"Hellespont" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unto Abydos strand; That on their march his Medes but passing by Drank thee, Scamander, and Melenus dry; With whatsoe'er incredible design Sostratus sings, inspir'd with pregnant wine. But what's the end? He that the other day Divided Hellespont, and forc'd his way Through all her angry billows, that assign'd New punishments unto the waves, and wind, No sooner saw the Salaminian seas But he was driven out by Themistocles, And of that fleet—supposed to be so great, That all mankind shar'd in the sad defeat— Not one sail sav'd, in a poor ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... arts,—what can be the use of such an assemblage of most honourable pursuits, of such a crowd of virtues, if they are all got together for no other end but pleasure? As if, when Xerxes, with such vast fleets, such countless troops of both cavalry and infantry, had bridged over the Hellespont and dug through Mount Athos, had walked across the sea, and sailed(43) over the land, if, when he had invaded Greece with such irresistible violence, any one had asked him for the cause of collecting so vast an army, and waging so formidable ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... forth with a fleet of one hundred galleys and two hundred transports, carrying seventy thousand troops, and ravished the Negropont away from Venice in 1470, he had only to repass the Hellespont to be absolutely safe. All that the Venetian admirals, the famous Loredani, could do was to retaliate upon such islands of the Archipelago as were under Turkish sway and ravage the coasts of Asia ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... were as resistlessly drawn up to a new life as the Greeks were drawn from clear beyond the blue waters of the Hellespont into His presence. The crowds were irresistibly drawn to follow on that last eventful journey to Jerusalem even while they ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... one who has just swum the Hellespont, one who has subdued Cleopatra; here one whose eyes are just launching a thousand ships. What ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... then did Automedon, brave son of Diores, Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, and oft, too, Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten. Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont spacious, Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians. Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone, Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under; Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car, Earthward bowed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for him, and made him a present of ten thousand darics.[12] Clearchus, on receiving the gold, raised, by means of it, a body of troops, and making excursions out of the Chersonesus, made war upon the Thracians that are situated above the Hellespont, and was of assistance to the Greeks; so that the towns on the Hellespont willingly contributed money for the support of his men. This too was a force thus ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... narrow passage of the Hellespont is estimated at no less than seven hundred thousand fighting men. Of these one hundred thousand were knights clad in complete armor, the remainder ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... Corinth, and attended by deputies from all the states of Greece to consider of the best means of defense. The ships of the enemy would coast round the shores of the Aegean Sea, the land army would cross the Hellespont on a bridge of boats lashed together, and march southwards into Greece. The only hope of averting the danger lay in defending such passages as, from the nature of the ground, were so narrow that only a few persons could fight ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... on his back, and flew away with them over land and sea; but poor Helle let go in passing the narrow strait between Asia and Europe, fell into the sea, and was drowned. The strait was called after her, the Hellespont, or Helle's Sea. Phryxus came safely to Colchis, on the Black Sea, and was kindly received by AEetes, the king of the country. They sacrificed the golden-woolled ram to Jupiter, and nailed up its fleece to a tree ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the nations! Wherefore art thou so fallen? thou who trod the people under thee, bridged the Hellespont with ships, and poured thy temple-wasting millions ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... one way of fetching it. So he came back down the beach to the water's edge, cast down his boots, cast off his coat, and plunged in. The lagoon was wide, but in his present state of mind he would have swum the Hellespont. His figure gone from the beach, the night resumed its majesty and aspect ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... a full fair city, and a good, and well walled; and it is three-cornered. And there is an arm of the sea Hellespont: and some men call it the Mouth of Constantinople; and some men call it the Brace of Saint George: and that arm closeth the two parts of the city. And upward to the sea, upon the water, was wont to be the great city of Troy, in a full fair plain: but ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... which promises to become hostile to England (or, on a given time, to France), on Nena Sahib no less than on Abraham Lincoln. The never-discarded aim of Russia to plant its double cross on the banks of the Byzantine Bosporus, and its batteries on those of the Hellespont, and thus to transfer its centre of gravity from the secluded shores of the Baltic to the gates of the Mediterranean; the never-slumbering dread of this expansion, which has made the integrity of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... often told me how dreary his fate felt, doomed, as he was, to leave his country without one heart to think of him when absent, or rejoice when he should return. After a prosperous voyage the Mediterranean was reached, and the ship entered, with a fair wind, the Straits of the Hellespont. On one side, sir, of the Hellespont, is a small town called Sestos; it is a spot ignoble now, but was, once, one of note. At Sestos a Turkish nobleman, removed by age from the cares of State, had retired to pass in quietude the remainder of his life; and, surrounded by his ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... that of Ionia, comprising Pamphilia, Lycia, Caria, Pisidia, Ionia and Eolis. The twelfth satrapy, known as the satrapy of Sardis, or of Lydia. The thirteenth satrapy, known also as the satrapy of Phrygia, which comprised, besides the coast of the Hellespont, all the central region of Asia Minor between the Taurus and the Black Sea. This huge province was divided in the fifth century into the satrapies of Greater Phrygia, Lesser ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... an account of a curious forced emigration which has recently produced great excitement on classic ground. On the European banks of the Hellespont stands the city of Gallipoli, interesting as the first possession of the Turks in Europe in 1357; and nearly opposite to it is Lamsaki, a village long renowned for the vineyards in its neighborhood, and situated near the site of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... feeling was prevalent that, as formerly, the Turks had crossed the Hellespont into Europe by means of a Genoese alliance and Genoese galleys, so now the Moors were contemplating the reconquest of Granada, and of their other ancient possessions in Spain, with the aid of the Dutch republic and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for what I have already done. You would not it should have been less. But why pause here? Is so much ambition praiseworthy, and more criminal? Is it fixed in nature that the limits of this empire should be Egypt on the one hand, the Hellespont and the Euxine on the other? Were not Suez and Armenia more