Milion

This article is about the Byzantine zero-mile marker. For the milion, the Greek mile of 5000 feet or 8 stadia, see Roman mile.
Not to be confused with Million.
Reconstruction of Byzantion's Milion based on historic accounts and remaining fragments. The arched structure is approximately 14.6 m wide.
A fragment of the Milion has been re-erected as a pillar.
Milion can be seen at the center of the plaza near the Hippodrome.

The Milion (‹See Tfd›Greek: Μίλιον or Μίλλιον, Mílion; Turkish: Milyon taşı) was a marker from which all distances across the Roman Empire were measured. Erected by Septimus Severus in the 3rd century AD in the city of Byzantium, it became the zero-mile marker for the empire upon the re-founding of the city as Constantinople in 330 AD. Thereafter, it would serve as the starting-place for the measurement of distances for all the roads leading to the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire. It thus served the same function as the Golden Milestone (Milliarium Aureum) in Rome's forum, erected by Augustus. The domed building of the Milion rested on four large arches and, over the centuries, it was expanded and decorated with several statues and paintings.[1] Though it had survived the sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it disappeared by the start of the 16th century in the Ottoman era.[2] During excavations in the 1960s, some partial fragments of the Milion were discovered under houses in the area.[2]

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