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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:byzantium:5667b0e099eb",
    "title": "BYZANTIUM",
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    "verified_text": "byzantium, an ancient greek city on the shores of the bosporus, occupying the most easterly of the seven hills on which modern constantinople stands. it was said to have been founded by megarians and argives under byzas about 657 b.c., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of darius hystaspes by the satrap otanes, it was recolonized by the spartan pausanias, who wrested it from the medes after the battle of plataea (479 b.c.)--a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him. its situation, said to have been fixed by the delphic oracle, was remarkable for beauty and security. it had complete control over the euxine grain-trade; the absence of tides and the depth of its harbour rendered its quays accessible to vessels of large burden; while the tunny and other fisheries were so lucrative that the curved inlet near which it stood became known as the golden horn. the greatest hindrance to its prosperity was the miscellaneous character of the population, partly lacedaemonian and partly athenian, who flocked to it under pausanias. it was thus a subject of dispute between these states, and was alternately in the possession of each, till it fell into the hands of the macedonians. from the same cause arose the violent intestine contests which ended in the establishment of a rude and turbulent democracy. about seven years after its second colonization, the athenian cimon wrested it from the lacedaemonians; but in 440 b.c. it returned to its former allegiance. alcibiades, after a severe blockade (408 b.c.), gained possession of the city through the treachery of the athenian party; in 405 b.c. it was retaken by lysander and placed under a spartan harmost. it was under the lacedaemonian power when the ten thousand, exasperated by the conduct of the governor, made themselves masters of the city, and would have pillaged it had they not been dissuaded by the eloquence of xenophon. in 390 b.c. thrasybulus, with the assistance of heracleides and archebius, expelled the lacedaemonian oligarchy, and restored democracy and the athenian influence. after having withstood an attempt under epaminondas to restore it to the lacedaemonians, byzantium joined with rhodes, chios, cos, and mausolus, king of caria, in throwing off the yoke of athens, but soon after sought athenian assistance when philip of macedon, having overrun thrace, advanced against it. the athenians under chares suffered a severe defeat from amyntas, the macedonian admiral, but in the following year gained a decisive victory under phocion and compelled philip to raise the siege. the deliverance of the besieged from a surprise, by means of a flash of light which revealed the advancing masses of the macedonian army, has rendered this siege memorable. as a memorial of the miraculous interference, the byzantines erected an altar to torch-bearing hecate, and stamped a crescent on their coins, a device which is retained by the turks to this day. they also granted the athenians extraordinary privileges, and erected a monument in honour of the event in a public part of the city. during the reign of alexander byzantium was compelled to acknowledge the macedonian supremacy; after the decay of the macedonian power it regained its independence, but suffered from the repeated incursions of the scythians. the losses which they sustained by land roused the byzantines to indemnify themselves on the vessels which still crowded the harbour, and the merchantmen which cleared the straits; but this had the effect of provoking a war with the neighbouring naval powers. the exchequer being drained by the payment of 10,000 pieces of gold to buy off the gauls who had invaded their territories about 279 b.c., and by the imposition of an annual tribute which was ultimately raised to 80 talents, they were compelled to exact a toll on all the ships which passed the bosporus--a measure which the rhodians resented and avenged by a war, wherein the byzantines were defeated. after the retreat of the gauls byzantium rendered considerable services to rome in the contests with philip ii., antiochus and mithradates. during the first years of its alliance with rome it held the rank of a free confederate city; but, having sought arbitration on some of its domestic disputes, it was subjected to the imperial jurisdiction, and gradually stripped of its privileges, until reduced to the status of an ordinary roman colony. in recollection of its former services, the emperor claudius remitted the heavy tribute which had been imposed on it; but the last remnant of its independence was taken away by vespasian, who, in answer to a remonstrance from apollonius of tyana, taunted the inhabitants with having \"forgotten to be free.