Gates.
At a short distance to the east of the Xylo Porta a breach in the wall marks the site of a gateway named by the Turks Kutchuk Aivan Serai Kapoussi—“the Small Gate of Aivan Serai.”[[659]] It stands at the head of a short street leading southwards to the site of the famous Church of the Theotokos of Blachernaæ, while to the north is the landing of Aivan Serai Iskelessi, which accommodates this quarter of the city. Here, probably, was the Porta Kiliomenè (Κοιλιωμένη Πόρτα),[[660]] at which the emperors—as late, at least, as the beginning of the thirteenth century—landed and were received by the Senate, when proceeding by water to visit the Church or the Palace of Blachernæ. Nowhere else could one disembark so near that sanctuary and that palace.
The landing-stage before the gate must, therefore, have been the Imperial Pier (Ἀποβάθρα τοῦ βασιλέως) mentioned by Nicetas Choniates. Some authorities, it is true, place that landing at Balat Kapoussi. But it could not have been there when Nicetas Choniates wrote; for that historian[[661]] refers to the Apobathra of the Emperor to indicate the position of the Wall of Leo, which was attacked by the Latins in 1203. Now, points which could thus serve to identify each other must have been in close proximity. But Balat Kapoussi and the Wall of Leo are too far apart for the former to indicate the site of the latter. On the other hand, the Wall of Leo and Aivan Serai Iskelessi are very near each other.
Over the northern entrance to the lower chamber in the tower west of the gateway were found, until recently, two blocks of stone, upon which the name of St. Pantoleon was rudely carved between the figures of two peacocks, or phœnixes, symbols of the immortality that rose from the fires of martyrdom. Possibly, the chamber was a chapel in which persons entering or leaving the city could perform their devotions. According to Stephen of Novgorod, the relics of St. Pantoleon reposed in the adjoining Church of the Theotokos of Blachernæ.[[662]]
In the street to the rear of the tower is the small Mosque Toklou Dedè Mesdjidi, formerly, it is supposed, the Church of St. Thekla,[[663]] in the quarter of Blachernæ.
On the east side of the street leading from the Porta Kiliomenè to the Church of Blachernæ remains are found of a large two-storied Byzantine edifice, with three aisles. Its original destination cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. By some authorities[[664]] the building is supposed to have been the Porticus Cariana (Καριανὸν Ἔμβολον), which the Emperor Maurice erected, and upon the walls of which scenes in his life, from his childhood until his accession to the throne, were pourtrayed.[[665]]
The Bay of Aivan Serai was called the Bay of Blachernæ (ὁ πρὸς Βλαχέρνας κόλπος), and had a dockyard known as the Neorion at Blachernæ (τὸ ἐν Βλαχέρναις νεώριον).[[666]]
Proceeding eastwards, a few paces bring us to a breach in the wall leading to the Mosque Atik Mustapha Pasha Djamissi, supposed to be the Byzantine Church of SS. Peter and Mark, which was erected in 458 by two patricians, Galbius and Candidus, upon the shore of the Golden Horn, in the quarter of Blachernæ. The sanctuary claimed the honour of having enshrined “the Girdle of the Blessed Virgin,” before that relic was placed in the church specially dedicated to the Theotokos in this part of the city.[[667]] In the street to the west of the mosque lies the marble baptismal font of the church, cruciform, and having three steps within it leading to the bottom.
