As the first step towards his object he asked and obtained for the eldest of his sons the hand of Glycia, the daughter of Lamachus, stephanophoros or chief magistrate of Kherson, the most powerful man in the town, and famous for his riches in gold, silver, slaves, serving-women, horses, and lands.
After two years Lamachus died, and the following year Glycia celebrated, according to the custom of the country, the anniversary of his decease by giving to all the people of Kherson a grand feast, in which she displayed the most lavish magnificence, promising to renew the festival every year. The son of Assander affected to praise her filial affection, but in reality, incensed at her prodigality, and not unmindful of the original object of his marriage, he determined to turn this occasion to account in furthering his projects against the town. He accordingly wrote to his father to send him from time to time a dozen young active and resolute Bosphorians, whom he introduced into Kherson under pretext of a visit, at the expiration of which they publicly took their departure by the great gate of the city, to which, however, they returned at nightfall, and were admitted by a secret portal into the house of Lamachus. Concealed in the vast palace, they waited for the next anniversary, in order to seize the town, and massacre the people overcome by wine and good cheer.
On the very eve of the festival, however, the plot was discovered by one of the servants of Glycia, who, having incurred her mistress's displeasure, had been confined in a distant chamber, which happened to be immediately over that in which the Bosphorians were concealed. Lifting up a square of the flooring in search of her spindle, which had rolled into a hole near the wall, she beheld the conspirators beneath her, and immediately hastened to communicate her discovery to her mistress, who in return forgave her fault on condition of secrecy.
Glycia now summoned three delegates from the town to her councils, and, having made them swear to reward her patriotism by burying her, contrary to established custom, inside the town, concerted with them the course to be adopted in this emergency.
While the magistrates continued to celebrate the festival as if nothing was to happen, and in seeming " all went merry as a marriage bell," Glycia drugged her husband, and, having collected her jewels, escaped with her maids from the house, which she then ordered to be fired with fagots collected for the purpose by her confederates, and the Bosphorean prince and his accomplices all perished in the flames. The citizens of Kherson wished to rebuild the house at the public expense, but this was strongly opposed by Glycia, who, on the contrary, caused them to heap up every kind of filth and refuse on the place stained by treachery. This was ever afterwards called the " Den of Lamachus," and the huge pile of rubbish still exists on the summit of the plain which borders Streletzka Bay, — an imperishable record of guilt and its punishment.
The grateful Khersonians, however, raised two statues of brass on the public place in honour of Glycia, in one of which she was represented modestly attired, receiving the deputies of the town; and in the other, clothed in warrior garments, in the act of avenging the betrayed citizens.
During the Byzantine empire, Kherson occasionally bore a part in the ft'cquent revolutions at Constantinople, and in the wars between the Russians and the Greek Emperors. At length in a.d. 988, the Russian Prince Vladimir, an idolater, besieged Kherson, and invested it on the land side. The inhabitants made an obstinate resistance, and destroyed the works of the besiegers as rapidly as they were carried on; until Vladimir, informed by treachery of the source of the springs which supplied the town, cut off the pipes, and reduced the garrison to surrender by thirst. Vladimir had made a vow that, if the story about the springs proved correct, he would become a Christian, and he was accordingly baptized at Kherson in the church of the Holy Mother of God, situated in the market-place. He had previously demanded of the Greek Emperors Basil and Constantine the hand of their sister Anne; the marriage ceremony immediately followed the baptism, and the city of Kherson was given him by the Greeks as the dowry of the princess. On his return to Kief, Vladimir compelled his people to embrace his newly-adopted religion, and the conversion of the Russiaij nation to Christianity dates from this period.