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Constantinople [a] (see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 until 1930, when it was renamed to Istanbul.
The Greek name Byzantion and its Latinization Byzantium continued to be used as a name of Constantinople sporadically and to varying degrees during the thousand-year existence of the Eastern Roman Empire, which also became known by the former name of the city as the Byzantine Empire.
Hagia Sophia Cathedral — a symbol of Byzantine Constantinople. The history of Constantinople covers the period from the Consecration of the city in 330, when Constantinople became the new capital of the Roman Empire, to its conquest by the Ottomans in 1453. Constantinople was rebuilt practically from scratch on the site of Byzantium.
The emblem mostly associated with the Byzantine Empire is the double-headed eagle. It is not of Byzantine invention, but a traditional Anatolian motif dating to Hittite times, and the Byzantines themselves only used it in the last centuries of the Empire. [11] [12] The date of its adoption by the Byzantines has been hotly debated by scholars. [9]
The adjective "Byzantine", which derived from Byzantion (Latinised as Byzantium), the name of the Greek settlement Constantinople was established on, was only used to describe the inhabitants of that city; it did not refer to the empire, which they called Romanía —"Romanland".
Byzantium remained an empire of cities, although the urban space had changed a lot. If the Greco-Roman city was a place of pagan worship and sports events, theatrical performances and chariot races, the residence of officials and judges, then the Byzantine city was primarily a religious center where the bishop's residence was located.
The fall of Constantinople, also known as the conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire.The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 55-day siege which had begun on 6 April.
Byzas decided that Chalcedon was the prophesied 'city of the blind', as it had not taken advantage of the European shore. To build his new city, he selected the European shore of the south end of Bosporos and gave the new city his name, Byzantion. Later, Byzas married Fidalea, daughter of king Varvizos (or Varvisios) of Thrace.