Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "CHALKIDON Ancient city TURKEY".
City in Bithynia, across the Bosporus from Istanbul. The site appears
to have been originally occupied by Phoenicians and Thracians; the Greek city
was founded by Megarian colonists led by Archias in 685 B.C., 17 years before
Byzantium. Since they overlooked the far superior site a mile or so across the
water, Chalkedon became known as the city of the blind. As a member of the Delian
Confederation the city paid a tribute varying between nine talents and three,
and in 416 B.C., as an independent city, Chalkedon attacked and defeated the Bithynians
(Diod. Sik. 12.82.2). It passed to the Persians in 387 B.C., but was liberated
by Alexander and remained free until Philip V subjected it for a short time. After
his defeat the city obtained freedom and an alliance from Rome, and became wholly
Roman when in 74 B.C. Nikomedes IV bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. In the following
year Aur. Cotta, barricaded in Chalkedon, was attacked and decisively defeated
by Mithridates. A free city under the Empire, Chalkedon was raided and plundered
by Scythians during the reign of Valerian (Zosim. 1.34). The coinage extends from
the early 5th c. B.C. to the 3d c. A.D.
The site is described by Dionysios Byzantios (GGM II, 93, fr. 67).
It stood on a peninsula close above a river also called Chalkedon, with a harbor
on either side of the isthmus, E and W, and an oracular shrine of Apollo. The
river is the stream, now mostly built over, which flows into Moda Bay; the city
stood on the higher ground between the Kadikoy boat station and Moda Point. The
harbors have filled up and the isthmus has disappeared. Remnants of the ancient
city were still to be seen in the 16th c., but nothing remains today. Some Greek
sherds have been found on Moda Point, and a few fragments of ancient wall are
said to have been visible until recently, but nothing more.
G. E. Bean, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
A Greek city of Bithynia, on the coast of the Propontis, at the entrance of the Bosporus, nearly opposite to Byzantium, was founded by a colony from Megara in B.C. 685. After a long period of independence, it became subject to the kings of Bithynia, and most of its inhabitants were transferred to the new city of Nicomedia (B.C. 140). Under the Romans it regained much of its former importance. Here was held the fourth Ecumenical Council of the Church, in A.D. 451.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Chalcedon (Chalkedon: Eth. Chalkedonios or Chalkideus), a city of
Bithynia, at the entrance of the Pontus, opposite to Byzantium, as Stephanus (s.
v. Chalkedon) describes it; and a colony of the Megareis. (Thuc. iv. 75.)
The tract about Chalcedon was called Chalcedonia. (Herod. iv. 85.)
According to Menippus, the distance along the left-hand coast from the temple
of Zeus Urius and the mouth of the Pontus to Chalcedon was 120 stadia. All the
coins of Chalcedon have the name written Kalchedon, and this is also the way in
which the name is written in the best MSS. of Herodotus, Xenophon, and other writers,
by whom the place is mentioned. The distance from Chalcedon to Byzantium was reckoned
seven stadia (Plin. v. 32), or as it is stated by Pliny elsewhere (ix. 15), one
Roman mile, which is eight stadia. Polybius (iv. 39) makes the distance between
Chalcedon and Byzantium 14 stadia; which is much nearer the mark. But it is difficult
to say from what points these different measurements were made. The distance from
Scutari (Chrysopolis) to the Seraglio point in Constantinople (according to a
survey in the Hydrographical office of the Admiralty) is nearly one nautical mile.
In the same chart a place Caledonia is marked, but probaby the indication is not
worth much. Chalcedon, however, must have been at least two miles south of Scutari,
perhaps more; and the distance from Chalcedon to the nearest point of the European
shore is greater even than that which Polybius gives. Chrysopolis, which Strabo
calls a village, and which was in the Chalcedonia (Xenophon, Anab. vi. 6, 38),
was really at the entrance of the Bosporus on the side of the Propontis, but Chalcedon
was not. It is stated that the modern Greeks give to the site of Chalcedon the
name Chalkedon, and the Turks call it Kadi-Kioi. The position of Chalcedon was
not so favourable as that of the opposite city of Byzantium, in the opinion of
the Persian Megabazus (Herod. iv. 144), who is reported to have said that the
founders of Chalcedon must have been blind, for Chalcedon was settled seventeen
years before Byzantium; and the settlers, we must suppose, had the choice of the
two places. It was at the mouth of a small river Chalcedon (Eustathius ad Dionys.