\" during the civil wars it espoused the party of pescennius niger; and though skilfully defended by the engineer periscus, it was besieged and taken (a.d. 196) by severus, who destroyed the city, demolished the famous wall, which was built of massive stones so closely riveted together as to appear one block, put the principal inhabitants to the sword and subjected the remainder to the perinthians. this overthrow of byzantium was a great loss to the empire, since it might have served as a protection against the goths, who afterwards sailed past it into the mediterranean. severus afterwards relented, and, rebuilding a large portion of the town, gave it the name of augusta antonina. he ornamented the city with baths, and surrounded the hippodrome with porticos; but it was not till the time of caracalla that it was restored to its former political privileges. it had scarcely begun to recover its former position when, through the capricious resentment of gallienus, the inhabitants were once more put to the sword and the town was pillaged. from this disaster the inhabitants recovered so far as to be able to give an effectual check to an invasion of the goths in the reign of claudius ii., and the fortifications were greatly strengthened during the civil wars which followed the abdication of diocletian. licinius, after his defeat before adrianople, retired to byzantium, where he was besieged by constantine, and compelled to surrender (a.d. 323-324). to check the inroads of the barbarians on the north of the black sea, diocletian had resolved to transfer his capital to nicomedia; but constantine, struck with the advantages which the situation of byzantium presented, resolved to build a new city there on the site of the old and transfer the seat of government to it. the new capital was inaugurated with special ceremonies, a.d. 330. (see constantinople.) the ancient historians invariably note the profligacy of the inhabitants of byzantium. they are described as an idle, depraved people, spending their time for the most part in loitering about the harbour, or carousing over the fine wine of maronea. in war they trembled at the sound of a trumpet, in peace they quaked before the shouting of their own demagogues; and during the assault of philip ii. they could only be prevailed on to man the walls by the savour of extempore cook-shops distributed along the ramparts. the modern greeks attribute the introduction of christianity into byzantium to st andrew; it certainly had some hold there in the time of severus. [v.04 p.0912] c the third letter in the latin alphabet and its descendants corresponds in position and in origin to the greek gamma ([gamma], [gamma]), which in its turn is borrowed from the third symbol of the phoenician alphabet (heb. _gimel_). the earliest semitic records give its form as [illustration] or more frequently [illustration] or [illustration] the form [illustration] is found in the earliest inscriptions of crete, attica, naxos and some other of the ionic islands. in argolis and euboea especially a form with legs of unequal length is found [illustration] from this it is easy to pass to the most widely spread greek form, the ordinary [illustration] in corinth, however, and its colony corcyra, in ozolian locris and elis, a form [illustration] inclined at a different angle is found. from this form the transition is simple to the rounded [illustration] which is generally found in the same localities as the pointed form, but is more widely spread, occurring in arcadia and on chalcidian vases of the 6th century b.c., in rhodes and megara with their colonies in sicily. in all these cases the sound represented was a hard g (as in _gig_). the rounded form was probably that taken over by the romans and with the value of g. this is shown by the permanent abbreviation of the proper names gaius and gnaeus by c. and cn. respectively. on the early inscription discovered in the roman forum in 1899 the letter occurs but once, in the form [illustration] written from right to left. the broad lower end of the symbol is rather an accidental pit in the stone than an attempt at a diacritic mark--the word is _regei_, in all probability the early dative form of _rex_, \"king.