natural limits? Or hath empire no natural limit, but is broad as the genius that can devise, and the power that can win? Rome has the West. Let Palmyra possess the East Not that nature ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the times were the misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every calamity which can afflict a declining empire was accumulated on his reign by the justice of Heaven and the vices of his predecessors. In the east, the victorious Turks had spread, from Persia to the Hellespont, the reign of the Koran and the Crescent; the west was invaded by the adventurous valour of the Normans; and, in the moments of peace, the Danube poured forth new swarms, who had gained in the science ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to attack occupied the countries north of the Danube. His route, therefore, for the invasion of their territories would lead him through Asia Minor, thence across the Hellespont or the Bosporus into Thrace, and from Thrace across the Danube. It was ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Dandolo. Its aim, however, was not the recovery of Palestine, but the conquest of Constantinople. At the close of the crusade, Venice received the Morea, part of Thessaly, the Cyclades, many of the Byzantine cities, and the coasts of the Hellespont, with three-eighths of the city of Constantinople itself, the Doge taking the curious title of Duke of three-eighths of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of centuries of history. Paul had come down there in his long Asiatic journeys,—Eastern in his lineage, Eastern in his temperament, Eastern in his outward life, and Eastern in his faith,—to that narrow Hellespont, which for long ages has separated East from West, tore madly up the chains which would unite them, overwhelmed even love when it sought to intermarry them, and left their cliffs frowning eternal hate from shore ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... scarcely had the conquering army retired when a tumult arose, and the Roman garrison was slaughtered. Little knowledge could those have had of Aurelian's character, who tempted him to acts but too welcome to his cruel nature by such an outrage as this. The news overtook the emperor on the Hellespont. Instantly, without pause, "like Ate hot from hell," Aurelian retraced his steps—reached the guilty city—and consigned it, with all its population, to that utter destruction from which it has never since arisen. The energetic administration of Aurelian had now restored the empire—not to its ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... his wife, who lived down in Robinson's Alley; and, indeed, he could hardly have been more attentive, for he actually, on several nights, after dark, when he thought he would not be seen, sculled himself ashore in a boat, with a bucket of nice swill, and returned like Leander from crossing the Hellespont. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... brightness of her lover and his being the lord of her destiny, while in "Neptune's skies" we have not only the simple fact that the waters are the atmosphere of the sea-god's realm, but are reminded of that reflected heaven which Hero must have so often watched as it deepened below her tower in the smooth Hellespont. I call this as high an example of fancy as could well be found; it is picture and sentiment combined—the very essence of ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... of justice, by confounding all moral distinctions. It is with a worse temper, and in the way of inflicting infinitely greater injuries, to copy the kingly folly of Xerxes, in chaining and scourging the Hellespont. What, then, so far as the authority of the New Testament is concerned, becomes of slavery, which can not be maintained under any form nor for a single moment, without "respect of persons" the most aggravated and unendurable? ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... scarcely any sport which has such a charm for boys as swimming. Franklin excelled all his companions. It is reported that his skill was wonderful; and that at any time between his twelfth and sixtieth year, he could with ease have swum across the Hellespont. In his earliest years, in all his amusements and employments, his inventive genius was at work in searching out expedients. To facilitate rapidity in swimming he formed two oval pallets, much resembling those ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... wall, the historical bridge of Julius Caesar, which with charming simplicity he tells us was built because it did not comport with his dignity to cross the stream in boats, the bridge of boats across the Hellespont, by Xerxes, are all examples of early military engineering. The Bible tells us "King Uzziah built towers at the gates of Jerusalem, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them." We may note in passing that the buttresses, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... native stream, the Guadalquivir, Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont; And having learnt to swim in that sweet river, Had often turn'd the art to some account: A better swimmer you could scarce see ever, He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont, As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... shrinkingly into the cold water. "If Sarah will swim from me to you, I'll try it after her," she bargained. It was perhaps a distance of three yards from where she stood, waist-deep, to the big rock whereon Blue Bonnet was perched, laughing at them; but the Hellespont could hardly have loomed wider to the anxious eyes of Hero, than did this narrow channel now ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... I was on the ancient Hellespont and my fellow-travellers, grouped about the deck of our vessel, were trying to make out on the receding coast of Asia the sites of Troy and of the tumuli which were then still supposed to have been the tombs of Achilles, Patrokles, and Hector, but which are now, thanks to the able ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... thither with wings: but all the difficulties arise there, after they are plac'd in them. And of such sort are those who have an estate given them for money, by the favor of some one that grants it them: as it befell many in Greece, in the cities of Jonia, and Hellespont; where divers Princes were made by Darius, as well for his own safety as his glory; as also them that were made Emperors; who from private men by corrupting the soldiers, attaind to the Empire. These subsist meerly upon the will, and fortune of those that ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... not only for writing on, but also for ropes. The bridge of boats on which Xerxes crossed the Hellespont was fastened ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... partial defeat for both sides. Pericles succeeded in saving his friend's life, but the opposite party obtained a sentence of fine and banishment against him. Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont, and there, after some ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... western Tartary. These brave, but ferocious warriors, soon wrested the sceptre from the feeble caliphs, and completed the conquest of western Asia. The crusades for a time delayed the fate of the Greek empire, but finally the Turks crossed the Hellespont, and having taken Constantinople, (A.D. 1453,) established their cruel despotism over the fairest ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... ceased to be Lacedaemonians, that they became great men. Brasidas, among the cities of Thrace, was strictly a democratical leader, the favourite minister and general of the people. The same may be said of Gylippus, at Syracuse. Lysander, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, were liberated for a time from the hateful restraints imposed by the constitution of Lycurgus. Both acquired fame abroad; and both returned to be watched and depressed at home. