Constantinople[a] (see other names) became the capital of the Roman Empire during the

reign of Constantine the Great in 330. Following the collapse of the Western Roman
Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman
Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire; 330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin
Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Following the Turkish War
of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Officially
renamed Istanbul in 1930, the city is today the largest city in Europe, straddling
the Bosporus strait and lying in both Europe and Asia, and the financial centre of Turkey.
In 324, after the Western and Eastern Roman Empires were reunited, the ancient city
of Byzantium was selected to serve as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and the city
was renamed Nova Roma, or 'New Rome', by Emperor Constantine the Great. On 11
May 330, it was renamed Constantinople and dedicated to Constantine.[6] Constantinople
is generally considered to be the center and the "cradle of Orthodox Christian
civilization".[7][8] From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was
the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.[9] The city became famous for its architectural
masterpieces, such as Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church,
which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the sacred Imperial Palace,
where the emperors lived; the Hippodrome; the Golden Gate of the Land Walls; and
opulent aristocratic palaces. The University of Constantinople was founded in the 5th
century and contained artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and
1453,[10] including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of
Alexandria and had 100,000 volumes.[11] The city was the home of the Ecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople and guardian of Christendom's holiest relics such as
the Crown of thorns and the True Cross.

Aerial view of Byzantine

Constantinople and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara)
Constantinople was famous for its massive and complex fortifications, which ranked
among the most sophisticated defensive architecture of antiquity. The Theodosian
Walls consisted of a double wall lying about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the west of the first
wall and a moat with palisades in front.[12] Constantinople's location between the Golden
Horn and the Sea of Marmara reduced the land area that needed defensive walls. The
city was built intentionally to rival Rome, and it was claimed that several elevations within
its walls matched Rome's 'seven hills'.[13] The impenetrable defenses enclosed
magnificent palaces, domes, and towers, the result of prosperity Constantinople achieved
as the gateway between two continents (Europe and Asia) and two seas (the
Mediterranean and the Black Sea). Although besieged on numerous occasions by
various armies, the defenses of Constantinople proved impenetrable for nearly nine
hundred years.
In 1204, however, the armies of the Fourth Crusade took and devastated the city, and for
several decades, its inhabitants resided under Latin occupation in a dwindling and
depopulated city. In 1261 the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos liberated the
city, and after the restoration under the Palaiologos dynasty, it enjoyed a partial recovery.
With the advent of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, the Byzantine Empire began to lose
territories, and the city began to lose population. By the early 15th century, the Byzantine
Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs, along with Morea in Greece,
making it an enclave inside the Ottoman Empire. The city was finally besieged and
conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, remaining under its control until the early
20th century, after which it was renamed Istanbul under the Empire's successor state,
Turkey.
Names[edit]

Hagia Sophia built in AD 537, during

the reign of Justinian.
Before Constantinople[edit]
According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, the first known name of a settlement
on the site of Constantinople was Lygos,[14] a settlement likely of Thracian origin founded
between the 13th and 11th centuries BC.[15] The site, according to the founding myth of
the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state
of Megara founded Byzantium (Ancient Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion) in around 657 BC,
[16]
across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.
The origins of the name of Byzantion, more commonly known by the later
Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear, though some suggest it is of Thracian origin.[17]
[18]
The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader
of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves
would maintain that the city was named in honor of two men, Byzas and Antes, though
this was more likely just a play on the word Byzantion.[19]
The city was briefly renamed Augusta Antonina in the early 3rd century AD by the
Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211), who razed the city to the ground in 196 for
supporting a rival contender in the civil war and had it rebuilt in honor of his son Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus (who succeeded him as Emperor), popularly known as Caracalla.[19]
[20]
The name appears to have been quickly forgotten and abandoned, and the city
reverted to Byzantium/Byzantion after either the assassination of Caracalla in 217 or, at
the latest, the fall of the Severan dynasty in 235.
Names of Constantinople[edit]
Main article: Names of Constantinople
 The Column of Constantine, built by Constantine
I in 330 to commemorate the establishment of Constantinople as the new capital of
the Roman Empire
Byzantium took on the name of Constantinople (Greek:
Κωνσταντινούπολις, romanized: Kōnstantinoupolis; "city of Constantine") after its
refoundation under Roman emperor Constantine I, who transferred the capital of
the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 and designated his new capital officially as Nova
Roma (Νέα Ῥώμη) 'New Rome'. During this time, the city was also called 'Second Rome',
'Eastern Rome', and Roma Constantinopolitana (Latin for 'Constantinopolitan Rome').
[18]
As the city became the sole remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the
West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew, the city also came to have a
multitude of nicknames.

