Byzantium is the capital of the world “at this moment of the empire” — the Roman empire that did not fall — a warm court city, “fertile and happy Byzantium”.
| Type | Place (imperial capital) |
| Era | 1050 (mentions of 1051) |
| Spanish entry | Bizancio |
Description
Groves lie nearby. Three sites order the city:
- The Palace, “the nerve center”, housing the court and the companions; Arab scholars live in its libraries, and Muslims may pray in public.
- The Hippodrome, “the feeling of the people”, holding thirty or forty thousand or more, where ancient gods are kept “prisoners in the form of statues”.
- Hagia Sophia: religion.
In an arena, houses compete in funeral games for a trophy that is a book. Byzantine dress is status tunics, long braided hair and long beards; Merle adopted it, and those bound for the desert add the turban.
Power
- The court: ministries of Finance, Love Tasks, Peace (“which also works as war”) and Abundance, the Cornucopia; aristocratic hierarchs who can demand, order executions and report noncompliance upward.
- The color factions: green, blue, red and white, green and blue foremost. Organized clubs, they control trade, treaties, imperial decisions and the Hippodrome, where they clash, and can kill and depose emperors.
- The brotherhood, which “regulates the powers of the city, and many are demonic powers”.
Empire and time
The empire reaches Wallachia and the Balkans; its eastern frontiers are mentioned with the founding of territories. The companions have lived there “almost a year”. The lady of the oasis, a ghost of unstable chronology who saw the city in dreams and once visited incognito, says: “I was in Byzantium a thousand years later.”
Old Byzantium is remembered for five houses and five dragons: black, red, blue, white and green.
Conflicting accounts
- In one account the city is at its height.
- In another it “lost much power” and “has about a hundred years left until it falls”. Whether these are two moments or two views is not established.
Open questions
- Whether the brotherhood is part of the court, watches it or competes with it is unknown.
- Whether the factions and the dragon-houses are one system, and whether a Yellow faction exists, is unknown.
- Whether the funeral games are custom or a one-off, which book is the trophy, and what the imprisoned gods are and who jailed them is unknown.
- Whether the Cornucopia is the ministry’s name or an attribute is unclear; physical descriptions, prices and coins are not recorded.