Books on the history of Turkey discuss the region that now forms part of the Republic of Turkey. It includes the history of both Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey) and Eastern Thrace (the European part of Turkey). The history of Turkey spans the medieval history of the Seljuk Empire, the medieval and modern history of the Ottoman Empire, and the history of the Republic of Turkey. The Persian Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC, which led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization of Anatolia. Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, Anatolia was divided into several Hellenistic kingdoms, which became part of the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC. In 324 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine I chose Byzantium to be the new capital, renaming it New Rome. In 395 there was a permanent division of the Roman Empire, with Constantinople becoming the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which later became called the Byzantine Empire. The Turkic people initially lived in the area betwee