Miliarium

The Milion, also known as the Million or Miliarium, was an ancient structure in the center of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. It was a marble column that stood in the center of a square building with a pyramidal roof, known as a tetrapylon. The marble column was used to measure the length of all the roads in the empire, similar to the Milliarium Aureum in Rome. In the early 16th century, the Milion was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople. In the 1960s, during excavations near the Hagia Sophia, the remains of one of the tetrapylon structures were found. This fragment is now exhibited in the northern courtyard of the cathedral in Istanbul's Fatih district, near the Basilica Cistern.