The Heaven of Mercury continued.

In the year 330, Constantine, after his conversion and baptism by Sylvester ( note 409 ), removed the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, which received from him its more modern name of Constantinople. He called it also New Rome; and, having promised to the Senators and their families that they should soon tread again on Roman soil, he had the streets of Constantinople strewn with earth which he had brought from Rome in ships.

The transfer of the empire from west to east was turning the imperial eagle against the course of heaven, which it had followed in coming from Troy to Italy with Aeneas, who married Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, and was the founder of the Roman Empire. ↩

From 324, when the seat of empire was transferred to Constantinople by Constantine, to 527, when the reign of Justinian began. ↩