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APPENDIX I 433 1 because the walls there were less solid and very low,' 1 a descrip- tion which would not apply to those near Top Capou, but which, like all the descriptions given, does apply to the lower part of the Lycus valley. Here, in the phrase of Professor van Millingen, was the heel of Achilles, the Valley of Decision. 2 The weakness of this portion of the walls is illustrated by the fact that when Baldwin the Second expected an attack by Michael he walled up all the landward gates ' except the single one near the streamlet where one sees the church of St. Kyriake ' — that is, except the Pempton. 3 In other words, the walls being there the weakest, it was anticipated that there would be the attack, and the entry into the Peribolos must be kept open to defend the Outer Wall. In the ' Threnos ' the siege is described as being at the ' Chariseus Gate/ now St. Eomanus, which is called Top Capou. 4 Apparently the confusion in this description is hopeless, but if the Pempton were called indifferently, as by Barbaro, Eomanus and Chariseus, it becomes intelligible. 5 A statement by the ' Moscovite ' (ch. vii.) also points to the Pempton as the chief point of attack. He mentions that on April 24 a ball from the great cannon knocked away five of the battlements and buried itself in the walls of a church. The only church in the neighbourhood either of Top Capou or the Pempton was one dedicated to St. Kyriake, which was in the Lycus valley near the Pempton. But the attack is always stated to be against the Eomanus Gate. Near the Pempton the Peribolos is now about twenty feet higher than the level of the ground on the city side of the Great Wall. Beyond doubt this is largely due to the accumulation of refuse and broken portions of the wall, but, allowing for this, an observer will probably conclude that the Peribolos was at the time of the siege several feet higher than the level on the city 1 1078, Dethier's edition. 2 Byzantine Constantinople, p. 96. In the same manner Dethier, comment- ing on Pusculus, iv. line 169, says : 4 Pseudoporta Charsaea vel Pempti omnium celeberrima et in fortificatione calx Achilles erat. Hie enim ab utra parte, nempe a Porta Polyandrii [Adrianople Gate] et a Porta Sancti Komani in vallem Lyci linea recta murus descendit, idque contra omnem legem artis fortificationum.' 3 The Anonymous Chronicle, in verse, of the Latin Capture (edited by Joseph Mueller and Dethier), line 390. 4 Threnos, 610-613. 5 Dethier and the elder Mordtmann considered (in error, as the learned son of the latter and Professor van Millingen agree) that they had proved that the Pempton was the Chariseus. See, in addition to the sentence just quoted from the Threnos, the archaeological map of the Greek Syllogos and also Dethier's note on Pusculus, iv. line 172. F F