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:''This article is about the city. See also Byzantine Empire.''
'Byzantium' (Greek: Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city, which, according to legend, was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas (Βύζας or Βύζαντας in Greek). The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original name 'Byzantion'. The city is what later evolved to be the center of the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages), with the name Constantinople. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, the city became known as Istanbul to the Ottoman Turks, but didn't become the official name of the city until 1930.

Contents

History

Emblem

Notes

References

See also

External links

History

The origins of Byzantium are shrouded in legend. The traditional legend has it that Byzas from Megara (a town near Athens), founded Byzantium, when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea. Byzas had consulted the Oracle at Delphi to know where to make his new city. The Oracle told him to found it "opposite the blind." At the time, he did not know what this meant. But when he came upon the Bosporus he realized what it meant: on the Asiatic shore was a Greek city, Chalcedon. It was they who must have been blind because they had not seen that obviously superior land was just a half mile away on the other side of the Bosporus. Byzas founded his city here in this "superior" land and named it Byzantion after himself. It was mainly a trading city due to its strategic location at the Black Sea's only entrance. Byzantion later conquered Chalcedon, across the Bosporus.
After siding with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus, the city was besieged by Roman forces and suffered extensive damage in AD 196. Byzantium was rebuilt by Septimius Severus, now emperor, and quickly regained its previous prosperity. The location of Byzantium attracted Roman Emperor Constantine I who, in AD 330, refounded it as Nova Roma. After his death the city was called Constantinople ('city of Constantine'). It remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was later called the Byzantine Empire by historians.
This combination of imperialism and location would affect Constantinople's role as the crossing point between two continents: Europe and Asia. It was a commercial, cultural, and diplomatic magnet. At a strategic position, Constantinople could control the route between Asia and Europe, as well as the passage from the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea.
On May 29, 1453, the city fell to the Ottoman Turks, and, once again, became the capital of another powerful state, the Ottoman Empire. After the end of WWI it was renamed Istanbul and it has remained Turkey's largest (and arguably its most important) city, although Ankara is now the capital.

Emblem

In BC 670, the citizens of Byzantium claimed the crescent moon as their state symbol, after an important victory. However, the origin of the crescent moon and star as a symbol dates back much earlier - to ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt ^{[1] [2]}. Nevertheless, Byzantium was the first governing state to use the crescent moon as its national symbol. In AD 330 CE Constantine I added the Virgin Mary's star to the flag.
It has been claimed that, when the city fell to the Ottomans in 1453, they saw this flag with the crescent all over Constantinople, and adopted it as their own Turkish Flag, and many other Muslim states have adopted it since. This is, however, likely apocryphal, as many Muslim factions had adopted the crescent beforehand from Persia.
The crescent moon and star was not completely abandoned by the Christian world after the fall of Constantinople. To date the official flag of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is a labarum of white, a church building with two towers, and on either side of the arms, at the top, are the outline in black of a crescent moon facing center and a star with rays.[1]

Notes

1. Charles Morris (1889), ''Aryan Sun Myths: The Origin of Religions''. Page 67
2. Rupert Gleadow (2001), ''The Origin of the Zodiac'', Page 165

References

★ Jeffreys, Elizabeth and Michael, and Moffatt, Ann. 1981. ''Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference, Canberra, 17-19 May 1978''. Australian National University, Canberra.

★ Istanbul Historical Information - Istanbul Informative Guide To The City. Retrieved Jan. 6, 2005.

★ The Useful Information about Istanbul. Retrieved Jan. 6, 2005.

See also

★ Constantinople details the history of the city before the Turkish conquest of 1453.

★ Istanbul details the history of the city from 1453 on, and describes the modern city.

External links

★ Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies : www.byzantium.ac.uk

★ Description of Byzantine monetary system - fifth Century BC : History of money FAQs