Bospŏrus
（
Βόσπορος). A name applied to a strait of the sea. There
were two straits known in antiquity by this appellation, namely, the Thracian and the
Cimmerian Bosporus; the former now known by the name of the Straits or Channel of
Constantinople, the latter the Straits of Caffa or Theodosia, or, according
to a later denomination, the Straits of Yenikalé. It connects the Palus Maeotis
(Sea of Azov) with the Euxine. Various reasons have been assigned for the name. The best is
that which makes the appellation refer to the early passage of agricultural knowledge from
East to West (
βοῦς, an ox, and
πόρος, a passage). Nymphius tells us, on the authority of Accarion, that the
Phrygians, desiring to pass the Thracian strait, built a vessel, on whose prow was the figure
of an ox, calling the strait over which it carried them
βοὸς
πόρος, Bosporus, or the ox's passage (cf. Oxford in English). Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, Valerius Flaccus and others of the ancient writers
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Map of the Propontis and the Thracian Bosporus.
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refer the name to the history of Io, who, when transformed into a cow (
βοῦς) by Heré, swam across this strait to avoid her
tormentor. Arrian says that the Phrygians were directed by an oracle to follow the route which
an ox would point out to them, and that on one being roused by them for this purpose, it swam
across the strait. (See
Aesch. Prom. Vinc. 732;
Long. i.30.) The strait of the Thracian Bosporus properly
extended from the Cyanean Rocks to the harbour of Byzantium or Constantinople. It is said to
be sixteen miles in length, including the windings of its course, and its ordinary breadth
about one and a half miles. In several places, however, it is very narrow; and the ancients
relate that a person might hear birds sing on the opposite side, and that two persons might
converse across it. Here
Darius (q.v.) is said to
have crossed on his expedition against the Scythians.