In a chrysoboullon of John Palæologus dated 1342, mention is made of the Gate of St. Anastasia (Πύλη τῆς ἁγίας Ἀναστασίας) in this part of the city.[[668]] The Russian pilgrim, who visited Constantinople in the fifteenth century (1424-1453), speaks of a chapel containing the relics of St. Anastasia near the Church of Blachernæ.[[669]]
Considerable interest is attached to the Church of St. Demetrius, situated within the walls a few paces to the east of Atik Mustapha Pasha Djamissi; for although the present edifice dates only from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the original building was a Byzantine foundation, adorned with mosaics and surmounted by a dome. Its full style was the Church of St. Demetrius of Kanabus (τοῦ Καναβοῦ), and may, as the Patriarch Constantius suggests,[[670]] have been erected by a member of the family of the Nicholas Kanabus who became emperor for a few days, in the interval between the overthrow of the Angeli and the usurpation of Murtzuphlus, during the troublous times of the Fourth Crusade.[[671]] In 1334, the church was the property of George Pepagomenos, a relative of Andronicus III.[[672]] After the Turkish Conquest the church became, from 1597 to 1601, the cathedral of the Greek Patriarch, when he was deprived of the use of the Church of the Pammakaristos (Fethiyeh Djamissi).[[673]]
Soon after leaving the Church of St. Demetrius, and before reaching the gate now styled Balat Kapoussi, the city wall was pierced by three large archways, 45 to 55 paces apart, and alternating with three towers. Balat Kapoussi being only 55 paces beyond the easternmost archway, here stood four entrances into the city, in most unusual proximity to one another. The first, or westernmost archway was, at one time, adorned with a bas-relief on either side. Tafferner, chaplain to Count Walter of Leslie, ambassador from the German Emperor Leopold I. to the Ottoman Court in the seventeenth century, describes the archway as follows: “In decensu clivi defluentis in Euxini brachium, porta perampla et obstructa muro conspicitur. Fama fert limitum hunc fuisse aulæ magni Constantini. Ad dextrum portæ latus adstat Angelus a candido et eleganti marmore effigiatus, statura celsior, ac virilem præ se ferens, et inserto muro. Ad lævam, Deipara visitur, proportione priore consimilis, atque ab Angelo consulatuta.”[[674]]
Nikè (Formerly Adorning Archway Near Balat Kapoussi).
Only the bas-relief which stood on the eastern side of the archway has survived to our time.[[675]] It represents a winged female figure, attired in a flowing robe, and holding in her left hand a palm leaf—beyond all controversy a Nikè, not, as Tafferner imagined, the Angel of the Annunciation, nor, as the Patriarch Constantius supposed, the Archangel Michael.[[676]]
Regarding the precise object of these four entrances, and the names to be attached to them, a serious difference of opinion prevails. Most authorities maintain that the archway adorned with the bas-relief was the Gate of the Kynegos, of the Hunter (τοῦ Κυνηγοῦ, τῶν Κυνηγῶν), so frequently mentioned in the later days of the Empire; and that Balat Kapoussi was the Pylè Basilikè (Πύλη Βασιλικὴ) referred to by writers of the same period. On the other hand, Gyllius identified Balat Kapoussi with the Gate of the Kynegos, and regarded the three archways above mentioned as entrances to a small artificial port within the line of the fortifications. His reason for the latter opinion was the existence of a great depression in the ground to the rear of the archways, which was occupied, in his day, by market-gardens, but which seemed to him the basin of an old harbour: “Ultra Portam Palatinam”—to give his own words—“progressus circiter centum viginti passus, animadverti tres magnus arcus, astructos urbis muro, et substructos, per quos olim Imperatores subducebant triremes in portum opere factum, nunc exiccatus et conversus in hortos concavos, præ se gerentes speciem portus obruti.”[[677]]
As appears from the passage just quoted, Gyllius styled Balat Kapoussi not only the Gate of the Hunter, but also the Porta Palatina. Whether in doing so he meant to identify the Gate of the Kynegos with the Basilikè Pylè, or simply gave the Latin rendering of the name by which Balat Kapoussi was popularly known when he visited the city, is not perfectly clear. The latter supposition is, however, more in harmony with that author’s usage in the case of other gates.
Stephen Gerlach and Leunclavius agree with Gyllius in regarding Balat Kapoussi as the Gate of the Kynegos, but place the Basilikè Pylè near the eastern extremity of the Harbour Walls, Gerlach[[678]] identifying it with Yali Kiosk Kapoussi, Leunclavius[[679]] with Bagtchè Kapoussi. Neither Gerlach nor Leunclavius refers to the three arches on the west of Balat Kapoussi. The latter, however, speaks of the hollow ground to their rear, describing it in the following terms: “Locus depressus et concavus, ubi Patriarchion erat meæ peregrinationis tempore,” and supposed it to have been the arena of a theatre for the exhibition of wild animals. From that theatre, he thought, the Gate of the Kynegos obtained its name.
