Hippodrome of Constantinople 1953–1976. Hippodrome of Constantinople The Hippodrome of Constantinople () was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named "Sultanahmet Meydanı" ("Sultan Ahmet Square") in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving. The word "hippodrome" comes from the Greek "hippos" (), horse, and "dromos" (δρόμος), path or way. For this reason, it is sometimes also called "Atmeydanı" ("Horse Square") in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world and hippodromes were common features of Greek
Medieval Greek Lexicographic changes in Medieval Greek influenced by Christianity can be found for instance in words like ἄγγελος ('messenger') > heavenly messenger > angel) or ἀγάπη 'love' > 'altruistic love', which is strictly differentiated from ἔρως , ('physical love'). In everyday usage, some old Greek stems were replaced, for example, the expression for "wine" where the word κρασίον ('mixture') replaced the old Greek οἶνος . The word ὄψον (meaning "something you eat with bread") combined with the suffix -αριον , which was borrowed from the Latin "-arium", became "fish" (ὀψάριον ), which after apheresis, synizesis and the loss of final ν