This book provides detailed coverage of Byzantium from its Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople and assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Essays and illustrations portray the emergence and development of a distinctive civilization, covering the period from the 4th century to the mid-15th century. The authors outline the political history of the Byzantine state and bring to life the evolution of a colorful culture. In AD 324, the Emperor Constantine the Great chose Byzantion, an ancient Greek colony at the mouth of the Thracian Bosphorus, as his imperial residence. He renamed the place "Constaninopolis nova Roma", "Constantinople, the new Rome" and the city (modern Istanbul) became the Eastern capital of the later Roman empire. The new Rome outlived the old and Constantine's successors continued to regard themselves as the legitimate emperors of Rome, just as their subjects called themselves Romaioi, or Romans long after they had forgotten the Latin language.