The question to which gates the names Gate of the Kynegos and Basilikè Pylè respectively belonged is the most difficult problem connected with the history of the harbour fortifications. To discuss it satisfactorily at this stage of our inquiries is, however, impossible; for the opinion that the Basilikè Pylè was not at Balat Kapoussi, but near the eastern extremity of the Harbour Walls, is a point which can be determined only after all the facts relative to the gates near that end of the fortifications are before us. The full discussion of the subject must therefore be deferred,[[680]] and, meantime, little more can be done than to state the conclusions which appear to have most evidence in their favour.
There can be no doubt, in the first place, that the Gate of the Kynegos was in this vicinity, and was either Balat Kapoussi or the archway adorned with the bas-relief. This is established by all the indications in regard to the situation of the entrance. The Gate of the Kynegos stood, according to Phrantzes,[[681]] between the Xylo Porta and the Petrion; according to Pusculus,[[682]] between the Xylo Porta and the Porta Phani (Fener Kapoussi), and not far from the former. It was in the neighbourhood of the emperor’s palace,[[683]] and the point at which persons approaching that palace from the Golden Horn disembarked and took horses to reach the Imperial residence.[[684]] Both Balat Kapoussi and the adjoining archways answer to this description, and they are the only entrances which can pretend to be city gates in the portion of the walls between the Xylo Porta and the Gate of the Phanar. Therefore, one or other of them was the Gate of the Kynegos.
It is a corroboration of this conclusion to find that the district named after the Gate of the Kynegos occupied the level tract beside the Golden Horn within and without the line of the walls in the vicinity of these entrances. The Church of St. Demetrius, for instance, which stood a short distance to the west of Balat Kapoussi and the adjoining archways, is described as near a gate in the quarter of the Kynegon.[[685]] The bridge which the Turks threw out into the harbour from Haskeui, to carry a battery with which to bombard this part of the fortifications, was in front of the Kynegon.[[686]] Nicholas Barbaro[[687]] applies the name even to the territory near the Xylo Porta; for, according to him, the land walls extended from the Golden Gate to the Kynegon: “Le mure de tera, che jera mia sie, che sun de la Cresca per fina al Chinigo.” With this agrees also the statement of the same author that the Kynegon was the point where Diedo and Gabriel of Treviso landed the crews of their galleys, to excavate the moat which the emperor asked to be constructed before the land walls protecting his palace.[[688]] The quarter of the Kynegon thus comprised the modern quarters of Balata and Aivan Serai.
In the second place, it is exceedingly doubtful whether the archway with the Nikè, to which the name Gate of the Kynegos is commonly ascribed, was, after all, a city gate in the ordinary sense of the term. It does not stand alone, but is one of three archways which pierce, respectively, the curtain-walls between three towers. And these three openings were in close proximity to a gate (Balat Kapoussi), amply sufficient for the requirements of public traffic in this quarter of the capital. Such facts do not accord with the idea that any one of these archways was a gateway. Furthermore, when their real destination could be more accurately ascertained than at present, Gyllius found that they formed the entrances to an artificial harbour within the line of the fortifications. This explanation of their presence in the wall is perfectly satisfactory, and any other is superfluous. But if Balat Kapoussi was the only gate in this vicinity, it must have been the Gate of the Kynegos, which certainly stood in this part of the city.
