Present-day Istanbul has had many names throughout its history, but the best known are its current Turkish, Byzantium, and Constantinople. The changes that have taken place were not a matter of chance, but on many occasions had profound political significance. In other examples we see samples of the astonishment that this city produced in its visitors. All throughout more than two thousand eight hundred years of history.
Ancient and Medieval Names
Istanbul is, together with the district of Gallipoli, the only population in Europe that is divided into two continents, separating its European and Asian part by the Bosphorus Strait. The local Thracians settled on the site around the beginning of the first millennium BC, in a population they named Lygos, whose existence is attested to by Pliny the Elder (Rackham, 1969: 153). Although initially it was nothing more than several irregular houses and a badly placed wall in a corner of its peninsula, the value of its position was total due to its intermediate location between the sea routes of the Aegean and the Ponto Euxino (Black Sea).
However, an unexpected guest broke into the home of the Thracians. By the 8th century BC the Greeks began their colonial expansion. The processes that led to the Hellenic colonization of the Mediterranean are very extensive, but in part they could be simplified into a dispute between aristocratic supporters of the previous more restrictive system, and people of humble origins enriched by trade who wanted to have their share of power. A consensus solution, in many cases, was to ship those dissatisfied/losers in the brawl and have them found their Greek-speaking enclave in a remote location.
Regardless of the fights that gave rise to these migrations, the colonies and their mother cities used to (with exceptions) maintain a good relationship with each other, even in some cases of dependency. The “metropolises” did not choose the place of destination at random, but rather for strategic commercial purposes. Initially, colonization focused on southern Italy and, in a second phase, the repopulation of the lands around the Black Sea began, hence the choice to usurp the position on the Bosphorus. In this case it was Megara who was attracted to the place. The coasts of that sea provided great wealth through the export of cereals, wood or cattle. The small polis of Mégara founded colonies in the area such as Byzantium and Chalcedon (today Kadiköy, district of Istanbul), thus surrounding the access to the strait.
Yet the shores of the small Βυζάντιον they were unrivaled, and their strategic position at the tip of their own peninsula gave them an advantage over their neighbors. His name comes, according to the Roman Diodorus Siculus, from his mythical founder, King Byzas or Bizan, who gave his name to the city in which he established his monarchy (Oldfather, 1967: 497). The real origin of the name, on the other hand, is not so sure, starting from the fact that the existence of such a king is not known exactly. One possibility is that it derived from local nouns or the verb “Diver”, tighten. The date of its foundation is also uncertain, considering dates around 679 BC or 667 BC. The latter was used later to celebrate its millennium of existence.
The city grew, buoyed by its uninterrupted commercial prosperity, and with the Roman expansion into Hellas it finally fell into their orbit. First as a city allied to Roman interests, and later as part of the province of Thrace. It came to be the case of a new name change with the emperors Severus and Caracalla (193 – 217 AD), during whose reigns it was renamed as Augusta Antonina (after Caracalla, really called Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus), but it was perennial. The population was, and would remain until the 16th century, with a Greek-speaking majority, and the new name did not survive its emperor, reverting the change to his death (Ehrlich, link in bibliography).
The next change occurred at the beginning of the 4th century. Emperor Constantine managed, after his victory against Licinius, emperor in most of the Roman West, to be crowned alone. This ended the military anarchy that had dominated the Empire since the end of the Severans. This new emperor also had special plans for the city of Byzantium. Although at first there was doubt in the election with cities like Thessaloniki or others in the Balkans, Byzantium was chosen to house the imperial chair from then on, with the primacy that this entailed. For six years, from 324 to 330, long works were carried out with a large contingent of slave laborers to remodel the future capital to the proper height. It was enlarged and embellished until it achieved its objective.
The new city was called new rome (either Alter Rome) from 326, although like the name of Severus, it would survive little beyond the ecclesiastical realm. All in all, his choice is very revealing. Byzantium was also a city located in a key position, with seven hills like Rome had in its origins (to which it was also called Επτάλοφος, “seven hills”); and during its remodeling it was sought to imitate the past glory of the imperial capital. A perfect, if not better, replacement was sought to lead the state. At least such was Constantine’s intention. But, although that first name did not stick, he did. Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις), the city of Constantine, which henceforth stood as the official for the city (Southern, 2001: 181).
