Constantinople

:This article details the history of Constantinople before the Turkish Conquest of 1453. For details on the city since 1453, see ?stanbul.

Public buildings

Constantinople was a Christian city, lying in the most Christianised part of the Empire. Constantine made the temples of Byzantium into ruins, and erected the splendid Church of the Holy Wisdom, Sancta Sophia (also known as Hagia Sophia in Greek), as the centrepiece of his Christian capital. He oversaw also the building of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and that of St Irene.

Related Topics:
Sancta Sophia - Hagia Sophia

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Constantine laid out anew the square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augusteum in honour of his mother, Helena. Sancta Sophia lay on the north side of the Augusteum. 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. Located immediately nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the Baths of Zeuxippus (both originally built in the time of Severus). At the entrance at the western end of the Augusteum was the Milestone, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Empire.

Related Topics:
Augusteum - Helena - Hippodrome - Baths of Zeuxippus - Severus

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From the Augusteum a great street, the Mese, led, 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, then on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the Forum of Bous, and finally up the Sixth Hill and through to the Golden Gate on the Propontis. The Mese would be seven Roman miles long to the Golden Gate of the Walls of Theodosius.

Related Topics:
Propontis - Walls of Theodosius

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Constantine erected a high column in the centre of the Forum, on the Second Hill, with a statue of himself at the top, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking towards the rising sun.

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