While it is said that the golden age of Byzantium occurred during his reign Justinian's rule certainly did not start off as golden.
After his death, the empire was split in two, the western half collapsing within a century but the eastern half living on and thriving, becoming what we call Byzantium. The writer Sozomen, who lived in the fifth century A.D., claimed that Constantine’s choice of location for his new city was inspired by God.Ĭonstantine's death led to a series of short-lived successors. “The most significant of these changes were the emergence of Christianity as the favored (and then the official) religion of the state and the creation of Constantinople as the new urban center of the empire on the shores of the Bosphorus, midway between all the empire’s frontiers,” he writes.Ĭonstantinople was built on the site of Byzantium, an urban center that had a long history of prior occupation. Gregory notes that Constantine brought in a number of important changes that laid the foundations for the Byzantine Empire.
