Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Byzantium   /bəzˈæntiəm/   Listen
Byzantium

noun
1.
An ancient city on the Bosporus founded by the Greeks; site of modern Istanbul; in 330 Constantine I rebuilt the city and called it Constantinople and made it his capital.
2.
A continuation of the Roman Empire in the Middle East after its division in 395.  Synonyms: Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Byzantium" Quotes from Famous Books



... Fragment 11—Stephanus of Byzantium [1708], s.v.: '(Heracles) slew the noble sons of steadfast Neleus, eleven of them; but the twelfth, the horsemen Gerenian Nestor chanced to be staying with the horse-taming Gerenians. ((LACUNA)) Nestor alone ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... from the emperors of the East, through Anne, wife of Henry I., King of France, and daughter of Iaroslaf, or Georges, King of Russia, whose father, the great Vladimir, married Anne, sister of Basilius, Emperor of Byzantium. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... well received. They persuaded its people to prepare an expedition against Czargrad, the City of the Czar or Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as Constantinople, but at that time named Byzantium. The expedition of Kief under Askold and Dir sailed down the Dnieper in a fleet of 200 large boats, entered the Golden Horn—or Bosphorus,—and began the siege of Constantinople. The capital was saved by the Patriarch or head of the Greek Church, who plunged a wonder-working ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... the Turks. The barbarous Jacobins blended modern equality with the refined civilisation of ancient France; the barbarous Ottomans blended their equality with the refined civilisation of ancient Rome. Paris secured to the Jacobins those luxuries that their system never could have produced: Byzantium served the same purpose to the Turks. Both the French and their turbaned prototypes commenced their system with popular enthusiasm, and terminated it with general subjection. Napoleon and Louis Philippe are playing ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... of jurisprudence was so enormous that there were schools of law in every part of the Empire, even in the very domain of Metaphysics. But, though the transfer of the seat of empire to Byzantium gave a perceptible impetus to its cultivation in the East, jurisprudence never dethroned the pursuits which there competed with it. Its language was Latin, an exotic dialect in the Eastern half of the Empire. It is only of the West that ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... of Kherson, then containing about sixty thousand inhabitants, surrounded by all the magnificence which Russian and Austrian opulence could exhibit. A triumphal arch spanned the gate, upon which was inscribed in letters of gold, "The road to Byzantium." Four days were passed here in revelry. The party then entered the Crimea, and continued their journey as far as Sevastopol, where the empress was delighted to find, within its capacious harbor, many Russian frigates at anchor. Immense sums were expended in furnishing ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... then absorbs herself in the adoration of the 'Girl in the Hat.' Then she sighs out: 'It should be called Diaphaneite, if there is such a word. Ah! This is the last expression of modernity!' She puts up suddenly her face-a-main and looks towards the end wall. 'And that—Byzantium itself! Who was she, this sullen and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... you, who see no magic in them, but have your own lunacy in another phase, would laugh at mine. Celebes, Acapulco, Para, Port Royal, Cartagena, the Marquesas, Panama, the Mackenzie River, Tripoli of Barbary. They are some of mine. Rome should be there, I know, and Athens, and Byzantium. But they are not, and that is all I ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... the camp without the walls of Byzantium, and was engaged in the final arrangements of the army previous to the departure for Syria—oppressed and often irritated by the variety and weight of the duties which claimed his care—when, about the hour of noon, as he was sitting in his tent, he was ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... Constantine the Great, the ruler who made Christianity the religion of the empire, chose a new capital instead of Rome. He loved Eastern magnificence and Eastern ways, and he chose for his new capital the old Greek colony of Byzantium, the beautiful city on the Golden Horn, which Constantine soon made into a new Rome, with churches and theatres and baths, like the old Rome. The new Rome was given a new name. Constantine had turned Byzantium into a new city, and it has ever since been known as ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... do with this great army when it arrived at Greek cities. Xenophon had always dreamt of forming on the border of Hellenedom a new city state, which should honor him as its founder. The wilder spirits thought it simpler to loot some rich city like Byzantium, which was saved with difficulty from their lawlessness. The Spartan governors, who now ruled throughout the Greek world, saw the danger, and were determined to delay and worry the dangerous horde until it dissipated; and they succeeded ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... "Son'' as two aspects of the same subject, but a simpler and more popular method was the "adoptionist'' or humanitarian. Basing their views on the synoptic Gospels, and tracing descent from the obscure sect of the Alogi, the Adoptianists under Theodotus of Byzantium tried to found a school at Rome c. 185, asserting that Jesus was a man, filled with the Holy Spirit's inspiration from his baptism; and sa attaining such a perfection of holiness that he was adopted by God and exalted to divine dignity. Theodotus was excommunicated by the bishop of Rome, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... shore is looked down upon by Port Athyras and Selymbria, and Constantinople, formerly called Byzantium, a colony of the Athenians, and Cape Ceras, having at its extremity a lofty tower to serve as a lighthouse to ships—from which cape also a very cold wind which often arises from ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... the Greek word answering to the Roman Gallia, that is, Gaul. It was one of the central provinces of Asia Minor, and received its name from the circumstance of its being inhabited by a people of Gallic origin who came by the way of Byzantium and the Hellespont in the third century before Christ. Two visits of the apostle to Galatia are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles; the first, during his second missionary journey (Acts 16:6); and the second, at the beginning of his third journey (Acts 18:23). After which of these ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... A.D.$ The "Eastern Roman" style, originating in the removal of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople (then called Byzantium). It is a combination of Persian and Roman. It influenced the various Moorish, Sacracenic ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor

