Exhibit Two: The Romans, the Byzantines, and early Christianity

From the ascension of Constantine the Great as emperor of the Roman Empire in 300, Constantinople became the new heart of the Eastern Empire. Under Constantine, the empire embraced the previously small, cultic and persecuted Christian faith and Christian art blossomed. As the eastern Empire grew farther and farther away from the dwindling west, Anatolia became the cosmopolitan center of the burgeoning East. Bishops preserved a fading Latin tradition through religious texts, and the Roman customs of public statuary were replaced with smaller, votive monuments. After the sack of Rome in the mid-5th century, Constantinople was firmly established as the Empire's, and perhaps the world's, center of culture, religion, and art.