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... enters the mainland, form an isthmus at its end. For example, the so-called Crisaean Gulf, ending at Lechaeum, where the city of Corinth is, forms the isthmus of that city, about forty stades in breadth; and the gulf off the Hellespont, which they call the Black Gulf,[78] makes the isthmus at the Chersonese no broader than the Corinthian, but of about the same size. But from the city of Ravenna, where the Ionian Gulf ends, to the Tuscan Sea is not less than eight days' journey for an unencumbered traveller. And the reason ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... in his passage to Paradise. I attempted it a week ago, and failed,—owing to the north wind, and the wonderful rapidity of the tide,—though I have been from my childhood a strong swimmer. But, this morning being calmer, I succeeded, and crossed the "broad Hellespont" in an hour and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont: Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, Till that a capable and wide revenge ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Like to the Ponticke Sea, Whose Icie Current, and compulsiue course, Neu'r keepes retyring ebbe, but keepes due on To the Proponticke, and the Hellespont: Euen so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace Shall neu'r looke backe, neu'r ebbe to humble Loue, Till that a capeable, and wide Reuenge Swallow them vp. Now by yond Marble Heauen, In the due reuerence of a Sacred vow, I heere ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... until they apply them to the walls. But that you will not say: for whoever contrives and prepares the means for my conquest, is at war with me before he darts or draws the bow. What, if anything should happen, is the risk you run? The alienation of the Hellespont, the subjection of Megara and Euboea to your enemy, the siding of the Peloponnesians with him. Then can I allow that one who sets such an engine at work against Athens is at peace with her? Quite the contrary. From the day that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the tragedy of the Hellespont, it has been the ambition of poets to perform a noteworthy swimming feat, and one of Poe's schoolboy memories was of his six-mile swim from Ludlam's Wharf to ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... rising of the Pleiades, when the upland fields begin to pasture the young lambs, and when spring is already on the wane, then the flower divine of Heroes bethought them of sea-faring. On board the hollow Argo they sat down to the oars, and to the Hellespont they came when the south wind had been for three days blowing, and made their haven within Propontis, where the oxen of the Cianes wear bright the ploughshare, as they widen the furrows. Then they went forth upon the shore, and ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... Xerxes, King of Persia, who had built an immense bridge of boats over the Hellespont to transport his army from Asia into Europe. A storm having destroyed this bridge, the all-powerful monarch, furious at the insubordination of the elements, ordered chains to be cast into the sea, and had the rebellious ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... up the strait with earth, and so to make a passage for his land forces to Salamis, to attack the Greeks there. Now Themistokles, in order to try the temper of Aristeides, proposed that the fleet should sail to the Hellespont, and break the bridge of boats there, "in order," said he, "that we may conquer Asia in Europe." But Aristeides disapproved of this measure, saying, "Hitherto we have fought against the Persian king, while ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... have proved themselves more than a match for any force that the Mussulman could have brought against the new nation. There would have been a regular flow of Normans and other hardy adventurers to Byzantium, and the Turks never would have been allowed to cross the Hellespont to establish themselves in Europe, and would have been fortunate had they been able to keep the Normans from crossing the Hellespont to establish themselves in Asia. Thousands of those fanatics who were so soon to cover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... like a king, upon the honest word of a true Trojan; come, come, what do you ask? Not so fast, Robin, answered the trader; these sheep are lineally descended from the very family of the ram that wafted Phryxus and Helle over the sea since called the Hellespont. A pox on't, said Panurge, you are clericus vel addiscens! Ita is a cabbage, and vere a leek, answered the merchant. But, rr, rrr, rrrr, rrrrr, hoh Robin, rr, rrrrrrr, you don't understand that gibberish, do you? ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... month of dark December, Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream broad Hellespont. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... XER' XES, (zerks' ees,) the celebrated king of Persia, during his famous expedition into Greece, caused a bridge of boats to be built over the Hellespont; but the work having been destroyed by a storm, he was greatly enraged against the sea, and ordered it to be lashed, and fetters to be cast into it ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... love's own sign and beacon guide Across the Hellespont's wide weary space, Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide:— Look what a red it forges on her face, As if she blush'd at holding sucha light, Ev'n in the unseen presence of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... associations. He saw the Orient only as an enthusiastic poet would see it, and as Lamartine saw Jerusalem. But Byron was more curious about the pagan cities of antiquity than concerning the places consecrated by the sufferings of our Lord. He cared more to swim across the Hellespont with Leander than to wander over the sacred hills of Judaea; to idealize a beautiful peasant girl among the ruins of Greece, than converse with the monks of Palestine in their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... way from the Danube to the Ilyssus; yet so far, at least, every European enemy of Thebes and Athens had to march. Nay, unless Monsieur le Sauvage happened to possess the mouths of the Danube, so as to float down 'by the turn of tide' through the Euxine, Bosphorus, Propontis, Hellespont, etc., he would think twice before he would set off a-gallivanting to the regions of the South, where certainly much sunshine was to be had of undeniable quality, but not much of anything else. The Greeks were never absolute paupers, because, however slender their means, their social usages ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... they were good for nothing there. You should have come to Sandwich to eat them. It is a shame for you that you did not. An epicure talk of danger when he is in search of a dainty! Did not Leander swim over the Hellespont in a tempest to get to his mistress? And what is a wench to a ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Miss Dandridge. "When you've swum the Hellespont like Leander, or picked a glove out of the lion's den like the French knight, or battered down a haunted castle like Rinaldo, or taken the ring from a murderer's hand like Onofrio, or set free the Magician's ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... time it was that Philip, king of Macedon, was treacherously assaulted and slain at Egae by Pausanias, the son of Cerastes, who was derived from the family of Oreste, and his son Alexander succeeded him in the kingdom; who, passing over the Hellespont, overcame the generals of Darius's army in a battle fought at Granicum. So he marched over Lydia, and subdued Ionia, and overran Caria, and fell upon the places of Pamphylia, as has ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the Mussulman negociator was a lamentable one: he was accused of imbecility or treachery; and his head was taken off his shoulders to decorate the niche over