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Paul Magdalino, Paul Stephenson. The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography., The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 1, February 2018, Pages 279–280, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/123.1.279
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Extract
The Serpent Column is the victory monument set up at Delphi after the defeat of the Persian army at the Battle of Plataia in 479 b.c.e. that marked the end of the Persian invasion of Greece. It originally consisted of a tall, hollow bronze pillar in the form of three entwined serpents terminating in three projecting necks and heads that formed the tripod for a gold cauldron. The cauldron was removed quite early in the monument’s history, but the rest of the tripod remained standing on the east terrace of the sanctuary at Delphi for eight centuries. It was then taken, probably on the orders of the emperor Constantine I, to adorn the newly built hippodrome of Constantinople. Having lost its heads and necks in 1700, the truncated shaft still stands in the At meydanı of Istanbul between the two obelisks. Along with these obelisks, the Serpent Column is all that is left of the crowd of sculptured monuments that occupied the central plinth dividing the racetracks of the greatest entertainment venue of the Byzantine imperial capital.
