of vestiaries or dressers who are occupied with the royal apparel, including females of various grades with similar titles for the service of the Empress. At the eastern limit of the Palace stands the Pharos, a beacon tower afterwards, if not now, the first of a series throughout Asia Minor by which signals were flashed to and from the capital.[1] The Tzykanisterion,[2] Imperial Gardens, large enough to be called a park, occupies a great part of the south-eastern corner of the peninsula.[3] It is surrounded, or rather fortified, by substantial walls which join the sea walls of the city on the east and south.[4] The western section, which terminates on the south near the palace of Hormisdas and Port Julian, is surmounted by a covered terrace named the Gallery of
- ↑ Theophanes, Cont., iv, 35; cf. Symeon, Mag., p. 681, where the invention is ascribed to Bp. Leo of Thessalonica under Theophilus. The stations by which an inroad of the Saracens was reported c. 800 are here given. Its use for signalling at this date cannot be asserted definitely, but it was a relic of old Byzantium erected as a nautical light-house; Ammianus, xxii, 8.
- ↑ Codin., p. 81; the particular area to which this name was applied seems to have been a polo ground; Theoph., Cont., v, 86, and Reiske's note to Const. Porph., ii, p. 362. It was encompassed by flower gardens.
- ↑ Marrast has given us his notion of these gardens at some length: "Entre des haies de phyllyrea taillées de façon de figurer des lettres grecques et orientales, des sentiers dallés de marbre aboutissaient à un phialée entourée de douze dragons de bronze. . . . Une eau parfumée en jaillissait et ruisselait par dessus les branches des palmiers et des cedres dorés jusqu'à hauteur d'homme. Des paons de la Chine, des faisans et des ibis, volaient en liberté dans les arbres ou s'abattaient sur le sol, semé d'un sable d'or apporté d'Asie à grands frais." La vie byzantine au VI^e siècle, Paris, 1881, p. 67.
- ↑ Labarte gives these walls, towers, etc. Doubtless the palace was well protected from the first, but did not assume the appearance of an actual fortress till the tenth century under Nicephorus Phocas; Leo Diac., iv, 6.
