From Greek Byzantion, named for the legendary Megarian founder Byzas — the city's name survives as a byword for intricate complexity through the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The ancient Greek city on the Bosphorus that became Constantinople and later Istanbul; also used figuratively to describe elaborate, complex, or devious political maneuvering.
From Ancient Greek 'Byzantion,' traditionally said to derive from the name of the legendary founder Byzas, a Megarian colonist. The colony was established around 657 BCE on the European side of the Bosphorus, at a site of extraordinary strategic importance controlling passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The name may have pre-Greek Thracian origins, possibly related to a
The people who lived in what we call the Byzantine Empire never used that name. They called themselves Romaioi (Romans) and their state the Roman Empire, without interruption. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was invented by German historian Hieronymus Wolf in 1557, a century after the empire's fall, and popularized by French