Istanbul vs. Canstantinople vs. Byzantium

[Ptah]

Poll question: Istanbul vs. Canstantinople vs. Byzantium

[MrScorpio]

1. Istanbul

It's the only period that good for Turkish food

[Posteritatis]

4. One imagines Byzantium's food is a bit stale by now, yes. (nt)

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. Why is Constantinople getting the works? nt

[redqueen]

3. That is being nobody's business but the Turks. (nt)

[Richardo]

5. ..

:D:thumbsup:

[jobycom]

6. Just the thread title means I've got that worm the rest of the week.

:rofl:

[AngryAmish]

17. shakes fist at requeen

[Deep13]

7. It's always Constantinople for me....

...I'm still pissed that after two thousand years of Roman civilization, the Muslim Turks killed it.

[billyclem]

14. 1453 a black year in history. n/t

[cemaphonic]

16. put it out of its misery, says I.

The Byzantine Empire had been in a long period of decline by the time the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, and was pretty backwards politically and economically. And the Turks thought of themselves as the inheritors of the Roman Empire, rather than its conqueror (a major source of their constant disputes with Russia, which made the same claim).

[Bucky]

8. Wasn't Byzantion (Greek spelling) founded on the site of old Troy?

Actually, "Troy" is the Romanization of "Ilium" (hence, The Iliad). So I vote none of the above.

And why are you spelling Constantinople wrong?

[Posteritatis]

9. Troy was on the Dardanelles; Byzstantinbul's on the Bosporus. (nt)

[Ptah]

11. sorry

Κωνσταντινούπολις

[cemaphonic]

13. No, the site of the historical Troy is at the other end of the Dardanelles

And quite a bit older than Byzantium.

[Capn Sunshine]

10. that dolphin torn, that gong tormented sea

Yeats, you guys
Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.


Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.


Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the starlit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.


At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.


Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood,
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

[yawnmaster]

12. You do realize that now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople...

Been a long time gone, Constantinople.
Why even bring it up?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

19. 'cuz it's a Turkish Delight on a moonlit night?

[Kali]

15. meh - big city

gimme the coast or gimme Cappadocia/Anatolia back country

:P

[racaulk]

18. This sounds like a song I know. n/t