Moving the Imperial Capital

Sometimes an Emperor is compelled to move his capital city.

Such an eventuality was undertaken in the reign of my great ancestor Constantine the Great.  In 330 A.D. Constantine undertook the decision to transfer the seat of Roman imperial power from ancestral Rome to the Eastern Greek city of Byzantium (Constantinople) in Asia Minor.

[The Emperor Constantine the Great: 274 - 337A.D.]

It was a momentous historical decision that saw the Eastern Empire ultimately flourish; preserving effective 'Roman' civilisation for centuries beyond the subsequent slow death and eventual collapse of the Western Roman Empire. *

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It was with such a glorious precedent in mind that the Emperor recently moved his own capital (in a Ford Transit van), also from West to the East.

[The Emperor moves home: March 2012]

From 18 miles West of Edinburgh back into the North of the city it was not an easy move, but the Emperor believes it was a prudent one.

No it was not pressure from barbarian incursion or civil strife that led to my moving of the imperial capital, but more modern pressures such as employment, commuting, and the elusive work-life balance ....   

The Emperor will consolidate his new seat of his power. The 'Athens of the North' (Edinburgh), shall once again become my new Rome ...

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*Its an interesting footnote in this context to note that Rome - the remaining capital of Western Roman Empire -  was itself subsumed by the Northern Italian city of Ravenna, when in 402 A.D, Western power was transferred there by the Emperor Honorius. By this period in its fast fading glory the city of the Romans was no longer a viable or defensible capital.