The Storie about Constantinople pt 2 - The Nika Revolt

The Week Constantinople Burned Itself Down

Imagine a city where football gangs rule the streets with swords.
That was Constantinople in January 532.The Blues wore sky-colored silk and shaved half their beards as a fashion statement.
The Greens tattooed crosses on their faces and hated the Blues more than they hated the devil.
Both gangs had seats in the Hippodrome, private bodyguards, and the ears of senators.One cold week, the two gangs did the impossible: they stopped killing each other and decided to kill the emperor instead.Fires started on the first night. By the fifth morning half the city was ash. The great church burned, the palace burned, and thirty thousand people crowded into the Hippodrome chanting “Nika! Nika!” – Victory! – while they crowned a terrified old man as the new emperor.Inside the palace, Emperor Justinian was packing gold to run.
His wife Theodora – a former actress who once danced half-naked for sailors – blocked the door.
“If you flee,” she said, “you will live, but you will never sleep again without shame. I prefer the purple cloak as my funeral shroud.”Justinian stayed.That evening General Belisarius marched his mercenaries into the Hippodrome, quietly locked every gate, and gave the order.
Three hours later the sand was black and the dead were counted by the wagonload.
Thirty thousand people – almost one in ten citizens – lay silent under the same sky that had cheered chariot races the week before.The city never forgot the smell.