CHAPTER XV.
THE WALLS ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN—_continued_.
The next gate on the list of Pusculus and Dolfin is the Porta Platea, or Porta ala Piazza,[738] evidently the Porta of the Platea (Πόρτα τῆς Πλατέας) mentioned by Ducas.[739] The entrance, judging by its name, was situated beside a wide tract of level ground, and is, consequently, represented by Oun Kapan Kapoussi, which stands on the plain near the Inner Bridge, at the head of the important street running across the city from sea to sea, through the valley between the Fourth and Fifth Hills. The district beside the gate was known as the Plateia (Πλατεῖα),[740] and contained the churches dedicated respectively to St. Laurentius and the Prophet Isaiah.[741] The blockade of the Harbour Walls in 1453 by the Turkish ships in the Golden Horn extended from the Xylo Porta to the Gate of the Platea.[742] If the legend on Bondelmontius’ map may be trusted, this gate bore also the name Mesè, the Central Gate, a suitable designation for an entrance at the middle point in the line of the harbour fortifications.
The succeeding gate, Ayasma Kapoussi, was opened, it would seem, after the Turkish Conquest. It is not mentioned by Gyllius, or Leunclavius, or Gerlach. The conjecture that it represents a gate in the Wall of Constantine, styled Porta Basilikè, situated near the Church of St. Acacius ad Caream (τὸν ἅγιον Ἀκάκιον, τὴν Καρυὰν, ἐν τῇ Βασιλικῇ Πόρτα)[743] does not appear very probable. The Church of St. Acacius, situated in the Tenth Region,[744] was the sanctuary to which Macedonius, the bishop of the city, removed the sarcophagus of Constantine the Great, from the Church of the Holy Apostles on the summit of the Fourth Hill, when the latter edifice threatened to fall and crush the Imperial tomb.[745] The bishop’s action encountered the violent opposition of a large class of the citizens, and led to a riot in which much blood was shed. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the sarcophagus of Constantine was transported from its original resting-place to a point so distant as the neighbourhood of Ayasma Kapoussi, especially when the removal was a temporary arrangement, made until the repairs on the Church of the Holy Apostles should be completed. It is more probable that St. Acacius was near the Church of the Holy Apostles. Furthermore, we cannot be sure that the Porta Basilikè was a gate in the Wall of Constantine. The Church of St. Acacius stood near a palace erected by that emperor (πλησίον τῶν οἰκημάτων τοῦ μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου):[746] or, as described elsewhere, was a small chapel (οἰκίσκον εὐκτήριον) near a palace named Karya, because close to a walnut-tree on which the saint was supposed to have suffered martyrdom by hanging.[747] The Porta Basilikè may have been a gate leading into the court of that palace.
The three succeeding gates, Odoun Kapan Kapoussi, Zindan Kapoussi, Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, bore respectively the names Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων); Gate of the Forerunner (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris, known also as St. Johannes de Cornibus); Gate of the Perama or Ferry (τοῦ Περάματος). They can be identified, perhaps, most readily and clearly by the following line of argument:—
The three Byzantine gates just named were situated in the quarter assigned to the Venetians in Constantinople by successive Imperial grants from the time of Alexius Comnenus to the close of the Empire. The Gate of the Drungarii marked the western extremity of the quarter;[748] the Gate of the Perama, its eastern extremity;[749] while the gate beside the Church of the Forerunner was between the two points. Where the Gate of the Perama stood admits of no doubt. All students of the topography of the city are agreed in the opinion that the entrance so named was at Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi. Consequently, the two other gates in the Venetian quarter lay to the west of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, in the portion of the fortifications between that entrance and the Gate of the Platea, all gates further west being out of the question. But as the only two gates in that portion of the walls are Zindan Kapoussi and Oun Kapan Kapoussi, they must represent, respectively, the Gate of the Forerunner and the Gate of the Drungarii.
The Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων) derived its name from the term “Drungarius,” a title given to various officials in the Byzantine service;[750] as, for example, to the admiral of the fleet (μέγας δρουγγάριος τοῦ θεοσώστου στόλου), and to the head of the city police, the Drungarius Vigiliæ. (ὁ τῆς Βίγλας δρουγγάριος). In this particular case the reference was to the latter officer, for in the neighbourhood of the gate stood an important Vigla, or police-station, which is sometimes mentioned instead of the Gate of the Drungarii, as the western limit of the Venetian quarter.[751]
The street running eastwards, outside the city wall, was known as the Via Drungariou (De Longario),[752] and the pier in front of the next gate bore the name Scala de Drongario.[753]
The practice of storing timber on the shore without the gate has come down from an early period in the history of the city. One of the questions put to Justinian the Great by the Greens, during the altercation between him and the Factions in the Hippodrome, on the eve of the Nika riot was, “Who murdered the timber-merchant at the Zeugma?”[754]—another name for this part of the shore. An inscription on the gate reminded the passing crowd that to remember death is profitable to life (Μνῆμη θανάτου χρησιμεύει τῷ βίῳ).[755]
It is in favour of the identification of Zindan Kapoussi with the Gate near the Church of St. John (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris) to find only a few yards within the entrance a Holy Well, venerated alike by Christian and Moslem, beside which stood, until recently, the ruins of a Byzantine chapel answering to the small Church of the Forerunner mentioned in the Venetian charters.[756]
Leunclavius found the gate called in his day Porta Caravion, because of the large number of ships which were moored in front of it.[757] The landing before the gate, the old Scala de Drongario, now Yemish Iskelessi, in front of the Dried Fruit-Market, is one of the most important piers on the Golden Horn.
Dr. Paspates[758] and M. Heyd[759] identify this entrance with the Gate of the Drungarii. But this opinion is inconsistent with the fact that whereas the gate near St. John’s stood between the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama, no entrance which can be identified with the gate near St. John’s intervenes between Zindan Kapoussi and Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi (Gate of the Perama).
M. Heyd, moreover, identifies Zindan Kapoussi with the Porta Hebraica,[760] mentioned in the charters granted to the Venetians in the thirteenth century. But, as will appear in the sequel, the Porta Hebraica of that period was either the Gate of the Perama itself, or an entrance a little to the east of it.
The Gate of the Perama (τοῦ Περάματος), as its name implies, stood where Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi is found to-day, close to the principal ferry between the city and the suburb of Galata; communication between the opposite shores being maintained in ancient times by boats, for the only bridge across the harbour was that near the head of the Golden Horn. The Perama is first mentioned by Theophanes,[761] in recording the dedication of the Church of St. Irene at Sycæ (Galata), after the reconstruction of that sanctuary by Justinian the Great. Special importance attached to the event, as the emperor attributed his recovery from an attack of the terrible plague that raged in Constantinople, in 542, to the touch of the relics of the Forty Martyrs which had been discovered in pulling down the old church, and which were to be enshrined in the new building. Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Apollinarius, Patriarch of Alexandria—who was then in the capital—were appointed to celebrate the service of the day; and the two prelates, seated in the Imperial chariot, and bearing upon their knees the sacred relics, drove through the city from St. Sophia to the Perama, to take boat for Sycæ, where Justinian awaited them. The ferry was also styled Trajectus Sycenus;[762] Transitus Sycarum, after the oldest name for Galata. It was, moreover, known as Transitus Justinianarum,[763] from the name Justinianopolis, given to the suburb in honour of Justinian, who rebuilt its walls and theatre, and conferred upon it the privileges of a city.[764] The pier at the city end of the ferry was known as the Scala Sycena.[765]
It would seem that there was a spice-market[766] in the vicinity of the Gate of the Perama, like the one which exists to-day to the rear of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, the latter being only the continuation of the former. According to Bondelmontius, the fish-market of Byzantine Constantinople was held before this gate, as the practice is at present; for upon his map he names the entrance Porta Piscaria. So fixed are the habits of a city.
