216
CONSTANTINOPLE
ople. Paris, 1877.—Grosvenok (Professor of European History question how the city was then defended from the last-named point at Amherst College). Constantinople. London, 1895.—Van to the Golden Horn ; some maintaining that the Theodosian Walls Millingen, M.A. Byzantine Constantinople, with maps, plans, turned north-eastwards and reached the Golden Horn near Balat and illustrations. London, 1899.—Coufopoxjlos. A Guide to Kapoussi, others being of the opinion that the new walls joined the old fortifications which protected the suburb of Blachernae. Constantinople. London, 1899. On the whole, the latter view seems the more probable. The sea(e. W*.) ward walls required by this enlargement of the city were built in Archaeology. 439, during the administration of the Prefect Cyrus. The wall of Anthemius was, however, terribly injured by a severe Considerable attention has been devoted in recent years to the archaeology of Constantinople, and although the study is seriously earthquake which shook the city in 447, while Theodosius II. was hampered by the impossibility of making excavations, a real still upon the throne. The disaster was the more serious because advance has been made in this department of knowledge. Many Attila and his Huns were then carrying everything before them in mistakes have been corrected, important facts have been discovered, the Balkan Peninsula; but the desperateness of the situation and problems remaining to be solved have been more clearly re- roused the energies of the Eoman Government to the highest pitch, cognized and more precisely stated than heretofore. The city of and in less than two months, if we may trust inscriptions to that Byzantium, out of which Constantinople sprang, and from which effect, the city was again fully armed, and even more secure than it inherited characteristic features, occupied, when it reached its before the catastrophe. The Praetorian Prefect Constantine, whom greatest extent, most of the territory comprised by the two hills some authorities identify with the Prefect Cyrus named above, not nearest the apex of the promontory and by the level ground at only repaired the wall of Anthemius, but placed another wall in their base. The western wall of the city started from a point near front of it, and protected this double line of fortifications by a moat, the Stamboul Custom House and reached the ridge of the Second with a battlement along its inner margin. Each wall was flanked Hill, a short distance to the east of the column popularly named by ninety-six towers, while the terrace between the two walls, and Tchemberli Tash and the Burnt Column. There stood the prin- the terrace between the outer wall and the moat, allowed room for cipal gateway of the city, opening upon the Egnatian Eoad. From the action of large bodies of troops, in addition to the troops upon that point the wall ran southwards for some distance towards the the walls themselves. Comparatively slight changes were made in Sea of Marmora, and then turned eastwards until it reached that the boundaries of the city alter the reign of Theodosius II. The sea in the neighbourhood of the present Seraglio Lighthouse. lower portion of the suburb of Blachernae, namely, the plain to The Acropolis was situated on the summit of the First Hill, the north of the Sixth Hill, was enclosed within fortifications in where the courts of the Old Palace of the Sultans are found ; 627, after the siege of the city by the Avars in the reign of and within the citadel stood, as was customary, the chief temples Heraclius ; in 813 Leo the Armenian strengthened the wall of of the city—the Temples of Artemis, Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus, Heraclius by constructing a wall and a moat in front of it, • Poseidon, and Demeter. The harbours of the city were upon thus to withstand better an expected assault by the Bulgarians the Golden Horn—one, the Portus Prosforianus, in the bay indent- under Crum ; lastly, in the reign of Manuel Comnenus the fine ing the shore in front of the station of the Chemins de Fer wall extending from the north-western corner of the court of TekOrientaux ; the other, the Neorium, in the bay before the Stamboul four Serai to the square tower below Egri Kapou was erected to Custom House. On the level tract behind the former was the defend more effectively the Palace of Blachernae, on the Sixth Hill, Strategion, the Champs de Mars of the city ; while another public which had become the favourite residence of the Byzantine emperors. square, known as the Tetrastoon, because surrounded by four Of course all these fortifications were frequently repaired {e.g., the porticos, is represented by the open space between S. Sophia and seaward walls by the Emperor Theophilus), and to them Constantinthe Hippodrome. There stood the Baths of Zeuxippus. Two ople owed her long life and her ability to repel, for more than a theatres were built against the steep eastern side of the Acropolis thousand years, the assaults of barbarism upon the civilization of Hill, and a Stadium stood on the level ground at the foot Christendom. They present to the archreologist a splendid speciof the Acropolis beside the Golden Horn. A large portion of men of mediaeval fortifications constructed under the strong inthe Hippodrome, so famous in the history of Constantinople, fluence of old Roman military traditions, and