the Seraglio gate: he paid dear for his friendly feelings towards the English. So ended the famed expedition to the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. It broke the spell by which the passage of the Dardanelles had for ages been guarded; but beyond this it was little more than a brilliant bravado, followed by a series of humiliating blunders. And yet no investigation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... oysterman, and to himself said he, "I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see; I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear, Leander swam the Hellespont, and I will swim ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... out, that he had foretold a stone would drop from the Sun. Some were idle enough to think that it was accomplished: and in consequence of it pretended to shew at AEgospotamos the very [873]stone, which was said to have fallen. The like story was told of a stone at Abydus upon the Hellespont: and Anaxagoras was here too supposed to have been the prophet[874]. In Abydi gymnasio ex ea causa colitur hodieque modicus quidem (lapis), sed quem in medio terrarum casurum Anaxagoras praedixisse narratur. The temples, or Petra here mentioned, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... of my losing my path for in the mouth of the cave I could see the glow of the fires which burned on either side of the Motombo's seat. They served the same purpose to me as did the lamp of the lady called Hero to her lover Leander when he swam the Hellespont to pay her clandestine visits at night. But he had something pleasant to look forward to, whereas I——! Still, there was another point in common between us. Hero, if I remember right, was a priestess of the Greek goddess of love, whereas ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... the Tyrsenians, and who were once neighbours of the race now called Dorian, dwelling then in the land which is now called Thessaliotis, and also by those that remain of the Pelasgians who settled at Plakia and Skylake in the region of the Hellespont, who before that had been settlers with the Athenians, 61 and of the natives of the various other towns which are really Pelasgian, though they have lost the name,—if one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... transplanted to the Cilician frontier in Asia Minor, and established there as a military colony to guard the passes of the Taurus. In A.D. 962 the Greeks, having obtained some temporary successes, drove the Gypsies back more into the interior, whence they gradually moved towards the Hellespont under the pressure of the advancing Seljukians, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They then crossed over to Europe and gradually overspread it, where they are now estimated to number ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... in the handicap besides Hamilton. One of 'em's a big clumsy colt named Hellespont. The bunch calls him the Elephant, 'n' he's sour as lemons. I see his eyes a-rollin' in the paddock, 'n' I know he's hopped. Just as the parade starts he begins to cut the mustard. He rears 'n' tries to come down all spraddled out on the colt ahead of him in the line, but ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... named), driven by the Scyths along by the Caucasus into Asia Minor, where they maintained themselves for a century. But the Cimmerii are often mentioned in connexion with the Thracian Treres who made their raids across the Hellespont, and it is quite possible that some Cimmerii took this route, having been cut off by the Scyths as the Alani (q.v.) were by the Huns. Certain it is that in the middle of the 7th century B.C., Asia Minor was ravaged by northern nomads (Herod, iv. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... cause was dissatisfaction at the energy which was displayed by the emperor, who showed that he was determined to take the administration into his own hands and personally to control the army. Phocas advanced to the Hellespont and besieged Abydos. Basil obtained timely aid, in the shape of Varangian mercenaries, from his brother-in-law Vladimir, the Russian prince of Kiev, and marched to Abydos. The two armies were facing each other, when Basil ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... authority, Allard, says that though there is no mention in classical writings of any light-house in Greece proper, it is probable that there was one at the port of Athens as well as at other points in Greece. There were certainly several along both shores of the Hellespont, besides the famous father of all light-houses, on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. Hence the French name for ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... joyning to the Wall Immoveable of this now fenceless world Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad, Smooth, easie, inoffensive down to Hell. So, if great things to small may be compar'd, Xerxes, the Libertie of Greece to yoke, From Susa his Memnonian Palace high Came to the Sea, and over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joyn'd, 310 And scourg'd with many a stroak th' indignant waves. Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock Over the vext Abyss, following the track Of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... dwelling on mythological allusions is sometimes quite ludicrous, e.g., when he sees the Hellespont frozen over, his first thought is, "Winter was the time for Leander to have gone to Hero; there would have ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... of Galipoli, situate on an eminence near the Hellespont. A few fragments of ruins in the last stage of dilapidation cause us to think of the ages that have fled, as we speed rapidly on. We waited here a quarter of an hour to increase the motley assemblage on ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... or Troy, was a city of Asia Minor, a little south of the Hellespont. It was the centre of a powerful state, Grecian in race and language; and when Paris, son of King Priam, visited Sparta and carried off the beautiful wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, all the heroes of Greece banded together and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Cyprus and Lycia and Caria and the Cyclades, set out on a campaign into Asia with infantry and cavalry forces, a naval armament and elephants, both Troglodyte and Ethiopic.... But having become master of all the country within the Euphrates, and of Cilicia and Pamphylia and Ionia and the Hellespont and Thrace, and of all the military forces and elephants in these countries, and having made the monarchs in all these places his subjects, he crossed the Euphrates, and having brought under him Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Susiana and Persis and Media, and all the rest as far ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... life was, however, ameliorated by some curious personal incidents. Once, for example, the solitary boy, moving along the crowded streets, fancied, in the strange vividness of his waking dream, that he was Leander swimming across the Hellespont. His hand "came in contact with a gentleman's pocket" as he pursued this visionary amusement, and for two or three minutes Coleridge was in danger of being taken into custody as a pickpocket. On finding out how matters really stood, however, this ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... lifted the wand which, touching the eyelid of mortals, Soothes into slumber at will, or arouses the soul of the sleeper. Grasping it, forth did he fly in his vigour, the slayer of Argus, And to the Hellespont glided apace, and the shore of the Trojan; Walking whereon he appear'd as a stripling of parentage royal, Fresh with the beard first-seen, in the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... decoration (scena ductilis), which was slid in front of the back-piece in case of a change of scene, as, for instance, when playing the Ajax of Sophocles, where