Besides bearing the name Gate of the Perama, the entrance was also styled the Porta Hebraica. This appears from the employment of the two names as equivalent terms in descriptions of the territory occupied by the Venetians in Constantinople. For example, according to Anna Comnena,[767] the quarter which her father, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus, conceded to the Venetians, extended from the old Hebrew pier to the Vigla. In the charter by which the Doge Faletri granted that district to the Church of San Georgio Majore of Venice, the quarter is described in one passage, as extending from the Vigla to the Porta Perame, as far as the Judeca (“ad Portam Perame, usque ad Judecam”);[768] and in a subsequent passage, as proceeding from the Vigla to the Judeca (“a comprehenso dicto sacro Viglæ usque ad Judecam”).[769] In the grants made to the Venetians after the Restoration of the Greek Empire in 1261, the extreme points of the Venetian quarter are named, respectively, the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama.[770]
To this identification of the Porta Hebraica with the Gate of the Perama it may be objected that on the map of Bondelmontius these names are applied to different gates, and this, it may further be urged, accords with the fact that after the Turkish Conquest, also, a distinction was maintained between the Gate of the Perama and the gate styled Tchifout Kapoussi, the Hebrew Gate. But in reply to this objection it must be noted that the Tchifout Kapoussi of Turkish days was the gate now known as Bagtchè Kapoussi,[771] beside the Stamboul Custom House, while the “Porta Judece” on the map of Bondelmontius stands close to the Seraglio Point. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the Venetian quarter[772] did not extend so far east as Bagtchè Kapoussi, much less so far in that direction as the neighbourhood of the head of the promontory. Bagtchè Kapoussi corresponds to the Byzantine Porta Neoriou (the Gate of the Dockyard), which had no connection whatever with the quarter assigned to the Venetian merchants in the city, but was separated from that quarter, on the west, by the quarters which the traders from Amalfi and Pisa occupied, while to the east of the gate was the settlement of the Genoese. Consequently, the fact that in the age of Bondelmontius and after the Turkish Conquest the Porta Hebraica was a different entrance from the Gate of the Perama affords no ground for rejecting the evidence that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the two names designated the same gate. It only proves that the epithet “Hebrew” had meantime been transferred from one gate to another.[773]
At the distance of seventy-seven feet to the east of the Porta Hebraica, or Gate of the Perama, there stood, according to a Venetian document of 1229, an entrance known as the Gate of St. Mark (Porta San Marci).[774] It probably obtained its name during the Latin occupation, after the patron saint of Venice, but whether it was a gate then opened for the first time, or an old gate under a new name, cannot be determined.
Yet further east, at a point 115 pikes before reaching Bagtchè Kapoussi, stood an entrance styled the Gate of the Hicanatissa (Πόρτα τῆς Ἱκανατίσσης).[775] The adjoining quarter went by the same name, and there probably stood the “Residence of the Kanatissa” (τὸν οἶκον τῆς Κανατίσης) mentioned by Codinus.[776] The designation is best explained as derived from the body of palace troops known as the Hicanati.[777]
Between the Gate of the Perama and that of the Hicanatissa was situated the quarter of the merchants from Amalfi; at the latter gate the quarter of the Pisans commenced.[778]
The Gate of the Neorion (Πόρτα τοῦ Νεωρίου),[779] the Gate of the Dockyard, stood, as its name implies, beside the Dockyard on the shore of the bay at Bagtchè Kapoussi, close to the site now occupied by the Stamboul Custom House. It is first mentioned in a chrysoboullon of Isaac Angelus, confirming the right granted to the Pisan merchants by his predecessors, Alexius Comnenus and Manuel Comnenus, to reside in the neighbourhood of the gate.[780] While the western limit of the quarter thus conceded to Pisans was marked, as already intimated, by the Gate Hicanatissa,[781] the eastern limit of the settlement extended to a short distance beyond the Gate of the Neorion.
The Neorion dated from the time of Byzantium, when it stood at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls of the city.[782] It was, therefore, distinguished from all other dockyards in Constantinople as the Ancient Neorion (τὸ Παλαιὸν Νεώριον), or the Ancient Exartesis (Ἐξάρτησις). Nicolo Barbaro calls it “l’arsenada de l’imperador.”
Here the Imperial fleet assembled to refit or to guard the entrance of the harbour;[783] here, until the reign of Justin II., was the Marine Exchange;[784] and here was a factory of oars (coparia),[785] in addition to the one mentioned in the Justinian Code, which stood elsewhere. As might be expected, several destructive fires originated in the Neorion.[786]
According to Gyllius,[787] Gerlach,[788] and Leunclavius,[789] this entrance was in their day named by the Turks, Tchifout Kapoussi, and was regarded by the Greeks as the Πύλη Ὡραία (the Beautiful Gate), mentioned by Phrantzes[790] and Ducas[791] in the history of the last siege. The epithet Horaia is supposed to be a corruption of the original name for the entrance (τοῦ Νεωρίου); the Turkish designation of the gate being explained by the fact that a Jewish community was settled in the neighbourhood of the gate.[792]
As to the transformation of Neorion into Horaia, it seems somewhat far-fetched; still, Greeks think it conceivable.[793] If both names, indeed, belonged to the gate, a simpler and more probable explanation of the fact would be that the two names had no connection with each other, and that the epithet “Beautiful” was bestowed upon the entrance, towards the close of the Empire, in view of embellishments made in the course of repairs.
The identification of the Gate of the Neorion with the Horaia Pylè involves, however, a difficulty. It makes Ducas contradict other historians, as regards the point to which the southern end of the chain across the Golden Horn was attached during the siege of 1453.
According to Ducas,[794] that extremity of the chain was fastened to the Beautiful Gate. Critobulus,[795] on the other hand, affirms that it was attached to the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi), the gate nearest the head of the promontory, and his statement is supported by Phrantzes[796] and Chalcocondylas,[797] when they, respectively, say that the chain was at the harbour’s mouth, and fixed to the wall of the Acropolis. Now, the correctness of the position assigned to the chain by the three latter historians cannot be called in question. It was the position prescribed for the chain by all the rules of strategy. To have placed the chain at the Gate of the Neorion would have left a large portion of the northern side of the city exposed to the enemy, and permitted the Turkish fleet to command the Neorion and the ships stationed before it. Hence the accuracy of Ducas can be maintained only by the identification of the Beautiful Gate with the Gate of Eugenius instead of with the Gate of the Neorion.
We are, therefore, confronted with the question whether the historian is mistaken as regards the gate to which the city end of the chain was attached, or whether the view prevalent in Constantinople in the sixteenth century respecting the position of the Horaia Pylè should be rejected as unfounded.
In favour of the accuracy of Ducas, it must be admitted that his statements concerning the Horaia Pylè, in other passages of his work, convey the impression that under that name he refers to the entrance nearest the head of the promontory, the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi). Speaking of the arrangements made for the defence of the sea-board of the city, he describes them as extending, in the first place, from the Xylinè Porta, at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls, to the Horaia Pylè; and then from the Horaia Pylè to the Golden Gate, near the western extremity of the walls along the Sea of Marmora.[798] Again, when he describes the blockade of the shore of the city outside the chain by the Sultan’s fleet, he represents the blockade as commencing at the Horaia Pylè and proceeding thence past the point of the Acropolis, the Church of St. Demetrius, the Gate of the Hodegetria, the Great Palace, and the harbour (Kontoscalion), as far as Vlanga.[799]
Now, the gate which would naturally form the pivot, so to speak, of these operations was the Gate of Eugenius. There the two shores of the city divide; and that was the farthest point to which the Turkish fleet outside the chain could advance into the Golden Horn. It would be strange if Ducas ascribed the strategical importance of the Gate of Eugenius to another gate. And yet, it must be also admitted that Ducas can be inaccurate. He is inaccurate, for example, in the matter of the gate before which the Sultan’s tent was pitched during the siege,[800] and at which the Emperor Constantine fell,[801] for he associates these incidents with the Gate of Charisius, instead of with the Gate of St. Romanus; he is inaccurate, as we have seen, in his account of the entry of the Turks through the Kerko Porta;[802] and he is inaccurate, again, in saying that the ships which the Sultan carried across the hills from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn were launched into the harbour at a point opposite the Cosmidion (Eyoub),[803] instead of at Cassim Pasha. Under these circumstances it is impossible to maintain his accuracy as to the connection of the chain with Horaia Pylè at all hazards, and in the face of all difficulties. His credit will depend upon the value attached to the evidence we have, that the Horaia Pylè was another name for the Gate of the Neorion during the last days of Byzantine Constantinople.
