THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYand the like, but they might also be elaborate metrical chants or, at times, doc-
trinal assertions. Sometimes the emperor in his imperial box would engage in
a virtual dialogue with the people; a striking example survives in the so-called
Acta Calapodii of the sixth century, where such a dialogue is recorded in the
context of the Nika revolt of 532 (Chapter 5).^39 As often, these were a chance
to air political and other grievances or to appeal to the emperor. In 532, the
Green faction
chanted acclamations concerning Calapodius the cubicularius and
spatharius: ‘Long life, Justinian, may you be victorious; we are wronged,
o sole good man, we cannot endure, God knows, we are on the brink of
danger. It is Calapodius the spatharocubicularius who wrongs us.’
(Chronicon Paschale, trans. Whitby and Whitby, 114)A surprising licence was at times employed: a few days later during the same
uprising the emperor went into his box at the Hippodrome carrying the Gos-
pel, and swore an oath to the people in order to pacify them, ‘and many of the
people chanted, “Augustus Justinian, you are victorious.” But others chanted,
“You are forsworn, ass”.’^40
That the Hippodrome was now the setting for such confrontations fol-
lowed a precedent from the early empire when emperors and people had also
met each other at the games. In the urban topography of Constantinople the
practice was formalized, the Hippodrome being linked to the palace by an
internal passage, and it was here that the emperor was expected to make his
formal appearances to the people as a whole. We can see evolving in the fi fth
century the ritualized yet turbulent relation of emperor and people character-
istic of later Byzantium, in which the ‘factions’ of the Hippodrome, the Blue
and Green sides in the chariot races, played a major role both as participants in
state ceremonial and, at times, especially in the early period, as instigators and
leaders of popular disturbance (Chapter 7). Emperors tended to support one
faction or the other, and it has frequently been supposed that these Blues and
Greens also represented the religious divisions of the day; however, though
a group in a given city at a particular time (Blues and Greens were prominent
in the rioting which took place in many eastern cities at the time of the fall of
the Emperor Phocas in 609– 10; Chapter 9) might take on a particular cause,
there is no evidence to show that either faction was identifi ed with one par-
ticular group. However, the combination of sporting enthusiasms and politi-
cal unrest was dangerous and could be explosive. They were also naturally a
target for the disapproval of conservatives such as Procopius. The sculpted
reliefs on the base of the obelisk set up by Theodosius II in the Hippodrome
show the emperor in his imperial box, surrounded by his court, not only with
barbarians bringing gifts (Figure 1.1), but also with the performers and musi-
cians in front of him. The Blue and Green supporters themselves sat in special
places in the Hippodrome (many graffi ti with messages such as ‘Victory to the
Greens’ also survive carved on the seats of other theatres and circuses, as at