Resumen de Gardens of Byzantium
On 11 May A.D. 330 the emperor Constantine inaugurated as his imperial residence the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium, strategically situated on the European shore of the Bosporus, under the name "The City of Constantine, the New Rome". Henceforward (apart from a division of the Empire into East and West from 395 until the deposition in the latter of Romulus Augustulus by the Goths in 476) the Roman Empire was governed from this city until it fell to the Ottoman Turks 1123 years later, on 29 May 1453, and once again changed its name, this time to Istanbul. After the Muslim conquests in the seventh century this Roman Empire consisted largely of the areas now called Turkey and the Balkans, with at times tenuous hold on parts of Italy; but by the fifteenth century it was little more than the imperial city itself and a portion of southern Greece. For convenience this Roman Empire is termed the East Roman Empire or, more commonly, the Byzantine Empire, although scholars endlessly debate at just what point between 330 and sometime in the eighth century we should start to use the new name. For present purposes I shall use the year 330 and, following common practice, designate the city as Constantinople and the Empire as the Byzantine Empire or simply Byzantium.
