Dascylium

Extract

The identification of the lakes of the Cyzicene and the determination of the site of Dascylium, the seat of the Hellespontine satraps, are problems which have worried every scholar who has had to deal with the history or geography of the district. They are inseparable, because not only the names themselves, but also the statements of our ancient authorities, prove that Dascylium involves the neighbourhood of a Dascylite lake, and the Dascylite lake the neighbourhood of a Dascylium. Investigators have generally adopted one of two theories. Those who, like Dr. Richard Kiepert, have started from a place Dascylium, have fixed it at Daskeli or Diaskeli (Yaskil, Eskil Liman), a roadstead and village on the coast midway between Mudania and the Rhyndacus, and have conjured up a vanished lake in the valley of the Ulfer or Nilufer a few miles to the south. Since the publication of Heinrich Kiepert's large map this view has become an accepted tradition, and still holds the field. Those on the other hand who have started from a lake have usually found it in Lake Manyas, 10 or 12 miles south of Panderma, and have cast about for a site for Dascylium in its vicinity. Mr. F. W. Hasluck discusses the problems in his scholarly book on Cyzicus and the country adjacent to it, and regards this latter solution as the more probable of the two, but hazards a conjecture that Dascylium is perhaps to be sought farther eastward near Brussa. Some new evidence which has lately accrued from the recently published Hellenica Oxyrhynchia and from archaeological discoveries justifies a fresh examination of the questions.