The View from the Bridge - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 5

A.D. 330, in a ceremony in the Hippodrome, Constantine dedicated
the city of New Rome, soon after to be called Constantinople.
Three years thence the old town of Byzantine would have been 1,000
years old.
During the century following the reign of Constantine the city
grew rapidly and soon expanded beyond the limits set by its founder.
In the first half of the fifth century, during the reign of Theodosius
II, a new and much stronger line of defence-walls was built nearly a
mile farther out into Thrace, replacing the older walls of Constantine.
These walls have delimited the size of the old city up to the present
day, so that subsequent expansion was restricted to the suburban
districts along the Marmara, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.
The area thus enclosed included seven hills, the same number as in
Old Rome, a matter of some mystical significance in Byzantium.
Although the contours of these hills have been obscured by modern
roads and buildings, they can still be discerned and form convenient
reference-points for studying the old city. Six of the seven hills can
be seen from the Galata Bridge, marching in stately line down the
Golden Horn, each of them crowned with a Byzantine church or
an Ottoman mosque, giving an imperial quality to the skyline of
Stamboul.
Great changes took place in the Roman Empire in the two
centuries following the reign of Constantine the Great. After the
death of Theodosius I in 395, the Empire was divided between his
two sons, with Honorius ruling the West from Rome and Arcadius
the East, with his capital at Constantinople. The western part of the
Empire was overrun by barbarians during the following century, and
in the year 476 the last Emperor of the West was deposed, leaving the
Emperor in Constantinople sole ruler of what was left of the Empire.
This soon brought about a profound change in the character of the
Empire, for it was now centred in lands populated largely by Greek-
speaking Christians. And so, although Latin remained the official
language of the court up until the beginning of the sixth century,
the Empire was becoming more and more Greek and Christian
in character, and began to sever its connections with the classical
traditions of Athens and Rome. As the great churchman Gennadius