Talk:Column of Constantine
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This is not the column you are looking for - if you are looking for the one from which Alexios V (Mourzouphlos) was tossed
editThe quoted reference 'Chronicles of the Crusades' does not actually identify the column used to kill Alexios V Doukas, whose article names the Column of Theodosius instead. So the story should be deleted from this article.
From https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/villehardouin.asp:
In those days it happened that the Emperor Mourzuphles, whose eyes had been put out-the same who had murdered his lord, the Emperor Isaac's son, the Emperor Alexius, whom the pilgrims had brought with them to that land [...] fled privily, [...] But Thierri of Loos [...] took Mourzuphles and brought him to the Emperor Baldwin at Constantinople. And the Emperor Baldwin rejoiced thereat, and took counsel with his men what he should do with a man who had been guilty of such a murder upon his lord.
And the council agreed to this: There was in Constantinople, towards the middle of the city, a column, one of the highest and the most finely wrought in marble that eye had ever seen; and Mourzuphles should be taken to the top of that column and made to leap down, in the sight of all the people, because it was fit that an act of justice so notable should be seen of the whole world. So they led the Emperor Mourzuphles to the column, and took him to the top, and all the people in the city ran together to behold the event. Then they cast him down, and he fell from such a height that when he came to the earth he was all shattered and broken.
Whereas according to the reference from the Alexios V Doukas article Annals of Niketas Choniates:
Not long after his blinding [end of November 1204], Doukas fell into the hands of the Latins 1657 and was returned to Byzantion, where he was brought to trial for having seized his lord and emperor and put him to [609] death by strangulation. His defense was that he looked upon the emperor as a traitor to his country who justly deserved his punishment, not only he alone for the crimes he had committed but others as well, as many partisans and kinsmen who had joined him. But no heed was paid to the words he had spoken, and the Latins refused to lend an attentive ear to the further arguments of this anguished man who was then condemned to an unprecedented and most violent death: placing him atop the lofty column standing in the Forum of the Bull, the Latins cast him down; falling feet first and then tumbling headlong, he shortly crashed aslant and died a most pitiable death.