Mese (Constantinople)

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The Mese (Greek: ἡ Μέση [Ὀδός] i Mése [Odós], lit. "Middle [Street]") was the main thoroughfare of ancient Constantinople and the scene of many Byzantine imperial processions. Its ancient course is largely followed by the modern Divan Yolu ("Road to the Divan").

The Mese started at the Milion monument, close to the Hagia Sophia, and led straight westwards. It passed the Hippodrome and the palaces of Lausos and Antiochus, and after ca. 600 meters reached the oval-shaped Forum of Constantine where one of the city's two Senate houses stood. This stretch of the street was also known as the Regia (ἡ Ῥηγία, "Imperial Road"), as it formed the original ceremonial route from the Great Palace and the Augustaion square to the forum of the city's founder.

From there, the street continued to the square Forum of Theodosius or Forum of the Bull (Forum Tauri), as it was also known. In about the middle of this stretch, the great mall known as Makros Embolos joined the Mese. At their junction stood a tetrapylon known as the Anemodoulion ('Servant of the Winds).

Shortly after it passed the Theodosian Forum, the street divided in two branches at the site of the Capitolium: one branch going northwest, passing the Church of the Holy Apostles, towards the Gate of Polyandrion, while the other continued southwest, through the Forum of the Ox (Forum Bovis) and the Forum of Arcadius towards the Golden Gate, where it joined the Via Egnatia.

The Mese was 25 metres wide and lined with colonnaded porticoes which housed shops. It was the route followed by imperial processions through the city at least until Comnenian times. The most characteristic such procession was the triumphal entry of a victorious emperor, who entered the city through the Golden Gate and followed the Mese to the Great Palace, while jubilant crowds lining the street would greet him and welcome the imperial army home.

As Byzantium went into decline so the Mese lost its importance. It was, however, revived after the Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Since the Ottomans chose to develop a new palace on more or less the same site as the Byzantines had done, the road leading from the Land Walls once again became important but was now called Divan Yolu or the Road to the Divan, in recognition of the fact that dignitaries would process along it for meetings in the Divan inside Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı). So important was this road that to this day it is still lined with Ottoman monuments including mosques (Firuz Ağa Mosque), libraries (Köprülü Kütüphanesi) and the tombs of some of the sultans, including Mahmud II, Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II.^[1]

The modern Divan Yolu is lined with cafes, restaurants, hotels, bookshops and other amenities aimed at tourists. The T1 tramline also runs along it, with a stop at Sultanahmet. Of passing interest on the modern street is the Lale Restaurant which was, in the 1970s, the famous Pudding Shop that served as a gathering place for hippies heading for Kathmandu and appeared in the Alan Parker film Midnight Express.^[1]

As it heads west Divan Yolu merges into Yeniçeriler Caddesi (Janissary Street) and then Ordu Caddesi (Army Street).^[1]

• Mango, Cyril (2000). "The Triumphal Way of Constantinople and the Golden Gate" (PDF). Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 54 (54). Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University: 173–188. doi:10.2307/1291838. JSTOR 1291838. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 29, 2007. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
• Necipoğlu, Nevra, ed. (2001). Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life. Istanbul: BRILL. ISBN 90-04-11625-7.