BYZANTIUM, a colony of the Megarians, was situated between the Propontis, the Bosporus, and the bay called _Ceras_. Under the Byzantine emperors, this bay was called the Golden Horn (τὸ χρυσοῦν κέρας), and is situated between Pera and Constantinople, forming the great port of the city extending about five miles into the country; a river empties itself into its μυχός. It is not known at what time the Megarians were powerful enough to found such a colony, but, according to all accounts, it was at an early period, perhaps during the tyrannis of Theagenes, or even earlier. Megara probably acted only as mediator for the efflux of the surplus population of the Dorians, for itself was too small. The original name of Byzantium was Βύζας, of which the most distinct traces occur in the antiquities of Constantinople, as you may see in Codinus, _De originibus Constantinopolitanis_, a work which contains some important matters concerning mythology; but its language is miserably bad. All traditions go back to a hero Byzas, who is said to be the founder of the place, and is represented on coins, just as Taras in the case of Tarentum. A still older form was no doubt Βύζανς, like _Antians_, _Romans_, _Campans_, _ans_ being a genuine Pelasgian ending. The πολιτικὸν is Βυζάντιος, the citizens are called Βυζάντιοι, and the city τὸ Βυζάντιον (supply πόλισμα) in Thucydides.[80] In the earlier writers, such as Herodotus, οἱ Βυζάντιοι is far more common, for instead of the names of places with the unusual terminations _as_ (_ans_) and _us_ (_uns_), the names of the citizens are generally employed, as Λεοντῖνοι in Sicily from Λεοῦς, which does not occur at all. Such forms are used even where topically the place alone is meant. In like manner, we find in the middle ages _Tusculana_ or _Tusculanum_ (supply _civitas_ or _oppidum_), _Lanuvina_ or _Lanuvinum_; and many of these things have descended to our own times, as _Palestrina_ for _Praenestina_. The Romans called the city _Byzantium_, and from it they formed the new adjective _Byzantinus_, which remained indeed foreign to the Greeks, but is the only correct form in later times, when Byzantium was restored under the name of Constantinople. I have made these observations, because even a grammarian like my dear friend Buttmann[81] has been mistaken on this point. In order to decide such questions, it is necessary to make investigations and to search even in the inelegant corners of the literature of the fifth and sixth centuries, and to be as familiar with it, as were Joseph Scaliger and J. F. Gronovius. In our time scholars move within too narrow limits; but we ought not to be satisfied with a knowledge of the elegant literature, but must go down to the middle ages; there are many points in the language, which receive the necessary light only from mediaeval writings.[82] Buttmann is right so far as the classical period is concerned.[83]