The application of both names to the same gate rests upon the authority of tradition, upon the use and wont followed in the matter by the Greek population of the city in the sixteenth century. If this is really the case, no evidence can be more decisive on the question at issue. Use and wont in respect to the name of a conspicuous public gate, in a much-frequented part of the city, constitutes an irrefutable argument, provided that use and wont goes far enough back in the history of the entrance. In that case, Ducas would be convicted of having mistaken the gate to which the chain was attached, and all the importance which he ascribes to the Horaia Pylè, in his account of the actions of friends and foes along the shores of the city, is only the consistent following up of that error. For any gate to which the chain was supposed, however erroneously, to have been affixed would be represented in the narrative of subsequent events as the point about which the assault and the defence of the sea-board turned, although the gate was not situated where it could, naturally, have sustained that character.
Now, according to Gyllius,[804] the gate anciently styled the Gate of the Neorion was called in his day Tchifout Kapoussi (“Hebrew Gate”) by the Turks, and Horaia Pylè by the Greeks, as a matter of common practice. The brief statement of Gerlach[805] that the second gate west of the Seraglio Point was named at once the Beautiful Gate and the Jewish Gate implies that these were the names of the gate in current use. Leunclavius[806] puts the facts in a somewhat different light. According to him, the common designation of the entrance was “Huræa” (_Ebraia_, “Hebrew Gate”), and it was only when the Greeks of the city wished to show themselves better acquainted with the truth on the subject that they claimed for the gate the epithet “Horaia.”
This may, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the application of the epithet “Horaia” to the Gate of the Neorion, in the sixteenth century, was due to the fact that it was then known also as the Hebrew Gate (Ebraia). But, on the whole, the more probable view is that the epithet was correctly applied, and, consequently, that Ducas, who was not present at the siege, is mistaken in associating the chain with the Beautiful Gate.
In the charters defining the privileges granted to the Genoese colony in Constantinople during the twelfth century, mention is made of a “Porta Bonu” and a “Porta Veteris Rectoris.”[807] As both were associated with the Scala, or Pier, at the service of that colony, they were doubtless the same gate under different names; the former appellation designating it by the proper name of the officer connected in some way with the entrance, the latter by his official title. Nothing is known concerning the Rector Bonus; the name and title are at once Byzantine and Italian. Now, the Genoese quarter in the twelfth century lay to the east of the Gate of the Neorion, and consequently the Porta Bonu, or Porta Veteris Rectoris, must be sought in that direction. It stood, probably, where Sirkedji Iskelessi is now situated.
Near this gate must have been the Scala Chalcedonensis and the Portus Prosphorianus, which the _Notitia_ places in the Fifth Region.[808] The former, as its name implies, was the pier frequented by boats plying between the city and Chalcedon; it is mentioned twice, as the point at which relics were landed in solemn state to be carried thence to St. Sophia.[809]
The Portus Prosphorianus[810] was in the bay which once indented the shore immediately to the east of the Gate of Bonus, where the line of the city walls described a deep curve. The name is probably derived from the word Πρόσφορον, and denoted that the harbour was the resort of the craft which brought products from the country to the markets of the city.[811] The harbour was also called the Phosphorion, as though associated with the sudden illumination of the heavens which saved the city from capture by Philip of Macedon. But its most common designation was τὸ Βοσπόριον, ὁ Βοόσπορος, ὁ Βόσπορος, probably because the point to which cattle were ferried across from Asia. The cattle-market was held here until the reign of Constantine Copronymus, who transferred it to the Forum of Taurus;[812] here also stood warehouses for the storage of oil, and granaries, such as the Horrea Olearia, Horrea Troadensia, Horrea Valentiaca and Horrea Constantiaca.[813] The granaries were inspected annually by the emperor.[814] According to Demosthenes, the three statues erected by Byzantium and Perinthus in honour of Athens for the aid rendered against Philip of Macedon were set up at the Bosporus.[815] But it is not certain whether the great orator used the name in a general sense, or with special reference to this port. The great fire in the fifth year of Leo I. started in the market near this harbour, through the carelessness of a woman who left a lighted candle on a stall at which she had bought some salt fish.[816]
We reach, next, the last gate in the line of the Harbour Walls, the Gate of Eugenius (Πόρτα τοῦ Εὐγενίου), represented now by Yali Kiosk Kapoussi. Its identity is established by the following indications. It marked the eastern extremity of the fortifications along the Golden Horn,[817] as the Xylo Porta marked their western terminus. Hence, the ditch constructed by Cantacuzene in front of those fortifications is described as extending from the Gate of Eugenius to the Gate Xylinè.[818] In the next place, the gate was close to the head of the promontory, or Acropolis, for ships outward bound rounded the promontory soon after passing the gate, while incoming ships passed the gate soon after rounding the promontory.[819] Again, the Church of St. Paul which stood near the gate is described, as situated in the quarter of the Acropolis, at the opening of the harbour.[820] This is consistent with the fact that the gate was at a point from which St. Sophia could be easily reached.[821]
Eugenius, after whom the gate, the adjacent tower, and the neighbouring district were named,[822] was probably a distinguished proprietor in this part of the city. The gate bore an inscription commemorating repairs executed by a certain Julian;[823] possibly, Julian who was Prefect of the City in the reign of Zeno, when Constantinople was shaken by a severe earthquake.
There is reason to believe that besides its ordinary designation this gate bore also, at one time, the name Marmora Porta; for certain ecclesiastical documents of the year 1399 and the year 1441 speak of an entrance in the quarter of Eugenius, under the name Marmora Porta, Μαρμαροπόρτα ἐν τῇ ἐνορίᾳ τοῦ Εὐγενίου.[824]
The Scala Timasii, so named after Timasius, a celebrated general in the reign of Arcadius, was in the Fourth Region,[825] and must therefore have been a pier near the Gate of Eugenius.
At this entrance it was customary for the bride-elect of an emperor to land, upon reaching the capital by sea; here she was received in state by her future consort, and having been invested with the Imperial buskins and other insignia of her rank, was conducted on horseback to the palace.[826] But what lends most interest to the gate is the fact that beside it rose the tower which held the southern end of the chain drawn across the harbour in time of war.[827] Originally, the building, styled Kentenarion (Κεντενάριον), was a stately structure, but after its overthrow by an earthquake, Theophilus restored it as an ordinary tower.[828] The chain was supported in the water by wooden floats,[829] and its northern end was made fast to a tower in the fortifications of Galata, known as the Tower of Galata, “Le Tour de Galatas.”[830] According to Gyllius, the gate near that tower was called Porta Catena,[831] but, unfortunately, he does not indicate its precise position. From the nature of the case, however, it must have been near Kiretch Kapoussi, directly opposite the Gate of Eugenius.[832]
[Illustration: Portion of the Chain Stretched Across the Entrance of the Golden Horn in 1453.]
The employment of a chain to bar the entrance of the Golden Horn is mentioned for the first time in the famous siege of the city by the Saracens in 717-718, when the Emperor Leo lowered the chain with the hope of tempting the enemy’s ships into the narrow waters of the harbour.[833] It appears next in the reign of Michael II., who thereby endeavoured, but in vain, to keep out the fleet with which his rival Thomas attacked the city.[834] It was again employed by Nicephorus Phocas, in expectation of a Russian descent into the Bosporus.[835] The Venetians found it obstructing their path when they stood before Constantinople in 1203, but removed it after capturing the Tower of Galata, to which it was secured.[836] Finally, in 1453, it proved too strong for Sultan Mehemet to force, and drove him to devise the expedient of carrying his ships into the Golden Horn across the hills to Cassim Pasha.[837] A portion of the chain used on the last occasion is preserved in the Church of St. Irene, within the Seraglio grounds.
