What was constantinople named before

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Where to Watch. It would be governed by Roman law, observe Christianity and adopt Greek as its primary language, although it would serve as a melting pot of races and cultures due to its unique geographic location straddling Europe and Asia. Justinian I, who reigned from to A. He launched successful military campaigns that helped the Byzantines reclaim territories lost with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, expanding its borders to encircle the Mediterranean Sea.

Additionally, Justinian established a uniform system of law with the Justinian Code, which would serve as a blueprint for civilizations to come.

He was the first emperor of the Isurian dynasty. Similarly, Basil I who ruled from to A. Constantinople endured for more than 1, years as the Byzantine capital in large part due to the protective wall completed under Theodosius II in A double set of walls was added after a series of earthquakes in the mid-fifth century, the inner layer standing some 40 feet high and studded with towers that reached another 20 feet.

More than feet long, it's estimated to have seated up to , people. The Hagia Sophia marked a triumph of architectural design. Built on the site of former imperial churches by Justinian I, it was completed in less than six years by a workforce of 10, laborers. Four columns supported a massive dome with a diameter of more than feet, while its polished marble and dazzling mosaics gave the Hagia Sophia the impression of always being brightly lit.

Constantinople became a center of the iconoclast controversy after Leo III in outlawed the worshipping of religious icons. Although the Seventh Ecumenical Council of reversed that decision, iconoclasm resumed as a rule of law less than 30 years later and lasted until With the Great Schism of , when the Christian church split into Roman and Eastern divisions, Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church, remaining so even after the Muslim Ottoman Empire took control of the city in the 15th century.

Famed for its immense wealth, Constantinople endured at least a dozen sieges over its 1,plus years as the Byzantine capital. These included attempts by Arab armies in the seventh and eighth centuries, as well as the Bulgarians and the Rus early Russians in the ninth and 10th centuries.

In the early 13th century, prior to heading to Jerusalem , the armies of the Crusades were diverted to Constantinople over a power struggle. When their promised payments fell through, they sacked the city in and established a Latin state.

Although the Byzantines reclaimed control of Constantinople in , the city remained the sole major population center of what was now a shell of the empire. It was first known as Bazantion also spelled Byzantion by the Greeks who founded it in B. That name stuck until the Ottomans showed up. The Ottomans didn't officially change the name of Constantinople when they took over in the 15th century, but the conquest did mark a seismic change in geopolitics, as Constantinople's center of gravity shifted eastward and away from Europe.

People elsewhere in the empire began to use the word "Istanpolin," which means "to the city" in Turkish adapted from the Greek phrase "to The City" or " eis tan polin " to colloquially describe the new seat of Ottoman imperial power. Progressively, Istanpolin became used more, but the official name remained Constantinople.

It was the capital of both the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The city of Constantinople modern Istanbul was founded by Roman emperor Constantine I in CE and it acted as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire as it has later become known, for well over 1, years.

The city of Constantinople is an ancient city that exists today in modern Turkey as Istanbul. First settled in the seventh century B. Its capital city, Constantinople, was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe during the time.