... Boasters, the, of Corinth Bottles painted on coffins Boxing, story of Brasidas, an Athenian general Brigand, the option of Buffoonery at Megara Bullocks' intestines, as comparison Buzzard, double meaning Byzantium ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... Germany shall have recalled her troops from the Peninsula and Austria summoned back her contingents to strike the Bulgarians and strive to reopen the road from the AEgean to Belgrade, thus cutting the railroad that binds Berlin to Byzantium and the Osmanli to the Teuton. Similarly the victorious Russians have passed Erzingan in Asia Minor (Vol. V, 337), completed the conquest of Armenia, and are pushing on toward Sivas and the Bagdad ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... "New lands" merely, but the adventurous heart of his race, lured on by the magic of the sea, its receding horizons, its danger and its change, spread the fame and the terror of the Norsemen from the basilicas, the marbles, and the thronging palaces of Byzantium to the solitary homestead set in the English forest-clearing, or in the wastes of Ireland which the zeal of her monasteries was slowly reclaiming. To the glamour of war for its own sake the Crusades brought ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... know it first. Here I sit, the poor unknown old monk, until I die. And shall I tell thee what that world is like? I was Arsenius, tutor of the emperor. There at Byzantium I saw the world which thou wouldst see, and what I saw thou wilt see. Bishops kissing the feet of parricides. Saints tearing saints in pieces for a word. Falsehood and selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times confounded. And thou wouldst go ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... Puzzled at the moment, I inquired what this great word related to, when lo, I was told that I was now in the city of Gioachinopoli, so called in compliment to the reigning sovereign, Gioachino Murat, the termination being added in imitation of the emperor Constantine, who gave his name to the ancient Byzantium! ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... humanity, roaring and squeaking through the public press. There it stands, this incomprehensible faded show, a thing left on one side, and now still and deserted by any interest, its many emptinesses as inexplicable now as the cruelties of medieval Venice, the theology of old Byzantium. And they ruled and influenced the lives of nearly a quarter of mankind, these politicians, their clownish conflicts swayed the world, made mirth perhaps, made excitement, and ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... his two pupils, between whom, at their father's death, the Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western, grow more and more incapable of governing. He saw a young barbarian, whom he must have often met at the court in Byzantium, as Master of the Horse, come down from his native forests, and sack the Eternal City of Rome. He saw evil and woe unspeakable fall on that world which he had left behind him, till the earth was filled with blood, and Antichrist ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... certain Theodotus, a native of Byzantium, introduced a novel heresy, saying some things concerning the origin of the universe partly in keeping with the doctrines of the true Church, in so far as he admits that all things were created by God. Forcibly appropriating, however, his idea of Christ from the Gnostics and from ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with twenty ships from Peloponnese. With him sailed the Athenians with thirty ships, and a number of the other allies. They made an expedition against Cyprus and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium, which was in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender. This event took place while the Spartans were still supreme. But the violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... appears to have been introduced from Byzantium through Venice into Western Europe at the close of the tenth century. After this time Greek artists are known to have visited this country, and to have carried on a lucrative trade in the manufacture ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... ear, and shot his shaft at the tower. The Gothic captain, who was directing its movements from the summit, had trusted too much to the workmanship of his Milan armour. The fabric was not equal to that of Byzantium. The shaft pierced him to the heart; he tottered a moment on the edge of the tower, and then fell headlong forward. The second shaft brought down another Goth. Belisarius then ordered his archers to shoot at the oxen, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... of her temporal Empire which spread so wide about the world all that good and evil which men can never forget, and never cease to feel; the clashing of East and West, South and North, about her rich and fruitful daughter Byzantium; the rise, the dissensions, and the waning of Islam; the wanderings of Scandinavia; the Crusades; the foundation of the States of modern Europe; the struggles of free thought with ancient dying system—with all these events ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... him for the neglect of contemporaries. La Fontaine is perhaps more indebted to Phaedrus than to any other of his predecessors; and, especially in the first six books, his style has much of the same curious condensation. When the seat of the empire was transferred to Byzantium, the Greek