In the district of Eugenius were some of the most noted charitable institutions of the city, among which the great Orphanage[838] and the Hospitia,[839] built on the site of the old Stadium of Byzantium by Justinian the Great and Theodora, for the free accommodation of poor strangers, were conspicuous. There, also, stood the Church of St. Michael and the Church of St. Paul.[840]
The Basilikè Pylè.
Before concluding the study of the Harbour Walls we must recur to the question which presented itself at an earlier stage of our inquiries, but was reserved for consideration at the close of this chapter, as more favourable to an intelligent and thorough discussion of the subject.
Where was the Basilikè Pylè which Byzantine historians, after the Restoration of the Empire, associate with this line of the city’s bulwarks? Was it, as some authorities maintain, at Balat Kapoussi,[841] or, as others hold, in the neighbourhood of the Seraglio Point?[842] Or is it possible that a gate bearing that epithet was found at both points?
In favour of the opinion that the Imperial Gate was near the Seraglio Point there is, first, the statement of Phrantzes, already cited, to that effect. “To Gabriel of Treviso,” says the historian,[843] “captain of the Venetian triremes, with fifty men under him, was entrusted the defence of the tower, in the middle of the current, guarding the entrance of the harbour; and he was opposite the Imperial Gate.”
What Phrantzes means by the “entrance of the harbour” (τὴν εἴσοδον τοῦ λιμένος) admits of no dispute, for the phrase has only one signification. But, as though to render mistake impossible, he repeats the expression, in that sense, several times. The Greek ships, which were moored beside the chain across the mouth of the harbour, and which the Sultan endeavoured to sink or drive away by the fire of a battery planted on the hill of St. Theodore, to the north-east of Galata, Phrantzes[844] observes, were stationed “at the entrance of the harbour” (ἐν τῇ εἰσόδῳ τοῦ λιμένος). The object of this bombardment, adds the historian[845] in the next sentence, was not simply to force “the entrance to the harbour” (διὰ τὴν εἴσοδον τοῦ λιμένος), but also to injure the Genoese shipping at that point, and thus show that the Sultan dared to act in any way he pleased, even towards the Italians of Galata. Again, Phrantzes[846] remarks that the ships moored along the chain at the mouth of the harbour (ἐν τῶ στόματι τοῦ λιμένος) were placed here to render entrance into the harbour more difficult to the enemy (ὅπως ἰσχυροτέρως κωλύσωσι τὴν εἴσοδον).
Equally decisive is the indication given regarding the tower which stood opposite the Imperial Gate. It was “in the middle of the current.” This statement carries the mind, at first, to the tower which stood on the rock off Scutari (Damalis, Arcla), where the lighthouse Kiz Kalehssi has been erected. But the idea that Phrantzes had that tower in view cannot be entertained for more than a moment; for to have stationed Gabriel there, with the Turkish fleet in complete command of the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmora, was not simply useless, but impossible. The current intended can be none other than the strong current at the head of the Seraglio Point, where it divides in two swift streams, which Nicephorus Gregoras[847] compares to Scylla and Charybdis, one running up the Golden Horn, the other out into the Sea of Marmora. A tower near a point with rushing waters on either hand might aptly be described as “in the middle of the current.”[848] Furthermore, Phrantzes[849] mentions the tower referred to, in close connection with what stood, unquestionably, near the head of the promontory. He speaks of it immediately after the Horaia Pylè, and immediately before the ships which defended the chain across the harbour’s mouth, as though in the same vicinity.
In the second place, the view that the Imperial Gate was near the Seraglio Point is supported by the testimony of Leonard of Scio, when he makes the statement that Gabriel of Treviso fought bravely, with his men, on the portion of the walls extending from the Beacon-tower as far as the Imperial Gate, at the entrance of the bay (of the Golden Horn): “Gabriel Trevsianus cordatissime a Turri Phani usque ad Imperialem Portam, ante sinum, decertabat.”[850] The archbishop’s phrase “ante sinum” corresponds to Phrantzes’ ἐν τῇ εἰσόδῳ τοῦ λιμένος.
Thirdly, it remains to add, on this side of the question, that the order in which Pusculus mentions the gates in the Harbour Walls favours the view that the Basilikè Pylè was not at Balat Kapoussi. Proceeding from west to cast in his account of the defence of the fortifications along the Golden Horn, that author refers to seven gates in the following order: Xylina, Cynegon, Phani, Theodosia, Puteæ, Platea, Basilea,[851] thus putting the Imperial Gate somewhere to the east of Oun Kapan Kapoussi. Had the Basilea stood at Balat Kapoussi it should have been mentioned immediately after Cynegon.
This is the main evidence in support of the opinion that the Basilikè Pylè was near the Seraglio Point, and it is difficult to conceive of evidence more clear and conclusive.
The argument countenancing the view which identifies the Imperial Gate with Balat Kapoussi may be stated, briefly, thus: In the first place, when Leonard of Scio declares that Gabriel of Treviso defended the walls “a Turri Phani ad Imperialem Portam” he associates the Imperial Gate with the quarter of the Phanar. Again, when Ducas affirms that the Venetians assisted the Greeks in the defence of the walls from the Imperial Gate to the Kynegon,[852] that entrance is associated with the district so named. The Imperial Gate, therefore, must have stood at a point between the Phanar and the Kynegon. But that is exactly the situation of Balat Kapoussi, with the quarter of the Phanar on its east, and the Kynegon on its west; hence the two gates were one and the same.
In the next place, the epithet “Imperial” was eminently suitable for an entrance which stood at the foot of a hill surmounted by the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, and from which the Palace of Blachernæ could be readily reached. How appropriate the epithet was is proved by the actual name of the gate, Balat Kapoussi (the Gate of the Palace), so similar in meaning to Basilikè Pylè.
In the third place, on the shore outside the Basilikè Pylè stood a Church of St. John the Baptist.[853] And in keeping with this fact, there is a Church of St. John the Baptist (the metochion of the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai) outside Balat Kapoussi.
These arguments are, however, open to criticism. So far as the statement of Leonard of Scio is concerned, it should be noted that he does not speak of the Turris Phani absolutely. Had he done so, the presumption would certainly be in favour of the view which understands him to refer to the district of the Phanar, half-way up the Golden Horn.[854] But his complete statement on the subject is that the Turris Phani of which he was speaking stood, with the Imperial Gate beside it, “ante sinum,” at the entrance of the bay of the Golden Horn, thus making it manifest that he had in mind another beacon-tower than the one in the district commonly known as the Phanar. That the shore of the Golden Horn was lighted at more than one point during the night, and especially at the entrance of the harbour, is only what might be expected. Nor is there in the assertion of Ducas, that the Venetians and Greeks united their forces to defend the fortifications from the Imperial Gate to the Kynegon, anything to determine the distance between the two points. They might be very near, or they might be as far apart as the extremities of the Harbour Walls; for there is no reason to think that the Venetians defended only the small portion of the walls between Balat Kapoussi and the three archways to the west of that gate.
The remaining arguments under consideration have more force, but are by no means decisive. The appropriateness of the epithet “Imperial” to an entrance in the situation of Balat Kapoussi affords, certainly, a presumption in favour of the view that the entrance was so named, although it cannot, alone, prove that such was the fact. The name Balat Kapoussi appears only after the Turkish Conquest, and may or may not be borrowed from the Byzantine designation of the gate. The strongest argument on this side of the question is, undoubtedly, that drawn from the presence of the Church of St. John the Baptist on the shore to the north-east of Balat Kapoussi,[855] the possible representative of the ancient church of that dedication “on the shore outside the Basilikè Pylè.”[856]
But, in any case, these arguments do not refute the proof adduced for the existence of a Basilikè Pylè near the Seraglio Point. They leave that fact undisturbed; and can only claim to give countenance to the idea that another Basilikè Pylè stood at Balat Kapoussi.
