The Column of Phocas and The Icon of Heraclius: Shift from Rome to Byzantium

Year 2023, Volume: 6 Issue: 2, 535 - 553, 26.12.2023

Hüseyin Salikoğlu

https://doi.org/10.48120/oad.1291519

Abstract

It is possible to clarify through the archaeological and art historic perspective when the Roman Empire collapsed and when the Byzantium began. One of the surviving archaeological and material proofs was the tradition of honorific columns that was sustained almost uninterruptedly in the Roman empire. The city of Rome and her heart Forum Romanum housed many honorific columns erected by emperors. They sustained this tradition even after the capital had moved to Constantinople and the empire had been Christianised. These colums were the state monuments that linked them to their past. They represented Roman supremacy, imperial authority, Roman identity, its collective memory and the classical culture. At the beginning of the seventh century, Emperor Heraclius abandoned this tradition. His reign is accepted as the end of the Roman empire by some historians. This was not just a coincidence though. It was the concrete evidence of the changing and transforming world Heraclius lived in. Honorific columns were literally the Rome’s ideological flag in the public sphere. The emperors' abandonment of the tradition of erecting honorific columns meant a break with classical culture and Roman imperial ideals. This historical situation heralded the dawn of a new civilization called as Byzantium today.

Keywords

Column of Phocas, Forum Romanum, Later Roman Empire, Byzantium, Late Antiquity.

Phocas’ın Sütunu, Heraclius’un İkonası: Roma’dan Bizans’a Geçiş

Abstract

Roma İmparatorluğu’nun ne zaman Bizans’a evrildiği konusundaki tartışmaya arkeolojik ve sanat tarihsel kanıtların yardımıyla katkı sağlamak mümkündür. Günümüze ulaşmış birçok arkeolojik ve maddi kanıttan biri de Roma İmparatorluğu’nda neredeyse kesintisiz sürdürülmüş anıtsal sütun dikme geleneğindir. Bu geleneğin son evresi Roma İmparatorluğu’nun Bizans’a evrildiği süreçte önemli bir yere sahiptir. Roma kenti ve bu kentin kalbi Forum Romanum imparatorların diktiği birçok anıtsal sütuna ev sahipliği yapmaktaydı. Başkent Constantinopolis’e taşındığında ve imparatorluk Hristiyanlaştığında dahi bu geleneği hem eski hem de yeni başkentte sürdürmüşlerdi. Bu sütunlar onları Romalı geçmişlerine bağlayan devlet anıtlarıydı. Roma egemenliğini, imparatorun otoritesini, Romalı kimliğini, toplumsal hafızayı ve klasik kültürü temsil etmekteydiler. 7. yy’ın başında İmparator Heraclius bu geleneği terk etti. Onun iktidarı bazı tarihçiler için Roma imparatorluğunun sonu olarak kabul edilir. Bu bir tesadüften ziyade, Heraclius’un içinde yaşadığı dünyanın değişip dönüştüğünün de somut kanıtıydı. Anıtsal sütunlar adeta Roma imparatorluk ideolojisinin kamusal alanda dalgalanan bayrağıydı. İmparatorların anıtsal sütun dikme geleneğini terk etmeleri klasik kültürden ve Roma imparatorluk ideallerinden de kopmak anlamına gelmekteydi. Bu tarihsel durum, bugün Bizans denilen uygarlığın da doğuşuna işaret etmekteydi.

Keywords

Phocas Sütunu, Forum Romanum, Geç Roma, Bizans, Geç Antikçağ.

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