Ancient Constantinople
The ancient capital called Byzantium, or call the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople and now called Istanbul, was the most powerful center after the decline of the Roman Empire .The city was considered a point of vital importance in the world for hundreds of years with bloody power struggles and various rebellions. Initially restricted within the walls built by Septimus Severus, the city has grown and expanded to the walls of Theodosius. Consequently, Constantinople, like ancient Rome became a city on seven hills.
So they called the city of Constantine: the Apple Silver . Since May 11, 330, she was the highest seat of the Eastern Roman Empire, then simply called the Byzantine Empire. The emperor, who had converted to Christianity, feeling the decline of the western side of the field, decided to choose another safer place to serve as its capital.
Rome changed by Byzantium abandoned the Latin by the Greek and the title of Emperor of the basileus. He moved to the court, the administration and the legions to this ancient city founded by the Greeks in the seventh century BC, then a small port located on the Bosphorus - the passage connecting the SeaBlack to the Mediterranean.
In the eleven century following its refounding, she renamed Constantinople, was one of the most splendid cities of the transition from Classical to Medieval Era. Corner of the world then, vanguard of Christianity on the border of Asia Minor, for her people flocked from all corners. In its crowded and full of life streets, crossed Greeks, Romans, Serbs, Bulgarians, Arabs, Venetians, Genoese, Goths, varegos, Russians, Tartars, Caucasians, etc ..., forming a permanent hubbub of voices, languages and dialects more strange and bizarre.
By far, it was the largest financial center, commercial and cultural center of all that part of the globe, the living reference of an empire that at its height grew to 34.5 million inhabitants. They saw it as a second Rome, New Rome, a decoy for Christian pilgrims who came behind the famous relics that local collections housed. Everywhere stood an impressive offering of sacred objects that filled with wonder the eyes of the believer and set fire to the imagination of superstitious.
Scattered cathedrals, churches, palaces and museums of Constantinople, was splinters of wood of the Cross, the Blood Holy, the Crown of Thorns, the Seamless Robe, Holy Spear, the Carnations who preached Christ and a macabre series of corpses saints (St. Andrew, St. Luke, St. Anne, Mary Magdalene and Lazarus, the resurrected, and so many more), plus the sandals of Christ and even the hair of John the Baptist; such superstitious worship culminated with some breads that have left over the twelve baskets, miracle work of multiplication made by Jesus (Matthew 14-15), and who were exposed in a column.
was unknown among the Christians of that time, people most concerned about with religion things than the Byzantines, a subject that led them to catch, both monks, theologians, basileus and the common people, endless discussions, usually sterile or inconclusive on biblical or related topics. An example of this was the exasperating debate that occurred in the days of Empress Theodora, who died in 548, among the Monophysites, whom she sympathized, and the Orthodox more connected to the Emperor Justinian.
The relics were brought from the Holy Land, first by St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, were kept under the control of Orthodox clergy, which was sometimes According to state within the Byzantine Empire. Possession that was the envy of the clergy of Rome, whom the Orthodox Christian Church was totally separate from the Schism, occurred in 1054.
The New York of the times
In a way, Constantinople was in its time a kind of mixture of New York to Jerusalem. This is a metropolis that perfectly reconciled the business and an intense trade with matters of faith and religion. Where the ostentatious luxury of the imperial court and the local patricians lived with poverty and even misery, gold and rags circling around each other.
Over a six-century Byzantine coins, the solidus (ancient Roman aureus) and Numma, were the first to be truly universal, being known, accepted and exchanged in most Asian and European markets, while the great legal code emperor Justinian (Corpus Juris Civilis, 529-533), organized by Triboniano lawyer, created the future foundations of European law and even Asia Minor.
As a symbol of all that prominence, the imperial and theocratic magnificence that it imanava (as the official seat of the autocrat of the East and See of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Christian Church, obedient to the emperor), that built the Hagia Sophia, the Church of the Holy wisdom, appointed in 537, immense temple of 56 meters in height, all internally decorated by beautiful mosaics and countless Byzantine icons, surmounted by a wonderful round dome, built by Anthemius architects of Tralles and Isidore of Mileno.
Raised on the very tip of the peninsula, the Acropolis of the city, panoramic location, splendid, giving views of the Sea of Marmara to the south, and the Golden Horn to the north, the two sheets of water that connect Constantinople and whose banks are home to great ports like Eleuterio, Kontoskalion and Sofía.
Category: General history
0 komentar