When Attalus III, the last of the ruling Attalid dynasty of Pergamum, died without a successor in 133 B.C., the Romans interpreted his ambiguous bequest in their favor and claimed the city, beginning the Roman Empire's mass penetration into Asia Minor. The Romans claimed Pergamum and effectively absorbed the independent states of Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus. Except for sporadic conflict -- most notably with Mithridates of Pontus, who between 88 and 63 B.C. massacred over 80,000 Romans at Ephesus -- the Asian Provinces enjoyed a relatively long and prosperous period of peace. It was during the 1st century A.D. that St. Paul, advocate of the Christian faith, began his missionary travels through Anatolia. (He was even briefly imprisoned at Ephesus.)
In A.D. 284, Emperor Diocletian instituted a doomed system of governmental reform, dividing the empire into two administrative units, both to be ruled by an emperor (an Augustus) and a designated heir (or Caesar). It was a system destined to collapse into civil war; but the long-term effect was a more theological schism, as Christianity grew and took hold. In the wake of Diocletian reform, Constantine emerged to establish his capital at the Greek town of Byzantium, rebuilding the city to equal if not surpass the splendor of Rome. Six years later, in 330, its architectural eminence realized, the city was baptized "New Rome," then renamed Constantinopolis (or Constantinople, now Istanbul) in honor of the emperor.
By the time Constantine had established imperial Roman power in Constantinople, his acceptance of Christianity was complete, having publicly espoused the faith in the Edict of Milan in 313, which mandated the tolerance of Christianity within the Roman Empire. Under Theodosius, paganism was outlawed and Christianity, by this time already widespread, was made the official religion of the state. By Theodosius's death in 395, the eastern and western provinces had grown apart ideologically, and the Roman Empire was divided in two. When Rome fell in 476, Constantinople emerged the dominant capital of the empire. But although predominantly Greek and Christian in culture, citizens of Byzantium considered themselves Roman, and the leadership maintained a thoroughly Roman administration.