Two questions, accordingly, are involved in the problem before us. Which of the gates near the Seraglio Point was styled the Basilikè Pylè? Was that gate the only Imperial Gate in the line of the Harbour Walls, or do some statements of Byzantine historians on the subject imply the existence of a second Basilikè Pylè?
In the opinion of Leunclavius, the Imperial Gate is to be identified with the Horaia Pylè (the Gate of the Neorion) at Bagtchè Kapoussi.[857] But if the Horaia Pylè was at Bagtchè Kapoussi, the Basilikè Pylè could not be there also. The two entrances are unmistakably distinguished by Phrantzes, who mentions both in the same connection, the one immediately after the other, and states that, in the defence of the fortifications along the harbour, the Beautiful Gate was in charge of the crew of a vessel from Crete, while the Imperial Gate was under the care of Gabriel of Treviso.
But this is an objection which has force only against those who adopt the view that the Horaia Pylè stood at Bagtchè Kapoussi.
A more general objection to the view of Leunclavius is that Bagtchè Kapoussi does not occupy the situation attributed to the Imperial Gate by Phrantzes and Leonard of Scio. It is not opposite a tower guarding the entrance of the harbour; it is too far up the Golden Horn to be described as “ante sinum.”
This being so there are only two gates with one or other of which the Imperial Gate can be identified, if the indications furnished on the subject by Phrantzes and Leonard of Scio are strictly followed. It was either the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi), as Gerlach maintains,[858] or the Gate of St. Barbara (Top Kapoussi), which stands immediately to the south of Seraglio Point, and was, therefore, so near the Harbour Walls that it might be included in an account of their defence.
The description of the Imperial Gate given by the historians above mentioned, applies equally well to both these entrances. Both stand near the mouth of the harbour, and opposite a tower “in the middle of the current;” both occupy a point of great strategical importance, such as the Basilikè Pylè must have occupied, if we may judge from the fact that it was entrusted to commanders like Gabriel of Treviso and the Duke Notaras; both entrances were, in the course of history, associated with the Court[859] in a way which might have earned for them the distinction of the epithet, “Imperial.”
It is not easy to decide, directly, between conflicting claims so nicely balanced. Judgment on the point at issue will doubtless be determined, largely, by the views adopted on questions indirectly connected with the matter in dispute, especially by what view is taken as regards the situation of the Horaia Pylè. Any one who upholds the accuracy of Ducas regarding the point to which the southern end of the chain was attached, and identifies the Beautiful Gate with Yali Kiosk Kapoussi (the Gate of Eugenius) will, necessarily, identify the Imperial Gate with Top Kapoussi. On the other hand, those who accept the opinion that the Beautiful Gate stood, as the Greeks in the sixteenth century maintained, at Bagtchè Kapoussi, may, though still free to place the Imperial Gate at Top Kapoussi, nevertheless prefer to place it at Yali Kiosk Kapoussi, as, on the whole, more in accordance with the indications of its position. If at the latter point, one can understand more readily why the Imperial Gate should have been associated with the Harbour Walls, and why Phrantzes mentions it immediately after the Horaia Pylè, and before the chain and the ships at the harbour’s mouth.
Having thus indicated which of the gates near the Seraglio Point have the strongest claim to be regarded as the Basilikè Pylè, it remains to consider the question whether either of those gates was the only entrance bearing that epithet, in the Harbour Walls.
Are there, in other words, any statements made by Byzantine writers in reference to the Basilikè Pylè which cannot be applied to the Gate of Eugenius or to the Gate of St. Barbara, and which, therefore, imply the existence of another gate of that name? So far as the Gate of St. Barbara is concerned, there are several such statements. The narrow quay outside Top Kapoussi could not afford room for the Church of St. John, the hospitium, and the other buildings, which are described as situated on the shore outside the Basilikè Pylè.[860] Nor could a ship be moored in front of that gate, as the ship of the Catalan chief Berenger was moored in front of the Imperial Gate.[861] Nor was it necessary, before that gate could be attacked by the Turkish fleet, that the chain across the entrance of the Golden Horn should be forced, as we are told was necessary in the case of the Basilikè Pylè to which Critobulus alludes.[862] Hence the opinion that the Basilikè Pylè was another name for the Gate of St. Barbara involves the view that there were two Imperial Gates.
The claim of the Gate of Eugenius to be the sole Basilikè Pylè encounters but one serious objection. Critobulus, it would appear, distinguishes the two entrances. He refers to the former to indicate where the southern end of the chain across the harbour was attached;[863] he speaks of the latter to mark the point which the Turkish fleet attacked on the last day of the siege, after breaking the chain, and becoming master of the Golden Horn.[864] For as soon as the Turkish admiral perceived that the Sultan’s troops had entered the city, and were busily engaged in the work of plunder, he made a desperate attempt upon the chain, cut it asunder, and forced his way into the harbour. Then, having captured or sunk the Greek galleys found in the port, he led his ships to the Imperial Gate (ταῖς βασιλικαῖς πόλαις) and landed his sailors in quest of booty. The gate was, however, still held by the Greeks, as the Turkish troops had not yet reached it from within the city. A fierce struggle therefore ensued. But at last the gate was burst open, its brave defenders were slain to a man, their blood pouring through it like a stream, and the assailants rushed in to share the spoils of victory.
What is here related might hold true of the Gate of Eugenius. Such facts as that the Imperial Gate stood within the chain, that before attacking it the Greek vessels in the harbour had to be disposed of, that it was held for a considerable time after the Turkish army had entered the city, are all consistent with the idea that the Basilikè Pylè, to which Critobulus refers, was the Gate of Eugenius. But, on the other hand, if the Gate of Eugenius was both the entrance to which the chain was attached and the entrance captured by the Turkish admiral after the chain had been broken, it comes very near defying all the laws of the association of ideas for the historian to speak of the entrance by different names, when the matters he records were so closely connected. This is a very serious objection to the identification of the Imperial Gate which Critobulus had in mind with the Gate of Eugenius. Hence, if this objection cannot be removed by saying that he could speak of the same gate by different names in different passages of his work, it follows that the epithet “Basilikè” did not belong exclusively to the Gate of Eugenius (any more than to the Gate of St. Barbara), but was bestowed also upon a gate higher up the Golden Horn.
This being the case, there can be no hesitation where the latter was situated. Balat Kapoussi, by the significance of its name, by its proximity to Imperial palaces, and by the presence of a Church of St. John, with room for other buildings, on the territory outside the gate, establishes the best claim to be considered the second Basilikè Pylè in the line of the harbour fortifications.[865]
Why the Turkish admiral selected it as the point at which to land his sailors is explained by the wealthy character of the adjoining quarter of the city.[866]
The Route taken in carrying the Turkish Ships across the Hills from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn.
Owing to the conflicting statements of contemporary historians on the subject, the precise route followed in carrying the Sultan’s ships, across the hills, from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn, is not fully settled. So far, indeed, as the point at which the ships reached the Golden Horn is concerned, there can be little, if any, room for doubt, though the historians differ even on that matter. The most reliable testimony, however, and the configuration of the territory on the northern side of the harbour, are in favour of the view that the Bay of Cassim Pasha was the point in question. Critobulus[867] names the point the Cold Waters,[868] and describes it as situated at a short distance from Galata (Ψυχρὰ Ὕδατα, μικρὸν ἀπωτέρω τοῦ Γαλατᾶ). Nicolò Barbaro[869] designates it as the Harbour of Pera, or Galata—“Abiando tragetà dentro dal porto de Constantinopoli ben fuste setantado, e redusele in porto dentro del navarchio de Pera”—and explains the possibility of the occupation of a point so near Galata by the excellent relations existing between the Turks and the Genoese: “E questo perchè lor Turchi avea bona paxe con Zenovexi.” At variance with these statements, Ducas[870] says the ships were launched into the harbour opposite Eyoub (Cosmidion), but that is contrary to all the probabilities of the case. Phrantzes[871] sheds no light upon the question.
