Byzantium

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Byzantium

Byzantium (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ?????t???, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
: , ) was an ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
city, which was founded by Greek

Greeks

The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in Greek diaspora communities around the world....
colonists from Megara

Megara

Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis Island, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens....
in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas

Byzas

In Ancient Greece legend, Byzas was the eponymous founder of Byzantium , the city later known as Constantinople and Istanbul....
or Byzantas (???a? or ???a?ta? in Greek). The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion. The city is what later evolved to be the center of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
(the Greek-speaking Roman Empire

Roman Empire

Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under...
and the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
) under the name of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
. Constantinople fell to the Turkish Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
in 1453.

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History

The origins of Byzantium are shrouded in legend. The traditional legend has it that Byzas

Byzas

In Ancient Greece legend, Byzas was the eponymous founder of Byzantium , the city later known as Constantinople and Istanbul....
from Megara

Megara

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
), founded Byzantium in 667 BC, when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkans and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively....
. Byzas had consulted the Oracle at Delphi to ask where to make his new city. The Oracle told him to find it "opposite the blind." At the time, he did not know what this meant. But when he came upon the Bosporus

Bosporus

The Bosporus or Bosphorus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms the boundary between the European part of Turkey and its Asian part ....
he realized what it meant: on the north shore was a Greek city, Chalcedon

Chalcedon

Chalcedon was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Anatolia, almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of ?sk?dar . Today, in modern Turkish language, Chalcedon is called Kadik?y, and is a district of Istanbul, Turkey....
. However, according to legend, they had not noticed the land that lay a half-mile away. Byzas founded his city here on the European coast and named it Byzantion after himself. It was mainly a trading city due to its strategic location at the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is an inland sea sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolia and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Seas and various straits....
's only entrance. Byzantion later conquered Chalcedon, across the Bosporus on the Asiatic side. After siding with Pescennius Niger

Pescennius Niger

Gaius Pescennius Niger was a Roman usurper from 193 to 194. Niger was born of an old Italian equestrian family.File:Denarius-Pescennius Niger-RIC 0015var.jpg...
against the victorious Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

Lucius Septimius Severus was a Roman Empire general, and Roman Emperor from April 14 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Libyan part of Rome's historic Africa Province, making him the first emperor to be born in the Roman province of Africa Province....
, the city was besieged by Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
forces and suffered extensive damage in 196 AD. Byzantium was rebuilt by Septimius Severus, now emperor, and quickly regained its previous prosperity. The location of Byzantium attracted Roman Emperor Constantine I who, in 330 AD, refounded it as Nova Roma

New Rome

The term "New Rome" has been used in the following contexts.* It was a common name applied to Constantinople, the city founded by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 324 ....
. After his death the city was called Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
(Greek ???sta?t????p???? or Konstantinoupolis) ('city of Constantine'). It remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was later called the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

Imperialism

Imperialism has two meanings; one describing an action and the other describing an attitude.#Action: Imperialism is the practice of extending the power, control or rule by one country over areas outside its borders....
and location would affect Constantinople's role as the crossing point between two continents: Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
. It was a commercial

Commerce

Commerce is a division of trade or production, costs, and pricing which deals with the Trade of goods and service from production, costs, and pricing to final consumer....
, cultural

Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
, and diplomatic

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace-making, trade, war, economics and culture....
magnet. With its strategic position, Constantinople could control the route between Asia and Europe, as well as the passage from the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea or Ocean off the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia....
to the Black Sea. On May 29, 1453, the city fell to the Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Turks

The Ottoman Turks were the subdivision of the Ottoman Muslim Millet that dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. Reliable information about the early history of the Ottomans is scarce....
,and, once again, became the capital of another powerful state, the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

Istanbul

Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, and List of cities proper by population in the world with a population of 12.6 million....
(though not officially renamed until 1930) and it has remained Turkey's largest (and arguably its most important) city, although Ankara

Ankara

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and the country's List of largest cities and second largest cities by country List of cities in Turkey after Istanbul....
is now the capital.

Emblem

Byzantium first produced coins with the crescent and star symbol in the 4th century BC. According to legend, this was to honour the moon-goddess Hecate

Hecate

Hecate Hekate , or Hekat was originally a goddess of the wilderness and childbirth, naturalized early in Mycenaean Greece or in Thrace, but originating among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, progenitor of Mausollus, are attested, and where Hekate re...
, who the inhabitants believed had saved the city from attack by Philip II of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon,...
in 340-339 BC. In 330 AD Constantine I added the Virgin Mary

Blessed Virgin Mary

The Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes shortened to The Blessed Virgin or The Virgin Mary, is a traditional title used by most Christians and most specifically used by liturgical Christians such as Roman Catholics, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, and some others to describe Mary, mother of Jesus, the mother of...
's star to the flag. Byzantium would then also be the first attested nation or empire to use the combination of the crescent moon and star together as an emblem.

The crescent moon and star was not completely abandoned by the Christian world after the fall of Constantinople. To date the official flag of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem

Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is the head bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine Patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church....
is a labarum

Labarum

For the article about the "PX" symbol see Chi RhoThe Labarum was a typographic ligature formed from Chi and Rho , which had particular symbolic significance to the Roman Empires, Ancient Greece, and to the Christianity of Late Antiquity in general....
of white, a church building with two towers, and on either side of the arms, at the top, are the outline in black of a crescent moon facing center and a star with rays.

Notable people

Homerus
Homerus of Byzantium

Homerus from Byzantium was an ancient Greek grammarian and tragedian. He was also called ho Neoteros , to distinguish him from the older Homerus ....
, tragedian, lived in the early 3rd century BC
Philo
Philo of Byzantium

Philo of Byzantium , also known as Philo Mechanicus, a Greeks writer on mechanics, flourished during the latter half of the 2nd century B.C....
, engineer, lived ca. 280 BC–ca. 220 BC
Epigenes of Byzantium, astrologer, lived in the 3rd–2nd century BC

External links

Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies :
Description of Byzantine monetary system - fifth Century BC :
, By Angeliki E. Laiou, Harvard University Press, January 2002.

Byzantium

History

Emblem

Notable people

See also

External links