|
Constantine I ‘The Great’- Roman Emperor: 307-337 A.D. –
Founding of New Roman Capital – CONSTANTINOPLE Commemorative
Bronze AE4 11mm (0.74 grams) Lugdunum mint, circa 330-335 A.D.
CONSTANTINOPOLIS – Constantinopolis helmeted, laureate bust left, holding
scepter over shoulder.
Constantine the great standing between spear and shield.
* Numismatic Note: This may be a unique, unpublished type with he reverse
design and this small module
Commemorates founding of Constantinople as new
Roman capital
by Constantine I the Great.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
Constantinople was founded by the
Roman emperor
Constantine I on the site of an already existing city,
Byzantium,
settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, probably around 671-662
BC. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from
the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean, and had in the
Golden
Horn an excellent and spacious harbour.
Emperor
Constantine II 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.
Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and
ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis.
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
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.
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.
From the Augustaeum led a great street, the
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.
Caesar Flavius Valerius
Aurelius Constantinus Augustus (27 February c. 272
– 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, 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
Christianity.
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.
One of the great Roman emperors, Constantine rose to power when his
father Constantius Chlorus died in the year 306 while campaigning against
Scottish tribes. He later went on to defeat the rival emperor Maxentius in the
decisive battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. He is credited for several great
landmarks in history and is probably best memorialized by the city that bore his
name for hundreds of years: Constantinople. Although now renamed Istanbul, this
city was to be the seat of power for all Byzantine emperors for the next 1100
years. Constantine is also remembered as the first Roman emperor who embraced
Christianity and instituted the buildings and papal dynasty that eventually grew
into what is today the Vatican and the Pope.
The latter part of his life saw his commitment to the church rise in step
with the increasing repression against old-school paganism. He left behind
several sons who would, after his death, turn on each other and generally undo
much of the stability that Constantine had fought so hard to bring about.
|
