Name: Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities | BBC Select
Uploaded: 2026-01-13T02:30:54.000Z
Duration: 4 min 8 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic passive voice

Istanbul's story begins with the legend of a sea voyage by a Greek king named Byzas, son of the sea God Poseidon, who is said to have arrived here for the first time over two and a half thousand years ago.

King Byzas went to see the Delphic oracle and the oracle told him, you will build a great city opposite.

He was bewildered and mystified by this Delphic utterance.

And he only understood its meaning when he sailed right down here into the Golden Horn.

For one side he saw a Greek settlement, and

on the other side, he saw the perfect strategic position for a great city.

But with no city built there, he understood immediately that they must have been blind to build it in the wrong place.

He went to the right place and he started to build.

Byzas gave his name to the city he founded and the empire it ultimately became.

Here a metropolis was built which would itself become a legend.

The bridge of continents, the battleground of faiths.

And along with Jerusalem and Rome, one of the greatest holy cities in the world.

This is the view that you saw when you arrived at this famous city.

And this is how you caught your first glimpse of its palaces, its churches, its temples.

Conquerors and pilgrims, traders and travelers came here for its power, its holiness and its pleasure.

No wonder they called it the city of the world's desire.

Today, Istanbul's skyline is defined by the minarets of the Muslims who've made this city their own.

The air is filled with the calls to prayer for a mainly Islamic population.

But this is only the latest manifestation of this multi dimensional, ever changing city.

Before them, the temples and churches of Greek, Roman and Christian gods dominated these streets.

It was in Constantinople that the Virgin Mary was said to have defended the city on the ramparts.

It was here that the Muslim armies burst into the Christian city.

These are the streets that have been the battleground for some of the fiercest political and religious conflicts of the last two millennia.

Istanbul has been the focus of passion for the believers of two world religions.

And I've come here with the questions of both historian and traveler to examine the fabric of a place which has been the sacred imperial capital of two empires, one Islamic, one Christian, and

yet started out as little more than a humble fishing village.

In this series, I want to find out just how Byzantium became the very definition of heaven.

Blessed legitimacy when it began, with no claims at all to divine favorite Sam.