There is nothing strange in the existence of a harbour within the line of the fortifications in the quarter of the Kynegon. It is what might be expected when we remember how closely the quarter was connected with the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus and the Palace of Blachernæ, and how necessary such a harbour was for the accommodation and protection of the boats and galleys at the service of the Court. That the harbour behind the three archways near Balat Kapoussi was the Neorion of Blachernæ is unlikely; the most probable situation of that Neorion being at Aivan Serai Iskelessi. But it may very well have been the harbour on the shore of the Kynegon at which, during the period of the Palæologi, the emperor and visitors to the palaces in the vicinity embarked or disembarked in moving to and fro by water. The landing at which the Spanish ambassadors to the Byzantine Court were received is described as near the Gate of the Kynegos: “Près de la porte de Quinigo.”[[689]] The galleys sent by the Council of Basle to convey John VII. Palæologus to the West, and which reached Constantinople fifteen days after the arrival of four Papal galleys on a similar errand, were detained for one day at Psamathia, until the rival parties had been prevailed upon to keep the peace, and then came and moored at the Kynegon (εἰς τὸν Κυνηγὸν). There the emperor embarked for Italy, under the escort of the Papal galleys; there the galley having on board the patriarch, who was to accompany the emperor, joined the Imperial squadron; and there the emperor disembarked upon his return from the Councils of Ferrara and Florence.[[690]] During the siege of 1453 a fire-ship, with forty young men on board, proceeded from the Gate of the Kynegos to burn the Turkish vessels which had been conveyed over the hills into the Golden Horn.[[691]] All this implies the existence of a port somewhere on the shore of the quarter of the Kynegon.
In the third place, all discussion in regard to the proper application of the names Basilikè Pylè, and Gate of the Kynegos must proceed upon the indisputable fact that the epithet “Imperial,” belonged to an entrance at the eastern extremity of the Harbour Walls. In proof of this, it is enough to cite, meantime, the statement of Phrantzes[[692]] that Gabriel of Treviso was entrusted with the defence of a tower which guarded the entrance of the Golden Horn, and which stood opposite the Basilikè Pylè. Unless, therefore, it can be shown that there was more than one Basilikè Pylè in the fortifications beside the Golden Horn, the claim of Balat Kapoussi to the Imperial epithet falls to the ground. If the existence of two Imperial gates in the Harbour Walls can be established, then Balat Kapoussi has the best right to be regarded as the second entrance bearing that designation. In that case, however, the conclusion most in harmony with the facts involved in the matter is that the second Basilikè Pylè was only the Gate of the Kynegos under another name.[[693]]
Why, precisely, the entrance was styled the Gate of the Hunter is a matter of conjecture. Some explain the name as derived from a Kynegion, or theatre for the exhibition of wild animals,[[694]] such as existed on the side of the city facing Scutari; and in favour of this opinion is the term “Kynegesion” (τοῦ Κυνηγεσίου), employed by Phrantzes[[695]] to designate the quarter adjoining the entrance. But the ordinary style of the name lends more countenance to the view that the gate was in some way connected with the huntsmen attached to the Byzantine Court, hunting being always a favourite pastime of the emperors of Constantinople. Their head huntsman (ὁ πρωτοκυνηγὸς) was an official of some importance. Besides directing his subordinates, it was his prerogative to hold the stirrup when the emperor mounted horse, and the Imperial hunting-suit was his perquisite, if stained with blood in the course of the chase.[[696]]
A gate, known as the Gate of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist (Πόρτα τοῦ ἁγίου Προδρόμου καὶ Βαπτιστοῦ), was also situated in the quarter of the Kynegon, and near the Church of St. Demetrius.[[697]] That name might readily be given to a gate in this vicinity, either in honour of the great Church and Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Petra, on the heights above Balat Kapoussi, or in honour of the church of the same dedication, which, there is reason to think, stood on the site of the Church of St. John the Baptist, found, at present, on the shore to the north-east of that entrance. Whether the Gate of St. John has disappeared, or was the Gate of the Kynegos under another name, is a point upon which there may be a difference of opinion. Dr. Mordtmann[[698]] identifies it with the Gate of the Kynegos, which, according to him, was the archway adorned with the Nikè. It may be identified with the Gate of the Kynegos, even on the view that the latter was Balat Kapoussi. That a Church of St. John stood in the neighbourhood of the Gate of the Kynegos is also intimated by Pachymeres, who records a fire which, in 1308, burnt down the quarter extending from that gate to the Monastery of the Forerunner.[[699]]
The gate next in order, as its Turkish name, Fener Kapoussi, proves, is the entrance which the foreign historians of the last siege style Porta Phani, Porta del Pharo.[[700]] This designation was, doubtless, the rendering of the Byzantine name of the gate, for the adjoining quarter, as appears first in a document dated 1351, went by its present name, Phanari (τοποθεσία τοῦ φανάρι),[[701]] also before the Turkish Conquest. A beacon light must have stood at this point of the harbour.
