The History of Constantinople

history · EN-US

A biography of the Queen of Cities in its many incarnations. Today, it is Istanbul, which is a Turkish rendering of the Greek phrase εἰς τὴν πόλιν (eis ten polin), meaning "in/to the city." That simply saying, "The City," was enough for the hearer to understand Constantinople, speaks volumes. Its history stretches back well before the Megarian Greeks arrived in the 7th Century BC . Later, in 330 AD, Constantine the Great proclaimed it the new Roman capital, or Nova Roma. It remained the Imperial capital of the Roman Empire for over a millennium until the Ottoman conquest of 1453 AD.