The Mese (Greek: ἡ Μέση [Ὀδός] Mési, lit. "Middle [Street]") was the main street of the city of Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey) and the ceremonial (protocol) road used in the Byzantine Empire. In the Ottoman State and today the old road became Divanyolu Avenue.
Description
The Mese begins at the Milion stone, comes up to the Hagia Sophia, and continues straight westward. It passes the Hippodrome and the palaces of Lausus and Antiochos, and then, after about 600 metres, reaches the oval-shaped Forum of Constantine, where the city's two senates were located. This extension of the street is also known as the Regia (ἡ Ῥηγία, "Imperial road") and is the ceremonial route that begins from the Great Palace and the "Augustaion" square and continues to the forum of the city's founder.
After that point the street continues to the Forum of Theodosius (also known as the Forum of the Ox, Forum Tauri). At roughly the middle of this extension, a large shopping street called the Makros Embolos joins the Mese. At the junction of these two roads there is a tetrapylon known as the Anemodoulion ("Servant of the Winds").
A little way past the Forum of Theodosius, the street divides into two branches at the Capitolium: one branch continues to the northwest, passing the Church of the Holy Apostles and continuing to the Polyandrion gate of the Walls of Constantinople, while the other extends to the southwest, from the Forum of the Ox (Forum Bovis) and the Forum of Arcadius to the Golden Gate or Gilded Gate (Greek: Χρυσεία Πύλη, Chryseia Pylē; Latin: Porta Aurea; English: Golden Gate) that connects to the Via Egnatia.
The Mese was 25 metres wide and was lined with houses whose lower floors held shops widened by a colonnaded walkway. It was used as the imperial ceremonial road at least until the Komnenos dynasty. The most prominent form of the emperors' use of this road was the return home of a victorious emperor to the Great Palace: entering the city through the Golden Gate with his army behind him, advancing along the Mese street while greeting the crowds gathered along the roadside.
Sources
- Turkish Wikipedia: tr.wikipedia.org
- TDV Encyclopedia of Islam: islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
- English Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org