[8] Of these Sinope claimed to be the eldest, and honoured the Argonauts as its founders (Strabo, xii, 3).
[9] Ibid., vii, 6.
[10] Herodotus, iv, 144.
[11] Pliny, Hist. Nat., iv, 18 [11]. Ausonius compares Lygos to the Byrsa of Carthage (De Clar. Urb., 2).
[12] Not a Greek name; most likely that of a local chief.
[13] According to the Chronicon of Eusebius, Chalcedon was founded in Olymp. 26, 4, and Byzantium in Olymp. 30, 2, or 673, 659 B.C. In modern works of reference the dates 684, 667 seem to be most generally accepted. I pass over the legends associated with this foundation—the divine birth of Byzas; the oracle telling the emigrants to build opposite the city of the blind; another, which led the Argives (who were also concerned in the early history of Byzantium) to choose the confluence of the Cydarus and Barbyses, at the extremity of the Golden Horn, whence they were directed to the right spot by birds, who flew away with parts of their sacrifice—inventions or hearsay of later times, when the real circumstances were forgotten (see Strabo, vii, 6; Hesychius Miles, De Orig. CP., and others), all authors of comparatively late date. Herodotus (iv, 144), the nearest to the events (c. 450 B.C.), makes the plain statement that the Persian general Megabyzus said the Chalcedonians must have been blind when they overlooked the site of Byzantium.
[14] The remains of a “cyclopean” wall (Paspates, Βυζαντινὰ Ανάκτορα, p. 24), built with blocks of stone (some ten feet long?) probably belonged to old Byzantium, respecting which it is only certainly known that it stood at the north-east extremity of the promontory (Zosimus, ii, 30; Codinus, p. 24; with Mordtmann’s Map, etc.). It can scarcely be doubted that the site of the Hippodrome was outside the original walls, and thus we have a limit on the land side. It may be assumed that the so-called first hill formed an acropolis, round which there was an external wall inclosing the main part of the town (Xenophon, Anabasis, vii, 1, etc.). Doubtless the citadel covered no great area, and the city walls were kept close to the water for as long a distance as possible to limit the extent of investment in a siege.
[15] Polybius, iv, 38, 45, etc. It was abolished after a war with Rhodes, 219 B.C.
[16] Tacitus, Annal., xii, 63, and commentators. Strabo, ii, 6; Pliny, Hist. Nat., ix, 20 [15]. They are mostly tunny fish, a large kind of mackerel. In the time of Gyllius, women and children caught them simply by letting down baskets into the water (De Top. CP. pref.; so also Busbecq). Grosvenor, a resident, mentions that seventy sorts of fish are found in the sea about the city (Constantinople, 1895, ii, p. 576.)
[17] Strabo proves that the gulf was called the Horn, Pliny that the Horn was Golden (the promontory in his view), Dionysius Byzant. (Gyllius, De Bosp. Thrac., i, 5), that in the second century the inlet was named Golden Horn. Hesychius (loc. cit.) and Procopius (De Aedific., i, 5) say that Ceras was from Ceroessa, mother of Byzas.