The city, from then on, acted as the capital of the Empire during its unity, and as the capital of its eastern part when it was divided again. Such a situation of centrality and protagonism was exercised almost without interruption. The anomaly could be between the years 663 and 668, in which the de facto capital was located in Syracuse during the reign of Constant II. This emperor, gripped by the Arab offensive against the Empire and the progressive loss of power in Italy, tried to bring order with his departure from the Constantinopolitan chaos, but his dramatic tax rise on the island led to his assassination (Norwich, 215, Ch. . 3).
The Greek-speaking population of the city of Constantinople considered itself to be Roman until the end of the Empire (and even long after), but there could be a differentiation. A Roman might be a Thessalonian, hailing from the city of Thessalonica, but those hailing from the capital were recognized as “Byzantine” Romans, since the old name remained partially in use. In the end, a custom carried out for more than a millennium always acquires great roots.
On the other hand, we must highlight the size that the city of Constantinople had around its history, since this would also be the reason for the birth of so many other names. The Roman Empire in the middle of the 4th century was home to approximately 30,000,000 inhabitants. That figure was considerably reduced after the loss of the provinces of Egypt and Syria, partially deurbanizing the Empire. However, the eastern capital was home to a minimum of 400,000 people at that time, and could have several hundred thousand more (Laiou, Morrison, 2007: 24, 130). Such a population was not reached by cities like Paris until a millennium later, so it is normal that the people of the time were justly surprised by its size.
One of the names referring to its enormity that is verified is the one that the people from Scandinavia and, above all, the Varangian guard gave to the city. It was Miklagard, the big city”. The Scandinavians (and, with them, later the Slavs), reached the lands of the Empire by going up the great rivers of the Russian plains, the first of them entering the imperial service as early as the 9th century. It was in the year 988 when the body of the Varangians would be formalized and perpetuated with the sending of six thousand men from the Principality of kyiv to help Basil II in his wars (D’Amato, 2010: 3, 4).
These men came either from Scandinavia or, more likely, from the steppes of present-day Ukraine. The largest settlement they could ever see had a few thousand inhabitants and was built mostly of wood. It is normal that the impression received was enormous. Such was the scope of the fame of the great size and sumptuousness of the city that the name was integrated into the language. Much of the Scandinavian states later adopted the well-known “Istanbul”. For their part, the Icelanders kept the old name, with what is still called Mikligarður today.
The Slavic version of Constantinople’s name alludes more to its imperial status, rather than its size. It must be taken into account that both the Bulgarians, for their part, and the Slavs of kyiv, headed by Prince Vladimir I since 988, were Orthodox Christians, so their religious head was Constantinople (Herrin, 2007: 214). From the Slavic populations of one point or another, that city was always observed with admiration, either because of the wealth that its monarchs displayed, or because of their religious zeal.
It was as a result of this that denominations such as Possum, the city of the tsar/caesar, and derivatives that referred to his royalty as “Royal City”. Such was the obsession of the Russians with the city that, after its fall to the Turks, they came to regard Moscow as the “Third Rome” (with Constantinople as the second), and the Orthodox Russians as the successors of their Empire (Figes , 2012: 50, 68).
There were also different variants around the world beyond Eastern Europe. In the west, in the lands of Italy or the Crown of Aragon, we can often find examples of quite curious fictitious etymologies. The royal chancellery, which created the denomination of Constantine Nobile and Romance derivatives, where the adjective noble was attached to the name of Emperor Constantine by pure sound similarity:
Very dear king and very beloved nephew, we certify that the emperor of Constantin noble sent you a messenger of his for some matters concerning him and his empire
(1401 January 15, Barcelona ACA, Chancellery reg. 2211, f. 39r)
From the cities of the West (and partly in the East) many nicknames were also adopted to refer to the city. Among them the best known may be the Queen or Empress of the Cities (Βασιλευουσα), again citing its large size. Not for nothing Constantinople was conceived in Christian times as a new Jerusalem, and the nickname was used by not a few scholars of the time.
It may seem that the name to dry as “city” is unimaginative, but it really is the best example of what it represented. We are no longer talking about a time of greatness at its population peak (between the 5th and 6th centuries), but even in the times of Basil II or Alejo I (10th and 12th centuries) its population continued to exceed one hundred thousand people without difficulty . And, due to its capital status, it concentrated in its center the administration, the different religious processes, the wealthiest, most of the commerce, and politics, among others…