the place of action is transferred from the Greek camp to the shores of the Hellespont. Then, there were other side-scenes not of much account, owing to lack of room, and on each wing a turning piece with three broad flats representing three different subjects. There were square niches in the walls of the proscenium either for statues or for policemen ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... Well, it's lucky for them that it's not worth my while, as I may say, to break spears With the hirelings, forsooth, of the press who assert that Othello was Shakespeare's. When he that can run, sir, may read—if he borrows the book, or goes on tick— In my poems the bit that describes how the Hellespont joins the Propontic. There are men, I believe, who will tell you that Gray wrote the whole of The Bard— Or that I didn't write half the Elegy, Bill, in a Country Churchyard. When you know that my poem, The Poet, begins—"Ruin seize thee!" and ends With recapitulations of horrors the poet invokes ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... flower-lulled in sleepy grass, Hear the cool lapse of hours pass, Until the centuries blend and blur In Grantchester, in Grantchester ... Still in the dawnlit waters cool His ghostly Lordship swims his pool, And tries the strokes, essays the tricks, Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx; Dan Chaucer hears his river still Chatter beneath a phantom mill; Tennyson notes, with studious eye, How Cambridge waters hurry by ... And in that garden, black and white Creep whispers through the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... nothing else to do, and you may sit down and find fault with it, if you have no better way of consuming your time. But finding fault with the vagaries of a poet's fancy is much such another business as Xerxes chastising the waves of Hellespont. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that they were all different tribes and peoples of the one great Hellen race, who lived in what we now call Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago, and along the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia, as they call it), from the Hellespont to Rhodes, and had afterwards colonies and cities in Sicily, and South Italy (which was called Great Greece), and along the shores of the Black Sea at Sinope, and Kertch, and at Sevastopol. And after that, again, ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... which we find a vision of the dead in sleep playing an important part; but there is also the well-known tale of the Byzantine maiden Cleonice.[76] She was of high birth, but had the misfortune to attract the attention of the Spartan Pausanias, who was in command of the united Greek fleet at the Hellespont after the battle of Plataea. Like many Spartans, when first brought into contact with real luxury after his frugal upbringing at home, he completely lost his mental balance, and grew intoxicated with the splendour of his position, endeavouring to imitate the ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... the future emperor Basil the Macedonian, (who subsequently murdered his patron the Drunkard,) to assassinate his own father-in-law Caesar Bardas, rebelled against his connexion the Drunkard.[50] He engaged Peganes, the general of the theme of Opsikion, or the provinces on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, in his rebellion. Peganes was soon taken prisoner by the imperial troops, and the Drunkard ordered his eyes to be put out and his nose to be cut off, and he then sent him to stand in the Milion for three days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... (a.u. 967)] Next, Antoninus arrived in Thrace, paying no further heed to Dacia. Having crossed the Hellespont, not without danger, he did honor to Achilles with sacrifices and races, in armor, about the tomb, in which he as well as the soldiers participated. For this he gave them money, assuring them that they had won a great success and had in very truth ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... increased by reinforcements drawn from Thrace, had divided themselves into three hordes: the Tectosages, the Tolistoboies, and the Trocmes. To avoid dispute, they distributed the whole of Asia Minor into three parts: of these the Trocmes possessed the Hellespont and Troas; the Tolistoboies, AEolida and Ionia; the Tectosages, the coast of the Mediterranean from the west of Mount Taurus. They now overran and subdued all Asia Minor; every country, every town, was obliged to pay them tribute; or soon the fertile land was reduced to an arid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... Some of these schemes did cross his little mind, but he decided to spend the whole shilling on a present to his mother, and it was to be something useful. He devoted much thought to what she was most in need of, and at last he bought her a colored picture of Lord Byron swimming the Hellespont. ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... was in the sad story of Hero and Leander, who lived on opposite borders of the Hellespont. Hero dwelt at Sestos, where she served as a priestess, in the very temple of Venus; and Leander's home was in Abydos, a town on the opposite shore. But every night this lover would swim across the water to see Hero, guided by ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... said he thousand thousands slew, Yea, and Calisthenes to death he drew. The mighty Persian King he over came, Yea, and he killed Calisthenes of fame. All countreyes, Kingdomes, Provinces he won, From Hellespont, to the farthest Ocean. All this he did, who knows not to be true? But yet withal, Calisthenes he slew. From Nacedon, his English did extend, Unto the utmost bounds o' th' Orient, All this he did, yea, and much more 'tis true, But ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Fancy, not long since, heard the hoofs of winged Pegasus striking the clouds. The long-idle Muses, it seemed, had become again interested in human efforts, and were paying a flying visit to the haunts of modern genius from the Hellespont to the Mississippi. They lingered in sunny Provence, and in the dark forest-land of the Minnesingers. In the great capitals, as Rome, Berlin, Paris, London,—in smaller capitals, as Florence, Weimar, and Boston,—in many a village which had a charm for them, as Stratford-on-Avon, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... second, in the year 480, under Xerxes, the successor to Darius. This time the very immensity of the forces employed was to overcome all opposition and all misfortunes. An army, variously estimated at from one to five million men, crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats to invade the peninsula from the north, while a fleet of 1200 triremes was assembled to insure the command of ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... years before-Marathon—a half-cycle after the accession of Cyrus, or in 493;—and was. Then the Law-pronounced its Thus far and no further; and enforced it with Homer's songs, and Greek valor, and Darius' death, and Xerxes' fickle childishness (he smacked the Hellespont because it was naughty). These things together brought to naught the might and ambition and bravery of Iran; but had they been lacking, the Law would have found other means. Though Xerxes and Themistocles had both sat at home doing nothing, Alexander would still have marched east ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... will get neither wheat, nor fish, nor books. Your trouble will be as fruitless as was the immense labor of the army of Xerxes; who, as Herodotus says, with his three million soldiers, scourged the Hellespont for twenty-four hours, as a punishment for having broken and scattered the pontoon bridge which the great king ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... squadrons, sailors and merchants propagated the worship of Isis, the goddess of navigators, simultaneously on the coasts of Syria, {80} Asia Minor and Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago,[18] and as far as the Hellespont and Thrace.