Constantinople after Rome

[Araujo]

Hey guys, after a long time out, I'm back on research.

What I want to talk now is about the changing of the capital of the Roman Empire, from its Christmas city, Rome, to Byzantium, an old-style Greek city in the far-east point of Europe. More than 1000 years until that date had the people of the Empire salute the soldiers, the senators or the emperor as a Roman Citizen, not as a disparated Byzantine farmer or artisan. And why did Constantine, an emperor until there loved by his people, changed the tradition, even more, the RULE of an Empire with more than 1000 years, from Etruscan times until now, to move the capital to Byzantium? And even more, to change this city's name to Constantinople, a city with the name of an Emperor, only to show his glory to all. I don't understand it. Was it for its geography, to be in the center of the Empire and between Asia and Europe? Was it because he previously had that land for him, and his enemy, Maxentius, Rome and Western Europe? Or was it for his pride? Some even say it was because of the promise made to the "Christian God": «If I win this battle, I will become a Christian", he said.
Nobody truly knows it, but maybe he even wanted to destroy his empire, to ruin his people!! Well, the truth is that he was an excellent governor and ruler, but he ruined that when he passed his throne to all of his children, dividing once more the Empire in some few parts. This isn't thing of a good ruler and Emperor. Ask you guys, what do you think?

[Timotheus]

Several reasons come to mind.

1. Strategic location. Lets you close off the Black Sea and puts you closer to the rich East as opposed to the poorer West.

2. New city means you can build it to glorify Christianity without any of those pesky pagan temples inside. If you tried to do this to Rome you would end up either re-imaging pagan temples (which eventually happened) or knocking them down.

3. He was a Roman Emperor. They generally were not lacking in ego.

Personally I think the city was a huge mistake. It continued the trend of Romans hiding behind walls instead of building sufficient armies to maintain their territories. Now whether or not the Empire was capable of fielding sufficient armies is another question.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Antonio,

Well, first off all, you make it almost sound as if each emperor had a holy duty to stay in Rome. they didn't. Many emperors had already been moving about the provinces for several reasons. And of course, Rome was never relagated to a provincial town, it remained the capital, and a big prize for conquerors for centuries to come.

First of all, Rome has a fould climate. As many later conquerors found out, especially if you're from northern climates it's kinda unhealthy to to live in Rome. Fevers killed lots of them.

Second, Rome is not the best place to govern the empire from. many rulers had already moved their capitals to other places. Diocletian had built his little house in Illyria, for instance.

Third, Rome is indefendable. Of course, until the later 3rd c. that mattered little, but later emperors must have realised that the city was just too big, it's walls too large and the logistical situation too much of a nightmare to retain it as the residence. As many gebnerals found out when fighting other Roman generals, Goths, Vandals and other competitors.

Fourth, I assume that for Constantine, Byzantium held many advantages where Rome had disadvantages. Climate, strategic situation, defensability, etc. But Where Rome was especially a pagan town, he could still mold little Byzantium into a Christian city. Which he did.

[Lothia]

If my memory serves me right, Constantine formed a twin of the Senate because the Senate in Rome snubbed him on something (I forget what).

His new senate was made almost entirely of Christians. This was done on purpose, I think, because the Senate in Rome was prodominately Pagan.

Then he declared that the Senate can't do anything unless both Senatorial Houses agreed.

That almost never happened. So, what he did was effectively neuter the Senate.

The Christian-Pagan side of Rome-vs-Constantinople is why he built so many Churches in Constantinople, to rub the Roman Pagan noses in it.

Tom

[Timotheus]

If my memory serves me right, Constantine formed a twin of the Senate because the Senate in Rome snubbed him on something (I forget what).

His new senate was made almost entirely of Christians. This was done on purpose, I think, because the Senate in Rome was prodominately Pagan.

Then he declared that the Senate can't do anything unless both Senatorial Houses agreed.

That almost never happened. So, what he did was effectively neuter the Senate.

The Christian-Pagan side of Rome-vs-Constantinople is why he built so many Churches in Constantinople, to rub the Roman Pagan noses in it.

Tom

To be honest the Senate had become nothing more than a rubber stamp for quite some time before then.

[Araujo]

That's right, yeah, but still, Constantine changed the image and the tradition of an Empire with more than 1000 years, even at his time. He did well, but why did he not stay with Rome as capital and perhaps even "live in his small house" in Byzantium? He could also name it Constantinople, and perhaps even build a city bigger than Rome!! Rome was falling into the collapse, and Constantine knew that, but what he did... I don't think it was the very right thing to do. In some cases yes, but in the majority, I don't think so.