In regard to the starting-point from the Bosporus, there is general agreement that it was somewhere on the shore between Beshiktash and Top Haneh; Andreossy[872] being singular in supposing that the vessels left the Bosporus at Balta Liman. Now, there are four ravines or valleys that run inland from the shore between Beshiktash and Top Haneh towards the ridge dividing the Bosporus and the Golden Horn: the valleys of Beshiktash, Dolma Bagtchè, Sali Bazaar, and Top Haneh, which reach the top of the ridge, respectively at Ferikeui, the Municipal Gardens, Taxim, and Asmali-Medjid Sokaki. And the decision of the question which of these valleys was the one actually selected by the Sultan will depend partly upon our estimate of the respective merits of the historians whose testimony has to be considered, and partly upon the comparative suitableness of the various routes to serve the object in view.
Of the four routes indicated above, the two which proceed, respectively, by the valley of Top Haneh and the valley of Dolma Bagtchè present, both on the ground of history and natural fitness, the strongest claims for consideration.
In favour of the Top Haneh route, there is, first, the fact that it was the shortest route; and secondly, that its length corresponds to that which Critobulus[873] assigns to the road taken by the ships across the hills, viz. eight stadia, or one mile. Accordingly, Dr. Dethier[874] and Dr. Paspates[875] maintain that the Sultan’s ships were transported from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn by way of Top Haneh, Koumbaradji Sokaki, Asmali-Medjid Sokaki, and the Petits Champs.
On the other hand, the Dolma Bagtchè route has in its favour, first, the statement made by several historians, including Critobulus himself, that the point on the Bosporus from which the ships started to cross the hills was near the Diplokionion, the name for Beshiktash in Byzantine times. Ducas[876] describes that point as situated to the east of Galata, below the Diplokionion. Pusculus[877] speaks of it as not far from the twin columns: “Columnis haud longè a geminis, surgunt quæ ad sidera rectæ.” Nicolò Barbaro[878] is, if possible, even more explicit. According to him, the levelling of the road across the hill above Pera commenced from the shore where the columns, and the station of the Turkish fleet, were found: “_Siando tuta la sua armada sorta a le colone_, che sun mia de luntan de la tera, fexe che tute le zurme muntasse in tera, e fexe spianar tuto el monte che son de sopra a zitade de Pera, _comenzando da la marina, zae da li da le colone dove che era armada_.” Critobulus,[879] as already intimated, styles the starting-point of the expedition the Diplokionion. Now, the Diplokionion was not at Top Haneh, but at Beshiktash, and the harbour of the Diplokionion must have been the bay which formerly occupied the site of Dolma Bagtchè.[880]
In the second place, in the Dolma Bagtchè route we have the distance which Nicolò Barbaro[881] declares was traversed by the Turkish ships in their overland passage, _i.e._ three miles: “Comenzando de la marina, zae da li da le colone dove che era armada, per infino dentro dal porte de Constantinopoli, _che son mia tre_.”
Great weight attaches to the testimony of Barbaro upon this point; for Critobulus was not present at the siege, while Nicolò Barbaro was surgeon of one of the Venetian galleys which took part in the defence of the chain across the entrance to the Golden Horn, kept a diary of the incidents of the siege, must have taken particular interest in the movements of the Turkish fleet, and was in the way of obtaining the best available information on the subject. Certainly, if the transport of the Turkish ships started from a point so near the chain and the Greek and foreign ships guarding it as the site of Top Haneh, Barbaro had every opportunity to know the fact, and it is inexplicable how he could have made the mistake of representing another locality as the scene of the achievement.
With Barbaro agrees another competent witness, Jacques Tedaldi, a Florentine merchant, who took part in the defence of the city, and who gives the distance over which the ships were carried as from two to three miles: “Fit porter de la mer par terre deux ou trois milles, de soixant dix a quatre-vingts gallées que aultres fustes armées, dedans le gouffle de Mandraquins qui est entre les deux citez, auxquieuls est le port de Constantinople.”[882]
If, in the next place, we judge between the two routes by their comparative fitness to facilitate the accomplishment of the Sultan’s design, the Dolma Bagtchè route can claim the superiority in that respect. Had the matter of distance been all the Sultan required to consider in choosing the road for his ships, the decision would necessarily have been in favour of the Top Haneh route. But, surely, other matters also had to be taken into account. It was desirable, for example, that the route should be situated where all the preparations necessary to effect the passage could be readily made, where they would be beyond the reach of interference on the part of the Greeks, where they would, as the conveyance of the ships by night proves was the Sultan’s wish, be screened from hostile observation, and result in taking the enemy by surprise. All this was impossible at the site now occupied by Top Haneh, which stood but a short distance outside the chain and its guard-ships. There the Sultan’s preparations—the levelling of the ground, the laying down of sleepers and planks along which the cradles carrying the ships were to be drawn, the gathering of seventy to eighty vessels, the army of men collected to draw the ships out of the water and overland,—would be too much in the public eye to satisfy the requirements of the case.
On the other hand, although the Dolma Bagtchè route laboured under the disadvantage of being longer than the road from Top Haneh, the distance it presented was not excessive, while it offered ample compensation for the additional efforts which its greater length occasioned. It started from the usual station of the Turkish fleet in the Bosporus, where all requisite means for executing the Sultan’s purpose could be obtained with the least difficulty, where no attack was to be apprehended, where the presence of a large number of ships would excite no suspicions, and where, it was reasonable to expect, the great secret could be kept as long as necessary. From the point of fitness to serve the scheme contemplated, the route from Dolma Bagtchè had most to recommend it, taking all things into consideration.
Turkish historians do not afford any assistance to solve the problem under discussion. Evlia Tchelebi pretends that the ships were not brought from the Bosporus, but that some of them were constructed at Kiathaneh, the Sweet Waters, at the head of the harbour, and others at Levend Tchiflik (probably the Kutchuk Levend Tchiflik situated, in old Turkish times, high up the longer arm of the Dolma Bagtchè valley, not the Levend Tchiflik above the head of the valley of Balta Liman); and that the latter portion of the flotilla was carried to the Golden Horn by way of the Ok Meidan behind Haskeui, and the gardens of the Arsenal (Tersaneh Bagtchessi). Another Turkish authority says the ships were transported from Dolma Bagtchè to Cassim Pasha.
NOTE.
According to Leonard of Scio (p. 920), the distance over which the Turkish ships were conveyed was seventy stadia, “ad stadia septuaginta trahi biremes.” This statement involves so many questions which are difficult, if not impossible, to decide, that it affords no assistance in determining where the ships crossed the hills. The archbishop’s account of the Sultan’s action is given in the following words: “Quare ut coangustaret circumvalleratque magis urbem, jussit invia æquare; exque colle, suppositis lenitis vasis lacertorum sex, ad stadia septuaginta trahi biremes, quæ ascensu gravius sublatæ, posthac ex apice in declivum, in ripam sinus levissime introrsum vehebantur.”
