but one of the successors of Constantine professed the Christian faith.
These two events in the reign of Constantine — the transference of the capital from Rome to Constantinople and the official recognition of Christianity — mark out that reign as one of the most significant in the long history of the Roman state. Christian in doctrine, Greek in language, eclectic in culture, the new empire inaugurated by Con- stantine was to endure, with many vicissitudes, for about eleven centuries and a quarter. From the seventh century on it served as a bulwark against Islam. Finally, in 1453, it succumbed under the onrush of the new champions of that religion, the Ottoman Turks.
For a few years after the establishment of Constantinople the external and theoretical unity of the empire was main- tained. In practice, however, the two halves of the empire were frequently separated and ruled by different emperors. The final division came in 395 when Theodosius died and his sons Honorius and Arcadius succeeded, the former ruling over the western portion and the latter over the eastern. At last, in 476, Rome fell to Germanic invaders.
Byzantine Syria presents a different picture from Roman Syria. It was, on the whole, a Christian land. In fact this is the only period in which Syria has been a fully Christian country. Sandwiched in between the pagan Roman and the Arab Moslem, the Byzantine period was therefore unique in Syrian annals. At the end of the fourth century the province was divided into seven districts, with their capitals at Antioch, Apamea, Tyre, Horns, Caesarea, Scythopolis and Petra. The first two were still called Syria, the next two Phoenicia (though including inland cities which had never belonged to either Phoenicia or Lebanon) and the last three Palaestina, including the former province of Arabia.
Not only was the country Christian but the age was an ecclesiastical age. The church was its greatest institution;