From the Porta Phani eastwards to Petri Kapoussi, the next gate, the fortifications consisted of two lines of wall which enclosed a considerable territory, the inner wall describing a great curve on the steep northern front of the Fifth Hill. The enclosure was called the Castron of the Petrion[[702]] (τὸ κάστρον τῶν Πετρίων), after Petrus, Master of the Offices in the reign of Justinian the Great;[[703]] and the surrounding district was named the Petrion (Πετρίον, τὰ Πετρία,[[704]] “Regio Petri Patricii”).[[705]] It must be carefully distinguished from the district of Petra (Πέτρα), at Kesmè Kaya, above Balat Kapoussi.
In the angle formed by the junction of the two walls, a little to the west of the Porta Phani, was a small gate, Diplophanarion,[[706]] which led from the Castron into the city.
Petri Kapoussi, at the eastern extremity of the Castron, and in the outer wall, communicated with the street skirting the Golden Horn, and retains the ancient name of the district.[[707]] Dr. Mordtmann[[708]] identifies it with the Porta Sidhera (Σιδηρᾶ Πίλη), near the Convent of the Petrion.[[709]] That the Petrion was not confined to the Castron, but included territory on either side of the enclosure, is manifest from the fact that whereas the wall between the Porta Phani and the Porta Petri is without a single tower, mention is yet made of towers in the Petrion.[[710]]
Of the churches in this quarter, St. Stephen of the Romans, St. Julianè, St. Elias, and St. Euphemia, the two last were the most important. The Church of St. Euphemia claimed to be an older foundation than Constantinople itself, being attributed to Castinus, Bishop of Byzantium, 230-237. It was restored by Basil I., and his daughters entered the convent attached to the church.[[711]] The Convent of Petrion, as it was called, must have been of considerable importance, for it was on several occasions selected as the place in which ladies of high rank, who had become politically inconvenient, were interned; as, for instance, Zoe, the dowager-empress of Leo the Wise, for conspiracy against Romanus Lecapenus;[[712]] Theodora, by her sister the Empress Zoe;[[713]] and Delassaina, the mother of the Comneni, with her daughters and daughters-in-law, by Nicephorus Botoniates.[[714]]
In the assaults made by foreign fleets upon the Harbour Walls, the Petrion, or Phanar, occupied a conspicuous place.
It was before the Petrion[[715]] that the Venetian galleys under Dandolo stood, July 17, 1203, and established the free end of their flying bridges upon the summit of the walls, whereby twenty-five towers were captured, and the city was recovered for Isaac Angelus. The Petrion was again prominent in the assault which the Crusaders delivered on April 12, 1204, when Constantinople passed into their hands and became the seat of a Latin Empire. Here the flying bridge of the ship Pelerine lodged itself on a tower, and allowed a bold Venetian and a French knight, André d’Urboise, to rush across, seize the tower, and clear a way for their comrades to follow. Here ladders were then landed, the walls scaled, three gates forced, and the city thrown open to the whole host of the invaders.[[716]]
In the siege of 1453, early on the morning of the 29th of May, the Phanar was fiercely attacked by the Turkish ships in the Golden Horn.[[717]] The attack was repulsed, and the Greeks remained masters of the situation, until the occupation of the city by the enemy’s land forces made further resistance impossible. The memory of the struggle is said to be preserved in the quarter by the name of the street Sandjakdar Youcousou (the Ascent of the Standard-bearer) and by the Turkish name for the Church of St. Mary Mougouliotissa, Kan Klissè (the Church of Blood).[[718]]
The succeeding gate, Yeni Aya Kapou, was opened, it would seem, in Turkish times, being first mentioned by Evlia Tchelebi. There is, however, one circumstance in favour of regarding it as a small Byzantine entrance, enlarged after the Conquest. On the right of the gate, within the line of the walls, are the remains of a large Byzantine edifice, which could hardly have dispensed with a postern.
