This maritime town of Thrace is of great antiquity. Not like the former, erected at a comparatively recent period, and by a well-known founder, Silivria was one of the towns of the Thracian or Scythian aborigines, and is mentioned by Herodotus as existing, and ancient in his time, 450 years before the Christian era. It is about twenty miles from Constantinople, and stands on a promontory which forms one extremity of an extensive bay, while the ancient town of Erekli stands on the other. Like all ancient cities, where such a thing was possible, it was built on the summit of a hill, forming what the Greeks call an _acropolis_. Three sides were of easy approach, and protected by fortified walls; but the fourth, facing the sea, was an inaccessible precipice, as perpendicular as the face of Dover Cliff, so that no wall was necessary. The summit of the hill is a perfect level, and the town forms a quadrangular area open to the sea; and perhaps no other in the world can present so fine and magnificent a platform. It commands the most extensive view along the winding coast, and across the Sea of Marmora, having the beautiful archipelago of the Princes Islands floating as it were on the surface of the sea below; and the splendid view terminates by the coast of Asia, and the snowy ridges of Olympus. The walls are built of hewn stone interlaid with strata of Roman brick as large as flooring tiles. They are pierced by five gates, which are still standing, and closed carefully every night. Part of the area within the walls is now filled up with mean dirty streets, inhabited principally by Jews and Greeks. Below, on the shores of the sea, is another portion of it, almost exclusively Turkish. It has a port, in which lie a fleet of small-craft, used for conveying the produce of the neighbourhood to the markets of Constantinople, and this is all that remains of the bustle and activity of that commerce, which once distinguished the enterprising Greek cities of this coast.