The Electronic Passport to Constantinople and the Fall of Rome

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Constantinople and the Fall of Rome

     Constantine decided to move his government to a place that was safe from foreign invasion. Rome was under attack from barbarian invaders north of the Italian peninsula. In AD330, Constantine moved to a city called Byzantium in modern Turkey. Constantine renamed the city "Constantinople," which means "city of Constantine."

     Roman civilization survived for centuries in Constantine's eastern empire, long after the actual city of Rome and the empire's western provinces fell to invaders. Historians refer to this as the Byzantine Empire. It included modern Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453, when it fell to Turkish warriors. The warriors brought their faith in Islam to Constantinople, and converted the many churches to mosques. Constantinople is now known as Istanbul, Turkey.

     While the empire continued in the east, the city of Rome was under attack. In AD410, illiterate warriors known as Visigoths overran the city. In AD476, a Visigoth warrior named Odoacer made himself emperor of Rome. The "Eternal City" of Rome continued to exist, but the empire dissolved into many small kingdoms. Western Europe fell into a period of war and disease known as the "Dark Ages." Then, after about 1000 years, the region experienced a "rebirth" known as the Renaissance. The people of the Renaissance referred to the era of the Greeks and the Romans as "the classical age," a term we still use today.

     The Roman Empire is gone, but not forgotten. Roman art, architecture, government, and religion are still a part of western civilization. Roman literature, law, and language have been studied and adopted by many cultures. For nearly seventeen centuries, the Romans set the standard for future generations to follow.

Constantine Favored the Christian Church

Constantine gave a great deal of wealth to the Christians, especially for building churches.
He excused Christian priests from serving as city councilmen.
Many Roman laws were revised to reflect Christian standards. Sunday was declared a holiday as "the day of the sun" so that the day would be observed by pagans as well as Christians.

Rome

To cite this page:
Dowling, Mike., "The Electronic Passport to Constantinople and the Fall of Rome," available from http://www.mrdowling.com/702-constantinople.html; Internet; updated Wednesday, May 1, 2002 0:08 AM

©2008, Mike Dowling. All rights reserved.