Constantinople is founded
A new capital on the Bosphorus outlives the old one by a thousand years.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Constantine refounds Byzantium as his capital in 330 CE, on a peninsula that is defensible on three sides and commands the straits between Europe and Asia. Its walls prove almost impregnable for eleven centuries. When the western empire dissolves, the eastern half continues from here uninterrupted, preserving Roman law and Greek learning, and the city remains the largest and wealthiest in Europe for most of the Middle Ages.