Nika Riots - Crisis in Constantinoples - 532

The year is 532. Activists roam the streets of
Constantinople looting and murdering. At first Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus, Justinian for short,
attempts de-escalating measures and calming words. After that, violence reigns. In the end
the number of those who perished in the hippodrome of the Eastern Roman capital
amounted to about 30,000.

The cause of these riots was the execution of ringleaders of the two
large circus parties, the "Blue" (veneta) and the "Green" (prasina). The original
four circus parties had grown out of the popular racing stables in the Roman and later the
Byzantine empires. They had gained more and more political importance
. Through targeted provocations they were able to influence public opinion for or against
the emperor. The emperor had to show himself to the people regularly in the circus, where
the circus parties ruled. The chants, acclamations,
praises and inflammatory songs orchestrated by them were the main medium of communication between
the late Roman emperor and his subjects.
Already Justinian's predecessor, Emperor Anastasius, who had uncharacteristically been a supporter
of the "reds" (russata), found himself repeatedly confronted with serious circus riots
that almost led to his overthrow in 512. Justinian, on the other hand, was an
enthusiastic supporter of the blues and allowed them so much freedom that the eyewitness
Procopius of Caesarea complained, "And the villains murdered their victims, people completely unknown to them
whom they unceremoniously declared to be greens."

In January 532, the emperor surprisingly tightened his course and wanted to hang the ringleaders
of both parties who had protested against his rigid fiscal policy. When
two of these were to be hanged a second
time despite a gallows collapsing under their weight, the parties demanded their pardon. After Justinian demonstratively
refused to communicate with the people gathered in the Hippodrome on
13 January, the mood tilted dramatically. The two actually hostile
parties allied under the battle cry of "Nika! Nika!" (Victories! Victories!).

On the same day, the house of the city prefect Eudamion burned, followed on 14 January by
the wooden benches of the Hippodrome and parts of the palace quarter, and on the 15th dense smoke rose from the
Imperial Forum and from the predecessor of the Hagia Sophia Church.
Justinian was so shocked that he quite possibly considered fleeing. He
at first tried to calm the crowd in the Hippodrome with the Gospel in his hand, and
even offered immunity from punishment. But the activists proclaimed Flavius Hypatius, a
nephew of Justinian's predecessor Anastasius, as counter-emperor instead. Now Justinian, probably also
under the influence of his energetic, famous wife Theodora, ran out of patience.
After the palace guard had remained neutral, the emperor had the riots
bloodily put down with the help of the elite troops of his army masters Mundus and Belisar.
The result of this slaughter was recorded by the Eastern Roman historian John Malalas in his
World Chronicle: "Now the generals entered the hippodrome
with their troops, and from the two entrances they let rip at the densely packed mobs, while
some shot with arrows, while the others used their swords. But the number of those who died in the hippodrome amounted to something more or less than 30,000.