Era Silver

by coin

A preview: Starting with a quick story of how Byzantium began, I briefly chronicle the transfers in possession of the city. I share chain of events for Constantine's control and the city's fame, much of which came from the arts and fabricating pieces of jewelry individually.

A Brief History of Byzantium (bih-zan'-shee-um),

Byzantium silver, and more of its Jewelry

Around 650 B.C., a leader named Byzas sailed a ship from Megara, fifteen miles west of Athens, approached the Bosporus and landed at Chalcedon. Colonists consulted the oracle priestess before leaving. They didn't understand, for she had said that they would find a new home opposite the city of the blind. The Bosporus was twenty miles long and very narrow. There, they could control trade between the Black and Aegean Seas. They went from Chalcedon two and a half miles northwest to the other side of the Bosporus. Chalcedon's harbor facilities couldn't compare to the wide beautiful, large harbor they had founded; it could hold any number of ships and with water on three sides, it was easily defended. While they couldn't understand Chalcedon's inferior choice of neighborhood, they did come to understand that the oracle had been speaking of Chalcedon as the city of the blind. The city of Byzantion, named from Byzas' vanity, we know from Latin as Byzantium. Though ancient Geeks founded it, perhaps Byzas never existed and the name came from Byzantium's meaning of "compact", its city pressed together on their tongue of land.

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