language took precedence of the Latin; and the rhetorician Aphthonius wrote forty fables in Greek prose, which became popular. Besides these collections among the Romans, we find apologues scattered through the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... where on the mournful shore Rose Hero's tower, and Helle born of cloud (32) Took from the rolling waves their former name. Nowhere with shorter space the sea divides Europe from Asia; though Pontus parts By scant division from Byzantium's hold Chalcedon oyster-rich: and small the strait Through which Propontis pours the Euxine wave. Then marvelling at their ancient fame, he seeks Sigeum's sandy beach and Simois' stream, Rhoeteum noble for its Grecian ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... Byzantium the seat of his empire, he decorated that city with splendid edifices, and called it after his own name. Desirous to make reparation to the Christians for the injuries they had suffered during the reign of his predecessor, he commanded the most diligent search to be made after those books which ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... far-reaching importance in the following century was the elevation by Constantine the Great of the Greek colony of Byzantium into the imperial city of Constantinople in 325. This century also witnessed the arrival of the Huns in Europe from Asia. They overwhelmed the Ostrogoths, between the Dnieper and the Dniester, in 375, and the Visigoths, settled in Transylvania and the modern Rumania, moved southwards in sympathy ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... preparation of fifty costly and beautiful copies of the Holy Scriptures under the care of Eusebius of Caesarea. Tischendorf himself thinks—and his conjecture is accepted by other scholars—that this is one of those fifty Bibles, and that it was sent from Byzantium to the monks of this convent by the Emperor Justinian, who was its founder. At all events, it is incontestably a manuscript of great age, certainly of the fourth century, and probably of the first half ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... even the necessity of their proposals, but that they must prove themselves to be in earnest by some act which would make it impossible for the great body of them to draw back. Upon this, Ouliades of Samos, and Antagoras of Chios conspired together, and off Byzantium, they ran on board of the ship of Pausanias, which was sailing before the rest. He on seeing this, rose up in a rage and threatened that in a short time he would let them know that they had not endangered his ship, but their own native ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... it was probably here too, that Constantine learned Armenian; for the introduction of several Armenian letters into the Slavic alphabet seems to prove, that this language was not unknown to him. When grown up, his parents sent him to Byzantium, where he ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... narrow arm of the sea, which branches from the Bosporus (a sort of broad river which connects the Marmora and Black Seas,) and, curving around, divides the city in the middle. Galata and Pera are on one side of the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn; Stamboul (ancient Byzantium) is upon the other. On the other bank of the Bosporus is Scutari and other suburbs of Constantinople. This great city contains a million inhabitants, but so narrow are its streets, and so crowded together are its houses, that it does not cover much more than half as much ground as New York City. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... highlands of Asia Minor loaded with the spices and jewels of India and the silks of China. Men of every conceivable Asiatic country were drawn by the irresistible attraction of hoped-for profit to the quays and the Fora of Byzantium. The scattered homesteads of the Ostrogothic farmers had no such wonderful power of drawing men over thousands of miles of land and sea to visit them. Then the bright and varied life of the Imperial ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to play its great role ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... turned that vast movement into another source of wealth. It rose rapidly to that naval supremacy which enabled it to capture piratical vessels and wealthy galleons, to seize or sack Ionian cities, to storm Byzantium, and make the south of Greece its suburb. Its manufactures were multiplied. Its dockyards were thronged with busy workmen. Its palaces were crowded with precious and famous works of art, while themselves marvels of beauty. St. Mark's unfolded its magnificent loveliness above the great square. ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... "new," compared to the empire on the Bosphorus; they were also in every way different; their lines of ancestral descent had nothing in common with that of the polyglot realm which paid tribute to the Caesars of Byzantium; their social problems and after-time history were totally different. This is not true of those "new" nations which spring direct from old nations. Brazil, the Argentine, the United States, are all "new" nations, compared with the nations of Europe; but, with ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt



Words linked to "Byzantium" :   geographic region, geographic area, Roman Empire, urban center, Byzantine Empire, metropolis, Eastern Roman Empire, city, geographical region, Byzantine, geographical area



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com