ins 



B1SZTKITZ. 



WTHYNIA. 



1116 



form a group of about twenty island*, inclosed by a reel Most of 

 them are inhabited, but some are nearly bare rock, and only visited 

 occasionally. The largest, Hanhi, is about 15 miles long. The inland* 

 Caracbe, Corbele, Cazegut, Gallinas, Orango, Caiiyabac, and Bulama 

 are much smaller. On Bulauia the EnglUh formed a settlement in 



ut it was abandoned in 1793 on account of its unhealthiness. 

 The islands, which are of volcanic origin, have an excellent soil, 

 composed chiefly of decomposed lava and vegetable matter. They are 

 i.i.-tly covered with wood, but there are some natural savannahs and 

 a few clear spaces, affording ample pasturage for great numbers of 

 elephants, deer, buffaloes, and other wild animals. The inhabitant* 

 cultivate some maize, and have plantations of bananas ami palms ; 

 but their chief wealth consists of cattle and goats. It is remarkable 

 that the hippopotamus is found in the straits which divide the islands 

 of Canyabac and Bulama from the continent ; there is no fresh-water 

 river within several miles. 



Tho inhabitants, called Bijuga, are always armed, generally with a 

 musket, knife-dogger, spear, and sometimes a sword. The women 

 attend to the domestic economy. The men attend only to hunting 

 and fishing : they frequently rob when they can find their way across 

 to the main. The two sexes eat separately. 



(Life of Captain Beater ; Journal of the Oeogr. Society.) 



B1SZTH1TZ, or BES2TEKCZE, a free royal town, capital of a 

 district in the north-east of Transylvania, is situated in 47 5' N. Int., 

 24 32' E. long., on the river Bisztritz, a feeder of the Szamo. It is 

 called by the Saxon settlers, who constitute the majority of the 

 population in these parts, AVwoi, or .ViatciiitatU. The town stands 

 in a long and delightful valley, and has three gates of entrance, two 

 suburbs chiefly tenanted by Wallachians, a Protestant church within 

 the walls, a Protestant gymnasium, a Roman Catholic church and 

 two schools, two hospitals, a monastery of Minorite friars, and one of 

 Piaristo, about 800 houses and 6000 inhabitants. The town has large 

 cattle-fairs. Near it are the remains of an ancient castle, once the resi- 

 dence of the illustrious family of the Huuyads. The circle of Bisztritz 

 comprises the basin of the Bisztritz and Upper Szamos, including the 

 high mountains on the Hungarian and Qaliician frontiers. It is a 

 country of mountains, valleys, and glens. The mountains are com- 

 posed of granite, flanked by limestone and freestone. The climate is 

 cold, except in the valleys, where the temperature in winter is less 

 rude, but always very variable. Corn, hemp, wine, and timber are the 

 chief products. [TRANSYLVANIA.] 



r.ITII Y'NIA, a country of Asia Minor, extended along the east 

 coast of the Propontis, the east coast of the Thracian Bosporus, and 

 the shore of the Euxine, as far as the city of Heracleia, which was 

 about midway between the mouths of the Sangarius and the Billrcus. 

 The we -tern boundary towards Mysia was probably formed by the 

 Hhyndacus ; and the southern by the northern slope of Olympus from 

 the source of the Khyudaeus to the Sangarius. The Olympus range 

 separated Bithynia from Phrygia Epictetus and Oalatia. It is dif- 

 ficult to fix the boundaries of Bithynia ; those just given mark out 

 possibly the limits within which the ancient Bithyni dwelt. But on 

 the decline of the Persian empire, under which Ititliynia formed a 

 satrapy, its boundary was considerably extended eastward, in whii h 

 direction it at one time reached nearly to the Parthenius, which is 

 often, but erroneously, given as the eastern boundary. When the 

 Romans obtained Bithynia by will of King Nicomedes III., who died 

 B.C. 74, the eastern boundary lay to the west of Hcraclcia, which city 

 was then included in the kingdom of Pontus. Under the empire the 

 Roman province of Bithynia, according to Pliny, included a large 

 portion of the kingdom of Pontus, and extended even to the east of 

 the Halys ('Epist/x. 93, 111). Bithynia had the advantage of an 

 extensive line of sea-coast, indented by two deep bays, the Cian and 

 the AsUcene, now respectively called the gulfs Mudauiyeh and l/.niid. 

