Constantine dedicates Constantinople as a new capital
- Date
- 11 May 330 CE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Thrace (Constantinople, modern Istanbul)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
On 11 May 330 CE Constantine formally dedicated the rebuilt Greek city of Byzantium as Constantinople, his 'New Rome', after years of construction on a strategic site commanding the Bosporus between Europe and Asia.
Endowed with a senate, hippodrome, forums, fortifications and lavish public works, the city was conceived as a Christian imperial capital rivalling Rome itself, and its dedication celebrations lasted forty days. Constantinople's position controlled the sea route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and the land routes linking the empire's wealthier eastern provinces, giving it formidable commercial and defensive advantages. Over the following centuries it became the political, economic and cultural heart of the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, world, and it survived the collapse of the western empire by nearly a thousand years until its fall in 1453. The foundation of Constantinople shifted the empire's centre of gravity eastward and laid the institutional foundation for the long-lived Byzantine state, with enduring consequences for Orthodox Christianity, medieval trade and the history of Europe and the Near East.
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Empires active in 11 May 330 CE
- Kingdom of Funan50 CE – 550 CE
- Roman Empire27 BCE – 476 CE
- Sassanid Empire224 CE – 651 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Teotihuacan100 BCE – 750 CE
- Pyu City-States200 BCE – 1050 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Ardashir I defeats the Parthians at Hormozdgan and founds the Sasanian Empire28 April 224 CE
- Chandragupta I founds the Gupta Empire and inaugurates the Gupta erac. 319–320 CE
- Deposition of Romulus Augustulus ends the Western Roman Empire4 September 476 CE
- Diocletian establishes the Tetrarchy293 CE (system begun 284–286)
- Abdication of Emperor Xian ends the Han; Three Kingdoms begin220 CE
- Augustus founds the Principate (First Settlement)16 January 27 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire
The standard accessible introduction to Sasanian Iran.
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