(1.) “city of Samson.”—This is the ancient Amisos, still called Samsoun by the Turks. Fallmerayer (_Gesch. d. K. v. T._, 56, 289) observes, that the Byzantines frequently added a prefix to a name, such as εἰς, which, in time, became contracted to ες and σ, and in this way Ἄμισον was turned into σ' Ἄμισον—Σάμσον. This city, the chief town of Janyk, was then under the dominion of another Bajazet, surnamed the Impotent, who perished in his struggle with Bajazet about 1392.—BRUUN. (1A.) Fallmerayer’s explanation may be further illustrated, by quoting the names of ancient cities in the Morea and in the island of Crete, that have undergone change through the probable corruptions of a prefix. Hierapytna has become Tzerapetra; Itanus is now Tzetana, Tsitana, and even Sitana. Etea has become Setea, while Stamboul, Istamboul, itself is a corruption of Εἰς τὴν πόλιν. The modern Greeks would also appear to be in the habit of thus corrupting words in ordinary use, as, for instance, ampelon, vineyard, they call tsembela; kampos, a field, tzecampo, etc. (Spratt, _Researches in Crete_, i, 55, 200).—ED. CHAPTER VIII. (1.) “Italians of Genoa.”—It is not known when the Genoese founded a colony at Samsoun, which they called Simisso. Heyd (_d. Ital. Handelscolon_, etc., in the _Zeitschrift f. d. gesam. Staatswissenschaft_., xviii, 710) justly observes, that they must have been there previously to the year 1317, because the existence of a Genoese consul at Simisso at that date, is proved by the records of Gazaria. In the Regulations for Gazaria, 1449 (_Zap. Odess._, v, p. 629), no mention whatever is made of a consul being at Simisso; I cannot therefore agree with M. Heyd that the consulate was maintained until 1461, when Mahomet II drove the Genoese out of Samastris (Amastris), their principal port, and took possession of Sinope, where, to the year 1449, those Italians still had a consul (_ibid._, 809). The Genoese were driven out of Samsoun, in all probability in 1419, when that quarter of the town “occupied by infidels” was taken by Mahomet I (Hammer, ii, 180, 472, note xiv). At this period Schiltberger was still in Asia, and he appears to have been aware that the Genoese were obliged to quit the town. At any rate, in saying that the Italians of Genoa were still in possession of it, in the reign of Bajazet, he probably wished to intimate that they had quitted it at a later period.—BRUUN.