Once the location of a gigantic stadium holding an estimated 100,000 people, the Hippodrome was not just the scene of chariot races, but was the political epicenter of Byzantine Constantinople. Here in 532 AD the rivalry between the upper class Blues and the working class Greens manifested itself in a full scale riot, with the massacre of over 30,000 and much of the city being destroyed in the process. For over 1,300 years the Hippodrome became the barometer for rulers of the Empire. If things were going badly a restless crowd would gather, growing to a disturbance, and often ending up in a revolution. Not much of the original site is left, but an array of relics gives a sense of its glorious past, such as the Serpentine Column, (minus of course the snakes’ heads that were knocked off by a drunken Polish nobleman in the 18th century), and the Egyptian obelisk which once stood in Luxor nearly four millennia ago.