\" it is hard to decide why latin adopted the _g_-symbol with the value of _k_, a letter which it possessed originally but dropped, except in such stereotyped abbreviations as k. for the proper name _kaeso_ and _kal._ for _calendae_. there are at least two possibilities: (1) that in latium _g_ and _k_ were pronounced almost identically, as, _e.g._, in the german of wurttemberg or in the celtic dialects, the difference consisting only in the greater energy with which the _k_-sound is produced; (2) that the confusion is graphic, k being sometimes written [illustration] which was then regarded as two separate symbols. a further peculiarity of the use of c in latin is in the abbreviation for the district _subura_ in roma and its adjective _suburanus_, which appears as svc. here c no doubt represents g, but there is no interchange between _g_ and _b_ in latin. in other dialects of italy _b_ is found representing an original voiced guttural (_gw_), which, however, is regularly replaced by _v_ in latin. as the district was full of traders, _subura_ may very well be an imported word, but the form with c must either go back to a period before the disappearance of _g_ before _v_ or must come from some other italic dialect. the symbol g was a new coinage in the 3rd century b.c. the pronunciation of c throughout the period of classical latin was that of an unvoiced guttural stop (_k_). in other dialects, however, it had been palatalized to a sibilant before _i_-sounds some time before the christian era; _e.g._ in the umbrian _facia_ = latin _facial_. in latin there is no evidence for the interchange of _c_ with a sibilant earlier than the 6th century a.d. in south italy and the 7th century a.d. in gaul (lindsay, _latin language_, p. 88). this change has, however, taken place in all romance languages except sardinian. in anglo-saxon _c_ was adopted to represent the hard stop. after the norman conquest many english words were re-spelt under norman influence. thus norman-french spelt its palatalized _c_-sound (_=tsh_) with _ch_ as in _cher_ and the english palatalized _cild_, &c. became _child_, &c. in provencal from the 10th century, and in the northern dialects of france from the 13th century, this palatalized _c_ (in different districts _ts_ and _tsh_) became a simple _s_. english also adopted the value of _s_ for _c_ in the 13th century before _e_, _i_ and _y_. in some foreign words like _cicala_ the _ch-_ (_tsh_) value is given to c. in the transliteration of foreign languages also it receives different values, having that of _tsh_ in the transliteration of sanskrit and of _ts_ in various slavonic dialects. as a numeral c denotes 100. this use is borrowed from latin, in which the symbol was originally [illustration] this, like the numeral symbols later identified with l and m, was thus utilized since it was not required as a letter, there being no sound in latin corresponding to the greek [theta]. popular etymology identified the symbol with the initial letter of _centum_, \"hundred.\" (p. gi.) cab (shortened about 1825 from the fr. _cabriolet_, derived from _cabriole_, implying a bounding motion), a form of horsed vehicle for passengers either with two (\"hansom\") or four wheels (\"four-wheeler\" or \"growler\"), introduced into london as the _cabriolet de place_, from paris in 1820 (see carriage). other vehicles plying for hire and driven by mechanical means are included in the definition of the word \"cab\" in the london cab and stage carriage act 1007. the term \"cab\" is also applied to the driver's or stoker's shelter on a locomotive-engine. cabs, or hackney carriages, as they are called in english acts of parliament, are regulated in the united kingdom by a variety of statutes. in london the principal acts are the hackney carriage acts of 1831-1853, the metropolitan public carriages act 1869, the london cab act 1896 and the london cab and stage carriage act 1907. in other large british towns cabs are usually regulated by private acts which incorporate the town police clauses act 1847, an act which contains provisions more or less similar to the london acts. the act of 1869 defined a hackney carriage as any carriage for the conveyance of passengers which plies for hire within the metropolitan police district and is not a stage coach, _i.e._ a conveyance in which the passengers are charged separate and distinct fares for their seats. every cab must be licensed by a licence renewable every year by the home secretary, the licence being issued by the commissioner of police. every cab before being licensed must be inspected at the police station of the district by the inspector of public carriages, and certified by him to be in a fit condition for public use. the licence costs £2. the number of persons which the cab is licensed to carry must be painted at the back on the outside. it must carry a lighted lamp during the period between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise. the cab must be under the charge of a driver having a licence from the home secretary. a driver before obtaining a licence, which costs five shillings per annum, must pass an examination as to his ability to drive and as to his knowledge of the topography of london. general regulations with regard to fares and hiring may be made from time to time by the home secretary under the london cab and stage carriage act 1907. the hiring is by distance or by time as the hirer may decide at the beginning of the hiring; if not otherwise expressed the fare is paid according to distance. if a driver is hired by distance he is not compelled to drive more than six miles, and if hired by time he is not compelled to drive for more than one