Constantinople served as a center for which culture?

Answer 1

The original community, called Byzantium, was settled by Greek colonists about 660 B.C. In 330 A.D. Roman emperor Constantine (I) the Great built a new capital, named New Rome but soon known as Constantinople, at Byzantium. As capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, Constantinople became the world's richest city, with a population of some 600,000 at the time of Justinian the Great, 527–65. It was a center of trade and culture. Justinian rebuilt much of the city; among his splendid new structures was Hagia Sophia. Constantinople was well fortified. Its inhabitants repulsed attacks by Avars and Arabs in the 7th century, Arabs again in the 8th, Bulgars in the 9th, Russians in the 10th, and Turks in the 11th. New conflict developed when the Crusaders began coming from Europe to free the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Roman Catholic Crusaders regarded the Eastern Orthodox Byzantines as heretics. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade was suddenly turned against Constantinople, and the city fell to the Crusaders. Its buildings were looted and destroyed, its libraries burned, and its golden art objects melted down. The bronze horses from the Hippodrome were carried off to Venice to adorn St. Mark's. Constantinople served as capital of the Latin Empire (the Crusader realm) until 1261, when the Byzantines regained control. Although the city resumed its brilliant cultural and social life, it never recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade. Many of the great buildings stood in ruins, the money for repairs increasingly scarce as the empire shrank before the advance of the Ottoman Turks. In 1347 the Black Death wiped out about a third of the population. A fire destroyed much of the city in 1434, and an earthquake damaged it further in 1440. Still, Constantinople withstood periodic attacks from the Ottomans. At last in 1453 the Turks had taken all the empire but the capital itself. They needed to gain control of the Golden Horn (the harbor) in order to attack by sea as well as by land, but found the Bosporus entrance to it impregnable. So they built a road from the Bosporus to the harbor, lifted their warships onto wheeled cradles, and hauled them overland. Five weeks later the city fell. As capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople flourished again. It was lavishly rebuilt and restored to its prime position in world commerce. The Turks often called it Istanbul, or Stamboul. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, Ankara was made the capital, and in 1930 Constantinople was given its present name. (source: http://geography.howstuffworks.com/middle-east/geography-of-istanbul.htm/printable)