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Constantinople: Cities
built 650 days ago
Constantinople was founded c. 658 B. C. by a Greek colony from Megara ; the site was then occupied by the Thracian village of Lygos. The chief of the Megarian expedition was Byzas, after whom the city was naturally called Byzantion (Lat. Byzantium). Despite its perfect situation, the colony did not prosper at first; it suffered much during the Medic wars, chiefly from the satraps of Darius and Xerxes. Later on, its control was disputed by Lacedæmonians and Athenians; for two years (341-339 B. C. ) it held out against Philip of Macedon. It succeeded in maintaining its independence even against victorious Rome, was granted the title and rights of an allied city, and its ambassadors were accorded at Rome the same honours as those given to allied kings; it enjoyed... all transit duties on the Bosporus.
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Constantinople is present-day Istanbul (as of 1930) and is located on a peninsula at the Sea of Marmara. Constantinople was built in 324 by the Roman emperor Constantine to be the new capitol of the Roman Empire. It was built over the city of Byzantium. One of the major construction projects that went on at the time Constantinople was built was the massive architectural achievement of the Hagia Sophia. This church was built in the 6th century and was converted to a mosque in the 15th century and since then has been converted into a museum. The past of Istanbul was always geared to higher learning.
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The citizens of Constantinople found their principal recreation in the chariot-races held in the Hippodrome, now the At Meidan, to the west of the mosque of Sultan Ahmed. So much did the race-course (begun by Severus but completed by Constantine) enter into the life of the people that it has been styled " the axis of the Byzantine world." It was not only the scene of amusement, but on account of its ample accommodation it was ... the arena of much of the political life of the city. The factions, which usually contended there in sport, often gathered there in party strife. There emperors were acclaimed or insulted; there military triumphs were celebrated; there criminals were executed, and there martyrs were burned at the stake. Three monuments remain to mark the line of the Spina, around which the chariots whirled; an Egyptian obelisk of Thothmes III., on a pedestal covered with bas-reliefs representing Theodosius I., the empress Galla, and his sons Arcadius and Honorius, presiding at scenes in the Hippodrome; the triple serpent column, which stood originally at Delphi, to commemorate the victory of Plataea 479 B.C.; a lofty pile of masonry, built in the form of an obelisk, and once covered with plates of gilded bronze.
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Even after Constantine's death and the Empire's division into West and East, Constantinople still outshone Rome as the funky, new, young-person's Capital. All the youth took their fashionable haircuts to the city on the Bosporus and Rome increasingly became the tired city of old men. "If you want to live in Rome then you're either over fifty or some tedious pagan." claimed an article in the popular slab Adulescentulus "It's full of the old-guard sacrificing goats, eating and drinking to excess and having lots of sex." Eventually, Rome committed the ultimate fashion-crime by being conquered by Visigoths and the Western Empire (now administered from the slightly-trendier city of Ravenna) fell shortly after it. This left Constantinople the only seat of a Roman Emperor which it never stopped boasting about. The city marked the fall of the West with an all-night drinking and pool-party.
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By the lime Mehmet II's campaign to conquer Constantinople began, in the spring of 1453, the Ottomans had already reduced the ailing Byzantine Empire to fragments. Mehmet, barely 21, had succeeded his father Murat II as sultan just two years earlier. Intelligent and inquisitive, Mehmet had been an assiduous student of philosophy, science and the governmental arts. The Byzantines... underestimated the young sultan's talents and resolve. They failed to grasp the seriousness of his commitment, dating from the moment of his father's death, to capture Constantinople and make that city the crowning jewel of the expanding Ottoman Empire.
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Constantinople became the new capital of the Roman Empire in the East on May 11, 330 AD and continued as such for 1123 years. Emperor Constantine spent four years building his city on the site of Byzantium, which itself was established in 658 BC. Constantinople was built on seven hills above the Bosporus, dominating the entrance to the Black Sea. It was one of the premier European cities during the Medieval period. It's fortifications were immense. Bubonic plague struck Constantinople in 541 and 732.
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