hour. when a cab is hired in london by distance, and discharged within a circle the radius of which is four miles (the centre being taken at charing cross), the fare is one shilling for any distance not exceeding two miles, and sixpence for every additional mile or part of a mile. outside the circle the fare for each mile, or part of a mile, is one shilling. when a cab is hired by time, the fare (inside or outside the circle) is two shillings and sixpence for the first hour, and eightpence for every quarter of an hour afterwards. extra payment has to be made for luggage (twopence per piece outside), for extra passengers (sixpence each for more than two), and for waiting (eightpence each completed quarter of an hour). if a horse cab is fitted with a taximeter (_vide infra_) the fare for a journey wholly _within_ or partly without and partly within the four-mile radius, and not exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes, is sixpence. for each half mile or six minutes an additional threepence is paid. if the journey is wholly _without_ the four-mile radius the fare for the first mile is one shilling, and for each additional quarter of a mile or period of three minutes, threepence is paid. if the cab is one propelled by mechanical means the fare for a journey not [v.04 p.0913] exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes is eightpence, and for every additional quarter mile or period of 21⁄2 minutes twopence is paid. a driver required to wait may demand a reasonable sum as a deposit and also payment of the sum which he has already earned. the london cab act 1896 (by which for the first time legal sanction was given to the word \"cab\") made an important change in the law in the interest of cab drivers. it renders liable to a penalty on summary conviction any person who (_a_) hires a cab knowing or having reason to believe that he cannot pay the lawful fare, or with intent to avoid payment; (_b_) fraudulently endeavours to avoid payment; (_c_) refuses to pay or refuses to give his address, or gives a false address with intent to deceive. the offences mentioned (generally known as \"bilking\") may be punished by imprisonment without the option of a fine, and the whole or any part of the fine imposed may be applied in compensation to the driver. strictly speaking, it is an offence for a cab to ply for hire when not waiting on an authorized \"standing,\" but cabs passing in the street for this purpose are not deemed to be \"plying for hire.\" these stands for cabs are appointed by the commissioner of police or the home secretary. \"privileged cabs\" is the designation given to those cabs which by virtue of a contract between a railway company and a number of cab-owners are alone admitted to ply for hire within a company's station, until they are all engaged, on condition (1) of paying a certain weekly or annual sum, and (2) of guaranteeing to have cabs in attendance at all hours. this system was abolished by the act of 1907, but the home secretary was empowered to suspend or modify the abolition if it should interfere with the proper accommodation of the public. at one time there was much discussion in england as to the desirability of legalizing on cabs the use of a mechanical fare-recorder such as, under the name of taximeter or taxameter, is in general use on the continent of europe. it is now universal on hackney carriages propelled by mechanical means, and it has also extended largely to those drawn by animal power. a taximeter consists of a securely closed and sealed metal box containing a mechanism actuated by a flexible shaft connected with the wheel of the vehicle, in the same manner as the speedometer on a motor car. it has, within plain view of the passenger, a number of apertures in which appear figures showing the amount payable at any time. a small lever, with a metal flag, bearing the words \"for hire\" stands upright upon it when the cab is disengaged. as soon as a passenger enters the cab the lever is depressed by the driver and the recording mechanism starts. at the end of the journey the figures upon the dials show exactly the sum payable for hire; this sum is based on a combination of time and distance. cabal (through the fr. _cabale_ from the _cabbala_ or _kabbalah_, the theosophical interpretation of the hebrew scriptures), a private organization or party engaged in secret intrigues, and applied also to the intrigues themselves. the word came into common usage in english during the reign of charles ii. to describe the committee of the privy council known as the \"committee for foreign affairs,\" which developed into the cabinet. the invidious meaning attached to the term was stereotyped by the coincidence that the initial letters of the names of the five ministers, clifford, arlington, buckingham, ashley and lauderdale, who signed the treaty of alliance with france in 1673, spelled cabal.",
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