Now, if the “seventy stadia” in this passage are to be understood in the ordinary sense of the words, the route taken by the ships was over eight English miles in length. But from no point between Top Haneh and Beshiktash is the distance to the Golden Horn, across the hills, so great. Hence the language of Leonard has been variously interpreted, in the hope of bringing it into accord with what his commentators deemed the real facts in the case. Dethier, in his annotations to Zorzo Dolfin (_Siège de Constantinople_, No. xxii. p. 998), maintains that the numeral seventy gives the number of the ships transported over the hills, and not the length of the road tranversed: “Non sono 70 stadia, ma 70 galere o fuste.” Charles Müller, the editor of Critobulus, referring to the statement of Leonard, expresses the same opinion as Dethier, and thinks that the number for the stadia has dropped out of the text of Leonard: “Stadiorum numerus excedisse videtur, nam septuaginta vox ad navium numerum, quem eundem etiam Chalcocondylas, p. 387, 8 præbet, referenda est” (_Fragm. Hist. Græc._ p. 87). Another possible view is that the number seventy is due to an error in the text. Or, finally, it may be supposed that Leonard employed the term “stadium” in a peculiar sense. One presumption in favour of this supposition is the fact that elsewhere in his epistle, the measurements of Leonard by stadia seem too gross mistakes to be made by such a man as the archbishop, with the ordinary idea of a stadium in his mind. The bridge, for example, which the Sultan built at Haskeui, to bring his cannon closer to the Harbour Walls, and which Phrantzes (p. 252) says was one hundred ortygia long, or one stadium, Leonard (p. 931) represents as about thirty stadia in length, _i.e._, according to the ordinary computation, between three and four miles in length, where the harbour is not half a mile wide. Again, Leonard (p. 970) speaks of the Turkish fleet as anchoring at a point less than one hundred stadia from the shore of the Propontis: “Minus ad stadia centum Propontidis ripa anchoras figunt”—a statement which, if it refers to the distance of Beshiktash from the Seraglio Point, would make that part of the Bosporus about ten miles broad! It should also be added that Charles Müller thinks that the stadium of the later Byzantine writers was one-third less than the Olympic stadium: “Adeo ut stadium tertia parte minus quam vetus stadium Olympicum subesse videri possit” (_Fragm. Hist. Græc._, v. p. 76). Du Cange (_Glossarium Med. et Infim. Latinitatis_) says, respecting the use of the term “stadium” by mediæval writers, “Mensuræ species, sed ignota prorsus.”
Zorzo Dolfin translates the account which Leonard gives of the ships’ passage across the hills, as follows: “Et per coangustar, et circumuallar piu la terra, commando, fusse spianato le uie, et sopra i colli messi in terra i uasi a forza de brazze ... per 70 stadia che sono circa miglia ... introdusse le fuste nel mandrachio, le qual per ... miglia con fatica se tiranno in suxo” (Dethier, _Siège de Constantinople_, No. xxii. p. 997). If the number of miles had been given, or had not disappeared, how much discussion would have been spared!
Footnote 739:
Pusculus, iv. 192; Dolfin, s. 55.
Footnote 740:
Ducas, p. 282.
Footnote 741:
Anonymus, ii. p. 39; _Acta Patriarchatus CP._, ii. p. 461; _Itinéraires Russes en Orient_, pp. 104, 105.
Footnote 742:
According to Dr. Paspates (pp. 381-383), respectively, Pour Kouyou Mesdjidi, and Sheik Mourad Mesdjidi.
Footnote 743:
Ducas, _ut supra_.
Footnote 744:
Mordtmann, pp. 7, 8, 45; Du Cange, iv. ad St. Acacium. See above, p. 32.
Footnote 745:
_Notitia, ad Reg. X._
Footnote 746:
Socrates, ii. c. xx.; Theophanes, p. 70.
Footnote 747:
Du Cange, _ut supra_.
Footnote 748:
_Ibid._, vi. c. xxi.
Footnote 749:
_Miklosich et Muller_, iii. p. 88.
Footnote 750:
_Ibid._, _ut supra_.
Footnote 751:
According to Du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, _ad vocem_, from Drungus, “company of soldiers.” The word is connected with the German “Gedrung” and the English “throng.”
Footnote 752:
Anna Comn., vi. p. 286; cf. Luitprandus, as quoted by Du Cange, in _Anna Comn._, vol. ii. p. 544.
Footnote 753:
_Tafel und Thomas_, ii. pp. 27, 28: “Via quæ dicitur De Longaria, extra murum civitatis CP.”
Footnote 754:
_Ibid._, pp. 11, 60: “Scala de Drongario.”
Footnote 755:
Theophanes, p. 281.
Footnote 756:
Gerlach, p. 454; Smith, _Epistolæ Quatuor_, p. 88.
Footnote 757:
Mordtmann, p. 46.
Footnote 758:
_Pand. Hist. Turc._, s. 200.
Footnote 759:
Paspates, p. 166.
Footnote 760:
Heyd, _Histoire du Commerce du Levant_, vol. i. p. 251.
Footnote 761:
_Ibid._, p. 251.
Footnote 762:
Theophanes, p. 353; cf. Procopius, _De Æd._, i. c. vii.
Footnote 763:
_Notitia, ad Reg. VI._
Footnote 764:
_Novella LIX._, c. v.
Footnote 765:
_Paschal Chron._, p. 618.
Footnote 766:
_Notitia_, _ut supra_.
Footnote 767:
_Ptochoprodromus_, line 113; cf. Paspates, pp. 164, 165.
Footnote 768:
VII. p. 286.
Footnote 769:
_Tafel und Thomas_, i. p. 50.
Footnote 770:
_Tafel und Thomas_, i. pp. 55-63.
Footnote 771:
_Ibid._, ii. p. 4; iii. pp. 133-149.
Footnote 772:
Gyllius, _De Top. CP._, iii. c. i.; Leunclavius, _Pand. Hist. Turc._, s. 200.
Footnote 773:
On the subject of the Italian and other foreign colonies settled in Byzantine Constantinople, the reader may consult Paspates, pp. 127-276; Mordtmann, pp. 46-50; Desmoni, _Giornale Ligustico_, vol. i.; _Sui Quartieri dei Genovesi a Constantinopoli nel Secolo XII._; Heyd, _Histoire du Commerce du Levant_; Sauli, _Della Colonia del Genovesi in Galata_; Pears, _Fall of Constantinople_, c. 6; Miklosich et Müller, _Acta et Diplomata Græca_; Tafel und Thomas, _Urkunden zur Älteren Handels und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig_.
Footnote 774:
The Russian pilgrim, Stephen of Novgorod (_Itinéraires Russes en Orient_, p. 121), who visited Constantinople about 1350, found a gate near the sea, and beside a Church of St. Demetrius, named “Portes Juives,” on account of the many Jews settled in the vicinity. From the connection in which the fact is mentioned, it appears that the gate stood on the Marmora side of the city, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Vlanga; thus showing how the same name might belong to different gates at different periods in the history of the city. Nicolo Barbaro (p. 817) confirms the existence of a Jewish quarter on the Marmora shore of the city, when he says that the Turkish fleet, finding itself unable to force the chain across the harbour, abandoned the attempt, and proceeded to the side towards the Dardanelles (“de la band del Dardanelo”), and there landed to plunder the Jewish quarter (“muntò in tera de la banda de la Zudeca”). It is possible, indeed, to contend that the Russian pilgrim referred to a gate near the Church of St. Demetrius beside the Seraglio Point. This view does not affect the argument presented in the text.
Footnote 775:
_Tafel und Thomas_, ii. pp. 270-272; cf. _Ibid._, pp. 4-11.
Footnote 776:
_Miklosich et Müller_, iii. pp. 12, 16, 19; cf. _Ibid._, p. 6.
Footnote 777:
Codinus, p. 22; cf. Paspates, p. 158.
Footnote 778:
Constant. Porphyr., _De Cer._, p. 737.
Footnote 779:
_Miklosich et Müller_, iii. pp. 19-21.
Footnote 780:
Pachymeres, vol. i. p. 365; Gyllius, _De Top. CP._, iii. c. i.
Footnote 781:
_Miklosich et Müller_, iii. pp. 19, 21.
Footnote 782:
_Ibid._, p. 19.
Footnote 783:
See above, p. 10.
Footnote 784:
Nicephorus Patriarcha, _CP._, p. 57; Theophanes, p. 591; Theophanes Cont., p. 391.
Footnote 785:
Anonymus, ii. p. 30; Codinus, p. 52.
Footnote 786:
_Miklosich et Müller_, iii. p. 6. Such a factory can be seen to-day at Keurekdjilar, in Galata.
Footnote 787:
_Paschal Chron._, p. 582; Cedrenus, vol. i. pp. 609, 610; ii. p. 529.
