The Hippodrome's Other Voice: Constantinople's Poet-Astrologer

What if one of Constantinople's sharpest political critics was an astrologer who wrote poetry disguised as centaur prophecies? In Episode 60 of Constantinople to Istanbul, Lucas and Luna explore the forgotten figure of Manuel Philes, a 14th-century poet, astrologer, and diplomat who wandered between the doomed palaces of the Palaiologan court. Philes wrote satirical verses about corrupt officials, composed ekphraseis for icons and relics, and cast horoscopes for emperors — all while the empire shrank around him. They unpack his poem 'On the Properties of Animals,' his correspondence with the powerful, and his remarkable 'Ekphrasis on a Centaur' where myth becomes political allegory. Along the way, they touch on the decline of the Hippodrome, the rise of Ottoman power, and the strange survival of Hellenistic astrology in Orthodox Constantinople. This episode offers a side of Byzantine history rarely told: not of emperors or battles, but of a sharp-eyed intellectual navigating a crumbling world.

#Byzantium #Constantinople #ManuelPhiles #ByzantinePoetry #PalaiologanDynasty #Astrology #Ekphrasis #Hippodrome #OttomanRise #FourteenthCentury #ByzantineLiterature #Centaur #ByzantineCourt #History #FexingoHistory #LateByzantium #Istanbul #ByzantineCulture

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