General information
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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