Cyzicus in the context of "Iasus"

Constantinople was besieged by the Arabs in 674–678, in what was the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy against the Byzantine Empire. Caliph Mu'awiya I, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.

As reported by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, the Arab attack was methodical: in 672–673 Arab fleets secured bases along the coasts of Asia Minor and then installed a loose blockade around Constantinople. They used the peninsula of Cyzicus near the city as a base to spend the winter and returned every spring to launch attacks against the city's fortifications. Finally the Byzantines, under Emperor Constantine IV, destroyed the Arab navy using a new invention, the liquid incendiary substance known as Greek fire. The Byzantines also defeated the Arab land army in Asia Minor, forcing them to lift the siege. The Byzantine victory was of major importance for the survival of the Byzantine state, as the Arab threat receded for a time. A peace treaty was signed soon after, and following the outbreak of another Muslim civil war, the Byzantines even experienced a brief period of ascendancy over the Caliphate. The siege was arguably the first major Arab defeat in 50 years of expansion and temporarily stabilized the Byzantine Empire after decades of war and defeats.

Kapıdağ Peninsula (Turkish: Kapıdağ Yarımadası) is a tied island in northwestern Anatolia extending into the Sea of Marmara in Balıkesir Province, Turkey. The peninsula forms the Gulf of Bandırma on its east and the Gulf of Erdek on its west.

Kapıdağ was the classical island of ancient Greek Arctonnesus, but was joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus in historic times either by an earthquake or (according to legend) by Alexander the Great. It was also known as the Peninsula of Cyzicus after its chief town.

In Greek mythology, King Cyzicus or Kyzikos (Ancient Greek: Κύζικος, romanized: Kúzikos) was the ruler of the Dolionians, a tribe that inhabited the southern shore of the Propontis (the Sea of Marmara). He gave his name to a city of the same name, Cyzicus, his capital.

Methone (Ancient Greek: Μεθώνη, Methṓnē) or Mothone (Μοθώνη, Mothṓnē) was a town in the southwestern corner of ancient Messenia. It was an important place in ancient times on account of its excellent harbour and salubrious situation. It is situated at the extreme point of a rocky ridge, which runs into the sea, opposite the island Sapientza, one of the group called in ancient times Oenussae. Off the outer end of the town, is the little insulated rock which Pausanias calls Mothon, and which he describes as forming at once a narrow entrance and a shelter to the harbour of his time: in the 19th century, when visited by William Martin Leake, it was occupied by a tower and lantern, which is connected by a bridge with the fortification of modern Methoni. A mole branched from it, which ran parallel to the eastern wall of the town, and forms a harbour for small vessels, which to Leake seems to be exactly in the position of the ancient port, the entrance into which was probably where the bridge now stands.

According to the testimony of the ancient writers, Methone was the Homeric Pedasus, one of the seven cities which Agamemnon offered to Achilles. Homer gives to Pedasus the epithet ἀμπελόεσσα (vine-covered), and Methone seems to have been celebrated in antiquity for the cultivation of the vine. The eponymous heroine Methone, is called the daughter of Oeneus, the 'wineman'; and the same name occurs in the islands Oenussae, lying opposite the city. The name of Methone first occurs in the Messenian Wars. Methone and Pylus were the only two places which the Messenians continued to hold in the Second Messenian War, after they had retired to the mountain fortress of Ira. At the end of the Second Messenian War, the Lacedaemonians gave Methone to the inhabitants of Nauplia, who had lately been expelled from their own city by the Argives. The descendants of the Nauplians continued to inhabit Methone, and were allowed to remain there even after the restoration of the Messenian state by Epaminondas. In the first year of the Peloponnesian War, 431 BCE, the Athenians attempted to obtain possession of Methone, but were repulsed by Brasidas. Methone suffered greatly from an attack of some Illyrian privateers, who, under the pretext of purchasing wine, entered into discussions with the inhabitants and carried off a great number of them. Shortly before the Battle of Actium, Methone, which had been strongly fortified by Mark Antony, was besieged and taken by Agrippa, who found there Bogud, king of Mauretania, whom he put to death. Methone was favoured by Trajan, who made it a free city. Pausanias found at Methone a temple of Athena Anemotis, the 'storm-stiller,' and one of Artemis. He also mentions a well of bituminous water, similar both in smell and colour to the ointment of Cyzicus. It is also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, and Hierocles.

The siege of Cyzicus took place in 73 BC between the armies of Mithridates VI of Pontus and the Roman-allied citizens of Cyzicus in Mysia and Roman Republican forces under Lucius Licinius Lucullus. It was in fact a siege and a counter-siege. It ended in a decisive Roman victory.

Pharnaces II (Old Iranian: Farnaka; fl. 430 BCE - 422 BCE) ruled the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia under the Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia. Hellespontine Phrygia (Greek: Ἑλλησποντιακὴ Φρυγία) comprised the lands of Troad, Mysia and Bithynia and had its seat at Daskyleion, south of Cyzicus, Mysia (near modern-day Erdek, Balıkesir Province, Turkey).

His grandfather, Artabazos I of Phrygia, was the founder of the Pharnacid dynasty. Pharnaces II followed as satrap either upon the death of his father, Pharnabazus I, or directly upon the death of his grandfather. He was succeeded by his son Pharnabazus II.