Note 203 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

That Byzantium was still in Trajan’s time under the governor of Bithynia, follows from Plin. ad Trai. 43. From the congratulations of the Byzantines to the legates of Moesia we cannot infer their having belonged to this governorship, which from their situation was hardly possible; the relations to the governor of Moesia may be explained from the commercial connections of the city with the Moesian ports. That Byzantium was in the year 53 under the senate, and so did not belong to Thrace, is plain from Tacitus, Ann. xii. 62. Cicero (in Pis. 35, 86; de prov. cons. 4, 6) does not attest its having belonged to Macedonia under the republic, since the town was then free. This freedom seems, as in the case of Rhodes, to have been often given and often taken away. Cicero, l.c., ascribes freedom to it; in the year 53 it is tributary, Pliny (H. N. iv. 11, 46) adduces it as a free city; Vespasian withdraws its freedom (Suetonius, Vesp. 8).