CHAPTER VII.
[(1.)] “city of Samson.”—This is the ancient Amisos, still called Samsoun by the Turks. Fallmerayer (Gesch. d. K. v. T., 56, 289) observes, that the Byzantines frequently added a prefix to a name, such as εἰς, which, in time, became contracted to ες and σ, and in this way Ἄμισον was turned into σ' Ἄμισον—Σάμσον. This city, the chief town of Janyk, was then under the dominion of another Bajazet, surnamed the Impotent, who perished in his struggle with Bajazet about 1392.—Bruun.
(1A.) Fallmerayer’s explanation may be further illustrated, by quoting the names of ancient cities in the Morea and in the island of Crete, that have undergone change through the probable corruptions of a prefix. Hierapytna has become Tzerapetra; Itanus is now Tzetana, Tsitana, and even Sitana. Etea has become Setea, while Stamboul, Istamboul, itself is a corruption of Εἰς τὴν πόλιν. The modern Greeks would also appear to be in the habit of thus corrupting words in ordinary use, as, for instance, ampelon, vineyard, they call tsembela; kampos, a field, tzecampo, etc. (Spratt, Researches in Crete, i, 55, 200).—Ed.