Perieg. v. 803) or Chalcis. Pliny (v. 32) states that Chalcedon was first named
Procerastis, a name which may be derived from a point of land near it: then it
was named Colpusa, from the form of the harbour probably; and finally Caecorum
Oppidum, or the town of the blind. The story in Herodotus does not tell us why
Megabazus condemned the judgment of the founders of Chalcedon. Strabo (p. 320)
observes that the shoals of the pelamys, which pass from the Euxine through the
Bosporus, are frightened from the shore of Chalcedon by a projecting white rock
to the opposite side, and so are carried by the stream to Byzantium, the people
of which place derive a great profit from them. He also reports a story that Apollo
advised the founders of Byzantium to choose a position opposite to the blind;
the blind being the settlers from Megara, who chose Chalcedon as the site of their
city, when there was a better place opposite. Pliny (ix. 15) has a like story
about the pelamys being frightened from the Asiatic shore; and Tacitus (Ann. xii.
63) has the same story as Strabo. The remarks of Polybius on the position of Byzantium
and Chalcedon are in his fourth book (c. 39, &c.).
Chalcedon, however, was a place of considerable trade, and a flourishing
town. It contained many temples, and one of Apollo, which had en oracle. Strabo
reckons his distances along the coast of Bithynia from the temple of the Chalcedonii
(p. 643, and p. 546). When Darius had his bridge of boats made for crossing over
to Europe in his Scythian expedition, the architect constructed it, as Herodotus
supposes, half way between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance of the Pontus,
and on the Asiatic side it was within the territory of Chalcedon (Herod. iv. 85,
87). But the Chalcedonia extended to the Euxine, if the temple of the Chalcedonii
of Strabo (pp. 319, 563) is the temple of Zeus Urius as it seems to be. The territory
of Chalcedon therefore occupied the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. Strabo, after
speaking of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis and the temple of the Chalcedonii, adds,
and the country has, a little above the sea, the fountain Azaritia, which contains
small crocodiles: then follows the sea-coast of the Chalcedonii, named the bay
of Astacus, a part of the Propontis. According to this the Chalcedonii had once
the bay of Astacus, which is very unlikely, for there was Astacus, a colony of
the Megareis and of the Athenians, in this bay. The passage of Strabo is probably
corrupt, and might easily be corrected. It is not likely at any rate that they
had more than the north side of the bay of Astacus. Chalcedon was taken by the
Persian Otanes, after the Scythian expedition of Darius (v. 26). When Lamachus
led his men from the river Calex in Bithynia (B.C. 424), where he lost his ships
by a flood in the river, he came to Chalcedon (Thucyd iv. 75), which must then
have been on friendly terms with the Athenians. It afterwards changed sides, and
received a Lacedaemonian Harmost (Plut. Alcib. c. 29); but the Athenians soon
recovered it. However, at the time of the return of the Ten Thousand, it seems
to have been again in the possession of the Lacedaemonians (Xenophon, Anab. vii.
1, 20). Chalcedon was the birth-place of the philosopher Xenocrates.
Chalcedon was included in the limits of the kingdom of Bithynia, and
it came into the possession of the Romans under the testament of Nicomedes, B.C.
74. When Mithridates invaded Bithynia, Cotta, who was the governor at the time,
fled to Chalcedon, and all the Romans in the neighbourhood crowded to the place
for protection. Mithridates broke the chains that protected the fort, burnt four
ships, and towed away the remaining sixty. Three thousand Romans lost their lives
in this assault on the city. (Appian. Mithrid. 71; Plut. Lucull. 8.) Under the
empire Chalcedon was made a free city. The situation of Chalcedon exposed it to
attack in the decline of the empire. Some barbarians whom Zosimus (i. 34) calls
Scythians, plundered it in the reign of Valerian and Gallienus. It was taken by
Chosroes the Persian in A.D. 616, and a Persian camp was maintained above ten
years in the presence of Constantinople. (Gibbon, Decline, &c. c. 46.) But Chalcedon
still existed, and its final destruction is due to the Turks, who used the materials
for the mosques and other buildings of Constantinople. Chalcedon, however, seems
to have contributed materials for some of the edifices of Constantinople long
before the Turks laid their hands on it. (Amm. Marc. xxxi. 1, and the notes of
Valesius.)
This place is noted for a General Council, which was held here A.D.
451.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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