Bizancjum

Bizancjum, known in English as Byzantium and later as the Byzantine Empire, refers to the city of Byzantium on the Bosporus and, more broadly, to the Eastern Roman Empire centered on Constantinople from the 4th century CE to 1453. The city was founded c. 657 BCE by Greek colonists from Megara, named after its legendary founder Byzas. It stood on the strategic waterway linking the Aegean and Black Seas, controlling trade between Europe and Asia.

Constantine the Great refounded the city as Constantinople in 330 CE and established it as the new capital of the Roman Empire. After the western empire collapsed in 476, the eastern realm endured and came to be known as the Byzantine Empire. Its residents increasingly spoke Greek, though Latin remained in official use for some time. The empire preserved and transmitted Roman law, administration, and classical learning. Justinian I (r. 527–565) codified Roman law in the Corpus Juris Civilis and initiated major building projects, including Hagia Sophia.

The church centered in Constantinople became the seat of the Patriarch and a distinct Eastern Orthodox tradition after the Great Schism of 1054. Throughout its history, Byzantium faced external threats from Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, Seljuks, and later the Ottoman Turks, punctuated by periods of revival and territorial loss. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Constantinople was sacked and the empire fragmented, though a successor state, the Empire of Nicaea, eventually restored the Byzantine state until 1261, after which it gradually waned until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.