Constantinople and the Fall of Rome

     Constantine wanted to move his government to a place that was safe from foreign invasion. Rome was under attack from barbarian invaders north of the Italian peninsula. In AD330, Constantine moved to the "New Rome;" a city called Byzantium in modern Turkey. Constantine renamed the city "Constantinople," which means "city of Constantine."

     Roman civilization survived for centuries in Constantine's eastern empire, long after the actual city of Rome had fallen to invaders. Historians refer to this new land as the Byzantine Empire. It included modern Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The Byzantine Empire last until AD1453, when Muslim warriors conquered the land. Constantinople is now known as Istanbul, Turkey.

     While the empire continued in the east, the city of Rome was under attack. In AD410, illiterate warriors known as Visigoths overran the city. In AD476, a warrior named Odoacer made himself emperor of Rome. The "Eternal City" of Rome continued to exist, but the empire broke up into small kingdoms. Europe fell into a period of war and disease known as the "Dark Ages." Then, after about 1000 years, the continent experienced a "rebirth" known as the Renaissance. When the people of the Renaissance thought back to the Greeks and the Romans, they referred to the period as "the classical age," a term we still use today.

Constantine favored the Christian church

• He gave a great deal of wealth to the Christians, especially for building. The money allowed Christians to build magnificent churches throughout the empire.
• He excused Christian priests from serving as city councilmen.
• Many Roman laws were revised to reflect Christian standards. Sunday was declared a holiday as "the day of the sun" so that pagans as well as Christians would observe it.