This huge keystone found in Çemberlitaş, Fatih,

might have belonged to a triumphal arch at the Forum of Constantine built
by Constantine I.
As the largest and wealthiest city in Europe during the 4th–13th centuries and a center of
culture and education of the Mediterranean basin, Constantinople came to be known by
prestigious titles such as Basileuousa (Queen of Cities) and Megalopolis (the Great City)
and was, in colloquial speech, commonly referred to as just Polis (ἡ Πόλις) 'the City' by
Constantinopolitans and provincial Byzantines alike.[21]
In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently. The
medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern
Europe (Varangians), used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr (from mikill 'big'
and garðr 'city'), and later Miklagard and Miklagarth.[19] In Arabic, the city was sometimes
called Rūmiyyat al-Kubra (Great City of the Romans) and in Persian as Takht-e
Rum (Throne of the Romans).
In East and South Slavic languages, including in Kievan Rus', Constantinople has been
referred to as Tsargrad (Царьград) or Carigrad, 'City of the Caesar (Emperor)', from the
Slavonic words tsar ('Caesar' or 'King') and grad ('city'). This was presumably a calque on
a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις (Vasileos Polis), 'the city of the emperor [king]'.
In Persian the city was also called Asitane (the Threshold of the State), and in Armenian,
it was called Gosdantnubolis (City of Constantine).[22]
Modern names of the city[edit]

Obelisk of Theodosius is the Ancient Egyptian

obelisk of Egyptian King Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of
Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD.
The modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin
Polin (εἰς τὴν πόλιν), meaning '(in)to the city'.[19][23] This name was used in colloquial
speech in Turkish alongside Kostantiniyye, the more formal adaptation of the
original Constantinople, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages
mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. In
1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script. After that, as
part of the Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish
names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been
used in Ottoman times and the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in
most world languages.[24][25][26][27]
The name Constantinople is still used by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the
title of one of their most important leaders, the Orthodox patriarch based in the city,
referred to as "His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome
and Ecumenical Patriarch". In Greece today, the city is still
called Konstantinoúpoli(s) (Κωνσταντινούπολις/Κωνσταντινούπολη) or simply just "the
City" (Η Πόλη).

