In a message dated 99-10-19 11:56:43 EDT, you write:
<< While the thousand year 'rep.' is an unattested reflection of a
need for sacred legitimation, the city... small, and relatively
unimportant... but quite well placed... does, as I understand the sources,
seem to have documented reference for about four or five hundred years
prior to its name change.
In the shifting contours of an ever-present debate over not only antiquity,
but the content and qaulity of that antiquity, in a theological rhetoric in
which the argument for, excuse the cross-reference,the 'real presence' of
typological prefiguration became critical,... the city's historical past
grew and grew...and grew. >>
One can go further. If I remember correctly Byzantium figured in the
Peloponnesian War and in Philip of Macedon's conquest of the region, so there
is at least 700 years to consider. I'm almost sure, as well, that most
ancient Greek scholars accept its foundation around the year 700 BC. But I
think you are generally right that its significance before Constantine is
rather minimal.
mark
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