The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Mese) leading to Constantine’s oval forum with its statue of himself wearing
a crown of rays like the sun god and placed on the top of a porphyry column,
and Constantine’s own mausoleum, where he lay symbolically surrounded
by empty sarcophagi, one for each of the twelve apostles. Despite the later
proliferation of churches, this was originally less a new Christian city than a
complex of public buildings expressive of imperial rule.
Whatever Constantine’s own intentions may have been, Constantinople
did gradually assume the role of eastern capital. Legislation under Constantius
regularized the position of the eastern senate (though it could not approach
the wealth and prestige of that of Rome), and there were both eastern and
western consuls; as the Notitia Dignitatum recognizes, by the end of the fourth
century the same basic framework of administration existed in both east
and west, and a division of the empire into two halves therefore posed no

Cistern of

Aetius

Holy

Apostles

Cistern S. Irene

S. Sophia

Augusteum

Hippodrome ImperialPalace

Forum of

Constantine

Forum of

ForumBovis Theodosius

Forum of

Arcadius

Cistern of

S. Mokios

Harbours

P r o p o n t i s

G o l d e n

H o r n

Cistern

of Aspar

W

all

of

Co

nst

ant

ine

Th

eo

do

sia

nW

all

Sea walls

0 1000 metres

Map 1.1 Constantinople