Episode 12: The Silent Years from Byzantion's Founding to Darius' Crossing (667 BC to 513 BC)

For more than a century after its founding, Byzantion lived in quiet balance — a small city suspended between continents and empires, watching the world’s storms pass along the strait it guarded. Its people traded grain and wine, whispered stories of gods who once crossed these waters, and learned to live by the moods of the sea. Theirs was a life defined less by glory than by endurance: fishermen and merchants anchoring their fortunes to the narrow current that linked two worlds. Yet that calm was never meant to last. In 513 BC, when the armies of Darius the Great marched across the Bosphorus on a bridge of boats, Byzantion’s tranquil horizon shattered. The city that had once lived by the tides would now be swept into the tempests of history — its long silence giving way to the thunder of empires.

Franz Gordon, Hanna Ekström, Anna Dager / Boxes of Memories / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.

Gavin Luke / Crucial Calculations / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.