ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the most important historical studies regarding the statues of Constantinople. If Byzantium were unique in developing this particular form of divination, then Constantinople, which features as the focus of such activities, also must have been a unique urban centre in the medieval era in being endowed with such objects. It is no surprise that until recently most scholarship on the Byzantine statue emanated from archaeologists invested in recovering the history of ancient masterpieces and historians seeking to understand the Byzantine attitude toward Antiquity. The Patria is a straight-forward reflection of the material consequence of statues in the Byzantine topographical imagination. The chapter presents evidence for the long- lasting resonance of the statues in the spheres of prophecy and temporality. Imperial prophecy forms the crux of the story, although in this case the statues seem to make their pronounce-ments even as the gory events unfold in Constantinople, almost in simultaneity.
