rly days, was the banks of a river, from which the people could get
water, and by which the refuse and rubbish of the town could be
carried away. Then, again, one of the chief things which helped Rome
to greatness was her position on the river Tiber, far enough from the
sea to be safe from the enemy raiders who infested the seas in those
early days, and yet near enough to send her ships out to trade with
other lands. Thus it was, probably, that a simple word meaning "river"
came to be used as the name of the world's greatest city.

Others among the great cities of the ancient world were founded in a
quite different way. The great conqueror, Alexander the Great, founded
cities in every land he conquered, and their names remain even now to
keep his memory alive. The city of _Alexandria_, on the north coast of
Africa, was, of course, called after Alexander himself, and became
after his death more civilized and important than any of the Greek
cities which Alexander admired so much, and which he tried to imitate
everywhere. Now Alexandria is no longer a centre of learning, but a
fairly busy port. Only its name recalls the time when it helped in the
great work for which Alexander built it--to spread Greek learning and
Greek civilization over Europe and Asia.

Another city which Alexander founded, but which afterwards fell into
decay, was _Bucephalia_, which the great conqueror set up in the north
of India when he made his wonderful march across the mountains into
that continent. It was called after "_Bucephalus_," the favourite
horse of Alexander, which had been wounded, and died after the battle.
The town was built over the place where the horse was buried, and
though its story is not so interesting as that of Alexandria, as the
town so soon fell into decay, still it is worth remembering.

Another of the world's ancient and greatest cities, Constantinople,
also took its name from a great ruler. In the days when the Roman
Empire was beginning to decay, and new nations from the north began to
pour into her lands, the emperor, Constantine the Great, the ruler who
made Christianity the religion of the empire, chose a new capital
instead of Rome. He loved Eastern magnificence and Eastern ways, and
he chose for his new capital the old Greek colony of Byzantium, the
beautiful city on the Golden Horn, which Constantine soon made into a
new Rome, with churches and theatres and baths, like the old Rome. The
new Rome was given a new