Because Constantinople lacked electoral institutions, the Hippodrome and other mass gatherings functioned as a 'perpetual referendum,' where public acclamation or booing acted like an ongoing opinion poll that emperors had to heed.
Kaldellis explains that without elections, the Eastern Roman Empire relied on crowds in the Hippodrome and other public spaces chanting acclamations or jeers, forcing emperors to respond to public sentiment in real time. ✦ AI generated
Anthony Kaldellis · Lex Fridman · 2026-06-30 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 39:43
Elections give a government a mandate for, I don't know, four or five years, and during that period, you may be unpopular, but you're legitimate... Whereas in Constantinople, we don't have those kinds of institutions. We have instead an ongoing referendum. We just call it a perpetual referendum, right? And in fact, the emperors are, they're conducting opinion polls in a sense because they appear in public.
verbatim transcript · starts at 39:43
39:43Elections give a government a mandate for, I don't know, four or five years, and during that period, you may be unpopular, but you're legitimate, right, because of the institutions. Whereas in Constantinople, we don't have those kinds of institutions. We have instead an ongoing referendum. We just call it a perpetual referendum, right? And in fact, the emperors are, they're conducting opinion polls in a sense because they appear in public. When they appear in public, everyone is
40:15expected to cheer and chant acclamations, right, like, Slogans. Right? So you have 100,000 people in the Hippodrome all chanting, you know, "Worthy" or "Many years for you, Augustus" or something like this. And if that happens, it's great. But if you appear in the Hippodrome and people are, like, sullen or if the chanting is a bit tepid or if they're booing, then you know something's wrong, right? So you gotta find out what's wrong. It could be something like the grain
40:42supply is, you know, not working or whatever. And so emperors are desperate to fix those problems. - And the Hippodrome is this big gathering place in Constantinople, which I guess a lot of people gathered at and did this kind of cheering or not cheering based on policy and- ... and whether the emperor is popular or not. This was democracy. Uh, I apologize to use that term, but-
41:09... in our conception of what that means, because what do we mean by democracy in the modern day is that the people somehow have a connection to who leads and how they lead, and this is, the Hippodrome was that connection between the people and the leaders. - Yes. Now, we can talk about modern democracy if you, if you want. That's a, that's a, I have, I have my own views about-
41:32... modern democracy, and, and, you know, how it works and how it doesn't and, anyway, whether it is democracy, in fact, 'cause there are other models of democracy, like- ... ancient Athenian democracy, which is a whole other thing. But you're right. So it's not just in the Hippodrome. It's wherever people assemble in large numbers. So this could be military mustering grounds, right? So the army. The army is also the Roman people in a way, and the-