Title: Constantine—facts and information
Headings: Who was Constantine?
Who was Constantine?
Ancient Rome 101
Birth of Christianity
A change of scene
Constantinople, the new Rome
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Content: Christians were welcomed, and other faiths were generally tolerated. The ascendant Constantinople soon eclipsed Rome. The western empire gradually crumbled until Rome’s fall in A.D. 476. Yet Constantine’s capital—and the Christian foundation he laid there for the empire—continued to thrive for nearly a thousand years. Constantinople, the new Rome
By the time Constantine established his new capital in A.D. 330, the city that would be called Constantinople had changed hands multiple times among regional superpowers. Darius I of Persia, the Delian League, the Spartans, and Alexander the Great all had ruled the strategic port known as Byzantium on the Bosporus, a strait between the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. Roman emperor Septimius Severus destroyed the city in A.D. 196 and rebuilt a grander version, which Constantine expanded upon for his New Rome. The city became a prosperous and important center of faith, power, trade, and architecture. The landmark Hagia Sophia (above) was built by Emperor Justinian during the sixth century, the peak of Constantinople’s glory. This text is an excerpt from the National Geographic special issue The Most Influential Figures of Ancient History.