THE GATES TO THE BLACK SEA 



447 



counter-invasion under Alexander crossed 

 the Dardanelles, in 334 B. C, crushing 

 the Persians at the battle of the Granicus. 

 That small stream, now known as the 

 Bigha, flows into the Marmora half way 

 between Cyzicus and the Dardanelles, at 

 a spot associated in mythology with Pri- 

 apus, god of gardens. 



GIvORlKS THAT PASSl^D AWAY 



It was in the period following the death 

 of Alexander, when the kingdoms of 

 Bithynia, Pergamos, and Pontus flour- 

 ished in northern Asia Minor, that the 

 cities of the Marmora began to take on 

 their greatest importance. 



Chief among them Avas Cyzicus, on the 

 southeastern side of the peninsula of that 

 name. Founded earlier than Rome or 

 Byzantium, possessed at different times 

 by Athens and Sparta, by the Persians 

 and Alexander, by the King of Pergamos 

 and the Republic of Rome, Cyzicus was 

 long celebrated as one of the most splen- 

 did cities of the ancient world. Its gold 

 staters were the standard of their time. 



With the rise of Byzantium, however, 

 its glory passed away. Goths and earth- 

 quake ravaged it ; Constantine and the 

 Turks found it an inexhaustible quarry 

 for the public buildings of Constanti- 

 nople. Today there is almost no trace of 

 its marble among the vines and olive trees 

 of the peninsula. 



Nicomedia and Nicjea, in Bithynia, 

 were also accounted no mean cities in 

 their day. Indeed, Nicomedia, bequeathed 

 to Rome with the rest of his kingdom by 

 Nicomedes III, in 74 B. C, became for 

 a moment, under the Emperor Diocletian, 

 the capital of the world. As for Niceea, 

 it has three times been a capital. Nicjea, 

 now Isnik, is not in all strictness a city 

 of the Marmora, but the lake on which 

 it lies is geologically a continuation of the 

 Gulf of Moudania. A place of impor- 

 tance long after the Bithynian period, it 

 is chiefly remembered today for the two 

 councils of the church which took place 

 there in 325 and 787. 



In 1080 the Seljukian Turks seized it 

 from the Byzantines and made it for a 

 few years a capital whose brilliance 

 rivaled Cordova and Bagdad. Recon- 

 quered by the Crusaders in 1097, it was, 



from 1204 to 1261, while the Franks were 

 in possession of Constantinople, the cap- 

 ital of the Byzantine Empire. In 1330 it 

 fell into the hands of its present owners, 

 under whom it became famous again as 

 the seat of the manufacture of the beau- 

 tiful tiles that line the Turkish mosques 

 and tombs of the sixteenth century. 



A third Bithynian city, which we have 

 already mentioned — Brusa • — has more 

 than one title to celebrity, not least among 

 which is that its foundation was ascribed 

 to the advice of no less a personage than 

 Hannibal. At any rate, the great Car- 

 thaginian fled after the Punic wars to the 

 court of King Prusias of Bithynia and 

 committed suicide there, in 183 B. C, to 

 escape falling into the hands of the Ro- 

 mans. Legend has placed his grave on 

 the north shore of the Gulf of Nico- 

 media. 



Space fails me to make even the barest 

 catalogue of the cities of the Marmora 

 that have enjoyed historical renown. I 

 have already spoken of Rodosto (p. 443), 

 to which Bulgarian raiders came in 813, 

 in 1206, and in 19 12, and where the Hun- 

 garian royal exile, Francis II Rakoczy, 

 lived for 18 years and died in 1735. An- 

 other illustrious exile, Alcibiades of 

 Athens, lived in another Samiote colony 

 farther along the Thracian coast. This 

 sleepy fishing village of Eregli, Heracleia 

 Perinthos of old, was for a moment the 

 administrative superior of Byzantium, 

 Vv'hen that city was destroyed by the 

 father of Caracalla. A thousand years 

 later Heracleia was given by the Emperor 

 Michael Pak-eologus to the enterprising 

 traders of Genoa. 



More eastward still lies Silivri, the 

 Athenian colony of Selymoria, which the 

 Emperor Anastasius I made the terminus 

 of the great wall he built across Thrace 

 from sea to sea — precursor of the mod- 

 ern Lines of Chatalja. Lady Mary Mon- 

 tagu stopped there a night or two and 

 mentions it in one of her Turkish letters. 

 Then there is Chalcedon, now an Asiatic 

 suburb of Constantinople, founded a few 

 years earlier than Byzantium by colonists 

 from Megara and renowned for the mag- 

 nificence of its public buildings, for the 

 councils of the early church which took 

 place there, and for the memorable sieges 