[19] At Delos, where the inscriptions enable us to study this worship somewhat in detail, it was not merely practised by strangers, but the very sacerdotal functions were performed by members of the Athenian aristocracy. A number of funereal bas-reliefs, ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... is one of the most attractive of all qualities. Again and again in battle he turned defeat into victory. He would lay hold of the fugitives as they ran, seize them by the throat, and get them by main force face to face with the foe. Crossing the Hellespont after the battle of Pharsalia in a small boat, he met two of the enemy's ships. Without hesitation he discovered himself, called upon them to surrender, and was obeyed. At Alexandria he was surprised by a sudden sally of the besieged, and had to leap into the ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... world. Far across the sea that lies on the east of Greece, there dwelt the rich King Priam. His town was called Troy, or Ilios, and it stood on a hill near the seashore, where are the straits of Hellespont, between Europe and Asia; it was a great city surrounded by strong walls, and its ruins are still standing. The kings could make merchants who passed through the straits pay toll to them, and they ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... that devoted band! Do not the trees, the rocks, the waves, The mountains, to each passer-by, With low and plaintive voice tell The wondrous tale of those who fell, Heroes invincible who gave Their lives, their Greece to save? Then cowardly as fierce, Xerxes across the Hellespont retired, A laughing-stock to all succeeding time; And up Anthela's hill, where, e'en in death The sacred Band immortal life obtained, Simonides slow-climbing, thoughtfully, Looked forth on sea and shore and sky. And ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... of Hissarlik is extremely magnificent. Before it lies the glorious Plain of Troy, which is covered with grass and yellow buttercups; on the north northwest, at about an hour's distance, it is bounded by the Hellespont. The peninsula of Gallipoli here runs out to a point, upon which stands a lighthouse. To the left of it is the island of Imbros, above which rises Mount Ida of the island of Samothrace, at present covered with snow; ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... water brought the Chevalier out of his reverie. He leaped from the tub and shone rosily in the firelight, as elegantly proportioned a youth as ever was that fabulous Leander of the Hellespont. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... dizzy. She fell off the golden ram before her brother could take hold of her. Down she fell, and still the ram flew on and on. She was drowned in that sea. The people afterward named it in memory of her, calling it 'Hellespont'—'Helle's Sea.' ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... confederates, Sought to deface our glorious memory And wipe the name of Trojans from the earth, Him did I captivate with this mine arm, And by compulsion forced him to agree To certain articles which there we did propound. From Graecia through the boisterous Hellespont, We came unto the fields of Lestrigon, Whereas our brother Corineius was, Since when we passed the Cicillian gulf, And so transfretting the Illirian sea, Arrived on the coasts of Aquitaine, Where with an army of his barbarous Gauls Goffarius and his brother Gathelus ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Greece being strewn with this refuse. The veins of gold in the Pangaion range in Macedonia attracted them off the Thracian coast* received also frequent visits from them, and they carried their explorations even through the tortuous channel of the Hellespont into the Propontis, drawn thither, no doubt by the silver mines in the Bithynian mountains** which were already ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... child fell shall be called Hellespont after her. And as for her body, you Nereids shall take it to the Troad to ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... famous swimming feat of his own, the poet remarked, "Any 'swimmer in the falls' in my days would have swum the Hellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam from Ludlam's Wharf to Warwick (six miles), in a hot June sun, against one of the strongest tides ever known in the river. It would have been a feat comparatively easy to swim twenty miles ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... contre elle enflamm de dpit, La chassa de son trne, ainsi que de son lit. Mais il ne put sitt en bannir la pense. 35 Vasthi rgna longtemps dans son me offense. Dans ses nombreux tats il fallut donc chercher Quelque nouvel objet qui l'en pt dtacher. De l'Inde a l'Hellespont ses esclaves coururent; Les filles de l'gypte Suse comparurent; 40 Celles mme du Parthe et du Scythe indompt Y brigurent le sceptre offert la beaut. On m'elevait alors, solitaire et cache, Sous les yeux vigilants du sage Mardoche. Tu sais combien ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... Strong-built and tall, from Sellcentes' bank And from Arisba, had him borne to Troy. Hippothous and Pilmus, branch of Mars, 1025 Both sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, they, Forth from Larissa for her fertile soil Far-famed, the spear-expert Pelasgians brought. The Thracians (all whom Hellespont includes Within the banks of his swift-racing tide) 1030 Heroic Acamas and Pirous led. Euphemus, offspring of Troezenus, son Of Jove-protected Ceas, was the Chief Whom the spear-arm'd Ciconian band obey'd. Paeonia's archers follow'd to the field 1035 Pyraechmes; they from Amydon ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... his hair, which was doubtless red, Samson would not have carried away the gates of Gaza. But for his red hair, Jason would not have navigated the Euxine and discovered the Golden Horn. But for the red hair of his mistress, Leander would not have swum the Hellespont. But for his red hair, Narcissus would not have fallen in love with himself, and thereby become immortal in song. But for his red hair we should find nothing in Van Buren to praise. But for red hair, we should not have written this article. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Their preparations had been with the greatest secrecy. The first known of them was their appearance off the entrance to the Thracian Bosphorus, followed by the destruction of the fleet in station there. Thence to the outlet of the Hellespont everything afloat had fallen their prey. There were quite sixty galleys in the squadron, all well manned and supplied. A few were biremes, the rest stout triremes. A Greek was in command, and the pilots, said to be familiar with all the Eastern seas, were Greek. The plunder had been ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the other guests, away to the camp of the Greeks, or to the court of Priam, or to the bower of Andromache. He has no more difficulty to think of Minerva darting, in the likeness of a hawk, from the snowy crest of Olympus to the shore of the Hellespont—or to imagine the Thunderer in his celestial car, lashing on his golden-maned steeds that pace the clouds and the air, and waft him at the speed almost of a wish from the unfolding portals of heaven to the summit of Mount ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was failure and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Elsung's. He marched next toward "Romaborg" (Rome) intending to make his eldest son, Hermanric, lord of that city, but died on the journey. Hermanric, however, after many battles with the Romans achieved the desired conquest, and became Lord of Romaborg and the country round it, even to the Hellespont and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... Hellespont (such faith was entertained) A knot of spiry trees for ages grew From out the tomb of him for whom she