historian speak of the palace of Scutari, on the promontory that juts out toward Seraglio Point. Also, I seem to remember reading in Gibbon of a corps of _scutarii_ who had their barracks on that side of the strait. I have never been able to lay my hand on those _scutarii_ again, and so cannot found very much of an argument upon them. Any Latin lexicon, however, will give you the word _scutarius_, a shield-bearer, and tell you that a corps of them existed under the later empire. Wherefore I formally reject and contemn Murray, Von Hammer and Company, with their Persian postboys, and take my stand on those Roman shields. In all probability the name spread, as in the case of Galata, from a barracks or a palace to the entire locality, and Üsküdar must be a Turkish attempt to pronounce the Greek Σκουτάριον. Of that oldest Scutari I did not set out to write an account, but it is convenient that the visitor should be aware of how ancient and honourable a town he is treading the streets. I find it a little difficult to write coherently, however, for two ancient and honourable towns are there. The second one, lying next to the south and facing the Marmora instead of the Bosphorus, is the more ancient, and I suppose in the eyes of the world the more honourable. Chalcedon was its name—derived, by one report, from the Homeric soothsayer Chalkas—and it is represented to-day by the suburbs of Haïdar Pasha, Kadi Kyöi, and Moda. The history of these adjoining quarters is so intertwined that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between Chalcedon and Chrysopolis. Chalcedon, like Byzantium, was founded by colonists from Megara, but a few years earlier. Its greater accessibility and hospitality to ships and the flatness of its site gave it advantages which Chrysopolis did not possess. Chrysopolis, on the other hand, nearer Byzantium and commanding the mouth of the Bosphorus, occupied the more strategic position with regard to the traffic of the strait. Both cities suffered greatly during the Persian wars, and were for a time ruled by the satraps of Darius. The Athenians seized them early in the history of their league, in order to levy tolls on passing ships. So early arose the vexed question of the straits. Philip of Macedon included the two cities in his siege of Byzantium, but was driven away by the Athenians. Xenophon stopped a week in Chrysopolis on his way back from Persia. Hannibal ended his troubled days in a suburb of Chalcedon. Nicomedes III of Bithynia left that town in his will to the Romans, who fought over it with Mithridates of Pontus. The Goths ravaged it on the occasion of their first raid into Asia Minor. The fate of the Roman world was settled on the heights of Chrysopolis in 324, when that other man without a country, Constantine of York, vanquished his last rival, Licinius, and took him prisoner. The experiences and associations of that victory must have had much to do with the transfer of the capital from the Tiber to the Bosphorus.