Thus Diocletian, who ruled from Nicomedia, promoted two faithful legions from the Illyricum (Legio V Iovia and VI Herculia), the area he was also descended from, to be the personal protectors of the Roman Emperors.
According to this tale, Yanko bin Madyan (the name has its origin in a misspelling and or misreading in the Ottoman Turkish writing of the word ‘Nikomedian’) decided to build the city on a ‘wedge shaped’ plot of land, triangled between two sea arms.
Philip Schaff and Henry Wace note that a fragmentary letter preserved in the Chronicon Paschale, as written in prison by the presbyter Lucian of Antioch awaiting death, mentions Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, as having just suffered martyrdom.
He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea (the friend of Symmachus), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, 358, but internal evidence points to a much later date.
Basil persuaded Constantius to summon a general council, Ancyra being proposed, then Nicomedia (both in Asia Minor), but as the latter city was destroyed by an earthquake, Basil was again at Sirmium in 359 where the Arianizers had meanwhile regained their footing; with Germinius of Sirmium, George of Alexandria, Ursacius and Valens, and bishop (later saint) Marcus of Arethusa, he held a conference which lasted until night.
The story of his journey from Constantinople via Nicomedia and Nicaea to Side is then recounted in parallel with his recollections of the time before the battle, such as his accompanying Harold to William of Normandy's attack on Dinan.