The Serpent Column of Delphi in Constantinople: Placement, Purposes, and Mutilations

Between the two great obelisks of Istanbul’s Atmeidan, rests the battered and truncated remains of one of western civilization’s most intriguing and important artifacts: the Serpent Column of Delphi. With its two companions, the ancient bronze pillar marks the spina of the Byzantine hippodrome around which the chariots of the Empire once raced. Today only tour buses make the circuit. The Serpent Column is all the more extraordinary simply by its continued existence. On public display for over 2300 years, it somehow escaped the fires, earthquakes, and lootings which destroyed almost all other Hellenic bronze masterpieces. As one author at the turn of the twentieth century noted, ‘Nothing in Constantinople, perhaps in the world, has such a history.’ It is not, however, the purpose of this study to present that history, but rather to examine new evidence and make new arguments concerning crucial points in it. More specifically, this article will concentrate on the column’s physical state, as well as some local folklore surrounding it, from its removal to Constantinople in the fourth century until its truncation in 1700.