With these views, Diocletian had selected and
embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate
the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium;
and to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
attack, whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
commercial intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most
judicious historians of antiquity [1 had described the advantages of a
situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of
the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic. [2]

[Footnote 1: Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon. He observes that
the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and the extent of
their territory contracted, by the inroads of the wild Thracians.]

[Footnote 2: The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of Neptune,
founded the city 656 years before the Christian aera. His followers
were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterwards rebuild and
fortified by the Spartan general Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad
Euseb. p. 81. Ducange, Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With
regard to the wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and
the kings of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who
lived before the greatness of the Imperial city had excited a spirit of
flattery and fiction.]

If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city may be
represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which
advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels
the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is
bounded by the harbor; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or
Sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and
terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division
of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood. The winding channel
through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid and incessant
course towa