Byzantium, a city on the Thracian Bosphorus, founded by emigrants from Megara in 667 B.C. It rose rapidly to importance as a seat of commerce, was subject to the Persians (515-478 B.C.), was freed by Pausanias, and was alternately Athenian and Lacedæmonian during the Peloponnesian war. Thrasylbulus expelled the Spartans in 390, and the city long enjoyed a kind of independence. It was taken by Severus in 196 A.D., and in 330, under the name of New Rome or Constantinople, it was made the metropolis of the Roman empire. See CONSTANTINOPLE.

C

the third letter in our alphabet, has, during the last three thousand years, undergone trifling changes in its form, but has varied considerably in value. Originally this symbol had the sound of g, it then took that of k, and finally, in some languages, has become equivalent to s. The table in Vol. I., page 187 (article ALPHABET), shows that in the Egyptian hieroglyphics the consonant g was represented by a picture which, though commonly designated as 'the throne,' is believed to have represented an apron. In the cursive hieratic this character bore some resemblance to a kneeling camel, and hence, when taken over by the Phoenicians, it received the name of gimel, the camel, whence the Greek name gamma was derived. The form was simplified, the capital Greek gamma, $\backslash Gamma$, which is not very different from the Phoenician lapidary form, retaining only the two strokes which represented the head and neck of the camel. After the Greek alphabet had passed over to Italy the form was rounded, and became C. In the oldest inscriptions from Italy this letter still retains its original value of g, but as the Etruscan language had no soft mutes, it hardened into the sound of the letter k, which, being superfluous, fell into disuse. The Romans had both sounds, but had lost the letter k, and hence in the earliest Roman inscriptions C is used to denote the sound of g as well as of k; the words legiones and Gaius, for instance, being written lecciones and Cains. In the 3d century B.C., the form G was evolved by differentiation out of C to denote the soft sound, and the new letter was placed seventh in the alphabet, taking the vacant place of z, which had fallen into disuse. After G was invented, C in classical Latin was invariably used to denote the sound of our k, the hard guttural mite. We learn this from the fact that the name Cicero was written Kikero in Greek, while the Germans in the time of the empire borrowed the words Kaiser and keller from the Latin Cæsar and cellarium. How the letter acquired the sound of s has now to be explained; and it is instructive to note the process by which the same letter comes in English to have sounds so different as those heard in call and civil. The beginning of the transition may be traced to the effect produced on certain consonants when they stand before i, followed by another vowel. Thus, there is a tendency to shorten the word nation by pronouncing it as two syllables instead of three, and it is easy to see how the sound ti-on would slide into the easier sound shon. The same is the case with the k-sound. The change began in Gaul about the 7th century A.D., such names as Marcius being pronounced as Martius and Marshius, instead of Markius. In Italy the change did not go so far; Lucia, for instance, being pronounced as Lutshia, instead of Lushia or Lusia. Combinations like ceo and cea differ so little from cio and cia that they followed the same course, and ultimately the s-sound of c was extended to cases where ce or ci was not followed by a vowel.

In Anglo-Saxon, as in Latin, the letter c was originally sounded as k, a letter which we do not find in Anglo-Saxon, as it was not required. The soft sound of c began to come into use about the 8th century in words borrowed from Gaul, and afterwards the easier sound was extended to English words, the letter retaining its old sound before the vowels a, o, u, but passing through ch to s before e, i, and y. When in Anglo-Saxon c followed s it tended to become h, the common suffix isc having changed into ish. When the k-sound was retained before e, i, or y, the letter k was ultimately substituted for c to avoid confusion, and thus the Anglo-Saxon cyming and cene are now written king and keen. The Anglo-Saxon alphabet was also without q, for which cw was used, quick being spelt cwic. Latin c has become ch in many English words owing to their having passed through the French; thus the Latin caminus and carmen have become chimney and charm in English. In German, the Latin c is represented by k instead of by c, which only appears in words which, like cardinal, have been borrowed from the Romance languages. A primitive Indo-European c sometimes becomes h, s, or g. Thus, the Latin culmus is represented by the English haulm and the Russian soloma, cornu by horn, draco by dragon, and cithara by guitar. Sometimes c disappears before l or r, which explains how Clovis has become Louis.

C, in Music, is the name of one of the notes of the gamut. C is also the sound on which the system of music is founded, and from which the mathematical proportions of intervals are taken. The scale of C major has neither flats nor sharps, and therefore is called the natural scale. See MUSIC, SCALE, KEY.