Nika sedition
The sedition Nika (victory in Greek) because of its rallying cry is a popular rising with Constantinople which made waver the throne of the emperor Justinien I {{er}} in 532.
The January 11th 532 a series of races of tanks takes place in the Hippodrome of Constantinople in the presence of the emperor, his wife Théodora and the court. The political context is explosive because for several years Justinien I {{er}} and especially the empress has not ceased supporting the faction of Blue with the detriment of the Greens. However in Byzance these factions are not satisfied to be “companies of races” but are also of true political structures, which influence the public affairs, and even soldiers with the framing of the population in armed militia. The support of Théodora encourages the Blue ones (commercial rich person and their suppliers, ship-owners and their crews, owners of craftsmen, jewellers…) to exploit with excess their Green rivals (small craftsmen and tradesmen, dockers, launderers, craftsmen and salesmen of the streets, market-gardeners, fishermen…), maltreated by Bully boy S against which they are organized in Milice S which also counteract with violence. A true climate of civil war settles in the capital of the empire.
The Greens benefit from the races of tanks to insult the emperor and his wife, but especially the prefect Jean de Cappadoce then leave in mass the steps and spread himself in the city. To prevent that the riot does not degenerate, Justinien made carry out Verts leaders but also by error an important member of the faction of the Blue ones. Fatal error because Blue and Green, in a complete reversal of situation, is combined against Justinien in the Hippodrome and requires, the January 13rd, of measurements of amnesty. In front of the refusal of the emperor, the insurrectionists ruent themselves on the imperial district and the adjacent districts with the cry of “ Nika ” (“Victoire”) plundering the imperial and préfectioraux warehouses, setting fire to the barracks and massacre the imperial soldiers and civils servant.
The January 14th Justinien yields, but too late. The riot became a true insurrection. The 15, the basilica Holy-Sophie, the Senate, the Imperial palace burn and during three days the fire makes rage. The 18, the city is mainly in flames. Joined together in the Hippodrome the two factions appoint a new emperor: Hypatios a nephew of the former emperor Anastase I {{er}}, considered favorable to the Greens. Justinien, whose courage does not seem with the height of its intellectual qualities, thinks of fleeing by the sea. It is energy and the courage of Théodora, which refuses the escape and prefers “to die in the purple” which, seems it, make it possible to turn over the situation.
Eunuque the Narsès, whose political career starts really at this time, detaches the chiefs of Blue, by buying them, of the revolution in progress. With their assistance, the general Bélisaire, prestigious chief of the army of the East, which hardly returns from a victorious campaign against the Perses, encircles the Hippodrome with quotas of Germains and massacres there, according to the sources, between 30.000 and 80.000 rebels. The January 19th Hypatios is carried out. The capacity of the factions is overcome until the end of the reign of Justinien.
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