History[edit]
 The four bronze horses that used to be in
the Hippodrome of Constantinople, today in Venice
Foundation of Byzantium[edit]
Main article: Byzantium
Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I (272–337) in 324[6] on
the site of an already-existing city, Byzantium, which was settled in the early days
of Greek colonial expansion, in around 657 BC, by colonists of the city-state of Megara.
This is the first major settlement that would develop on the site of later Constantinople,
but the first known settlements was that of Lygos, referred to in Pliny's Natural Histories.
[28]
Apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement. The site, according to the
founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of
Megara founded Byzantium (Βυζάντιον) in around 657 BC,[20] across from the town of
Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.
Hesychius of Miletus wrote that some "claim that people from Megara, who derived their
descent from Nisos, sailed to this place under their leader Byzas, and invent the fable
that his name was attached to the city". Some versions of the founding myth say Byzas
was the son of a local nymph, while others say he was conceived by one of Zeus'
daughters and Poseidon. Hesychius also gives alternate versions of the city's founding
legend, which he attributed to old poets and writers:[29]
It is said that the first Argives, after having received this prophecy from Pythia,
Blessed are those who will inhabit that holy city,
a narrow strip of the Thracian shore at the mouth of the Pontos,
where two pups drink of the gray sea,
where fish and stag graze on the same pasture,
set up their dwellings at the place where the rivers Kydaros and Barbyses have their
estuaries, one flowing from the north, the other from the west, and merging with the sea
at the altar of the nymph called Semestre"
The city maintained independence as a city-state until it was annexed by Darius I in
512 BC into the Persian Empire, who saw the site as the optimal location to construct
a pontoon bridge crossing into Europe as Byzantium was situated at the narrowest point
in the Bosphorus strait. Persian rule lasted until 478 BC when as part of the Greek
counterattack to the Second Persian invasion of Greece, a Greek army led by the
Spartan general Pausanias captured the city which remained an independent, yet
subordinate, city under the Athenians, and later to the Spartans after 411 BC.[30] A
farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c. 150 BC which stipulated tribute
in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed.[31] This
treaty would pay dividends retrospectively as Byzantium would maintain this independent
status, and prosper under peace and stability in the Pax Romana, for nearly three
centuries until the late 2nd century AD.[32]
 Pammakaristos Church, also known as the
Church of Theotokos Pammakaristos (Greek: Θεοτόκος ἡ Παμμακάριστος, "All-
Blessed Mother of God"), is one of the most famous Greek Orthodox Byzantine
churches in Istanbul.
Byzantium was never a major influential city-state like that of Athens, Corinth or Sparta,
but the city enjoyed relative peace and steady growth as a prosperous trading city lent by
its remarkable position. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and
the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an
excellent and spacious harbor. Already then, in Greek and early Roman times,
Byzantium was famous for the strategic geographic position that made it difficult to
besiege and capture, and its position at the crossroads of the Asiatic-European trade
route over land and as the gateway between the Mediterranean and Black Seas made it
too valuable a settlement to abandon, as Emperor Septimius Severus later realized when
he razed the city to the ground for supporting Pescennius Niger's claimancy.[33] It was a
move greatly criticized by the contemporary consul and historian Cassius Dio who said
that Severus had destroyed "a strong Roman outpost and a base of operations against
the barbarians from Pontus and Asia".[34] He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the
end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a
new city wall in his name, the Severan Wall.
324–337: The refoundation as Constantinople[edit]
 A simple cross: example of iconoclast art in

the Hagia Irene Church in Istanbul

Emperor Constantine I presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as
tribute to an enthroned Mary and Christ Child in this church mosaic. Hagia Sophia, c.

1000. Another coin struck by Constantine I in 330–

333 to commemorate the foundation of Constantinople and to also reaffirm Rome as

the traditional centre of the Roman Empire

Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople
Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Having restored the unity of the Empire,
and, being in the course of major governmental reforms as well as of sponsoring the
consolidation of the Christian church, he was well aware that Rome was an
unsatisfactory capital. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies
and the imperial courts, and it offered an undesirable playground for disaffected
politicians. Yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might
have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location.
Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the right place: a place
where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or
the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated
workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the Empire.
[35]

Constantinople was built over six years, and consecrated on 11 May 330.[6][36] Constantine
divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public
works worthy of an imperial metropolis.[37] Yet, at first, Constantine's new Rome did not
have all the dignities of old Rome. It possessed a proconsul, rather than an urban
prefect. It had no praetors, tribunes, or quaestors. Although it did have senators, they
held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. It also lacked the panoply of
other administrative offices regulating the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers,
aqueducts, or other public works. The new programme of building was carried out in
great haste: columns, marbles, doors, and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of
the empire and moved to the new city. In similar fashion, many of the greatest works of
Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor
stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial
estates in Asiana and Pontica and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free
distributions of food would be made to the citizens. At the time, the amount is said to
have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city.[38]

