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Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, occupied the triangular peninsula formed by the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus and the Sea of ​​Marmara. The city was founded on the site of a Megaran colony named after its founder, Byzas. Constantine the Great recognized the strategic importance of the area, which dominated the Bosphorus and controlled trading routes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. The city was protected by the sea on three sides, while the strong Bosphorus currents made approach particularly difficult. Between 324 and 326 Constantine celebrated all the pagan rituals necessary for founding and establishing the new capital. The official inauguration was held on May 11, 330, along with celebrations for the 25th anniversary of his ascension to the throne; from then on the anniversary of the city’s inauguration was always formally celebrated.
 
Late antiquity
Constantine sought to create a new capital to rival Rome in splendour, wealth and power. Although few buildings from his time survive, sources stress that it was an imperial city with all the preconditions for prosperity. It was protected by a wall, adorned with magnificent monuments and works of art from all cities and provinces in the empire, and had large public buildings such as a senate, a Hippodrome, theatres, baths, temples and churches. Imperial power was housed in the Great Palace, which remained the seat of the Byzantine rulers until the 12th century. Centred on this large complex, which grew over time as new buildings were added, Constantinople stood at the head of the state and brought together the empire’s political, religious and intellectual elite.
Constantinople was not founded as a Christian capital. Greco-Roman temples outnumbered the few Christian buildings erected during Constantine’s reign. The three temples of Artemis-Selene, Apollo and Aphrodite on the acropolis of Ancient Byzantium continued to draw believers, while others were founded, indicating that the old religion still had adherents. Besides, the Edict of Milan did not impose Christianity, it simply legalized it. Yet the new religion was undoubtedly boosted by imperial sponsorship: it spread very rapidly, and the Church became a powerful state institution.

From being a protective barrier, Constantine’s land walls soon became an obstacle for the growth of the city, which drew new residents and their families from all over the empire. Sources mention that within half a century or so all available space was taken up by buildings, affluent homes or shacks. The situation was intolerable for a further reason – no provision had been made for underground or surface water cisterns capable of catering for the inhabitants and the city’s garrisons in siege time. Just two years after the conquest of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric in 410, Theodosius II extended the city limits to the west by building new walls, which almost doubled its area (412-413), and constructed cisterns between the Constantine wall and the new one. This land wall was furnished with a moat, a rampart and curtain walls between high rectangular and octagonal towers, while the sea wall had no rampart or moat. The Theodosian walls served as Constantinople’s main line of defence up until the end of the Byzantine period.
 
The urban plan of Constantinople included several features reminiscent of Rome and its immediate past. The city’s main thoroughfare, known as Mese Odos (Middle Street), linked the Golden Gate to the palace complex. It was a wide road flanked by arcades with houses, clothing and furniture shops, gold and silversmith workshops, etc. It was on the Mese Odos that Constantine founded the Foro (forum) named after him - a circular or oval plaza with a porphyry column at its centre, crowned by a statue of him rendered as Apollo or the Sun God. Surrounding the plaza were the Senate, the old temple of the goddess Rhea and the temple devoted to Tyche (Fortune) of Constantinople. Emperors Theodosius I and Arcadius both lent their names to additional forums they established further west along Mese Odos. It is even claimed that the one dedicated to Theodosius echoed Trajan’s forum in Rome.

Constantinople experienced moments of upheaval and turmoil during the reign of Justinian , in the 6th century, but at the same time was adorned with magnificent monuments. During the suppression of the Nika riots in 532, imperial troops massacred approximately thirty thousand people in the Hippodrome; fire caused extensive damage to the city and destroyed the old church of Agia Sophia. This catastrophic event enabled Justinian to draw up an ambitious regeneration plan for Constantinople, involving the construction of magnificent edifices, palaces, baths and other public buildings, and the so-called Royal Cistern, an underground tank with masonry vaults resting on columns that ended in a variety of reused capitals from older buildings. The church of Agia Sophia was perhaps the most important monument built in the 6th century, serving as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate throughout the Byzantine period.
 
The dark ages
Constantinople entered a crucial period in the 7th century, exacerbated by sieges, earthquakes, epidemics and internal conflicts. In 626, during the reign of Emperor Heraclius , the Avars besieged the city but failed to capture it; two Arab raids in 674 and 717-718 were similarly unsuccessful. The already weakened city was struck by a major earthquake in 740, and then seven years later by the plague, which decimated the remaining population. It is estimated that during the Iconoclast Controversy the population numbered in the tens of thousands, and only one of the four seaports was in use. From the 8th to the mid-9th century there was very limited building activity, mainly focused on fortifications designed to protect the city from external enemies.
 
Middle and late Byzantine period
The empire started to recover in the mid-9th century, when there was a marked population increase. By the 11th century the number of inhabitants in Constantinople had grown so much that it was considered the most populous city in Christendom. Although the majority of inhabitants were Greek-speaking, there were also Armenians, Russians and a large Jewish community. One indication of the city's grow was the presence of Italian merchants from Venice, Genoa and Pisa, and a small Arab community mainly involved in trade. Added to them were mercenaries from West Europe and even from Scandinavia, who served as the emperor’s personal guard.

