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”Though all other cities have their periods of government and are subject to the decays of time, Constantinople alone seems to claim a kind of immortality and will continue to be a city as long as humanity shall live either to inhabit it or rebuild it.��

Pierre Gilles, The Antiquities of Constantinople (1548)


Old section of Istanbul.

Whether you call the city Byzantium, Constantinople, Stamboul, or Istanbul, each name evokes the same sense of mystery, decadence, and intrigue. ”Writers such as Ian Fleming and John le Carre fixed in the Western imagination a picture of Istanbul as an exotic and decadent home of treachery and subterfuge, And indeed it was.�� I recently finished Joseph Kanon’s Istanbul Passage, and I would add it as another book that adds to the mystique of this famed city. Since I’ve never been to Istanbul, all of my impressions of this city have been formed by literature. I am an enthusiastic armchair traveller who frequently escapes from the desolate plains of Kansas to the most striking foreign climates by pulling a book from the shelf and letting my mind carry my body away.

Copious amounts of the world’s alcohol raki, vodka, Scotch, retsina, absinthe, bourbon, or sake are purely optional. As they say, when in Rome! Istanbul! Edinburgh! Athens! London! New York! Tokyo!

A band of Greeks were the first settlers in the place they called Byzantion in 657 BC. What the Greeks didn’t fully fathom was that they had landed in what was going to become one of the most strategic locations in the world. ”No city, not even Rome, was so strategically, so powerfully situated. Byzantion had become a city at the crossroads of the world.��


Constantine the Great

Constantine the Great arrives in 327 AD and decides to transfer the capital of the Roman Empire to this city. He refers to it as Nova Roma or New Rome, and by 330 AD, he gives up all pretenses and names the city after himself...Constantinople. After Rome falls, The City becomes the center and last bastion of power of the Roman Empire. Constantine was a Christian, but it was one of his successor, Theodosius, who in 381 put the final nail in the pagan coffin. ”The once mighty pagan cults had become an antiquarian shell, a tradition rather than a practice. Theodosius simply defunded them, while at the same time strongly supported the new religion of the Roman people, Christianity. Never again would paganism be more than a curiosity.��

Defunded is such a modern sounding word, as if it were something that was decided by a committee of Republican lawmakers in the United States. They frequently discover that they cannot abolish something, but they can starve a program by take away all of its means of support.

Constantine the Great builds massive walls to protect the city, and frequent rulers down through the ages contribute to their upkeep and add more walls. These walls are needed as Constantinople becomes more rich and power. It is the jewel that every conqueror from the Sasanids, Avars, Bulgarians, Varangians (later they served as an elite guard for future sultans), Macedonians, and Crusaders to the Ottoman Turks tries to possess. The Turks salivate for centuries over the precious pearl that rests just beyond their grasp. Constantinople is the crossroads of the world, and to control it, one could feel they also control the world. In 1453, after a seven week siege, Constantinople falls to Mehmed II, a twenty-two year old Ottoman Sultan, who comes to power after his competitors die under suspicious circumstances. He is perfect for Constantinople. The city has seen many rulers come and go. Ruthless kin or ambitious factions blinded, poisoned, stabbed, or tossed from the ramparts those who were in their way for ultimate power.


Mehmed II also has an interesting connection to Vlad the Impaler that I would tell you about, but it has no connection to this book.

Mehmed declares that all the buildings belong to him, especially the Ayasofya. Everything else in the city belongs to his soldiers. Justinian I had commissioned the building of Hagia Sophia, and it was finished in 537. It is considered to be one of the most important structures in the world. It was originally a Greek Orthodox Church, and Mehmed could have ordered it destroyed and could have attempted to build an even grander structure in its place. Thank goodness he decided to add some minarets, splash some new plaster on the walls, and reopen it as a mosque.


Ayasofya...Hagia Sophia

Now Justinian has an interesting story. He comes from very humble origins, and after becoming emperor by simply surviving longer than his more prestiges relatives, he scandalizes the empire by marrying his mistress, Theodora. ”In 525 the two were married. Two years later, in a magnificent ceremony in Hagia Sophia, the patriarch of Constantinople placed the imperial crowns on the heads of a peasant and a prostitute.��

Oh, my goodness.

Regardless of his lack of pedigree or the sullied reputation of his wife, he leaves the world a beautiful landmark that dominates the skyline of one of the most important cities in the world.


The Peasant and the Prostitute.

I’ve only touched on a handful of the wonderful stories that are contained within this book. At 358 pages it is a brief summary of a city rich with culture heritage and colorful stories. There is a lot of fascinating history to cover in so few pages, but it does serve as a good overview of knowledge, which I plan to build on as I explore more of the history of this amazing, beautiful, and intriguing city.

”Istanbul located at the junction of two great worlds, the ornament of the Turkish nation, the treasure of Turkish history, the dearest object of the Turkish nation, has a place in the heart of every Turk.�� Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) And in the heart of people from all over the world.

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