans died. Interestingly though, many more Ottomans died during the siege than Romans. And of course there was the heroic death of Constantine XI Palaiologos, who will always be immortalized due to his epic sacrifice. However, not long after the so-called fall of Constantinople, you would have seen renewed activity in the city. You would have seen new buildings being built. You would have seen more shops, more merchants, more businesses, and more ships in the harbors. Shortly after the fall, say in October of 1453, it was as if the city would see a great flurry of activity, with many new people flocking in and many new buildings being built. The Augustion, which in was now much more filled. The Forum of Constantine as well. More and more people were flocking into the city and by 1550 already, some hundred years after the fall, the city had once again hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. And so was the fall of Constantinople in 1453 really a fall or the birth of something new. If you like this video, please consider supporting this channel via Patreon or via a YouTube membership, because it is your support which makes this channel possible. You would have my utmost gratitude. And of course I would like to thank everybody who is supporting my Urianos. You people are amazing. And if you want to learn more about Constantinople before it became Constantinople, so when it was still Byzantium, you can watch this video in the upper right corner. But if you want to learn more about how Constantinople looked in the Byzantine Dark Ages, you can watch the other video in the lower right corner. I say thanks again to all friends of Roman history, gratias ti biago and benevalete.