If the story of Pera cannot compare with that of the grey mother city, it nevertheless can boast associations of which communities more self-important might be proud. Jason stopped there on his way to get the Golden Fleece, and after him Beshiktash was known in antiquity as Iasonion. In the valley behind that picturesque suburb there later existed a famous laurel grove, sacred of course to Apollo, who, with Poseidon, was patron of Byzantium. The sun-god was also worshipped at a sacred fount which still exists in Galata, within the enclosure of the Latin church of St. George. Legend makes this spring the scene of the martyrdom of St. Irene, daughter of a Roman ruler, who was put to death for refusing to sacrifice to Apollo and who became herself the patron saint of the new Christian city of Constantinople. Christianity is said to have been brought there by no less a person than the apostle Andrew. He is also reputed to have died in Galata, though another tradition makes Patras the scene of his death; but in any case he was buried in Constantine’s Church of the Holy Apostles. The church of St. Irene where he preached, somewhere in the vicinity of Top Haneh, was restored with magnificence by Justinian. An earlier emperor, Leo the Great, had already built in the neighbourhood of Beshiktash the celebrated church of St. Mamas, together with a palace that was long a favourite resort of the imperial family. In the light of recent history it is interesting to recall that Krum, King of Bulgaria, sacked and burned the suburb of St. Mamas, with the rest of Thrace, in 811.