Rhegium, the circumstance is recorded in a Latin tristich as well as in a Greek distich.[1]
Besides these popular approaches there is another series of five gates, architecturally similar, but designed only for military or strategic purposes. About intermediate in position and in line with neither roads nor bridges, they are closed to the general public and named merely in numerical succession from south to north.[2] Just above the third gate, that is, about half way between the Golden Horn and the Propontis, the walls dip inwards for a distance of nearly one
- [Footnote: Cedrenus, i, p. 598, and the words of the inscription).
Cedrenus states virtually that he demolished the wall and replaced it by three others, alluding perhaps to the moat, but Cedrenus is often wrong. All seven (or nine) chronographists relate more or less exactly that Cyrus gained such popularity by his works that the public acclamations offended the Emperor, who forced the tonsure on him and sent him to Smyrna as bishop in the hope that the turbulent populace, who had already killed four of their bishops, would speedily add him to the number. By his ready wit, however, he diverted their evil designs and won their respect. Zonaras, xiii, 22, and Nicephorus Cal., xiv, 1, have an incorrect idea of the wall-building. According to the latter, Anthemius was the man of speed. Malala mentions Cyrus, but not the wall.]
- ↑ The Greek verses are given in the Anthology (Planudes, iv, 28).
The Latin I may reproduce here:
Theudosii jussis gemino nec mense peracto
Constantinus ovans haec moenia firma locavit.
Tam cito tam stabilem Pallas vix conderet arcem.This epigram and its companion in Greek are still legible on the stone of the Rhegium Gate (now of Melandesia). See Paspates, op. cit., pp. 47, 50. The Porta Xylocerci has practically disappeared.
- ↑ Mordtmann's exposition of these gates is the most convincing (op. cit., p. 16, etc.). I have omitted the Gate of the Seven Towers as it has always been claimed as a Turkish innovation, a view, however, which he rejects. In any case it was but a postern—there may have been others such in the extinct section of the wall.
