Serpent Column (also known as the Serpentine Column, Delphi Tripod or the Plataean Tripod) is an ancient column at the Hippodrome (known as Atmeydanı “Horse Square” in the Ottoman period) in Sultanahmet quarter of Istanbul, Turkey. It is an ancient Greek sacrificial tripod, originally located in Delphi and later relocated to Constantinople (modern Istanbul) by Constantine I in 324. The serpent heads of the 8-meter high column remained until the end of the 17th century. One of the missing heads was later found and put on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Provenance

The Serpentine Column has one of the longest literary histories of any object surviving from Greek and Roman antiquity, and its provenance is not in doubt. It is at least 2486 years old. It was the offering, or trophy, less its original gold tripod, which was dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, after the defeat of the Persian army in the Battle of Plataea in August, 479 BC by those Greek City States, who were in alliance against the Persian invasion of mainland Greece, in the spring of 480 BC – the Persian War. Among the writers, who attest to the column in the ancient literature are Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias the traveller, Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch.The removal of the column by the Emperor Constantine to his new capital, Constantinople, is attested to by Edward Gibbon, citing the Byzantine historians, Zosimus, Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomenus in support.

Battle of Plataea

The invasion, begun in 480 BC, under the command of Xerxes I, the Great King of Persia, a combined land and sea expedition, was, for him, unfinished business, following the defeat of the expedition sent by his father, Darius, at the battle of Marathon by the Athenians in 490 BC. It had the twin objectives of forcing the submission of those city states on mainland Greece, who refused the symbolic tribute of ‘earth and water’ to the Persian king, and of punishing those cities[Athens and Eretria] who had supported the Ionian Greeks,[2] in their revolt against the Persians, begun in 499 BC , under the leadership of Aristagoras of Miletus. The Athenians had sent 20 triremes and the Eretrians, 5 triremes. This struggle lasted until the defeat of the Ionians in a naval battle outside Miletus in 494 BC. Details of the course of the Battle of Plataea may be read elsewhere, but, in essence, the defeat of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and the retreat of the Greek naval forces from Artemesium, in August, 480 BC left the strategy of the Greek allies in ruins. Nothing could prevent the Persian advance and the occupation and pillage of Athens. Only the brilliant planning and execution of the Athenian general, Themistocles, to evacuate the inhabitants of Athens to the island of Salamis, his stratagems, in persuading the reluctant Peloponnesian cities to stop and fight a naval battle in the Straits of Salamis rather than retreat to the Isthmus, and his guile in influencing Xerxes to attack the Greek fleet in the straits [September, 480 BC] gave the Greeks the respite they needed to recover. After Salamis, Xerxes withdrew to Sardis, but left a land force in Thrace, under the generalship of the experienced campaigner, Mardonius. He re-possessed Athens in the spring of 479 BC, and after the failure of diplomacy conducted by Alexander of Macedon on behalf of the Persians, to persuade the Athenians to a separate peace, the war continued. On learning that a Spartan force was on the march from the Peloponnese, Mardonius set fire to Athens again and removed his force to a strategic position in Boeotia, north of the river Asopus. The Greeks under the leadership of Pausanias, Regent of Sparta,[3] drew up on high ground in defensive positions south of the river Asopus and above the plain of Plataea . After days of skirmishing and changes of position on the Greek side, Mardonius launched a full attack. The result of the complex battle was complete victory for the Spartans, under the leadership of Pausanius. Mardonius was killed and the Persians fled in confusion led by Artabazus, the Persian second in command.

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