Praetorium of Constantinople

Map of Byzantine Constantinople. The first praetorium lay to the northeast of Hagia Sophia, the second between the Augustaion and the Forum of Constantine.

The Praetorium of Constantinople (Latin: Praetorium Constantinopolis, pl. praetoria; Greek: Πραιτώριον της Κωνσταντινουπόλης) was the edifice in Byzantine Constantinople where the Praefectus urbi (commonly called in English the Eparch from his Greek title (Greek: ὁ ἔπαρχος τῆς πόλεως, romanized: ho eparchos tēs poleōs)) resided and dispensed justice. A jail was annexed to the praetorium. At least two buildings with this function existed in the city.

Location

In Constantinople existed two praetoria. According to Raymond Janin, the first one lay to the northeast of the Hagia Sophia, in the first region of the city, while the second praetorium was located to the northwest of the first, between the Augustaion and the Forum of Constantine. According to another hypothesis, it is possible that the large rests of buildings pulled down in 1875 near the Fuad Pasha Türbesi and the Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque belonged to the second Praetorium and to the nearby Haghia Anastasia's church.

History

Theodorus and Theophanes were imprisoned and branded in the praetorium.

The first praetorium was established by Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) or possibly – predating the foundation of Constantinople – by Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), in scope of his reconstruction of Byzantium. It was destroyed by fire a first time in 407 AD, during a revolt against Monaxius, praefectus urbi, and a second time in January 532, during the Nika riots, always by fire.

The praetorium had a jail, which according to John the Lydian was carved out by John the Cappadocian within the building. There, prisoners were regularly tortured and executed. John the Lydian asserts that the Cappadocian extracted money from his victims and gives an eyewitness testimony to the execution of one such victim. Under iconoclasm the jail hosted 432 monks who refused to abandon image worship, turning the building into a veritable monastery. During the reign of Phocas (r. 602–610), a noblewoman named Maré or Marcia, whose house lay near the prison, moved with compassion because of the awful conditions of the prisoners and the smell coming from the nearby building, offered her house as new prison. The Emperor accepted her offer, but paid for her building. The prison was a place of suffering: among the tortured, St. Stephen the younger, after spending eleven months in jail died because of the torments. His body was pulled by the populace with a rope tied to the feet and thrown in a place named ta pelagiou, where the criminals were dumped after their execution. Under Theophilos (r. 829–842) two brothers, Theodorus and Theophanes, were imprisoned in the praetorium and after being summoned before the Eparch and having refused to take the Eucharist with the iconoclasts, were branded on their forehead and torso with twelve iambic verses written by the Emperor. Because of that, they were nicknamed the "Grapti" ("the written upon" in Greek).

The second praetorium already existed under Justinian I (r. 527–565). It was also burned during the revolt of Nika, with the fire spreading from the Forum of Constantine to the Chalke. This praetorium burned a second time under Phocas, during an uprising of the Green faction of the Hippodrome. The fire extended along the mese odos (the main road in the city), from the palace of Lausus to the Ark in Constantine's Forum: among the victims was John Kroukis, the chief of the Greens. In 695, Leontius (r. 695–698), at that time strategos of the theme of Hellas in southern Greece, landed in the Kontoskalion harbour and freed many soldiers imprisoned in the building, and with them he assaulted the Great Palace and deposed the Emperor. In 781, Empress Irene of Athens (r. 780–802) publicly whipped and imprisoned in the praetorium the wife and children of Elpidius, governor of Sicily, accused of rebellion against her. In the eleventh century, Theodosios, proedros and cousin of Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055), rebelling against Michael VI Bringas (r. 1056–1056) freed the prisoners of the praetorium's jail inviting them to join him.

Sources

• Janin, Raymond (1950). Constantinople Byzantine (in French) (1 ed.). Paris: Institut français d'etudes byzantines.
• Müller-Wiener, Wolfgang (1977). Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis zum Beginn d. 17 Jh (in German). Tübingen: Wasmuth. ISBN 978-3-8030-1022-3.
• Treadgold, Warren (1988). The Byzantine Revival, 780–842. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-1462-4.
• Martindale, John R., ed. (1992). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume III, AD 527–641. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20160-8.
• Lilie, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (1999). Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit: 1. Abteilung (641–867), Band 1: Aaron (# 1) – Georgios (# 2182) (in German). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 486–487. ISBN 978-3-11-015179-4.
• Heather, Peter J.; Moncur, David (2001). Politics, Philosophy, and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-0-85323-106-6.
• Senina, Tatiana (2008). "La confession de Théophane et Théodore les Graptoi : remarques et précisions". Scrinium. Journal of Patrology and Critical Hagiography (in French). 4 (1): 260–298. doi:10.1163/18177565-90000188. Retrieved 20 May 2024.