[Robert Vermaat]

That's right, yeah, but still, Constantine changed the image and the tradition of an Empire with more than 1000 years, even at his time. He did well, but why did he not stay with Rome as capital and perhaps even "live in his small house" in Byzantium? He could also name it Constantinople, and perhaps even build a city bigger than Rome!! Rome was falling into the collapse, and Constantine knew that, but what he did... I don't think it was the very right thing to do. In some cases yes, but in the majority, I don't think so.

Ehh.. did you not read my answer? Climate? Defensability? Impossible to retain it as military capital! hock:

Constantinople remained the capital for the next 1000 years. It was only taken twice by force. Rome, on the other hand, not having 'fallen into decay', was taken and plundered thrice by the end of the 5th century.

Actually, Constantine's axction was not that radical at all. The empire had been divided before his reign and what he really did was create a new capital for the eastern empire. The Western court had long ago moved from Rome. It had moved to Trier, Arles, Milan, and finally Ravenna.

[herculiani seniores]

hi.......reading these posts it makes you wonder whether or not Christianity had a part in the decline and fall {west} of the empire
my point being that in the days of republic and the Punic wars especially, Rome time and time again lost huge ammounts of men but bounced back eventually winning. yet you get a significant battle like adrianople being a total disaster but only involving 15.to 20.000 Romans why i ask ..i know there are many reasons (barbarianisation of the army..rival emperors..mobile field armies.instead of strong legions at the frontiers [another question itself}..]
it is complicated you could write many pages on the subject many have]
as for the city itself it may have been a mistake to rival Rome but the east needed a capital

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

I just read Herculiani Seniores contribution to this.

There were lots of contributing reasons for the fall of the west.

The West was faced with a motley band of barbarians, the East was the side that faced the real enemies: The Sassanid Persians had an organized military, yet the East survived.

From my reading, and I am not an expert, just a novelist, the two major errors were:

1. The concentration of military power in the hands of one man: The West did that, the East did not.
2. The separation of Church and state. In the East the Emperor was the head of the church and the state. In the West there were times when the Church undermined the authority of the state.

Just my thoughts.
Me.

[herculiani seniores]

i agree with Lothia the Sassanids were the major threat to the eastern empire but they were not just migrating hordes of so called barbarians.they were civilized and laid claim to Asia minor and most of the eastern med...but were a stable ? society all be it feudal with a home base of operations
this left only the Balkans and the Danube frontier to be defended against migrating Germans etc.which did fail on many occasions.but as the later Byzantines proved could be bought off,this meaning that the eastern frontier on the whole was more stable generating more taxes
the west however was a different proposition
you could say that originally the Romans should have pushed the border to the Elbe thus shortening the frontier..but at the time i think it was deemed that there was nothing there.but in the intervening two centuries things changed was it that the Romans could not adapt to change ?

i know it is far far more complicated than this

[S SEVERUS]

Like Vortigern said, Rome had long ceased to be the most important capital city of the Roman Empire. In the time of Dicolectian each of the tetrarchs had his own capital like Trier, Nicomedia, Sirmium and Milan. Even Gallienus had Milan as his capital city.

Constantine simply saw Byzantium after his war with Licinius as an excellent place for a new city. Not far away from the very important Danubian border and the east.

Hint : Diocletian and the Roman Recovery - Stephen Williams

[Urselius]

There are other differences between East and West. The East retained a larger urban and rural middle class, merchants and small farmers. The West saw much of its land concentrated into the hands of a small but fabulously wealthy upper class and the small farmer was largely replaced by "agribusinesses" peopled by slaves and others in a serf-like state.

Slaves and serfs have little interest in defending the state they live in and those who were left of the middle classes were often heavily taxed and had little love for the state. Even the rich provincial landowners became used to living cheek by jowl with the aristocracy of the various barbarian settlers, with whom they found they could come to mutually satisfactory arrangements, they then had little reason to support the Roman state. Barbarian kings might appropriate a quarter or a third of your land, but they were very poor at extracting taxation, and possibly a more attractive proposition than the Roman state. The 'enemy without' became just neighbours (albeit smelling of rancid butter) when large scale settlement of barbarian groups on Roman soil was allowed.

At the end the Roman state was just the army and the beaurocracy and this was parasitic on the people. The Western Empire dissolved because most of its citizens had no interest, other than sentiment, in prolonging its existence.

