Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/105

 circus, spreading terror through the streets, while their enemies pursued them. These threatened a massacre of the greens such as would have effaced the memory of their three thousand. It was averted by the lucky incident of the appearance of seven criminals being led to the place of execution. Four were beheaded; one was hanged; the ropes broke by which the other two were hanging, and they were carried off by monks to the sanctuary of the church. It was discovered that they belonged respectively to the blue and the green factions. Were, then, religion and the circus thus to be insulted? Both factions united to rescue the prisoners, to burn down the prefect's house, to massacre his officers, and to open the prisons. The soldiers sent to appease the multitude were fiercely assailed; the women hurled stones upon them from the housetops; the men, in self-defence, set fire to the houses, and a conflagration ensued, in which many of the finest buildings of the city, including St. Sophia, were destroyed. The peaceful inhabitants fled across the Bosporus. For five days the city was in the hands of the factions, whose watchword—which gave the sedition its name—was "Nika," conquer.

Justinian tried concession. He dismissed his principal ministers; he even went to the hippodrome to deplore publicly the errors of his government, but he was distrusted, and so great a clamour was raised that he fled hastily to the fortress of his palace. The mob, masters of the city, seized on one Hypatius, nephew of Anastasius, and, against his will, proclaimed him emperor.

The courage of Theodora saved Justinian, who pro-