mystery, would seem worthy of a better and kindlier name. But the old memories still clung to it, and the fleet of the Argonauts, and their perilous passage through the "clashing" or "wandering" islets, as they were called, at the entrance into its waters, and Jason and Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and the weird land of Colchis, must have been present to the mind of every Greek and Roman voyager on the Euxine. A region with more fascinations, both for traveller and historical student, whether in the modern or ancient world, it is difficult to imagine. Whatever interest it may have had in the past, it is assuredly not likely to lose in our own day, and it may in the present generation become the scene of events which, for good or for evil, will immensely affect the destinies of mankind.
It was in the seventh century B.C., probably about 658 B.C., that the city on the Bosporus was originally founded. It was thus younger than Rome by about a century. The Greek genius for colonization was particularly active at this time, and the Thracian Chersonese, or the peninsula of Gallipoli, had already attracted a swarm of settlers, a large proportion of whom had come from Athens. Megara, one of the less politically famous Greek states, but rich and prosperous, was beginning to push out its colonies northwards to the shores of the Propontis, and a site so pre-eminently eligible as that of Byzantium could hardly be overlooked. Chalcedon, on the opposite coast of Bithynia, had already been occupied by emigrants from Megara. But these emigrants had, unluckily for themselves, not shown the usual discernment of Greek
