On the long peninsula called the Thracian Chersonese there may probably have been small Grecian settlements at an early date, though we do not know at what time either the Milesian settlement of Kardia, on the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula, near the Ægean sea,—or the Æolic colony of Sestus on the Hellespont,—were founded; while the Athenian ascendency in the peninsula begins only with the migration of the first Miltiadês, during the reign of Peisistratus at Athens. The Samian colony of Perinthus, on the northern coast of the Propontis,[52] is spoken of as ancient in date, and the Megarian colonies, Selymbria and Byzantium, belong to the seventh century B. C.: the latter of these two is assigned to the 30th Olympiad (657 B. C.), and its neighbor Chalkêdôn, on the opposite coast, was a few years earlier. The site of Byzantium in the narrow strait of the Bosphorus, with its abundant thunny-fishery,[53] which both employed and nourished a large proportion of the poorer freemen, was alike convenient either for maritime traffic, or for levying contributions on the numerous corn ships which passed from the Euxine into the Ægean; and we are even told that it held a considerable number of the neighboring Bithynian Thracians as tributary Periœki. Such dominion, though probably maintained during the more vigorous period of Grecian city life, became in later times impracticable, and we even find the Byzantines not always competent to the defence of their own small surrounding territory. The place, however, will be found to possess considerable importance during all the period of this history.[54] [52] Skymnus Chius, 699-715; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 57. See M. Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques chs. xi-xiv, vol. iii, pp. 273-298. [53] Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, l. [54] Polyb. iv, 39, Phylarch. Fragm. 10, ed. Didot. The Grecian settlements on the inhospitable south-western coast of the Euxine, south of the Danube, appear never to have attained any consideration: the principal traffic of Greek ships in that sea tended to more northerly ports, on the banks of the Borysthenês and in the Tauric Chersonese. Istria was founded by the Milesians near the southern embouchure of the Danube,—Apollonia and Odêssus on the same coast, more to the south,—all probably between 600-560 B. C. The Megarian or Byzantine colony of Mesambria, seems to have been later than the Ionic revolt; of Kallatis the age is not known. Tomi, north of Kallatis and south of Istria, is renowned as the place of Ovid’s banishment.[55] The picture which he gives of that uninviting spot, which enjoyed but little truce from the neighborhood of the murderous Getæ, explains to us sufficiently why these towns acquired little or no importance. [55] Skymnus Chius, 720-740; Herodot. ii, 33, vi, 33; Strabo, vii, p. 319; Skylax, c. 68; Mannert, Geograph. Gr. Röm. vol. vii, ch. 8, pp. 126-140.