died; And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; A constant interchange ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... continually disposable for the war upon the city of Constantine; nations had time to arise in juvenile vigor, to grow old and superannuated, to melt away, and totally to disappear, in that long struggle on the Hellespont and Propontis. It was a struggle which might often intermit and slumber; armistices there might be, truces, or unproclaimed suspensions of war out of mutual exhaustion, but peace there could not be, because any resting from the duty of hatred towards ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... but stuck to his pig-trough like a man. "I'm Jason," he replied, defiantly; "and this is the Argo. The other fellows are here too, only you can't see them; and we're just going through the Hellespont, so don't you come bothering." And once more he plied ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... his favorite sport. It was claimed for him that, any time between twelve and sixteen years of age, he could have swam across the Hellespont. Here, as well as elsewhere, his inventive genius was devising ways to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... thing, and therefore turned aside his amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the roads that he journeyed. Then he was taken by Loker, and found by very sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon him. So he assailed Handwan, king of the Hellespont, who was entrenched behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city Duna, and withstood him not in the field, but with battlements. Its summit defying all approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... lies the Sea of Marmora, a curious sheet of water which is neither a lake nor a sea, neither a bay nor a sound. It is a link between the Black and Aegean Seas, connected by the Bosporus with the former, and by the Dardanelles, the Hellespont, with the latter. The Sea of Marmora is 130 miles long. Seven miles to the south the Princes' Islands float on the water like airy gardens, and beyond in the blue distance are seen the mountains of ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... son of Darius I., whom he succeeded on the throne in 485 B.C.; in his ambition to subdue Greece, which, after suppressing a revolt in Egypt, he in 481 essayed to do with an immense horde of men both by sea and land, he with his army crossed the Hellespont by means of a bridge of boats, was checked for a time at Thermopylae by Leonidas and his five hundred, advanced to Athens to see his fleet destroyed at Salamis by Themistocles, fled at the sight by ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... she broke out into, "O! ay, thou wast shipwrecked, I remember. Whether didst thou come on shore on the back of a whale or a dolphin?" To this I answered, I had swam ashore without any assistance. Then she demanded to know if I had ever been at the Hellespont, and swam from Sestos to Abydos. I replied in the negative; upon which she bade the maid order a suit of new livery for me, and instruct me in the articles of my duty: so she spit in her snuff-box, and wiped her nose ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... fought. It is somewhat like the blade of a scimitar, covering the entrance to the Sea of Marmora. Between this strip of land and the coast of Asia Minor is a narrow strait, the outer mouth of which is called the Dardanelles, the inner gateway being the famous Hellespont. Here it was that Xerxes crossed over on a bridge of boats at the head of his Persian army to invade Greece, only to meet disaster at Thermopylae, and here Alexander of Macedonia crossed over to begin his march of conquest which was to extend his power as far as India. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... die before; and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was—Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... some gauze-like drapery, which veiled without concealing his design, that the chastest eye might gaze on his heroine with impunity. The splendor of her upstretched arms held high the beacon-light, which thew a glare upon the sublime anxiety of her countenance, while all the tumult of the Hellespont, the waves, the scudding sky, the opposite shore revealed by a blood-red flash, were touched by the hand of a master ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... round, when thick and fast Gleam lightnings from the huddling clouds, when fields Are flooded as the hissing rain descends, And all the air is filled with awful roar Of torrents pouring down the hill-ravines; So Memnon toward the shores of Hellespont Before him hurled the Argives, following hard Behind them, slaughtering ever. Many a man Fell in the dust, and left his life in blood 'Neath Aethiop hands. Stained was the earth with gore As Danaans died. ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... of a ruthless soldiery. The fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruins. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopyl and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own people. The Man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. Rome, republican Rome, whose ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... did the river make us; But Hellespont, where Xerxes passed across, (A curb still to all ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... hee could to die before, and he is one of the patternes of loue. Leander, he would haue liu'd manie a faire yeere though Hero had turn'd Nun; if it had not bin for a hot Midsomer-night, for (good youth) he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and being taken with the crampe, was droun'd, and the foolish Chronoclers of that age, found it was Hero of Cestos. But these are all lies, men haue died from time to time, and wormes haue eaten ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... was clearly shown when Xerxes collected his fleet of twelve hundred and seven triremes against Greece. The fleet included contingents from Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Caria, Ionia, AEolis, and the Greek settlements about the Propontis.[914] When it reached the Hellespont, the great king, anxious to test the quality of his ships and sailors, made proclamation for a grand sailing match, in which all who liked might contend. Each contingent probably—at any rate, all that prided themselves on their nautical skill—selected ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... fifteen millions sterling, and Buonaparte had actually duped him into a treaty, by which the French were to be permitted to erect a fort on the very spot where the ancient Hippo stood, the choice between which and the Hellespont, as the site of New Rome, is said to have perplexed the judgment of Constantine. To this he added an additional point of connection with Russia, by means of Odessa, and on the supposition of a war in the Baltic, a still more interesting relation to Turkey, and ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... soon as he had crossed over the Hellespont and come to Sardis, called to mind the service rendered to him by Histiaios the Milesian and also the advice of the Mytilenian Coes, and having sent for them to come to Sardis he offered them a choice of rewards. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... though there were no clouds in sight and the day was quite clear; day was thus turned into night." We are told[45] that "As the king was going against Greece, and had come into the region of the Hellespont, there happened an eclipse of the Sun in the East; this sign portended to him his defeat, for the Sun was eclipsed in the region of its rising, and Xerxes was also marching from that quarter." So far as words go these accounts admirably befit a total eclipse of the Sun, but regarded as such it ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... engaged in surveying the machinery of my portcullis and drawbridge. His start of surprise, however, and the manner in which he hurried off into the darkness, speedily convinced me of his earthly origin, and I put him down as some admirer of one of my female retainers mourning over the muddy Hellespont which divided him from his love. Whoever he may have been, he disappeared and did not return, though I loitered about for some time in the hope of catching a glimpse of him and exercising my feudal rights ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... where he met with a kind reception from his kinsman AEetes. The young princess, however, either becoming sea-sick, and leaning over the bulwarks of the vessel, fell overboard and was drowned, or died a natural death in the passage of the Hellespont, to which she gave its name from that circumstance. Athamas, having discovered the deceitful conduct of Ino, in his rage killed her son Learchus, and sought her, for the purpose of sacrificing her to his vengeance. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... assertions of the ancient Greeks that its summit touched the sky. To the east, outlined against the AEgean's blue, I could see the peninsula of Chalkis, with its three gaunt capes, Cassandra, Longos, and Athos, reaching toward Thrace, the Hellespont and Asia Minor, like the claw of a vulture stretched out to snatch the quarry which ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods, having loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and then you shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care to you, early in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont, and my men eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the earth gives me a good voyage, on the third day I shall ...
— Lesser Hippias • Plato
... very early in the morning. The night before I had declared my intention to go on deck at daylight and view the Hellespont, but when I awoke and found it blowing a gale, I concluded it would not "pay," and turned in for another nap. All that day we were crossing the Sea of Marmora with the strong current and wind against us, so it was dark before we reached Constantinople, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... didst honour above all thy other companions, after Patroclus that was dead. Then over them did we pile a great and goodly tomb, we the holy host of Argive warriors, high on a jutting headland over wide Hellespont, that it might be far seen from off the sea by men that now are, and by those that shall be hereafter. Then thy mother asked the gods for glorious prizes in the games, and set them in the midst of the lists for the champions of the Achaeans. In days past thou hast been at the funeral ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... singular: going down the Strand, in one of his day-dreams, fancying himself swimming across the Hellespont, thrusting his hands before him as in the act of swimming, his hand came in contact with a gentleman's pocket; the gentleman seized his hand, turning round and looking at him with some anger, "What! so young, and so wicked?" at the same time accused him of an attempt to pick his pocket; the frightened ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... the green and village-cotted hill is Flanked by the Hellespont, and by the sea, Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles— They say so. Bryant says the contrary. And farther downward tall and towering still is The tumulus, of whom Heaven knows it may be, Patroclus, Ajax, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... romances and plays and poems that had before interested her but as mere tales, whose motives had seemed arbitrary and insufficient. Now they all took reality and reason. She knew at last why Hero threw herself into the Hellespont after Leander, why all that commotion was caused by Helen of Troy, why Oriana took such trouble for Mirabel, why Juliet died on Romeo's body, why Miss Richland paid Honeywood's debts. The moon, rushing through a cleft ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... died, Otranto was lost, and the enterprise was not renewed. His people were a nation of soldiers, not a nation of sailors. For operations beyond sea they relied on the seamen of the AEgean, generally Christians, as they had required the help of Genoese ships to ferry them over the Hellespont. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... you may achieve more conquests over sovereignties not your own than falls to the common lot of even uncommon ambition. By the aid of such a power, skilfully employed, you may "bridge your way" over the Hellespont that separates State legislation from that of Congress; and you may do so for pretty much the same purpose with which Xerxes once bridged his way across the Hellespont that separates Asia from Europe. He did so, in the language of Milton, "the liberties of Greece to yoke." You ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... their treachery. The secret was well kept; the conspirators were in no hurry to strike the blow. They waited patiently till a time when it seemed as if the force of the Latins was at the lowest; that is, when Prince Henry, brother of the Emperor, had crossed the Hellespont with the flower of the troops. The empire in Europe was covered with thin and sparse garrisons; there were no forces in Constantinople to come to their succor should they try to hold out; they might be taken in detail and at once. And then those Byzantine Vespers began. It was a revolt ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... over the six golden heads and snowy necks, lovely as six wholesome young goddesses fresh from a bath in the Hellespont. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... which once was yours. Let the young seamen of the islands emulate the glory that awaits the military force. Let them hasten to join the national ships, and, if denied your independence and rights, blockade the Hellespont, thus carrying the war into the enemy's country. Then the fate of the cruel Sultan, the destroyer of his subjects, the tyrant taskmaster of a Christian people, shall be sealed by the hands of the executioners who yet obey his bloody commands. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... marched in various sections across Asia Minor, and all the forces came together at the Hellespont. Here the king had ordered the building of two great bridges,—one for the troops, and the other for the immense train of ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... the rest of the stoics are of opinion, that where is any the least perturbation, wisdom may not be found. "What more ridiculous," as [440]Lactantius urges, than to hear how Xerxes whipped the Hellespont, threatened the Mountain Athos, and the like. To speak ad rem, who is free from passion? [441]Mortalis nemo est quem non attingat dolor, morbusve, as [442]Tully determines out of an old poem, no ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... judgment. It pronounces upon the inner motive that colors the deeds, for it is the motive within that makes the actions without right or wrong. When Coleridge, the schoolboy, was going along the street thinking of the story of Hero and Leander and imagining himself to be swimming the Hellespont, he threw wide his arms as though breasting the waves. Unfortunately, his hand struck the pocket of a passer-by and knocked out a purse. The outer deed was that of a pickpocket and could have sent the youth to jail. The inner motive ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Foolhardiness is the result of vanity; we are not rash when no one is looking. Emile will not be foolhardy, though all the world were watching him. As the exercise does not depend on its danger, he will learn to swim the Hellespont by swimming, without any danger, a stream in his father's park; but he must get used to danger too, so as not to be flustered by it. This is an essential part of the apprenticeship I spoke of just now. Moreover, I shall ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