they afford endless was constructed by Septimius Severus for the benefit of the interest to the student of history on account of the events associated citizens of Byzantium, when he rebuilt the city in a.d. 196. The with them. The most noteworthy points in the circuit of the walls are : graceful granite column which stands on the high ground near the apex of the promontory is a monument erected by Byzantium in the Golden Gate, in the form of a triumphal arch with three honour of the victory of Claudius Gothicus over the Goths. It archways, erected (before the Theodosian Walls were built) in honour of the victory of Theodosius the Great over the usurper still bears most of the original inscription Maximus ; the Gate of S. Romanus (Top Kapoussi), memorable as EEDTJCI FORTUNE! OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS. the gate near which Constantine Dragases fell, and through which According to the measurements given by Zosimus and the Sultan Mahomet II. rode into the captured capital in 1453 ; the Notitia, it would appear that the walls of Constantinople, as built great breach in the valley of the Lycus, through which the Turks by the founder of the city in 328, ran across the promontory from the entered the city; Tekfour Serai, long erroneously identified with neighbourhood of Daoud Pasha Kapoussi (Porta S. Aemiliani) on the the Palace of the Hebdomon, the finest specimen of Byzantine civil Sea of Marmora to Oun-Kapan Kapoussi (Porta Platsea) on theGolden architecture left in the city; the two Towers commonly known Horn, near the Stamboul head of the inner bridge, traversing in respectively as the Towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, with the their course the seventh, fourth, and fifth hills of the promontory. chambers in the body of the wall to the north ; the wall of Leo By extending the old seaward walls of Byzantium to the extremities the Armenian, the point at which the army of the Fourth Crusade, of the new western fortifications, the capital was placed within which had its camp on the hill opposite, delivered the chief attack strong bulwarks. The only vestige of the western walls is found in 1203 ; the wall protecting the quarters of Phanar and Petri in the name Isa Kapoussi (Gate of Jesus), attached to a locality on Kapou, where the fleet and troops of the Fourth Crusade assaulted the heights above the quarter of Psamathia. An ancient city gate and carried the city in 1204, to found the Latin Empire of Conwhich stood there as late as 1508, when it was overthrown by an stantinople ; Yali Kiosk Kapoussi, the point to which the northern earthquake, marked a point in theConstantinian lineof fortifications, end of the chain drawn across the harbour in time of siege was exactly as Temple Bar indicated a point in the old walls of London attached ; the ruins of the Palace of Hormisdas, once the residence long after they had otherwise disappeared. Possibly a portion of of Justinian the Great and Theodora, known in later times as the the seaward walls bounding the old harbour, which is now con- Bucoleon, near Tchatlady Kapou ; the sites of the old harbours verted into the vegetable gardens of Vlanga Bostan, may date from between that gate and Daoud Pasha Kapoussi; the fine Marble the time of Constantine. Two suburbs outside the walls were Tower near the junction of the Land Walls with the walls along considered as parts of the city—the suburb of Sycae (Galata), and the Sea of Marmora. The interior arrangements of the city were largely determined the suburb of Blachernae, now the quarters of Aivan Serai and Egri Kapou. The latter suburb stood within fortifications of its by the configuration of its site, which falls naturally into three own. For municipal purposes the city was divided into fourteen divisions: the level ground and the slopes towards the Sea of Eegions, on the model of Eome. But ere a century had passed, Marmora, the range of hills running through the midland portion the growth of the new metropolis on the one hand, and military of the promontory, the slopes and level ground towards the Golden considerations in view of the threatening attitude of the Barbarians Horn. In each of these divisions a great street ran from one end on the other, demanded the enlargement of the city’s bounds and of the city to the other, generally lined with arcades on one side, the erection of stronger defences. Accordingly, in 413, in the but sometimes, when passing through the busier and the finer parts reign of Theodosius II., under the direction of Anthemius, Prae- of the city, on both sides. The street on the ridge of the hills torian Prefect of the East and Eegent during the emperor’s minority, formed the principal thoroughfare, and owing to its central position the landward fortifications were carried farther west, to the line was known as the Mesd. It connected the principal Fora of the of the inner wall in the crumbling but picturesque ramparts which city: the Augustaion (to the south of S. Sophia); the Forum of extend from the' Sea of Marmora, a short distance south of the Constantine (on the summit of the Second Hill) ; the Forum of Seven Towers (Yedi Koule), to the old Byzantine Palace (Tekfour Theodosius the Great, or of Taurus (on the summit of the Third Serai), above the quarter of Egri Kapou. Authorities differ on the Hill, beside the present War Office); the Forum of the Amastrianon
