İzmit & the Gulf

When the Roman Emperor Diocletian gave up his throne of his own free will in 305, after a reign of more than twenty years, the world froze in astonishment. An emperor stepping down by choice! It is said that years later, when people urged him to return to power, he told them that if they could see the cabbages he had grown with his own hands in his garden at Salona, they would never make such an offer… So from which city had this cabbage-loving emperor ruled the world? The answer lies at the head of the gulf: Nicomedia, today’s İzmit.