HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

There has been a settlement on the Bosphorus waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea for more than 2600 years. All ships leaving Russia, the newly independent countries of the Caucasus, the Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria must pass through the Bosphorus Strait past the city of Istanbul to reach the Aegean Sea and the markets of the world. The Bosphorus is the boundary between Europe on the west and Asia on the east, although both sides are within the national borders of Turkey.

The strategic significance of the Bosphorus was not lost on the Greek sailors of the city-state of Megara, near Athens, when they founded Chalcedon on the Asian side of the Bosphorus in 685 BC. The Greeks soon recognized that the European west side had the better prospects for a city and port, and so 28 years later, the Megarans, led by King Byzas, founded a second town they called Byzantion, after their king, on the European side of the Bosphorus. The strategic location of the city led to further Greek exploration and colonization around the shores of the Black Sea. With the advent of the Romans, the town became known by its Latin name, Byzantium. It was part of the Roman province of Bithynia, on the south shores of the Black Sea.

In the days of the Roman Empire, Byzantium increased its importance, particularly after the Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire in AD 285 into western and eastern domains. During this time, the new Christian religion was growing in importance, and in AD 330, Christianity was adopted by Emperor Constantine I as the state religion of the Roman Empire. The city of Byzantium was renamed Constantinople after the emperor, a name it would keep for the next 1600 years until the name was officially changed to Istanbul. (However, the city had been unofficially referred to as Istanbul by Muslims as long ago as the tenth century.) When the western half of the empire, including Rome, was overrun, the remains of the Roman Empire became known as the Byzantine Empire. The main language of the Roman Empire had been Latin, but after the division of the empire and the collapse of its western half, the language and culture of the region reverted to Greek.