In 324 CE, the Roman emperor Constantine defeated his rival Licinius to become sole ruler of the Roman empire. Shortly after, he made a decision that would change the course of history – founding a new imperial capital on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium. Christened Constantinople in 330 CE, this “New Rome” would dominate the medieval world politically, economically, culturally, and spiritually for over a millennium until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Constantine’s Pivotal Role in the Roman Empire
In the tumultuous third century CE, the Roman empire endured an extended period of crisis and civil war that threatened its very survival. The giant, unified state that Augustus had forged centuries before was crumbling. To bring stability in 293 CE, the emperor Diocletian decentralized power into a tetrarchy, dividing rule between himself in the East and a colleague named Maximian ruling the West. The arrangement helped for a time, aided by Diocletian’s other major reform – a massive expansion of the army and bureaucracy to administer the overstretched empire.
One of the tetrarchs was Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus. Constantine first proved himself militarily on the Danube frontier and in Britain. When his father died unexpectedly in 306 CE while visiting York, Constantine was immediately proclaimed Augustus by his father’s troops. But securing power across the whole Roman world would require nearly 20 more years of complex political maneuvering and brutal civil war.
In 312 CE, Constantine marched on Rome to confront his main western rival Maxentius. On the evening before battle, Constantine reputedly saw a vision in the sky – a flaming cross with the words “By this sign, conquer.” He had the sign painted onto his soldiers’ shields and won a decisive victory at the Milvian Bridge. The story symbolizes a key aspect of Constantine’s later rule – his conversion to Christianity and patronage of the growing faith.
After defeating more rivals in the East, Constantine finally reunited the whole Roman empire by 324 CE when he defeated Licinius near Chrysopolis. Now sole ruler, Constantine made the momentous decision to move the seat of imperial power eastwards. The construction of his new capital on the site of Byzantium was itself a monumental statement of authority and permanence after decades of instability. It also reflected deeper changes – the rising importance of the eastern Mediterranean economically and culturally.
Constantine would rule for 13 more years until his death in 337 CE, leaving a vastly altered political landscape. While the unity of East and West would continue to fluctuate over coming centuries, Constantinople and the eastern empire endured as a distinct world of its own. The Christian faith that Constantine had adopted – perhaps more for political than spiritual reasons initially – would fundamentally shape this world. And by laying the foundations of a new Rome on the Bosphorus straits, Constantine’s choice fundamentally shifted the axis of Europe and the Mediterranean for a millennium to come.
The Foundation of Constantinople: A New Christian Capital
After defeating Licinius, Constantine selected the site of ancient Byzantium for his new imperial capital. A prosperous yet vulnerable port town, it would require massive expansion and fortification to stand as the center of a reunified Roman empire. Constantine poured immense energy and wealth into the city over the last thirteen years of his reign, driven by both political necessity and spiritual vision.
Constantine’s city planning combined grand Roman urban design with Oriental inspiration. He built new land walls in a vast arc inland from Byzantium to enclose fourteen districts or neighborhoods, then filled this space with the expected Roman amenities – colonnaded avenues, public squares, baths, cisterns, even a new palace and hippodrome to stage races and games for the populace. Yet there were also exotic Eastern touches like the Egyptian scarab stone and giant bronze goose that adorned the streets, symbols of the city’s bridge between Europe and Asia.
The character of “New Rome” as a specifically Christian capital emerged gradually. Constantine brought in shiploads of looted pagan statues and architecture from across the empire to adorn Constantinople, prompting some to see it as more a pagan showplace than Christian city in these early decades. Yet the first major church built was dedicated to “Holy Peace,” establishing the link between true faith and imperial order. While Constantine also sponsored great churches in Rome and Jerusalem, over time Constantinople would amass more holy relics than any other city, making it a sacred pilgrimage site in its own right.
The dedication of Constantinople in 330 CE was both a triumphal declaration of Constantine’s authority and an endeavor to wed Roman tradition to the new spiritual force he had embraced in Christianity. As the greatest of the late antique cities that dominated the Mediterranean landscape, Constantinople’s grandeur expressed imperial power, while its churches and relics made it the beating heart of Eastern Christianity. When the last emperor of a collapsing Western empire was deposed in 476 CE, the “New Rome” continued as the capital of the Byzantine world.
Constantinople as the Queen of Cities
Over the following centuries, Constantinople grew to become the largest, richest, and most powerful city in the medieval world. Its status as the capital of the Byzantine Empire attracted people from across Europe, Asia and Africa – its cosmopolitan population may have reached 500,000 at its peak. Behind the vast land walls erected by Emperor Theodosius II, Constantinople was virtually impregnable for over 800 years.
The city dominated trade between east and west, its merchants exporting silks, jewels and spices to the West via a large imperial fleet while amassing enormous wealth themselves. That wealth was on display in Constantinople’s architecture – great churches like the Hagia Sophia with its massive dome, the Bronze Palace doors, the soaring Column of Justinian. The city was also famed for its learned philosophers, scholars and lawyers who preserved much of ancient Greece and Rome’s literary heritage.
As a Christian capital, Constantinople accrued more holy relics and sacred sites over time, becoming a major pilgrimage center in its own right. These included supposed pieces of the True Cross and the very baskets from the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes. Many churches housed wonder-working icons or displayed the physical remains of early saints and martyrs. This sacred aura enhanced the prestige of the Byzantine emperor as a semi-divine ruler. It also made the “Queen of Cities” a custodian of God’s grace on earth.
Despite clashes with Persians, Arabs, Turks and Bulgars over the centuries, Constantinople stood invincible until sacked by Western crusaders in 1204. Though the Byzantines regained control in 1261, the city and empire never fully recovered their former might and extent. The advancing Ottoman Turks relentlessly pressed Constantinople until Sultan Mehmed II captured the city on May 29, 1453, marking the definitive end of the eastern Roman empire founded eleven centuries before. Yet the Queen of Cities still stands today as Istanbul, capital of modern Turkey.
In the end, Constantine’s choice to move the seat of imperial power to the small port city that came to bear his name fundamentally reshaped the Roman world and all of medieval Europe. As Constantinople grew over the centuries into the Queen of Cities, this thriving Christian metropolis linked the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome to the Eastern cultures that surrounded it. Despite the eventual fall of Constantinople in 1453, its Byzantine legacy survived to influence states like Russia for centuries more, making it one of the most consequential cities in all of history.
References
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Strahan & Cadell, 1776-1789.
Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Early Centuries. Knopf, 1989.
Bury, John Bagnell. A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene. Macmillan, 1889.
Diehl, Charles. Byzantine Portraits. A.A. Knopf, 1927.
Runciman, Steven. Byzantine Civilisation. E. Arnold, 1933.
Vasiliev, Alexander Alexandrovich. History of the Byzantine Empire. University of Wisconsin Press, 1952.