[L C Cinna]

hi.......reading these posts it makes you wonder whether or not Christianity had a part in the decline and fall {west} of the empire
my point being that in the days of republic and the Punic wars especially, Rome time and time again lost huge ammounts of men but bounced back eventually winning. yet you get a significant battle like adrianople being a total disaster but only involving 15.to 20.000 Romans why i ask ..i know there are many reasons (barbarianisation of the army..rival emperors..mobile field armies.instead of strong legions at the frontiers [another question itself}..]
it is complicated you could write many pages on the subject many have]
as for the city itself it may have been a mistake to rival Rome but the east needed a capital

I'm sorry but there's so much myth and nonsense in what you state there, that you might want to dig up some older threads on this forum about the fall of the empire.

just some points:

- the army of the east lost at Adrianopolis but they did recover

- the barbarisation is a myth

- the field army was an improvement over the older system which had failed completely in defending the boarder

- who told you that the later legions were in any kind "weaker"?

@ OP:

as others have stated there were many towns which had become more important strategically than Rome. Rome was far off of where "the action" was. Trier, Nicomedia (actually just opposite of Byzantium), Sirmium and Milan all were at important positions in the empire from where it was easier to move to the boarders.

[herculiani seniores]

i agree with you..........but not on the point of barbarianisation especially towards the end

i did not intend to state that the later legons were weaker just smaller [my own favourite period is the later empire ]

[Theodosius the Great]

Avete,

I agree with Vortigern and Severus that the main reaons for choosing Constantinople are rooted with military and climatic concerns. If we look at Constantine's military actions after the final war with Licinius it stands to reason that he needed a base in the Balkans. He spent years fighting across the Danube and even suceeded in restoring some authority over old Dacia. Later he had plans to invade Persia. These actions would be difficult to take if he had chosen to move his headquarters to faroff Rome. The trend of leaving Rome to fight long, foreign wars really started with Trajan and especially Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus.

If my memory serves me right, Constantine formed a twin of the Senate because the Senate in Rome snubbed him on something (I forget what).

His new senate was made almost entirely of Christians. This was done on purpose, I think, because the Senate in Rome was prodominately Pagan.

Then he declared that the Senate can't do anything unless both Senatorial Houses agreed.

That almost never happened. So, what he did was effectively neuter the Senate.

The Christian-Pagan side of Rome-vs-Constantinople is why he built so many Churches in Constantinople, to rub the Roman Pagan noses in it.

Tom

According to Anonymus (5, 29-6, 30 - in the Origo Constantini Imperatoris), "In commemoration of his splendid victory Constantine called Byzantium Constantinople after his own name ; and as if it were his native city, he adorned it with great magnificence and wished to make it equal to Rome. Then he sought out new citizens for it from every quarter, and lavished such wealth on the city, that thereon he all but exhausted the imperial fortunes. There he also established a senate of the second rank, the members of which had the title of clari."

Sure, he gave the city a senate. AFAIK, all major cities had one. But he did not elevate his new senate to the rank of the old Roman senate - that happened later under his son, Constantius II. (It's similar to the U.S. political structure where all 50 states have a senate house but none are equal to the US Senate.)

As for excluding pagans from Constantinople's senate, it never happened. In fact, just the opposite. Constantine very much wanted and encouraged Roman senators to take up residence in the new city. Free land was offered to them as an incentive. Most refused probably for economic reasons mainly. Peter Heather thinks they simply thought Constantinople would become another transitional capital like Trier, Nicomedia, et al. There was no air of permanence about the new Constantinople in the beginning, despite all the grand, new building construction and fanfare lavished upon it. So why should a Roman senator enroll himself in such a provincial Senate house ?

The idea of excluding pagans from positions of power based on religion is anachronistic in a 4th century context. Even Theodosius the Great, the slayer of pagan institutions, had many pagan officers in his armies and administration throughout his reign. Arbogast is a good example.

During the civil war against Maximus, Theodosius appointed the pagans Tatianus as Praetorian Prefect of the Orient and his son, Proculus, Prefect of Constantinople while he marched west with his army. And after the war was won Theodosius appointed another pagan in the West, Nicomachus Flavianus, as Praetorian Prefect. Flavianus owed his rise to power entirely to Theodosius. Another pagan prefect of his was Albinus.

Religious affiliations meant little in political circles. We see this clearly with the western usurper Eugenius, a Christian, who chose to ally himself with several pagans and went so far as to support the last so-called pagan revival in Rome.

Political factions were not split along religious lines during the fourth century. OTOH, removing officials solely because of their religious beliefs was the hallmark of pagan Emperors (e.g. Diocletian, Galerius, Licinius and Julian).

~Theo