1. What was Byzantium?

‘What was Byzantium?’ explains the creation of the Christian Empire that ruled for over a thousand years from the great city of Constantinople. It describes the evolution of the Roman Empire under the rule of Diocletian and the rise of Constantine resulting in his settling in the eastern city of Byzantion, which he renamed in his honour. Constantine’s dynasty forged a complex culture and society. It drew together the aristocracy of service of the eastern Mediterranean into a single political community, increasingly united by a sense of Roman political identity, Greek ‘high culture’, Christian faith, and, crucially, bound together by the Constantinopolitan focus of their political ambitions.