CHAP. XVI.
sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to
the combat of the cestus[1]. The straits of the Bos-
phorus 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[2]. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium, the
winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen
miles[3], 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[4] 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[5]. At a small distance from the old castles we discover the little town of
- ↑ The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of Phiaeus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the Black sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. 1. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre xv.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen Roman 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. Turcica 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.
- ↑ 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. Herodotus, 1. iv. c. 87.
flight, the stench and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which drives them into the sea, all contribute to form this striking resemblance.