Dynastic History | Obelisk of Theodosius — Thirty Days in Latin, Thirty-Two in Greek

The stone was already old when it reached the Hippodrome. It was cut for Thutmose III at Karnak, moved to Alexandria by Constantius II in 357, and finally shipped on to Constantinople — İstanbul now — where Theodosius I had it set upright on the spina of the racecourse in 390. Only the upper part survived the journey; what stands is about 18.5 metres of a taller shaft.

The Roman work is the marble base underneath, and the base is the court describing itself. One face shows the emperor and his household in the kathisma, the imperial box connected through to the Great Palace. Another shows a race. A third shows the erection itself, with capstans, ropes and the men working them, none of whom is named. The fourth shows kneeling figures the relief presents as subject peoples bringing tribute.

Two dedicatory inscriptions, Latin on one side and Greek on the other, both boast about speed and disagree about the number: the Latin says the obelisk was raised in thirty days, the Greek says thirty-two. Both name the officer who supervised the work, the city prefect Proculus. He was executed in 393 and his name was cut out of the stone; after his rehabilitation in 396 it was cut back in. The monument carries the record of the court's own turnover in the surface of its marble.

It stands today in the open at Sultanahmet Meydanı, railed off, on the line of the vanished spina, with the Serpent Column and the Walled Obelisk along the same axis and the racecourse itself under the square.

📸 Cover: the obelisk on its inscribed Roman base, Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons