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ISLANDS AND ANCIENT SHORES
Ancient descriptions of the Propontis preserve a landscape of islands, coastal towns, promontories, and settlements whose names have shifted, vanished, or survived only in fragments.
Some were linked to colonies and maritime trade. Others were remembered through earthquakes, ruins, or the observations of later travellers. Together, these accounts reveal a Marmara world shaped by geography, movement, and change.
The excerpts below trace a handful of these places through older texts, showing how the islands and shores of the Propontis were remembered across time.
BESBICUS AND THE MEMORY OF AN EARTHQUAKE
John Anthony Cramer identifies the ancient island of Besbicus with the small island now called Kalolimno, situated in the Propontis near the mouth of a river.
He also preserves an older tradition recorded by Pliny: that the island had once been joined to the mainland before being separated by an earthquake.
This small detail matters because it reminds us that the geography of the Marmara region was never fixed. Islands, coastlines, and shorelines were shaped not only by settlement and trade, but also by seismic change.
BETWEEN EVIDENCE AND LEGEND
Cramer writes that the first town encountered upon entering the Propontis from the Hellespont was Priapus. According to ancient sources, the town was founded either by settlers from Miletus or by the inhabitants of Cyzicus. Its position at the threshold of the sea reflects the wider pattern of Greek colonisation and maritime movement that helped shape the shores of Marmara.
Priapus appears here not only as a settlement, but as a marker of arrival: one of the first points where the Hellespont opens into the Propontis.
Cramer preserves a list from Pliny naming several islands and islets of the Propontis: Ophiusa, Acanthus, Phoebe, Scopelos, Porphyrione, Halone, Delphacia, and Polydora.
Some of these names can still be connected to islands known today. Halone, also recorded as Alonia, is identified with modern Paşalimanı Island. Elsewhere in the same work, ancient Besbicus is identified with Kalolimno, now known as İmralı.
Other names in Pliny’s list are more difficult to match with certainty and may refer to smaller islands, former settlements, or local names that changed over time.
MYRLEA AND THE SHORE OF MUDANYA
According to Cramer, Myrlea was an ancient colony that later fell under the control of Prusias, king of Bithynia, after being destroyed by Philip, son of Demetrius.
Prusias rebuilt the settlement and renamed it Apamea, after his queen. Later travellers identified its ruins near the site of modern Mudanya, north of Bursa.
Cramer also follows the history of Cius, a town Herodotus associated with Mysia.
Strabo records that Cius, like Myrlea, was ruined by Philip in alliance with Prusias of Bithynia. Prusias then rebuilt the city and gave it his own name. To distinguish it from another settlement, it later became known as the maritime Prusias.
This passage shows how cities along the Propontis could be destroyed, transferred, and renamed according to the ambitions of kings, leaving behind a coastline layered with political memory.