Hagia Irene is a Greek Eastern Orthodox

Church located in the outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. It is one of the
few churches in Istanbul that has not been converted into a mosque.
Constantine laid out a new square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it
the Augustaeum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east
side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the Emperor
with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of
Daphne. Nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000
spectators, and the famed Baths of Zeuxippus. At the western entrance to the
Augustaeum was the Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured
across the Eastern Roman Empire.
From the Augustaeum led a great street, the Mese, lined with colonnades. As it
descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left
the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where
there was a second Senate-house and a high column with a statue of Constantine
himself in the guise of Helios, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking toward the
rising sun. From there, the Mese passed on and through the Forum Tauri and then
the Forum Bovis, and finally up the Seventh Hill (or Xerolophus) and through to the
Golden Gate in the Constantinian Wall. After the construction of the Theodosian Walls in
the early 5th century, it was extended to the new Golden Gate, reaching a total length of
seven Roman miles.[39] After the construction of the Theodosian Walls, Constantinople
consisted of an area approximately the size of Old Rome within the Aurelian walls, or
some 1,400 ha.[40]
337–529: Constantinople during the Barbarian Invasions
and the fall of the West[edit]
See also: Palace of Lausus

Theodosius I was the last Roman emperor who

ruled over an undivided empire (detail from the Obelisk at the Hippodrome of
Constantinople).
The importance of Constantinople increased, but it was gradual. From the death of
Constantine in 337 to the accession of Theodosius I, emperors had been resident only in
the years 337–338, 347–351, 358–361, 368–369. Its status as a capital was recognized
by the appointment of the first known Urban Prefect of the City Honoratus, who held
office from 11 December 359 until 361. The urban prefects had concurrent jurisdiction
over three provinces each in the adjacent dioceses of Thrace (in which the city was
located), Pontus and Asia comparable to the 100-mile extraordinary jurisdiction of the
prefect of Rome. The emperor Valens, who hated the city and spent only one year there,
nevertheless built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near
the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors up
to Zeno and Basiliscus were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I
founded the Church of John the Baptist to house the skull of the saint (today preserved at
the Topkapı Palace), put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and
turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coach house for the Praetorian
Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of
Constantine.
After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the emperor Valens with the
flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Visigoths within a few days' march, the
city looked to its defences, and in 413–414 Theodosius II built the 18-metre (60-foot)-
tall triple-wall fortifications, which were not to be breached until the coming of gunpowder.
Theodosius also founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425.
Uldin, a prince of the Huns, appeared on the Danube about this time and advanced into
Thrace, but he was deserted by many of his followers, who joined with the Romans in
driving their king back north of the river. Subsequent to this, new walls were built to
defend the city and the fleet on the Danube improved.

Mosaics of the Great Palace of Constantinople,

now in Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul
After the barbarians overran the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople became the
indisputable capital city of the Roman Empire. Emperors were no longer peripatetic
between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great
City and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the eastern
Mediterranean and western Asia flowed into Constantinople.
527–565: Constantinople in the Age of Justinian[edit]

Map of Constantinople (1422) by Florentine

cartographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti is the oldest surviving map of the city, and
[41]

the only one that predates the Turkish conquest of the city in 1453.

The current Hagia Sophia was commissioned by

Emperor Justinian I after the previous one was destroyed in the Nika riots of 532. It
was converted into a mosque in 1453 when the Ottoman Empire commenced and was
a museum from 1935 to 2020.
The emperor Justinian I (527–565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal
reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the
reconquest of the former Diocese of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their
departure, the ship of the commander Belisarius was anchored in front of the Imperial
palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. After the
victory, in 534, the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, looted by the Romans in AD 70 and
taken to Carthage by the Vandals after their sack of Rome in 455, was brought to
Constantinople and deposited for a time, perhaps in the Church of St Polyeuctus, before
being returned to Jerusalem in either the Church of the Resurrection or the New Church.
[42]

Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the

hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where
(as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed
their approval of a new emperor, and also where they openly criticized the government,
or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. It played a crucial role during the
riots and in times of political unrest. The Hippodrome provided a space for a crowd to be
responded to positively or where the acclamations of a crowd were subverted, resorting
to the riots that would ensue in coming years.[43] In the time of Justinian, public order in
Constantinople became a critical political issue.