Constantinople’s wealth was reflected in its public, private and ecclesiastic buildings. In this period the royal family and the upper class founded numerous monasteries, most of which oversaw charitable institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages or schools. Emperor Theophilus took personal interest in the construction of new buildings in the Great Palace and also erected a new palace at Brya on the Asian shore of the capital, while Basil I funded the construction or renovation of at least twenty-five churches in Constantinople, and another eight within the Great Palace. The period from the 9th up to the 10th century has been characterized as a renaissance, thanks to the emergence of a notable circle of scholars, and the pains take by the state to improve higher education in the capital. One focal point was the interest in studying the classics, which were seen as fundamental to an upper class education in Constantinople. Prosperity lasted until the mid-11th century, when economic problems set in due to the mismanagement of wealth by Basil II’s successors. The defeat suffered at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in Eastern Asia Minor, and the permanent loss of Baris (present day Bari) in Italy to the Normans under Robert Giscard in 1071 caused considerable losses and immense disappointment.

The Crusaders or "soldiers of God" from Western Europe arrived before the walls of Constantinople without hostile intent during the First Crusade, viewing it as a stopover on their way to the Holy Land. Although there were minor disturbances and incidents the crusaders crossed the Bosphorus and continued their march.

Things were very different during the Fourth Crusade. After the death of Manuel Comnenus at the end of the 12th century, Constantinople underwent a period of instability; six emperors rose to the throne and were dethroned between1180 and 1204. The Franks arrived before the walls in June 1203, and took the city in April 1204, by which time Emperor Alexius V had already fled, abandoning Constantinople to the mercy of the Crusaders. The looting that followed was truly horrendous: churches, palaces and monuments were burned down and stripped of precious votive offerings, stores and vaults were plundered, relics and precious utensils were stolen and smuggled out, libraries burned or broken up, priests and bishops expelled,  inhabitants massacred or captured to be sold as slaves. For days on end Constantinople endured a living nightmare.

Once the devastation came to an end, the administration of Constantinople was divided between Baldwin of Flanders and the Venetians. Baldwin, who was crowned emperor, was granted the greater part of the city including the palaces of Blachernai and Boukoleon, while the Venetians took Agia Sophia and a large commercial district, and saw to it that the Genoese and Pisans were excluded from imperial trade.

Constantinople was retaken in 1261 by Michael VIII Palaeologus , who took advantage of circumstances and the fact that the walls were poorly guarded. Michael tried to rebuild most of the destroyed monuments and the walls, and attempted to reorganize administration in the city and the empire. However, for all his efforts he proved unable to restore the city to its former splendour and glory.
Left with no army or navy to speak of, the empire was unable to fend off the Ottoman threat effectively. The Ottoman army advanced through the territories of the empire at a great pace, leading to the loss of many regions in Asia Minor and the Balkans in the 14th century. The Byzantine Empire was tributary to the Sultan as early as 1372, and the emperors were forced to campaign with him, while Constantinople was virtually under siege. Having settled his family at Mystras, in 1399 Emperor Manuel Palaeologus set out on a long journey to Paris and London, hoping to secure alliances. The Ottoman defeat at Battle of Ankara against the Mongols under Tamerlane in 1402 gave the Byzantines a brief respite, offering Constantinople the chance to reorganize after years of siege. There followed a period of relative calm, which lasted until Murad II resumed the siege in 1422. His venture failed, not only because a chain stretched across the Golden Horn rendered blockade by sea impossible, but also because the walls held out.

Constantinople eventually fell to Sultan Mehmed II, who built a fort on the European shore of the Bosphorus to cut the capital off from the Black Sea ports and the grain supply there. Furthermore, to ensure that Constantinople would not receive help from areas of Greek territory still free, he attacked the Despotate of the Morea in the Peloponnese. The siege lasted for about two months, once cannon and about an army of about 150,000 regular soldiers had been brought from Adrianople. The army was deployed along the land walls and the siege was officially launched on April 7th, 1453. The city's defences initially held out, despite constant bombardment of the walls. The Sultan realized that Constantinople could not be conquered as long the Golden Horn remained in Byzantine hands, so he built a road of greased logs and rolled his ships across from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn. The siege continued and the assaults were repelled until May 21, when Mehmed sent a delegation to Emperor Constantine XI, requesting that Constantinople surrender. He promised the emperor and anyone else who wanted to leave that they could do so with their belongings, while giving reassurances that those who remained in the city would be favourably treated. When these proposals were rejected Mehmed launched his final assault, culminating on May 29th, 1453.

According to the works of Phrantzes and Dukas and subsequent legends, the Turks entered the city from the so-called Kerkoporta near the palace of Blachernai. Another bloody battle took place near Agios Romanos Gate, which is where the emperor was probably killed. After that panic prevailed, as the Byzantines retreated to the city centre hotly pursued by the Turks, who decimated them. The merciless, horrific massacre and looting that followed lasted for three days, until Muhammad officially ordered the end of operations.

The fall of Constantinople marked the end of the empire. Yet the cultural tradition of Byzantium remained significant, as many scholars settled in the Venetian colonies in Crete and the Peloponnese, and also in other European countries, conveying Greek culture to the West.
 


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