The emperor Diocletian undertakes the reorganization of the Roman Empire in 285, dividing jurisdiction between its Latin-speaking and Greek-speaking halves.

Diocletian's successor, Constantine, establishes his capital in 330 at the Greek city of Byzantium, a "New Rome" strategically situated on the European side of the Bosporus at its entrance to the Sea of Marmara.

The city, embellished and renamed Constantinople, will for nearly twelve centuries remain the capital of the Roman Empire—better known in its continuous development in the East as the Byzantine Empire.