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Furthermore, in virtue of its new dignity, the city was relieved from its subordination to the town of Heraclea,^[152] imposed since the time of Septimius Severus, and the members of the public council of New Rome were constituted into a Senate, with the right to bear the title of Clari.^[153]

For municipal purposes the city was divided, like Rome, into Fourteen Regions,^[154] two of them being outside the circuit of the fortifications, viz. the Thirteenth, which comprised Sycæ (Galata), on the northern side of the Golden Horn, and the Fourteenth, constituting the suburb of Blachernæ, now the quarters of Egri Kapou and Aivan Serai.

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The enduring character of the political reasons which had called the new capital into being, and the commercial advantages which its unique position commanded, favoured such an increase of population, that before eighty-five years had elapsed, the original limits of Constantinople proved too narrow for the crowds gathered within the walls.