The first peopling of the site of Constantinople is a question in prehistoric research, which has not yet been elucidated by the palaeontologist. Unlike the Roman area, no relics of an age of stone or bronze have been discovered here;[4] do not, perhaps, exist, but doubtless the opportunities, if not the men, have been wanting for such investigations.[5] That the region seemed to the primitive Greeks to be a wild and desolate one, we learn from the tradition of the Argonautic expedition;[6] and the epithet of “Axine,”[7] or inhospitable, applied in the earliest times to the Euxine or Black Sea. By the beginning, however, of the seventh century before the Christian era these seas and maritime channels had been explored, and several colonies[8] had been planted by the adventurous Greeks who issued from the Ionian seaport of Miletus. Later than the Milesians, a band of Dorians from Megara penetrated into these parts and, by a strange choice, as it was afterwards considered, selected a point at the mouth of the Bosphorus on the Asiatic shore for a settlement, which they called Chalcedon.[9] Seventeen years later[10] a second party from Megara fixed themselves on the European headland, previously known as Lygos,[11] nearly opposite their first colony. The leader of this expedition was Byzas,[12] and from him the town they built was named Byzantium.[13] The actual limits of the original city are now quite unknown, but doubtless they were small at first and were gradually extended according as the community increased in wealth and prosperity.[14] During the classic period of Greek history the town rose to considerable importance, as its commanding position enabled it to impose a toll on ships sailing to and from the Euxine sea; a power of which, however, it made a very sparing use.[15] It was also enriched by the countless shoals of fish[16] which, when the north winds blew, descended from the Euxine and thronged the narrow but elongated gulf called, most probably for that reason, _Chrysoceras_ or Golden Horn.[17] Ultimately Byzantium became the largest city in Thrace, having expanded itself over an area which measured four and a half miles in circumference, including, probably, the suburbs.[18] It exercised a suzerainty over Chalcedon and Perinthus,[19] and reduced the aboriginal Bithynians to a state of servitude comparable to that of the Spartan Helots.[20] Notwithstanding its natural advantages, the town never won any pre-eminence among the Hellenic communities, and nothing more unstable than its political position is presented to us in the restless concourse of Grecian nationalities. In the wars of Persians with Greeks, and of Greeks with Greeks, it always became the sport of the contending parties; and during a century and a half (about 506 B.C. to 350 B.C.) it was taken and re-taken at least six times by Medes, Spartans, Athenians, and Thebans, a change of constitution following, of course, each change of political connection.[21] In 340 B.C., however, the Byzantines, with the aid of the Athenians, withstood a siege successfully, an occurrence the more remarkable as they were attacked by the greatest general of the age, Philip of Macedon. In the course of this beleaguerment, it is related, on a certain wet and moonless night the enemy attempted a surprise, but were foiled by reason of a bright light which, appearing suddenly in the heavens, startled all the dogs in the town and thus roused the garrison to a sense of their danger.[22] To commemorate this timely phenomenon, which was attributed to Hecate, they erected a public statue to that goddess and, as it is supposed, assumed the crescent for their chief national device. For several centuries after this event the city enjoyed a nominal autonomy, but it appears to have been in perpetual conflict with its civilized or barbarous neighbours; and in 279 B.C. it was even laid under tribute[23] by the horde of Gauls who penetrated into Asia and established themselves permanently in Galatia. After the appearance of the Roman legionaries in the East the Byzantines were always the faithful friends of the Republic, while it was engaged in suppressing the independent potentates of Macedonia and Asia Minor. For its services Byzantium was permitted to retain the rank of a free city,[24] and its claim to indulgence was allowed by more than one of the Roman emperors,[25] even after A.D. 70, when Vespasian limited its rights to those of a provincial town.[26]