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On May 11, A. D. 330, on the shores of the Bosphorus, Constantine solemnly dedicated his new capital, Constantinople.

Why did the Emperor, turning his back upon ancient Rome, remove to the East the seat of the monarchy? Not only had Constantine no personal liking for the turbulent pagan city of the Caesars, but he also, and not without good reason, considered it badly placed for meeting the new exigencies with which the Empire was confronted. The Gothic peril on the Danube, the Persian peril in Asia, were imminent; and though the powerful tribes of Illyricum offered admirable resources for defense, Rome was too far away to make use of them for that purpose. Diocletian had realized this, and he too had felt the attraction of the Orient. At all events, the Byzantine Empire came into being on the day when Constantine founded "New Rome." By virtue of its geographical situation, where Europe joins Asia, and of the military and economic importance resulting therefrom, Constantinople was the natural center around which the Eastern world could most readily group itself. On the other hand, by virtue of the Grecian stamp which had been imprinted upon it from the very beginning, and especially by virtue of the character which Christianity imparted to it, the new capital differed fundamentally from the old, and symbolized accurately enough the aspirations and the new tendencies of the Eastern world.

Moreover, long before this, a new conception of the monarchy had been astir in the Roman Empire. The transformation came about at the beginning of the fourth century, through contact with the Near East. Constantine strove to make of the imperial power an absolute domination by divine right. He surrounded it with all the splendor of costume, of the crown, and the royal purple; with all the pompous ceremonial of etiquette, with all the magnificence of court and palace. Deeming himself the representative of God on earth, believing that in his intellect he was a reflection of the supreme intellect, he endeavored in all things to emphasize the sacred character of the sovereign, to separate him from the rest of mankind by the solemn forms with which he surrounded him; in a word, to make earthly royalty as it were an image of the divine royalty.

In like manner, in order to increase the prestige and power of the imperial office, he proposed that the monarchy should be clothed with executive power, strictly hierarchical in form, closely safeguarded, and with all authority concentrated in the hands of the emperor. And finally, by making Christianity a state religion, by multiplying immunities and privileges in its favor, by defending it against heresy, and by extending his protection to it under all circumstances, Constantine gave an altogether different character to the power of the Emperor. Seated among the bishops, "as if he were one of them"; posing as the accredited guardian of dogma and discipline; intervening in all affairs of the Church; legislating and giving judgment in its name, organizing and directing it, convoking and presiding over its councils; dictating the formulas of faith, Constantine -- and all his successors after him, whether orthodox or Arians -- regulated according to one uniform principle the relations of State and Church. This is what came to be called Caesaropapism, the despotic authority of the emperor over the Church; and the Oriental clergy, creatures of the court, ambitious and worldly, docile and pliant, accepted this tyranny without protest.

All this derived its inspiration from the deeply rooted conception of power dear to Oriental monarchies, and because of all this, although the Roman Empire endured for another century, -- until 476, -- although the Roman tradition remained alive and powerful, even in the Orient, until the end of the sixth century, nevertheless the Oriental part of the monarchy was concentrated around the city of Constantine and became, so to speak, conscious of its own importance.

From the fourth century on, despite the apparent and theoretical maintenance of Roman unity, in real ity the two halves of the Empire were separated more than once, and were governed by different emperors; and when, in 395, Theodosius the Great died, leaving to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius an inheritance divided into two empires, the separation, which had long been imminent, became definitive. . .

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