Editing Constantinople (section)

=== Foundation of Byzantium ===
{{Main|Byzantium}}
[[File:Milion 2007.jpg|right|thumb|A fragment of the [[Milion]] (Greek: Μίλ(λ)ιον), a mile-marker monument]]

Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor [[Constantine I]] (272–337) in 324<ref name="ODB" /> on the site of an already-existing city, [[Byzantium]], which was settled in the early days of [[Greek colonies|Greek colonial expansion]], in around 657 BC, by colonists of the city-state of [[Megara]]. This is the first major settlement that would develop on the site of later Constantinople, but the first known settlement was that of ''Lygos'', referred to in Pliny's Natural Histories.<ref>Pliny, IV, xi</ref> Apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement. The site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded Byzantium ({{langx|grc|Βυζάντιον|Byzántion}}) in around 657&nbsp; BC,<ref name="IA" /> across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.

[[Hesychius of Miletus]] wrote that some "claim that people from Megara, who derived their descent from Nisos, sailed to this place under their leader Byzas, and invent the fable that his name was attached to the city". Some versions of the founding myth say Byzas was the son of a local [[nymph]], while others say he was conceived by one of Zeus' daughters and [[Poseidon]]. Hesychius also gives alternate versions of the city's founding legend, which he attributed to old poets and writers:<ref>''[[Patria of Constantinople]]''</ref>
<blockquote><poem>It is said that the first Argives, after having received this prophecy from Pythia,
    Blessed are those who will inhabit that holy city,
    a narrow strip of the Thracian shore at the mouth of the Pontos,
    where two pups drink of the gray sea,
    where fish and stag graze on the same pasture,
set up their dwellings at the place where the rivers Kydaros and Barbyses have their estuaries, one flowing from the north, the other from the west, and merging with the sea at the altar of the nymph called Semestre"</poem></blockquote>

The city maintained independence as a city-state until it was annexed by [[Darius I]] in 512&nbsp;BC into the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Empire]], who saw the site as the optimal location to construct a [[pontoon bridge]] crossing into Europe as Byzantium was situated at the narrowest point in the Bosphorus strait. Persian rule lasted until 478&nbsp;BC when as part of the Greek counterattack to the [[Second Persian invasion of Greece]], a Greek army led by the Spartan general [[Pausanias (general)|Pausanias]] captured the city which remained an independent, yet subordinate, city under the Athenians, and later to the Spartans after 411&nbsp;BC.<ref>Thucydides, I, 94</ref> A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in {{circa|150 BC}} which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed.<ref>Harris, 2007, pp. 24–25</ref> This treaty would pay dividends retrospectively as Byzantium would maintain this independent status, and prosper under peace and stability in the [[Pax Romana]], for nearly three centuries until the late 2nd century AD.<ref>Harris, 2007, p. 45</ref>

Byzantium was never a major influential city-state like [[Athens]], [[Corinth]] or [[Sparta]], but the city enjoyed relative peace and steady growth as a prosperous trading city because of its fortunate location. The site lay astride the land route from [[Europe]] to [[Asia]] and the [[Turkish Straits|seaway]] from the [[Black Sea]] to the [[Mediterranean]], and had in the [[Golden Horn]] an excellent and spacious harbor. Already then, in Greek and early Roman times, Byzantium was famous for the strategic geographic position that made it difficult to besiege and capture, and its position at the crossroads of the Asiatic-European trade route over land and as the gateway between the Mediterranean and Black Seas made it too valuable a settlement to abandon, as Emperor [[Septimius Severus]] later realized when he razed the city to the ground for supporting [[Pescennius Niger]]'s [[Year of the Five Emperors|claimancy]].<ref>Harris, 2007, pp. 44–45</ref> It was a move greatly criticized by the contemporary consul and historian [[Cassius Dio]] who said that Severus had destroyed "a strong Roman outpost and a base of operations against the barbarians from Pontus and Asia".<ref>Cassius Dio, ix, p. 195</ref> He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed ''Augusta Antonina'', fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, the Severan Wall.