page_title: Hippodrome of Constantinople
hierarchical_section_title: Hippodrome of Constantinople
caption_attribution_description: English: "The mosque of Sultan Ahmed I and the Hippodrome of Constantinople. In the foreground, the Obelisk of Theodosius, and the Walled Obelisk. Between them, the Serpent column" (Description adapted from Travelogues
context_page_description: The Hippodrome of Constantinople was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving.
  The word hippodrome comes from the Greek hippos, horse, and dromos, path or way. For this reason, it is sometimes also called Atmeydanı in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world and hippodromes were common features of Greek cities in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.
context_section_description: The Hippodrome of Constantinople (Greek: Ἱππόδρομος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, romanized: Hippódromos tēs Kōnstantinoupóleōs) was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı (Sultan Ahmet Square) in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving.
  The word hippodrome comes from the Greek hippos (ἵππος), horse, and dromos (δρόμος), path or way. For this reason, it is sometimes also called Atmeydanı ("Horse Square") in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world and hippodromes were common features of Greek cities in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.
caption: Engraving by William Watts after Luigi Mayer of the Atmeydanı and Sultan Ahmet Mosque
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