Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/25

 applied in the earliest times to the Euxine or Black Sea. By the beginning, however, of the seventh century before the Christian era these seas and maritime channels had been explored, and several colonies had been planted by the adventurous Greeks who issued from the Ionian seaport of Miletus. Later than the Milesians, a band of Dorians from Megara penetrated into these parts and, by a strange choice, as it was afterwards considered, selected a point at the mouth of the Bosphorus on the Asiatic shore for a settlement, which they called Chalcedon. Seventeen years later a second party from Megara fixed themselves on the European headland, previously known as Lygos, nearly opposite their first colony. The leader of this expedition was Byzas, and from him the town they built was named Byzantium. The actual. Ausonius compares Lygos to the Byrsa of Carthage (De Clar. Urb., 2).]