Footnote 788:
_De Top. CP._, iii. c. i.; _De Bosporo Thracio_, ii. c. ii.
Footnote 789:
Page 454.
Footnote 790:
_Pand. Hist Turc._, s. 200.
Footnote 791:
Phrantzes, p. 254.
Footnote 792:
Ducas, p. 282. Phrantzes and Ducas are the only Byzantine writers who mention the Beautiful Gate.
Footnote 793:
Gyllius, _De Top. CP._, iii. c. i.; cf. Paspates, pp. 166, 167. The ground on which Yeni Validè Djamissi stands, near the Stamboul end of the Outer Bridge, belonged, as late as the seventeenth century, to Karaïte Jews, who claimed that the territory had been granted to their ancestors under the Byzantine Empire. In return for the seizure of the ground to build the mosque (1615-1655), the community received houses at Haskeui, and forty members of the community were exempted from taxation for life. As the site of the synagogue could not be sold, the mosque has had to pay the community an annual rent of thirty-two piastres.
Footnote 794:
Patriarch Constantius, _Ancient and Modern Consple._, p. 12.
Footnote 795:
Page 268.
Footnote 796:
I. c. 18.
Footnote 797:
Page 238.
Footnote 798:
Page 384.
Footnote 799:
Pages 283, 284.
Footnote 800:
Pages 282, 283.
Footnote 801:
Page 263.
Footnote 802:
Page 300.
Footnote 803:
See above, p. 93.
Footnote 804:
Pages 270, 271.
Footnote 805:
Gyllius’ statement (_De Top. CP._, III. c. i.) on the subject is: “Portum, quem vocunt Neorion, quod prope portam, quam Græci appellant Oraiam, corruptè quasi Neorii portam, aut non longe ab ea, fuisse existimo. Hodie inter mare et Portam Oraiam, quam Turci appellant Siphont (Tsifout), id est, Judæorum eam accolentium, spatium latum ... videre licet.” Cf. _De Bosporo Thracio_, II. c. i. “Pro porta quam vulgo vocant Oriam corruptè, quasi olim Neorii portam.”
Footnote 806:
Page 454: “Die Prächtige, itzund die Juden-Pfort.”
Footnote 807:
_Pand. Hist. Turc._, s. 200. “Porta quæ Græci quotquot vederi peritores volunt Porta Horæa (Ὡραία), vulgo Huræa (Ebraia) dicitur.”
Footnote 808:
_Miklosich et Müller_, iii. pp. ix., 53; Desimoni, _Giornale Ligustico_, vol. i. p. 37: _Sui Quartieri dei Genovesi a Constantinopoli, nel secolo XII._, p. 46.
Footnote 809:
_Notitia, ad Reg. V._
Footnote 810:
_Paschal Chron._, ad ann. 406, 415.
Footnote 811:
_Cod. Theod. De Calcis Coctor._, Lex V.; Stephanus Byzantius, _De Urbibus et Populis_, ad vocem; Evagrius, ii. c. xiii.
Footnote 812:
Mordtmann, p. 49.
Footnote 813:
Anonymus, ii. p. 29. The point at Scutari where cattle are embarked to be ferried to the city is called by the Turks “Ukooz-Limani,” the Ox-Port.
Footnote 814:
_Notitia, ad Reg. V._
Footnote 815:
Constant. Porphyr., _De Cer._, p. 699.
Footnote 816:
_De Corona_, p. 134, Edition Didot.
Footnote 817:
Evagrius, ii. c. xiii.
Footnote 818:
Anonymus, i. p. 2.
Footnote 819:
Cantacuzene, iv. pp. 213, 214.
Footnote 820:
_Ibid._, iv. pp. 76, 232.
Footnote 821:
Anna Comn., xv. p. 345.
Footnote 822:
Pachymeres, vol. ii. p. 175; Nicephorus Greg., vi. p. 167.
Footnote 823:
Anonymus, i. p. 2; _Acta Patriarchatus CP._, p. 563.
Footnote 824:
Banduri, _Imp. Orient._, vii. p. 149.
Footnote 825:
_Miklosich et Müller_, ii. pp. 467, 564.
Footnote 826:
_Notitia, ad Reg. IV._
Footnote 827:
Codinus, _De Officiis_, pp. 107, 108; cf. Cantacuzene, iv. p. 11.
Footnote 828:
Critobulus, i. c. 18.
Footnote 829:
Leo Diaconus, pp. 78, 79; Anonymus, iii. p. 56. This was probably the tower to which N. Barbaro (p. 733) refers when, speaking of the two towers, on the opposite sides of the entrance to the Golden Horn, which supported the chain, he says, “Etiam una tore per ladi de la zilade, zoè una de la banda de Constantinopoli, l’altra de la banda de Pera, le qual tore vignia a far defexa assai.”
Footnote 830:
N. Barbara, pp. 722, 723.
Footnote 831:
Ville-Hardouin, c. 32.
Footnote 832:
Gyllius, _De Top. CP._, iv. c. x. “Adhuc Galatæ porta est, quæ appellatur Catena, ex eo, quod ab Acropoli usque ad eam portam catena extenderetur.” Cf. Theophanes, p. 609.
Footnote 833:
Dr. Paspates (Πολιορκία καὶ Ἄλωσις τῆς ΚΠ., p. 63) thinks the tower stood beside the Offices of the Board of Health, between the Galata Bridge and the Galata Custom House. He grounds this opinion on the existence of old ruins at that point. But the chain would never be placed aslant the harbour, as this view implies.
Footnote 834:
Theophanes, p. 609.
Footnote 835:
Cedrenus, vol. ii. p. 80.
Footnote 836:
Leo Diaconus, p. 79.
Footnote 837:
Nicetas Chon., p. 718; cf. Ville-Hardouin, c. xxxii.
Footnote 838:
Phrantzes, p. 251. See below, pp. 241-247, for the discussion regarding the precise route taken by the ships.
Footnote 839:
_Acta Patriarchatus CP._, ii. p. 467; Anna Comn., xv. p. 345.
Footnote 840:
Procopius, _De Æd._, i. c. xi. R.
Footnote 841:
Nicephorus Greg., vii. p. 275.
Footnote 842:
Patriarch Constantius, _Ancient and Modern Consple._, p. 15. With him agree Von Hammer, Paspates, Mordtmann, etc.
Footnote 843:
Gerlach, p. 454; Leunclavius, Pand. Hist. Turc. s. 200.
Footnote 844:
Pages 254, 255, Ἐδόθη φυλάττειν τὸν πύργον τὸν ἐν μέσω τοῦ ῥεύματος, τὸν φυλάσσοντα τὴν εἴσοδον τοῦ λιμένος, καὶ ἦν ἀντικρὺς τῆς πύλης τῆς βασιλικῆς.
Footnote 845:
Page 259. Dr. Paspates, in his work on the siege of the city (Πολιορκία καὶ Ἂλωσις τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, p. 141), represents the Hill of St. Theodore and the battery upon it as commanding the Bay of Cassim Pasha. This, however, is in harmony neither with the statements of Phrantzes, nor with local configuration. The requirements of the case are met by the supposition that the Hill of St. Theodore was the ridge to the north-east of Top Haneh, and that the Sultan’s battery stood nearer the Bosporus than the present Italian Hospital. Cf. Zorzo Dolfin, s. 44: “Acceso el Turcho da disdegno, da i montè orientali de Pera penso a profondar con machine e morteri, o trar quelle de la cathena. Mezzo adonque le bombarde a segno dal occidente” (_i.e._ aiming towards west), “se sforza con bombardieri profundar le naue.”
Footnote 846:
Page 259.
Footnote 847:
Page 238.
Footnote 848:
XVII., p. 860; cf. Cantacuzene, iv. p. 232.
Footnote 849:
Dr. Paspates (see p. 111 of his work on the siege of the city, cited above) understands Phrantzes in the same way. He identifies the tower with one which stood, until 1817, between the Gate of St. Barbara (Top Kapoussi) and the Gate of Eu