I can't put it better than John Julius Norwich - whom I first read after a wonderful trip to Istanbul many years ago:
"In the beginning was the word - surely one of the most magically resonant place-names in all history. Even had its Empire never existed, even had there been no W.B. Yeats to celebrate it, even had it remained what it was at the outset - a modest Greek settlement at the furthest extremity of the European continent, without pretensions or ambitions - Byzantium would surely have impressed itself upon our minds and memories by the music of its name alone, conjuring up those same visions that it evokes today: visions of gold and malachite and porphyry, of stately and solemn ceremonial, of brocades heavy with rubies and emeralds, of sumptuous mosaics dimly glowing through halls cloudy with incense."
It's rich, ornate, stylised stuff - one is either into it or not, I think.
Here are a couple of coins I'm fortunate to own - pre-Anastasius, but I think few would object given that they were minted in Constantinople (I'm horribly incompetent at photography, so auction photos will have to do for now):
Leo I Solidus
Zeno Solidus
