halcedon and
Chrysopolis, and some other places of no importance.

8. Its left shore is looked down upon by Port Athyras and Selymbria, and
Constantinople, formerly called Byzantium, a colony of the Athenians,
and Cape Ceras, having at its extremity a lofty tower to serve as a
lighthouse to ships--from which cape also a very cold wind which often
arises from that point is called Ceratas.

9. The sea thus broken, and terminated by mingling with the seas at each
end, and now becoming very calm, spreads out into wider waters, as far
as the eye can reach both in length and breadth. Its entire circuit, if
one should measure it as one would measure an island, sailing along its
shores, is 23,000 furlongs according to Eratosthenes, Hecataeus, and
Ptolemy, and other accurate investigators of subjects of this kind,
resembling, by the consent of all geographers, a Scythian bow, held at
both ends by its string.

10. When the sun rises from the eastern ocean, it is shut in by the
marshes of the Sea of Azov. On the west it is bounded by the Roman
provinces. On the north lie many tribes differing in language and
manners; its southern side describes a gentle curve.

11. Over this extended space are dispersed many Greek cities, which have
for the most part been founded by the people of Miletus, an Athenian
colony, long since established in Asia among the other Ionians by
Nileus, the son of the famous Codrus, who is said to have devoted
himself to his country in the Doric war.

12. The thin extremities of the bow at each end are commanded by the two
Bospori, the Thracian and Cimmerian, placed opposite to one another; and
they are called Bospori because through them the daughter of
Inachus,[124] who was changed (as the poets relate) into a cow, passed
into the Ionian sea.

13. The right curve of the Thracian Bosphorus is covered by a side of
Bithynia, formerly called Mygdonia, of which province Thynia and
Mariandena are districts; as also is Bebrycia, the inhabitants of which
were delivered from the cruelty of Amycus by the valour of Pollux; and
also the remote spot in which the soothsayer Phineus was terrified by
the threatening flight of the Harpies.

14. The shores are curved into several long bays, into which fall the
rivers Sangarius, and Phyllis, and Bizes, and Rebas; and opposite to
them at the lower end are the Symplegades, two rocks which rise into
abrupt peaks, and which in former times were accustomed to dash against
o