 Xenopbon, who was in the country probably more than once, describes 

 the part along the Euxine in the neighbourhood of Calpe as covered 

 with inhabited villages, and fertile in every kind of natural produce 

 except olives (' Anab.,' vi. 4). Dionynius Prriegetes (v. 793) also says 

 that the Bithyni inhabited a fertile country. Modern travellers also 

 describe Bithynia as a fertile, beautiful, and romantic country, abound- 

 ing in vines and forests. The forests consist principally of oak, 

 occasionally intermingled with beech, chestnuts, and walnuts. In the 

 southern part the immense mass of Olympus, at the base of which 

 Brusa stands, occupies a large part of the country, and includes 

 between two of its branches the extensive plain of Brusa. The 

 summit of Olympus is a gray granite ; the aides are marble ; its crest 

 near Brass, Is generally covered with snow to the end of Marc), 

 farther to the west two branches of Olympus form the boundary of 

 the extensive basin of Lake Apolloniatia the eastern one separating tlic 

 bum of the lake from the plain of Brusa, The northern part of Bithynia, 

 which consists of the peninsula of Khojaili (which fies between the 

 Bosporus, the Gulf of Izmid, the Euxine, and the Sangarius), is occu- 

 pied by a chain of hills running westward from the banks of the 

 Hsnganus and terminating on the channel of Constantinople. Between 

 this range and the I-ake of Icnik, the ancient Ascania, is a level country 

 whieh contains the Lake of Sabanja, or Xicoiuedeia. From Geiwa, or 

 Khiwa, where there is a bridge and ford over the Sangarius to Sabanja, 

 the country is described as an alluvium, with sand and small hills of 

 sandstone : from Sabanja to Iimid (X icomedaia), a plain, with sand and 



forests : the rest o.f the lino to Scutari through Goibuztf is mainly 

 calcarc' I different ' '.iig the 



surface, hydrography, 4<x, arc ejv, -n under 



The principal cities in r.ithynia were Astacus on the Gulf of 

 Astacus, which was founded al if the 1 7th Oh 



by the Megarians, who were y mime At) 



settlers; Calchedon or Chalcedon, opposite to Byzantium, was also 

 founded by the Megarians (Olympi liirth-plsoe 



of the great sophist Thraaymachus ; Prusa-ad-i ilympum, now called 

 Brusa, or Broussa, was founded, according to Pliny, l>y Hannibal ; 

 according to Strabo by a Prusias, who HTM in the time of Croesus; 

 it was the capital of the Ottoman empire before the capture of Con- 

 stantinople, and is still one of the most flourishing towns of Anatolia. 

 Of its warm baths some are chalybeate and others Milphurous ; they 

 were celebrated in ancient times (Athemeus, 43, a) and are still much 

 used. [BucsA.] Cius, founded by the 



Pruaias after its destruction by Philip in .-- by him called 



Prusias ; Xicsua, on the Lake Ascauia, is celebrated as the birth-place 

 of Hipparchus the astronomer and Dion Cassius the historian [Nic.CA.1; 

 and Xieomedeia, founded by Nicomedes I., B.C. 264, was the birth- 

 place of Flavins Arrianus. The large towns of Bithynia were all west 

 of the Sangarius ; the places east of the river were of little note, and 

 the chief towns were the Greek settlements on the coast The interior 

 of the eastern part is a mountainous country, abounding in all ages 

 with forests; the territory along the coast, between the Sangarn; 

 the BilUcus was the country of the Muriandy ni, in VI: 

 A great rood ran from the Bosporus along th< 



Heracleia, Amastri.-. and Sinope to Amisus ; and another from the 

 southern end of the Bosporus along the Prop, nmodeia. 



The earliest inhabitants of Bithynia seem to have been the same 

 with those of the neighbouring districts of Mysia and Phrygia 

 (Horn. 'Iliad,' B. 81 -J, N. TscJi ; th. :'ut we 



have positive information that they were afterwards coninn 

 displaced by a Throciau immigration from the European side - 

 Propontis (Herod, i. 28 ; vii. 75) ; the invading tribe was culled 

 Thyni, or Bithyni, and there is reason to believe that the} 

 intimately connected with a European race of that name. Xenophon 

 calls the country between the Bos]x>rns and Heracleia 'Thrace in 

 Asia' ('Anab.' vii. 2, 22 ; vi. 4). They appear to have had chiefs of 

 their own from the earliest times, who held a mibor.lin.. 

 even under the Persian government. Thus Dydalsus and Boteiros 

 reigned between the commencement of the Peloponnesian war and 

 B.C. 376. liithyuia wn- i by Croesus, and passed with the 



rest of his dominions into the hands of the IVi -':.<. When Darius 

 divided his empire into 20 satr.ipii .- \ Herod, jii. :"i.:>;,) the Hit), 

 formed one with the Asiatic Hellespoatians, Phrygia 

 goniaus, Mariaudynians, and Syrians, and were rated at 360 talents. 



Vetpulsn. Copper. Brit. Mn. 2S5 gralni. 



This satrapy was called the Doscylian, from Dnscylium, the residence 

 of th- satrap on The following is ft list of the 



satraps drawn up by Dr. Arnold (mi Tlmcyd. viii. .'.) : Mitrobates 

 (Hero.! iiroutofl (iii. 127), and (Ebaiv reign 



of Darius I.; Megabatex and Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces (Thucyd. 

 in the reign of Xerxes ; Pharnaces (Thucyd. ii. 67 ; VL) in the 

 reign of Artaxerxcx Longiiuanua ; and Phaniabazux, the sou of 

 Pharnaces, in the reign of Darius Nothus. Bithynia was taken from 

 the Persians by Alexander the Great, but his general Calantus was 

 defeated by Bas, the son of Boteiras, a native prince, and Bithynm 

 became an independent state. 



