Byzantium served as the capital city of the Byzantine Empire and Roman Empire. Byzantium becoming part of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1923.
Byzas, the son of the King Nisus, founded the city in 667 BC when he sailed across the Aegean Sea. Because of its location, the city became the center of the continued war between the Greeks and Persians.
The Persian Empire took over the city during King Darius’s Scythian campaign in 513 BC. The first Persian Empire’s control of Byzantine was never stable, but it is considered to be one of their first ports on the European coast.
The Greek forces besieged the city during the Peloponnesian war. Its prosperous economy benefited Athens, and because of this the city had been made part of the Delian League; however, the high tributes the city had to pay to Athens - and the fact that Athens was losing the war – forced them to switch sides to Sparta in 411 BC.
In 411 BC Sparta took over Byzantium as part of their strategy to cut off grain supply to Athens.
Roman Emperor Constantine the Great was attracted to the city, and after he restored peace in the empire, he decided to move the imperial residence from Rome to Byzantium. On May 11, 330 A.D. the Emperor Constantine dedicated a “New Rome” on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium.
A separate government and difficult communications with the West gave the Byzantine Empire its own character, different from that of the Western Empire. The citizens thought of themselves as sharing in the Roman tradition, but few spoke Latin anymore. Most Byzantines spoke Greek.
The city was renamed Constantinople after the death of Constantine in 337 BC. After Emperor Justinian’s death in 565, the empire suffered countless setbacks. There were street riots, religious quarrels, palace intrigues, and foreign dangers.
In 634, Muslim armies began their assault on the Byzantine Empire by storming into Syria.
City of Byzantium
