XVII.

CONSTAN

TINOPLE.

If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it ac- CHAP. quired with the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the imperial city may be represented under Descripthat of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which tion of advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood.

The winding channel through which the waters of The Bosthe Euxine flow with a rapid and incessant course to- phorus. wards the Mediterranean, received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the history, than in the fables of antiquity3. A crowd of temples and of votive altars profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; and of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the Cestus.

the city 656 years before the Christian æra. His followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterwards rebuilt and fortified by the Spartan general Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange Constantinopolis, 1. i. part i. cap. 15, 16. With regard to the wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who lived before the greatness of the imperial city had excited a spirit of flattery and fiction.

3 The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian (Hudson Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.), and by Gilles or Gyllius, a French traveller of the sixteenth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.) seems to have used his own eyes and the learning of Gyllius.

4 There are very few conjectures so happy as that of Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148.), who supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or Phænician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking resem blance.

5 The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old and the new

CHAP.
XVII.

The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets, had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen miles', and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter Urius. The old castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where the opposite banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were restored and strengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: but the Turkish conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand years before his reign, Darius had chosen the same situation to connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years

castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. 1. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre XV.

6 The deception was occasioned by several pointed rocks, alternately covered and abandoned by the waves. At present there are two small islands, one towards either shore; that of Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.

7 The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen Ro. man miles. They measured only from the new castles, but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.

& Ducas Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcia Musulmanica, 1. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of Lethe, or towers of oblivion.

9 Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters on two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The Byzantines afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodo. tus, 1. iv. c. 87.

XVII.

before the former; and the blindness of its founders, CHAP. who overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been stigmatised by a proverbial expression of contempt.

The harbour of Constantinople, which may be con- The port. sidered as an arm of the Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be com, pared to the horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an ox". The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the harbour, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city from the attack of an hostile navy13.

10 Namque artissimo inter Europam Assiamque divortio Byzantium in extremâ Europa posuere Græci, quibus, Pythium Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum est, quærerent sedem cæcorum terris adveram. Eâ ambage Chalcedonii monstrabantur, quòd priores illuc advecti, prævisâ locorum utilitate pejora legissent. Tacit. Annal. xii. 62. 11 Strabo, 1. x. p. 492. Most of the antlers are now broke off; or, to speak less figuratively, most of the recesses of the harbour are filled up. See Gyllius de Bosphoro Thracio, 1. i. c. 5.

12 Procopius de Edificiis, l. i. c. 5. His description is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part i. 1. i. c. 15. Tournefort, Lettre XII. Niebuhr Voyage d'Arabie, p. 22.

13 See Ducange, C. P. I. i. part i. c. 16. and his Observations sur Ville hardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from the Acropolis, near the modern Kiosh, to the tower of Galata; and was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.

CHAP.
XVII.

Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia receding on either side inThe Pro- close the sea of Marmara, which was known to the pontis. ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows1. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.

The Hel. lespont.

The geographers who, with the most skilful aceuracy, have surveyed the form and extent of the Helles. pont, assign about sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits'. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Cestus and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It was here likewise, in a place where the distance between the

14 Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. 1. i. c. 14.) contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon (Observations 1. ii. c. 1) gives a good description of the Propontis, but contents himself with the vague ex pression of one day and one night's sail. When Sandys (Travels, p. 21.) talks of 150 furlongs in length as well as breadth, we can only suppose some mistake of the press in the text of that judicious traveller,

15 See an admirable dissertation of M. d'Anville upon the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 318-346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of supposing new, and perhaps imaginary measures, for the purpose of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the Bosphorus, &c. (1. iv. c. 85.) must undoubt. edly be all of the same species: but it seems impossible to reconcile them either with truth or with each other.

16 The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was thirty stadia, The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is exposed by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets and medals by M. de la Nauze. See the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. vii. Hist. p. 74. Mem. p. 240.