Aqueduct of Valens, completed by Roman

emperor Valens in the late 4th century AD
Throughout the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, Christianity was resolving
fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the orthodox and
the monophysites became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to
the chariot-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens. The partisans of the Blues and the
Greens were said[44] to affect untrimmed facial hair, head hair shaved at the front and
grown long at the back, and wide-sleeved tunics tight at the wrist; and to form gangs to
engage in night-time muggings and street violence. At last these disorders took the form
of a major rebellion of 532, known as the "Nika" riots (from the battle-cry of "Conquer!" of
those involved).[45] The Nika Riots began in the Hippodrome and finished there with the
onslaught of over 30,000 people according to Procopius, those in the blue and green
factions, innocent and guilty. This came full circle on the relationship within the
Hippodrome between the power and the people during the time of Justinian.[46]
Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the Theodosian basilica of Hagia Sophia
(Holy Wisdom), the city's cathedral, which lay to the north of the Augustaeum and had
itself replaced the Constantinian basilica founded by Constantius II to replace the first
Byzantine cathedral, Hagia Irene (Holy Peace). Justinian commissioned Anthemius of
Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with a new and incomparable Hagia Sophia.
This was the great cathedral of the city, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God
alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could
attend services without passing through the streets. "The architectural form of the
building was meant to reflect Justinian programmatic harmony: the circular dome (a
symbol of secular authority in classical Roman architecture) would be harmoniously
combined with the rectangular form (typical for Christian and pre-Christian
temples)."[47] The dedication took place on 26 December 537 in the presence of the
emperor, who was later reported to have exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have outdone
thee!"[48] Hagia Sophia was served by 600 people including 80 priests, and cost 20,000
pounds of gold to build.[49]
Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the
Holy Apostles and Hagia Irene built by Constantine with new churches under the same
dedication. The Justinianic Church of the Holy Apostles was designed in the form of an
equal-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church
was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the 11th
century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make
room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror. Justinian was also concerned with other
aspects of the city's built environment, legislating against the abuse of laws prohibiting
building within 100 ft (30 m) of the sea front, in order to protect the view.[50]
During Justinian I's reign, the city's population reached about 500,000 people.
[51]
However, the social fabric of Constantinople was also damaged by the onset of
the Plague of Justinian between 541 and 542 AD. It killed perhaps 40% of the city's
inhabitants.[52]
 Restored section of the fortifications (Theodosian
Walls) that protected Constantinople during the medieval period
Survival, 565–717: Constantinople during the Byzantine
Dark Ages[edit]
In the early 7th century, the Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of
the Balkans, threatening Constantinople with attack from the west. Simultaneously,
the Persian Sassanids overwhelmed the Prefecture of the East and penetrated deep
into Anatolia. Heraclius, son of the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the
throne. He found the military situation so dire that he is said to have contemplated
withdrawing the imperial capital to Carthage, but relented after the people of
Constantinople begged him to stay. The citizens lost their right to free grain in 618 when
Heraclius realized that the city could no longer be supplied from Egypt as a result of the
Persian wars: the population fell substantially as a result.[53]

Chora Church medieval Byzantine Greek

Orthodox church preserved as the Chora Museum in the Edirnekapı neighborhood
of Istanbul
While the city withstood a siege by the Sassanids and Avars in 626, Heraclius
campaigned deep into Persian territory and briefly restored the status quo in 628, when
the Persians surrendered all their conquests. However, further sieges followed the Arab
conquests, first from 674 to 678 and then in 717 to 718. The Theodosian Walls kept the
city impenetrable from the land, while a newly discovered incendiary substance known
as Greek fire allowed the Byzantine navy to destroy the Arab fleets and keep the city
supplied. In the second siege, the second ruler of Bulgaria, Khan Tervel, rendered
decisive help. He was called Saviour of Europe.[54]
717–1025: Constantinople during the Macedonian
Renaissance[edit]

