The city of walls: Constantinople - Lars Brownworth
The world owes much of its cultural legacy to Constantinople's walls. When Constantinople was under seige by neighboring enemies, the Roman city's ...
========== Translator: tom carter
Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar The most important walls in western history aren't even in the West. They surround the modern city of Istanbul, Constantinople as the Romans called it. And for a thousand years, the fate of Europe depended on them. Constantinople was designed to be the center of the world. When the frontiers of the Roman Empire began to crumble in the 4th Century, the capital was moved to the cultured, wealthy, and still stable East. There, at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the hub of the major trade routes of the ancient world, the Emperor Constantine built his city. This was the city of libraries and universities, 20 times the size of London or Paris at the time. It contained the priceless knowledge of the classical world which was fading in the West. ...