New Rome
{{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Verification Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Infobox ancient site New Rome (Template:Langx, Néa Rhṓmē; {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Langx; {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) was the original name given by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great to his new imperial capital in 330 CE,<ref name="Britannica-Istanbul">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which was built as an expansion of the city of Byzantium on the European coast of the Bosporus strait.
The city was founded as Byzantion (Template:Langx) by Megarian colonists in 657 BCE.<ref name="Britannica-Istanbul"/> It was renamed by Constantine the Great first as "New Rome" (Nova Roma) during the official dedication of the city as the new Roman capital in 330 CE,<ref name="Britannica-Istanbul"/> which he soon afterwards changed to Constantinople (Constantinopolis).<ref name="Britannica-Istanbul"/><ref name="ODB">Template:ODB</ref> The city was officially renamed as Istanbul in the 20th century, after the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
Constantine essentially rebuilt the city on a monumental scale from 326<ref name="Georgacas1947">Template:Cite journal</ref> to 330, partly modeling it after Rome. Names of this period included {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "the New, second Rome";<ref>The 5th-century church historian Socrates of Constantinople writes in his Historia Ecclesiastica, 1:16 (c. 439) that the emperor named the city "Constantinople" while decreeing that it be designated a "second Rome" (‘Κωνσταντινούπολιν’ μετονομάσας, χρηματίζειν ‘δευτέραν Ῥώμην’ νόμῳ ἐκύρωσεν).</ref> {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "Byzantine Rome"; {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "Eastern Rome"; and Roma Constantinopolitana.<ref name=Georgacas1947 />Template:Rp
The term "New Rome" was used to indicate that Byzantium, thereafter Constantinople, was the second/new capital of the Roman Empire. In modern times, "New Rome" remains part of the official title of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of that city.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
During the Tetrarchy system established by Diocletian in the 3rd century, Nicomedia (modern İzmit) near Istanbul was the Eastern (and most senior) capital of the Roman Empire (Diocletian had his seat in Nicomedia as the Augustus of the East). The last Roman co-emperor in Nicomedia, Licinius, was defeated by Constantine at the Battle of Chrysopolis (in the modern Üsküdar district on the Asian side of Istanbul) on 18 September 324. Constantine used Nicomedia as his interim capital city between 324 and 330, while rebuilding and expanding Byzantium as Nova Roma (which he soon renamed again as Constantinopolis).<ref name="Britannica-Istanbul"/> Constantine died at a villa near Nicomedia on 22 May 337.