The book under review is a revision of the author's 2013 Oxford D.Phil. thesis and exhibits many of the virtues and few of the flaws one would expect from a revised dissertation. Russell's attention is mostly focused on the fifth to third centuries BCE, although he also treats Byzantium in the Roman period and discusses the late antique sources for the foundation of the city, notably the sixth-century Patria of Hesychius of Miletus, which would otherwise fall outside the time frame suggested by the title.