Forum of the Ox

The Forum lay along the southern branch of the Mese Odós (the main street of the city), in the valley of the Lycus creek, between the seventh and the third hills of Constantinople.

This square was possibly part of Constantine the Great's original city plan design;[1] like the other fora of Constantinople, it was certainly built sometime in the 4th century.

[1][2] The statue, brought to Constantinople from Pergamum in Asia Minor, was used both as a furnace and a device implementing the brazen bull torture: people were closed inside the ox, which then was heated until they suffocated and burned.

[3][4] Particularly noteworthy among them was a group representing Constantine the Great and his mother Helena jointly holding a gilded silver cross, a composition that became very popular in Byzantine art.

In the westerly direction, the same road started to climb the seventh hill, reaching the Forum of Arcadius and the plateau of Xeropholos.

[6] In 1956, during the works for the construction of Millet and Vatan Caddesi, the two large roads which cross historic Istanbul, two pillars two meters high and having a base 3 m x 4 m wide were found outside the south wall of the Murat Pasha Mosque.

[6] In 1968–71, during the roadworks to build the Aksaray road interchange southeast of the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque, no remains of the square have been found.