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LYCUS VALLEY : THE GATES AND WALLS 241 well constructed as elsewhere, and to the eye of an ordinary- observer the city was as strongly protected in the Lycus valley as anywhere, yet this place appears to have been considered by many of the enemies of the city as its weakest point. Here, says Dethier, with whom Professor Van Millingen agrees, was the Heel of Achilles. 1 Many previous invaders, ending with Murad in 1422, had encamped in the Mesoteichion as the most suitable position for an attack upon the city. 2 The accompanying sketch of the walls will show their general plan. Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders of such high lines of walls ought to have been on the city side of the great Inner Wall. So few, however, were the besieged, that all had to pass into the enclosures to meet the enemy at the second or Outer Wall. Partly because of the small number of men, but partly also because it had been allowed to get out of repair, 3 the Inner Wall, which, as: the highest and strongest, ought to have been the most serious obstacle, was hardly relied upon as a means of defence. Chalcondylas says 4 that the emperor and the lead- ing Greeks deliberated as to where the enemy was to be resisted, and that they decided that they should defend the Outer Wall, which was strengthened by the foss in front of it, as had been done when Murad had attacked the city thirty- one years before. Leonard expressly states that the imperial troops were sufficient to guard only the Outer Wall, and the stockade which, at a late period of the siege, replaced a portion of it. As his own countrymen took part in this task, his testi- mony is entirely credible. 5 He adds, however, that in his opinion this plan of defence was a blunder ; that he was 1 Byzantine Constantinople, p. 86. 2 Barbaro describes it as the place ' dove che sun la piu debel porta de tuta la tera,' p. 21. The weakest gate he calls ' San Komano.' 3 Quite a considerable number of towers in the Outer Wall bear inscriptions showing that they were repaired after the Turkish siege of 1422. 4 P. 159. 5 'Antemurale solum urbis vallumque sat videbatur tutari posse,' p, 93. ' Operosa autem protegendi vallum et antemurale nostris fuit cura,' p. 95. R