The Mese: Constantinople's Great Processional Way

In this episode, Lucas and Luna walk the Mese, the grand thoroughfare that bisected Constantinople from the Golden Gate to the Hagia Sophia. They trace its origins under Constantine the Great as his New Rome’s answer to the Roman via triumphalis, and follow its course past the forums of Theodosius, Constantine, and the Milton. They discuss the spolia monuments that lined the route, the imperial processions that turned the street into a stage, and the shops and markets that made it a commercial spine. The episode covers the fate of the Mese after the Fourth Crusade’s sack in 1204, its partial revival under the Palaiologoi, and its transformation under Ottoman rule into Divan Yolu. Lucas highlights the physical evidence—the surviving columns, the buried pavement fragments—and the literary sources from Procopius to Pierre Gilles that let us piece together its glory. The conversation ends with a reflection on how the Mese embodied Constantinople’s identity as a city of movement, spectacle, and memory.

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