The consecration of the city of Constantinople in 330 CE on the
emplacement of the Greek city of Byzantium was one of the most
important moments in the whole of Graeco-Roman history. The foundation
of the city responded to important changes in the social, political,
and cultural character of the Roman empire of the first three
centuries. In its role as the capital of the Byzantine Empire, it
provided a setting for a new religion and the framework for more than
a thousand years of continued Roman history in the east. _From
Byzantium to Constantinople_ explores, in great detail, the
Graeco-Roman context of the city and its early history in the first
century of its identity as the new Rome. The book surveys the events
that led to the establishment of Constantinople, the circumstances of
its foundation, and the first hundred years of its development as an
imperial capital city resting upon a new religious identity. Based on
a description and critical evaluation of the sources of the earlier
history of the city of Byzantium, it attends to one document in
particular--the _Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae_--a regional
survey of the resources and monuments of the city, written in the
early fifth century but preserving many details of the city as it had
developed from its Greek and Roman background. Ranging from
descriptions of Constantinople's facilities for the fighting of fires
and distributions of bread, to the number of churches established in
this period, the_ Notitia_ allows for a study of the economic and
social diversity and housing conditions of its regions.
Constantinople, the new Rome founded by the first Christian emperor,
was not built in a day nor did it lack an earlier history as an
important city in a strategic location. The integration of these
diverse and variously problematic sources enables the foundation of
Constantinople to be understood in terms of a developing understanding
of its role, and as a series of initiatives that could be accommodated
by the resources of the government as it responded to new and
distinctly non-Classical loyalties.
Les mer
An Urban History
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780197585511
Publisert
2024
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic US
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter