Constantinople was formed by the expansion of Byzantion. The new center of imperial authority, consisting of the complex of the Great Palace and hippodrome, was placed within the ancient city. From there a colonnaded street, already built by Septimus Severus, ran to the old city gate. Constantine laid out a circular forum outside the gate and continued the main artery (later named Mese) in a straight line westward. About 1.2 km west of the forum a Capitolium was set up. There the street forked, one arm extending southwest to the Golden Gate (to be distinguished from the Theodosian Golden gate), the other northwest to meet a new line of walls that described an arc from the Propontis to the Golden Horn, roughly from the quarter of Psamathia to that of Cibalia. They put up no maritime defenses since at the time there was no threat from the sea.
Constantine envisaged a sharp increase in the population and made arrangements for grain supply from Egypt amounting to 80,000 rations perhaps a target rather than the figure requisite at the time. Indeed, the population did climb steeply in the fourth through fifth centuries, a process reflected in gradually expanded harbor capacity, granaries and water supply. Determining when it reached its peak or to estimate a maximal population is difficult (opinions have ranged between 250,000 and 1,000,000). Clearly, so large they could maintain a center of consumption only thanks to a complex and potentially vulnerable system of provisioning dependent on Egypt. Besides the subsidized supply of bread such comforts as were expected in the biggest cities (i.e., luxurious public baths and entertainment in theaters and the circus) attracted people to Constantinople.
The oft-repeated statement that Constantine willed his new residence to have from the start a purely Christian character is not substantiated by the evidence. The old pagan temples on the Acropolis and elsewhere were not disturbed and the Capitolium, which may be attributed to Constantine, had a purely pagan character. Constantine probably built no more than three churches: St. Irene to serve as cathedral, and two matryria dedicated to local martyrs, St. Akakios (near the Golden Horn) and St. Mokios in the cemetery area outside the land walls. Constantius II built the Church of the Holy Apostles next to Constantine's mausoleum.
The Gothic invasion and the defeat of the emperor Valens at Adrianople (378) served to underline the vulnerability of Constantinople and necessitated new defensive measures, especially to protect the water supply only recently guaranteed by a network of aqueducts extending as far as Bizye in Thrace and possibly further west, a distance of some 10 km. It was probably to this end, and not because of a multiplication of exposed suburbs, that by 413 they extended the land wall 1.5 km to the west of the Constaninian circuit. The wide belt of land added to the city appears to have been sparsely populated and much of it was taken up by cemeteries. Three enormous open-air cisterns were there with a total capacity of approximately 1,000,000 square meters those of Aetios (421), Aspar (459), and St. Mokios (ascribed to Anastasios I). Somewhat later, they built a forward defensive line from Selymbria to the Black Sea at a distance of 65 km from the city: this was the so-called Anastasian or long wall, 45 km long. Effective for a time, they abandoned it in the seventh century because of the difficulty of keeping it manned and repaired.
The emperors of the Theodosian line made a sustained effort to embellish Constantinople and provide it with further public works such as granaries and the great Theodosian harbor on the Propontis. Simultaneously members of their family and government officials invested heavily in real estate, building for themselves mansions of princely magnificence. Th only extant statistical account of the city, the Notitia urbis constantonopolitanae, dates from this period (ca. 425): it describes briefly the fourteen urban Regions and lists the principal monuments contained in each. Twelve of the Regions were within the Constantinian walls, the thirteenth was at Sykai (Galata), the fourteenth at a location up the Golden Horn. Overall there were five palaces, fourteen churches, eight public and 153 private baths, four forums, four harbors, fifty-two major colonnaded streets, 322 other streets and 4,388 domus (substantial masonry houses). Multistory tenement houses clearly existed, for their height was limited by law to 100 feet, and specific regulations protected the right to a view of the sea, governed the distance between houses, the width of streets, etc. Constantinople was becoming overcrowded.
The second half of the fifth century ushered in a period of mounting civil strife and frequent fires, the most serious being that of 465, which destroyed about half the city. Circus riots became common: the Nike Revolt of 532 left the center of the city in ashes allowing Justinian I to indulge his passion for building. Prokopios (Buildings, book 1) provides a detailed description of Justinian's and Justin I's) constructions, which suggests, apart from such public buildings as had to be rebuilt after the fire, a shift towards churches, thirty-three of which are mentioned. The churches built or rebuilt under Justinian include Hagia Sophia, Sts. Sergios and Bakchos, and St. Irene. Another large church built in the Justinianic period was St. Polyeuktos. The population of the city was, however, greatly depleted, perhaps halved by the plague of 542.
Building activity at Constantinople continued until ca. 600, then stopped. In 618 grain supply from Egypt was permanently discontinued. In 626, Constantinople suffered its first siege, the cutting of its major source of water (restored only in 768), and the devastation of both its European and Asiatic suburbs. In 674-78 Arab fleets blockaded the city. In 715, Anastasios II, foreseeing another Arab attack, expelled all inhabitants who were unable to lay up provisions for three years: only a shrunken population could have survived the Arab siege of 717-18. In 740, a terrible earthquake threw down a considerable portion of the walls; the catastrophic plague of 747 followed.
Practically no building, other than defensive, is recorded for the period ca.600 ca.780. By the end of the period of Iconoclasm, Constantinople had a population of a few tens of thousands living amid the ruins of past glories. Only one public granary survived, and one harbor (out of four) continued to function for nonmilitary purposes. The great public baths and theaters were abandoned. Limited construction was resumed under Irene; Theophilos repaired the sea walls; Basil I undertook a sustained effort of rebuilding mostly churches that had fallen into ruin (thirty-one are named). The pattern of imperial munificence, already foreshadowed by Justinian, shifted decisively to imperial palaces, churches, and hospices for the poor and ill; what had earlier been the "civic" sphere was abandoned.
Doubtless Constantinople started to recover in the ninth century, with a gradual rise in population and an expansion of commercial and artisan activities. The Book of the Eparch, while silent about many crafts, mentions the importation of commodities both from the provinces and foreign countries (silk, linen, unguents, honey, wax, soap). The textile industry was active, but exports severely discouraged. Shops along the main street were beginning to charge high rents. Probably the opening up of the Black Sea by the Kievan princes, for all the dangers it brought (witness the attacks on Constantinople in 860, 941 and 1043), benefited trade. Even so, little was built in the tenth century.
The eleventh through twelfth centuries witnessed further expansion. Artisan occupations became profitable, tradesmen exerted a growing influence on political affairs, and new crafts were developed (like the manufacture of bronze doors), some of which were exported to Italy. Of greater importance was the installation of foreign trading colonies. While the Rus' in the tenth century were kept at arm's length at St. Mamas on the lower Bosporos, the Amalfitans, Venetians, Pisans, Genoese, Anconitans and Germans gained concessions along the Golden Horn, opposite Galata, acquiring their own landing facilities, storehouses and churches. The size of the colony of Latins in the late twelfth century is more than seven thousand.
In terms of construction a feature of the eleventh through twelfth centuries is the establishment by emperors and members of the aristocracy of great urban "abbeys" monasteries in name, they also served educational, welfare and financial functions. Such were the monasteries of the Virgin Peribleptos, of Kosas and Damianos, of the Mangana, and of Christ Pantokrator, and the Orphanage of St. Paul (enlarged by Alexios I), the last so big that a tour of it required a whole day.
The great fire of 1203 and the Latin occupation (1204-61) destroyed the prosperity of the Komnenian city, which was subjected to systematic spoliation. The initial recovery under the Palaiologoi is mostly reflected in further imperial and aristocratic monasteries.
First Period (4th-early 7th centuries). Constantinople was built as a late antique city with all the normal features of contemporary urbanism, only more magnificent. A straight avenue bordered by colonnades was obligatory: at Constantinople this was the Mese, which ran from the arch of the Milion near the Hippodrome to the Capitolium, a distance of 1.7 km, then as far again to the Constantinian Golden Gate. This longitudinal avenue was crossed at right angles by the emboloi tou Domninou, with a tetrapylon at the intersection. At intervals along the main avenue were squares, or forums, each adorned with suitable monuments. Two of these were inherited from ancient Byzantion, namely the Strategion, later remodeled by Theodosios I, and the Tetrastoon, which became the Augustaion.
The umbilicus of Constantine's city consisted of a circular forum (called simply ho Phoros) bordered by porticoes. At its center stood a column made of drums of porphyry and supporting a statue of the emperor wearing a radiate crown. The column is still preserved. On the north side of the Phoros was the senate house with a porch of porphyry columns; facing it on the south was a monumental fountain (nymphaeum). Theodosios I in imitation of Trajan's Forum in Rome laid out the next forum to the west (Forum tauri): it had a triumphal arch on each side, a basilica and, on axis, a gigantic column covered with spiral reliefs commemorating the emperor's military exploits (destroyed ca. 1500).
The next two forums to the west are the Forum Bovis (ho Bous) and the Amastrianos. Then, on the city's seventh hill (Xerolophos), was the forum of Arkadios, with a second spirally decorated column. At the western limit of the walled city, the Golden Gate (both Constantine's original and that constructed by Theodosios II father west) had the form of a triumphal arch; the processional way linking the two gates also received a monumental treatment.
Nearly every emperor from Constantine I to Phokas commemorated his reign by erecting monuments in the capital. Columns were built commemorating each of the emperors, usually by themselves. Besides imperial monuments, several statues of pagan gods, mythological figures, philosophers, and so on were imported from other cities by Constantine and his successors and placed in public baths, forums, the Hippodrome and elsewhere. New honorific statues of persons other than emperors were also made. A monumental weathervane called the Anemodoulion was decorated with bronze statues. These display monuments were put up for the city's adornment but also to express certain ideological messages (e.g., imperial victory, the wisdom of the senate, etc.) And to provide an appropriate setting for ceremonial occasions.
Public buildings of an ornate character included the two Senate Houses; the Basilike next to the Augustaion, which was a vast stoa with a gilded roof surrounding a central courtyard; the theaters; the Roman amphitheater (Kynegion) and the Hippodrome; the public baths, the biggest of which was the Constantianai (begun 345-completed 427) which also included the Karosianai (built by Valens in 375), the Arkadianai (395), the Honorianai (412), the Helenenianai, and the bath of Dagistheos started by Anastasios I, competed by Justinian in 528) in addition to the famous baths of Zeuxippos and the ancient bath of Achilles near the Strategion. The construction of baths was a favored sector of imperial munificence because of the popularity of bathing.
Also constructed in the capital during the fourth through sixth centuries were the Great palace and the Hormisdas, Antiochos and Lausos palaces. The principal churches built in this period were St. May or Blachernai and St. Mary at Chalkoprateia, the Basilica of St. John at the Stoudios Monastery, St. Polykeuktos, Hagia Sophia, St. Irene, Sts. Sergios and Bakchos, and the Holy Apostles.
Second Period (7th-12th Centuries). The construction of display monuments ended in the early seventh century, by which time the city or, in any rate, its main avenues and squares must have resembled a vast stage set. The "dark age" that followed caused the abandonment of earlier urbanistic practices, the gradual ruination of public buildings, and a shift in popular mentality: the monuments that remained were no longer understood for what they were and assumed a mythic character. They were invested with occult power, either beneficent or maleficent, and interpreted as presages of things to come The cryptic messages they conveyed could be decoded only by "philosophers."
The so-called Macedonian Renaissance brought a few instances of the collection and reuse of earlier pieces of sculpture and one recorded case of the restoration of a monument (the masonry obelisk of the Hippodrome by Constantine VII) but did not return to the monumental tradition of antiquity. The Macedonian and Komnenian dynasties, however, constituted a period of considerable construction activity, during which the Mangana and Blachernai palaces were built in Constantinople and the Bryas palace in the suburbs. New churches and monasteries of this time include the Nea Ekklesia, Myrelaion, Lips monastery, Kalenderhane Camii, and Pantokrator monastery.
Third Period (13th-15th Centuries). Following the Fourth Crusade the period of Latin occupation (1204-61) numerous buildings were damaged, fell into disrepair or destroyed.
The major cisterns, usually placed on hills, supplied water to around forty public baths as well as monasteries and churches.
The Sea Walls, both along the Propontis and the Golden Horn, consist of a single line of fortifications. They were first built in 439 and repaired many times, notably under the emperors Anastasios II and Theophilos. About 65 km west of Constantinople they built the Long Wall to defend the imperial capital from attach from that direction.
The European Side (south to north):
Argyropolis is the area to the east of Galata.
St. Mamas includes a harbor and an imperial villa with a hippodrome. The harbor is capable of holding fleets. In he beginning of the 10th century the St. Mamas quarter became the compulsory dwelling place of visiting merchants from Rus.
St. Phoka is the site of a monastery transformed by basil I from an old palace.
Hertiai or Michaelion is the site of a famous shrine of St. Michael, attributed to Constantine I, to which many miraculous cures is attributed by incubation.
Anaplous or Sosthenion is a small natural bay next to which is another Church of St. Michael, transformed into an important monastery by basil II. One mile inland stands the pillar of Daniel the stylite. Nearby is the Georgian monastery ta Rhomancu, founded in the 9th century.
The Asiatic side (north to south):
Hieron is a fortress, not far from Hieron stands the monastery of St. John Prodomos tou Phoberou.
Eirenaion is the site of the monaster of the Akoimetoi.
Bithynian Chrysopolis is a village with a large monastery. The point of the harbor of Chrysopolis is called Damalis (lit. Heifer) after an antique statue of a cow. Manuel I has a palace there.
Abydos' role and lcoation makes it a strategic naval base, under the command of its own stratgos or katepano. It also makes Abydos a frequent target of foreign and domestic enemies. In 1204 the venetians conuered it, and it remained in Latin hands until its reconquest by John III Vatatzes. By that time it had yielded in importance to Kallipolis.
Originally a suffragan bishopric of Kyzikos, Abydos became a metropolis in 1084.
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