Timeline January 532

Events in January 532 3

• 532 The Nika Riots -- Constantinople burns, Justinian nearly flees The Nika Riots (January 532) begin as a dispute between the chariot-racing factions (Blues and Greens) in the hippodrome and escalate into a full-scale urban insurrection that burns much of Constantinople and nearly topples Justinian. As the emperor prepares to flee by sea, Theodora delivers her famous speech: 'Royalty is a fine burial shroud.' Justinian stays. His generals Belisarius and Mundus trap the rioters in the hippodrome and slaughter approximately 30,000 people. The riots destroy much of the city -- including the original Hagia Sophia -- but clear the ground for Justinian's great building programme.
• 532 Nika Riots -- Constantinople in flames On 13 January 532, partisans of the chariot-racing Blues and Greens factions in Constantinople unite against Justinian, chanting 'Nika!' (Victory!). The riots last five days, burning the Hagia Sophia, the Senate house, the baths of Zeuxippus and large parts of the city. Justinian prepares to flee; Theodora refuses and delivers her famous speech about preferring a royal death to ignoble flight. Belisarius and Mundus trap approximately 30,000 rioters in the hippodrome and slaughter them. The riots kill more people than some wars -- and clear the ground for Justinian's building programme.
• 532 Nika Riots destroy the Theodosian church The second Hagia Sophia is burned during the Nika Riots of January 532. For Justinian, the destruction is an opportunity: he commissions a completely new building of unprecedented ambition within days of suppressing the riots. The architects he chooses -- Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus -- are not traditional architects but a mathematician and a physicist. Their approach is analytical rather than empirical: they calculate the geometry of the dome and pendentives mathematically, producing a structure that no craftsman-architect of the period could have conceived.