cted within such narrow
limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of _broad_,
which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the
Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the
traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who
pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery,
which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
the remembrance of the sea: and his fancy painted those celebrated
straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift
current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length,
through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the AEgean or Archipelago.

Ancient Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked
the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of
waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets, the Simois and
Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore
from the Sigaean to the Rhaetean promontory; and the flanks of the army
were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of
Agamemnon.

The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride and
to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rhaeteum celebrated his
memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
Troy, toward the Rhaetean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
Hellespont.

We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
degree of latitude, the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was hea