Founding of Byzantium
Byzas, son of King Nisos (Greek Νίσος), was a Greek colonist from the Dorian city of Megara who consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The oracle instructed Byzas to settle opposite the "Land of the Blind". Leading a group of Megarian colonists, Byzas found a location where the Golden Horn, a great natural harbour, meets the Bosphorus and flows into the Sea of Marmara, opposite Chalcedon (modern day Kadıköy). He determined that the Chalcedonians must have been blind not to recognize the advantages the land on the European side of the Bosphorus had over the Asiatic side. At the European side (at Seraglio Point) there were only two fishing settlements: Lygos and Semistra. In 667 BC he founded Byzantium at their location, thus completing the oracle's quest.
Read more about this topic: Byzas
Famous quotes containing the word founding:
“... there is no way of measuring the damage to a society when a whole texture of humanity is kept from realizing its own power, when the woman architect who might have reinvented our cities sits barely literate in a semilegal sweatshop on the Texas- Mexican border, when women who should be founding colleges must work their entire lives as domestics ...”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)