Of the great wealth and, we may perhaps add, of the popularity of its citizens in the fifth and fourth century B.C., the gold coins, called Cyzicene _staters_, are ample evidence; though it may be doubted whether, as was once thought, the _zecchino_ (or sequin), means _Cyzicene_. In an able paper by Dr. (now Sir Patrick) Colquhoun (Trans. Roy. Liter. vol. iv. p. 35), it is clearly shown that the “_Squise_” of Ville-Hardouin is the ancient Cyzicus, “the oldest commercial place in the world,” as that writer, with some exaggeration, asserts. The form “Esquisse” is probably, as Dr. Colquhoun suggests, a corruption of εἰς Κὐζικον (“to Cyzicus”).[2] Dr. Colquhoun’s paper is full of curious information on the early mediæval state of this part of Asia Minor. Its decline was mainly due to the invasion of the Goths in A.D. 262, but it long remained the metropolis of the Hellespontine province (Hierocl. Synecd. p. 661. Malala, Chron. i. p. 364). It was finally destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 943. Footnote 2: Similar modern modifications may be noticed in other sites of the Levant. Thus, Stanchio (Kos) comes from εἰς τἡν Κῶν; Stamboul is not, necessarily, a corruption of Constantinopolis, but, more probably, of εἰς τἡν πόλιν (“to the city”); so Stalimene (Lesbos) comes from εἰς τὁν λιμἐνα (“to the port”). Another Mysian town of note was LAMPSACUS, also a colony of Miletus and Phocæa, attested as this is by its gold and silver coins, and by a statue of a prostrate lion, said to have been the work of Lysippus, and subsequently, placed by Agrippa in the Campus Martius at Rome. The town was famous for its wine, and was, for this reason, granted to Themistocles, who is said to have learnt here, or at Magnesia, Persian in a year; the district around having been granted to him by his old enemy the King of Persia. Like most of the towns of western Asia Minor, it often changed hands during the rival contests of its more powerful neighbours; but, having, with a wise forethought, voted a crown of gold to the Romans, it was accepted by them as an ally,[3] and, hence, was, in the time of Strabo, a town of some magnitude. A small village, called Lampsaki, most likely marks on our modern maps the site of the old town. Footnote 3: Liv. xliii. 6. Most likely, its brave resistance to Antiochus had favourably inclined the Romans to it (Liv. xxxiii. 38; xxxv. 42; Polyb. xxi. 10).