Editing Constantine the Great (section)

==== Foundation of Constantinople ====
{{further|New Rome}}
[[File:Silver medallion of Constantine I, AD 330.jpg|right|thumb|Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople]]
[[File:Glittica romana, costantino e la tyche di costantinopoli, sardonice IV sec.JPG|thumb|4th century sardonyx cameo with Constantine and the Tyche of Constantinople<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hPX7EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA36 |title=The Early Reception and Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60-800 CE): The Anchors of the Fisherman |date=2020-03-17 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-42568-2 |page=36 |language=en}}</ref>]]
Diocletian had chosen ''Nicomedia'' in the East as his capital during the Tetrarchy<ref>Sherrard, ed. Krieger, ''Byzantium'', Silver Burdett Company, Morristown, NJ, 1966 p. 15.</ref>—not far from Byzantium, well situated to defend Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, all of which had required his military attention.<ref>Sinnigen & Boak, ''A History of Rome to A.D. 565'', 6th ed., Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1977 pp. 409–10.</ref> Constantine had recognised the shift of the empire from the remote and depopulated{{why?|date=July 2024}} West to the richer cities of the East, and the military strategic importance of protecting the Danube from barbarian excursions and Asia from a hostile Persia in choosing his new capital<ref>Norwich, ''Byzantium: The Early Centuries'', Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1988, p. 40.</ref> as well as being able to monitor shipping traffic between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.<ref>Sherrard, ed. Krieger, ''Byzantium'', Silver Burdett Company, Morristown, NJ, 1966 p. 18.</ref> Licinius' defeat came to represent the defeat of a rival centre of pagan and Greek-speaking political activity in the East, as opposed to the Christian and Latin-speaking Rome, and it was proposed that a new Eastern capital should represent the integration of the East into the Roman Empire as a whole, as a centre of learning, prosperity, and cultural preservation for the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire.<ref>Gilbert Dagron, ''Naissance d'une Capitale'',  24.</ref> Among the various locations proposed for this alternative capital, Constantine appears to have toyed earlier with [[History of Sofia|Serdica]] (present-day [[Sofia]]), as he was reported saying that "''Serdica is my Rome''".<ref>[[Petrus Patricius]] ''excerpta Vaticana'', 190: Κωνσταντίνος εβουλεύσατο πρώτον εν Σαρδική μεταγαγείν τά δημόσια· φιλών τε τήν πόλιν εκείνην συνεχώς έλεγεν "η εμή Ρώμη Σαρδική εστι."</ref> Sirmium and [[Thessalonica]] were also considered.<ref>Ramsey MacMullen, ''Constantine'', [[Routledge]] ed., 1987, 149.</ref> Eventually, however, Constantine decided to work on the Greek city of [[Byzantium]], which offered the advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism during the preceding century by Septimius Severus and [[Caracalla]], who had already acknowledged its strategic importance.<ref>Dagron, ''Naissance d'une Capitale'', 15/19.</ref> The city was thus founded in 324,<ref name=Oxf>"Constantinople" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'', [[Oxford University Press]], Oxford, 1991, p. 508. {{ISBN|0-19-504652-8}}</ref> dedicated on 11 May 330<ref name=Oxf /> and renamed ''Constantinopolis'' ("Constantine's City" or [[Constantinople]] in English). Special commemorative coins were issued in 330 to honour the event. The new city was protected by the relics of the [[True Cross]], the [[Rod of Moses]] and other holy relics, though a [[Cameo (carving)|cameo]] now at the [[Hermitage Museum]] also represented Constantine crowned by the [[tyche]] of the new city.<ref>[http://www.hermitagerooms.com/exhibitions/Byzantium/sardonyx.asp Sardonyx cameo depicting constantine the great crowned by Constantinople, 4th century AD] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060316221103/http://www.hermitagerooms.com/exhibitions/Byzantium/sardonyx.asp |date=16 March 2006 }} at "The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity". ''The Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House'' (30 March 2006&nbsp;– 3 September 2006).</ref> The figures of old gods were either replaced or assimilated into a framework of [[Christian symbolism]]. Generations later there was the story that a [[Vision (spirituality)|divine vision]] led Constantine to this spot, and an angel no one else could see led him on a circuit of the new walls.<ref>Philostorgius, ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' 2.9.</ref> The capital would often be compared to the 'old' Rome as ''Nova Roma Constantinopolitana'', the "New Rome of Constantinople".<ref name="macmullen" /><ref>According to the ''Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum'', vol. 164 (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 2005), column 442, there is no evidence for the tradition that Constantine officially dubbed the city "New Rome" (''Nova Roma'' or ''Nea Rhome''). Commemorative coins that were issued during the 330s already refer to the city as ''Constantinopolis'' (Michael Grant, ''The Climax of Rome'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 133). It is possible that the emperor called the city "Second Rome" (''Deutera Rhome'') by official decree, as reported by the 5th-century church historian Socrates of Constantinople.</ref>