Emperor Leo VI (886–912) adoring Jesus

Christ. Mosaic above the Imperial Gate in the Hagia Sophia.
In the 730s Leo III carried out extensive repairs of the Theodosian walls, which had been
damaged by frequent and violent attacks; this work was financed by a special tax on all
the subjects of the Empire.[55]
Theodora, widow of the Emperor Theophilus (died 842), acted as regent during the
minority of her son Michael III, who was said to have been introduced to dissolute habits
by her brother Bardas. When Michael assumed power in 856, he became known for
excessive drunkenness, appeared in the hippodrome as a charioteer and burlesqued the
religious processions of the clergy. He removed Theodora from the Great Palace to the
Carian Palace and later to the monastery of Gastria, but, after the death of Bardas, she
was released to live in the palace of St Mamas; she also had a rural residence at the
Anthemian Palace, where Michael was assassinated in 867.[56]
In 860, an attack was made on the city by a new principality set up a few years earlier
at Kiev by Askold and Dir, two Varangian chiefs: Two hundred small vessels passed
through the Bosporus and plundered the monasteries and other properties on the
suburban Princes' Islands. Oryphas, the admiral of the Byzantine fleet, alerted the
emperor Michael, who promptly put the invaders to flight; but the suddenness and
savagery of the onslaught made a deep impression on the citizens.[57]
In 980, the emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Prince Vladimir of Kiev:
6,000 Varangian warriors, which Basil formed into a new bodyguard known as
the Varangian Guard. They were known for their ferocity, honour, and loyalty. It is said
that, in 1038, they were dispersed in winter quarters in the Thracesian Theme when one
of their number attempted to violate a countrywoman, but in the struggle she seized his
sword and killed him; instead of taking revenge, however, his comrades applauded her
conduct, compensated her with all his possessions, and exposed his body without burial
as if he had committed suicide.[58] However, following the death of an Emperor, they
became known also for plunder in the Imperial palaces.[59] Later in the 11th century the
Varangian Guard became dominated by Anglo-Saxons who preferred this way of life to
subjugation by the new Norman kings of England.[60]

One of the most famous of the surviving

Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople – the image of Christ
Pantocrator on the walls of the upper southern gallery, Christ being flanked by the
Virgin Mary and John the Baptist; circa 1261 [61]

The Book of the Eparch, which dates to the 10th century, gives a detailed picture of the
city's commercial life and its organization at that time. The corporations in which the
tradesmen of Constantinople were organised were supervised by the Eparch, who
regulated such matters as production, prices, import, and export. Each guild had its own
monopoly, and tradesmen might not belong to more than one. It is an impressive
testament to the strength of tradition how little these arrangements had changed since
the office, then known by the Latin version of its title, had been set up in 330 to mirror the
urban prefecture of Rome.[62]
In the 9th and 10th centuries, Constantinople had a population of between 500,000 and
800,000.[63]

Mosaic of Jesus in Pammakaristos Church, Istanbul

Iconoclast controversy in Constantinople[edit]
In the 8th and 9th centuries, the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest
throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and
ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act
that was fiercely resisted by the citizens.[64] Constantine V convoked a church council in
754, which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken,
burned, or painted over with depictions of trees, birds or animals: One source refers to
the church of the Holy Virgin at Blachernae as having been transformed into a "fruit store
and aviary".[65] Following the death of her husband Leo IV in 780, the
empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second
Council of Nicaea in 787.
The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once
more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora, who restored the icons. These
controversies contributed to the deterioration of relations between the Western and
the Eastern Churches.