"But it's Byzantium here!" exclaims, his eyes shining, as he discovers the buffet. Indeed, the wine flows freely and the cakes are lost in the floors. One thing is for sure, the hosts have not opted for sobriety. It's the ultimate luxury! Your friend is right. The expression is of a finesse perfectly suited to the elegance of the evening.
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"Byzantium" is the symbol of opulence. The city concentrates the gold and splendour of the millennium that saw the growth of the Eastern Empire. It is said to have been founded by two mythical heroes, Bazas and Antes. Soon renamed Constantinople by Emperor Constantine I, it was a "New Rome". From the fourth to the thirteenth century, a megalopolis even more prestigious than our modern cities, it is the unbeatable reference. The Varangians call it "great city", the Arabs "great city of the Romans", the Slavs "city of the emperor". The influence of today's Istanbul transcends all borders.
Libraries, research and art centres... The richness of its cultural influence is immense. Hence this symbol of luxury and profusion. To say "this is Byzantium" is to boast of the prodigious abundance of a meal, the extravagant gilding of a monument... We stay in good taste of course, but forgetting all weighting.
The expression seems to have been popularized by Fernand Trignol, a twentieth-century slang author. In one of his travelling plays, his character exclaims: "What a luxury! What a stupefaction! But it's Byzantium!" It should be noted that it is most often used with striking irony. "It's Byzantium, you say," you can say with a smirk at your real estate agent's unattractive presentation.