The protests were also against high taxes which the emperor intended to impose on citizens. These rival supporters joined to violently protest attempts by the Byzantine Empire, led by Emperor Justinian 1, to execute their two leaders who had been arrested for unrest. The riots were masterminded by the powerful and diehard fanatics of the Blue and the Greens chariot and horse racing teams. ![]() In 532 AD in Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire was almost brought down by what is historically known as the Nika Riots. Still Christianity remained the dominant religion as the Byzantine emperor was both the head of the church and the empire. As a result, the Byzantine Empire became a melting point of all external cultural influences, combined with Roman and Greek cultures. Merchants from Asia, Africa, and Europe travelled to the city to trade. As Constantinople was located between Europe and Asia, trade boomed. When Constantine became a Christian, he designated Byzantium as a Christian capital city, where pagan sacrifice was forbidden, although it was common in Rome. He assigned a senate and civic officers to administer it similarly to Rome, according to accounts by the Order of Constantine the Great. The Byzantine Empire began gaining prominence when Constantine rebuilt Byzantium, and renamed the city the New Rome. When the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD to Flavius Odoacer a German Barbarian’s troops, the surviving Eastern Roman empire, became the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as the capital city. Constantinople’s location shielded it from attacks. ![]() In 395 AD, when the Roman Empire was divided in half, the Eastern Roman Empire was based in Constantinople, and the Western Roman Empire in Ravenna, Northern Italy. Byzantium was near the Black sea and the Mediterranean Sea was renamed Constantinople. In 330 AD, Emperor Constantine I or Constantine the Great founded a new capital for the Roman Empire on Byzantium, an ancient Greek city that is today Istanbul. Though it imploded from the inside and fell to the Ottoman Turks, the empire's influence was a treasure to Western scholars due to its Greek intellectual influence. It ushered intellectual civilization and was responsible for the spread of Christianity. ![]() The Byzantine Empire began in 395 AD in Modern Day Istanbul as an extension of the Roman empire.
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