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Constantine I 'The Great'- Roman
Emperor: 337-361 A.D. -
Founding of New Roman Capital - CONSTANTINOPLE
Commemorative -
Bronze AE3 20mm (2.2 grams) Struck at the mint of
Thessalonica 330-333 A.D.
Reference: RIC 188 (VII, Thessalonica)
CONSTANTINOPOLIS - Constantinopolis helmeted, laureate
bust left, holding scepter over shoulder.
- Victory standing left, stepping on galley prow,
cradling scepter and resting hand on shield, SMTSΔ in
exergue.
* Numismatic Note: Commemorates
founding of Constantinople as new Roman capital by
Constantine I the Great.
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are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a
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Emperor
Constantine I presents a representation
of the city of Constantinople as tribute to
an enthroned Mary and Christ Child in this
church mosaic.
St Sophia, c. 1000
Constantine had altogether more colorful plans.
Having restored the unity of the Empire, and being in
course of major governmental reforms as well as of
sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, he
was well aware that Rome was an unsatisfactory capital.
Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the
armies and the Imperial courts, and it offered an
undesirable playground for disaffected politicians. Yet
it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand
years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest
that the capital be moved to a different location.
Nevertheless, he identified the site of Byzantium as the
right place: a place where an emperor could sit, readily
defended, with easy access to the
Danube or the
Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the
rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia,
his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the
Empire.
Constantinople was built over six years, and
consecrated on 11 May 330.
[6] Constantine divided the expanded city,
like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with
public works worthy of an imperial metropolis.[7]
Yet initially Constantine's new Rome did not have all
the dignities of old Rome. It possessed a
proconsul, rather than an
urban prefect. It had no
praetors,
tribunes or
quaestors. Although it did have senators, they held
the title clarus, not
clarissimus, like those of Rome. It also lacked
the panoply of other administrative offices regulating
the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers,
aqueducts or other public works. The new programme of
building was carried out in great haste: columns,
marbles, doors and tiles were taken wholesale from the
temples of the Empire and moved to the new city.
Similarly, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman
art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The
Emperor stimulated private building by promising
householders gifts of land from the Imperial estates in
Asiana and
Pontica, and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in
Rome, free distributions of food would be made to the
citizens. At the time the amount is said to have been
80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution
points around the city.[8]
Constantine laid out a new square at the centre of
old Byzantium, naming it the
Augustaeum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was
housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side
of the great square was erected the
Great Palace of the emperor with its imposing
entrance, the
Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the
Palace of Daphne. Nearby was the vast
Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000
spectators, and the famed
Baths of Zeuxippus. At the western entrance to the
Augustaeum was the
Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were
measured across the Eastern Roman Empire.
Mese (Greek: Μέση [Οδός] lit. "Middle [Street]"),
lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of
the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the
left the
Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the
oval
Forum of Constantine where there was a second
Senate-house and a
high column with a statue of Constantine himself in
the guise of
Helios, crowned with a halo of seven rays and
looking towards the rising sun. From there the Mese
passed on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the
Forum of Bous, and finally up the Seventh Hill (or
Xerolophus) and through to the Golden Gate in the
Constantinian Wall. After the construction of the
Theodosian Walls in the early 5th century, it would
be extended to the new
Golden Gate, reaching a total length of seven
Roman miles.[9]
Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius
Constantinus Augustus[3]
(27 February c. 272 [2]
– 22 May 337), commonly known in
English as Constantine I, Constantine the
Great, or (among
Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox,
Oriental Orthodox and
Byzantine Catholic Christians) Saint Constantine
(pronounced
/ˈkɒnstɛntaɪn/), was
Roman emperor from 306, and the undisputed holder of
that office from 324 until his death in 337. Best known
for being the first
Christian Roman emperor, Constantine reversed the
persecutions of his predecessor,
Diocletian, and issued (with his co-emperor
Licinius) the
Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed
religious toleration throughout the empire.
The
Byzantine liturgical calendar, observed by the
Eastern Orthodox Church and
Eastern Catholic Churches of Byzantine rite, lists
both Constantine and his mother
Helena as saints. Although he is not included in the
Latin Church's list of saints, which does recognize
several other Constantines as saints, he is revered
under the title "The Great" for his contributions to
Christianityty.
Constantine also transformed the
ancient Greek colony of
Byzantium into a new imperial residence,
Constantinople, which would remain the capital of
the
Byzantine Empire for over one thousand years.
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