Aya Kapou, the next entrance, as its Turkish name intimates, and the order of Pusculus requires, is the Porta Divæ Theodosiæ (Πύλη τῆς Ἁγίας Θεοδοσίας),[[719]] so named in honour of the adjoining Church of St. Theodosia (now Gul Djamissi), the first martyr in the cause of Icons, under Leo the Isaurian. The gate was also known by the name Porta Dexiocrates, after the district of Dexiocrates in which it stood.[[720]] This identification rests upon the fact that while Pachymeres[[721]] affirms that the body of St. Theodosia lay in the church dedicated to her memory, the Synaxaristes declares that she was buried in the Monastery of Dexiocrates.[[722]] Only by the supposition that the Church of St. Theodosia stood in the district of Dexiocrates can these statements be reconciled. The church is first mentioned by Antony of Novgorod.[[723]] The festival of the saint, falling on May 29th, coincided with the day on which, in 1453. the city was captured by the Turks. As usual, a large crowd of worshippers, many of them ladies, filled the sacred edifice, little thinking of the tragedy which would interrupt their devotions, when suddenly Turkish troops burst into the church and carried the congregation off into slavery.[[724]]
The next gate, Djubali Kapoussi, must be the entrance styled Porta Puteæ by Pusculus,[[725]] and Porta del Pozzo by Zorzo Dolfin;[[726]] for it is the only entrance between the Gate of St. Theodosia (Aya Kapou) and the Porta Platea (Oun Kapan Kapoussi), the gates between which the writers above mentioned place the Porta Puteæ. Although no Byzantine author has mentioned the Porta Puteæ by its Greek name, there can be no doubt that the name in vogue among foreigners was the translation, more or less exact, of the native style of the entrance, and that consequently the gate marks the point designated Ispigas (εἰς Πηγὰς) by the Chronista Novgorodensis, in his account of the operations of the Venetian fleet against the harbour fortifications on the 12th of April, 1204. The ships of the Crusaders, says that authority, were then drawn up before the walls, in a line extending from the Monastery of Christ the Benefactor and Ispigas, on the east, to Blachernæ, on the west: “Cum solis ortu steterunt, in conspectu ecclesiæ Sancti Redemptoris, quæ dicitur τοῦ Εὐεργέτου, et Ispigarum, Blachernis tenus.”[[727]]
The name of the gate alluded to the suburb of Pegæ (Πηγαὶ), situated directly opposite, on the northern shore of the harbour, and noted for its numerous springs of water. Dionysius Byzantius, in his Anaplus of the Golden Horn and the Bosporus,[[728]] describes the locality at length, naming it Krenides (Κρηνίδες). on account of its flowing springs (πηγαίων), which gave the district the character of marshy ground. The suburb appears under the name Pegæ in the history of the siege of the city by the Avars, when the Imperial fleet formed a cordon across the harbour, from the Church of St. Nicholas at Blachernæ to the Church of St. Conon and the suburb of Pegæ, to prevent the enemy’s flotilla of boats in the streams at the head of the Golden Horn from descending into the harbour.[[729]]
According to Antony of Novgorod, the suburb was situated to the west of St. Irene of Galata; it contained several churches, and was largely inhabited by Jews.[[730]] It appears again in the old Records of the Genoese colony of Galata in the fourteenth century, under the name Spiga, or De Spiga, to the west of that town.[[731]] Critobulus calls it the Cold Waters (Ψυχρὰ Ὕδατα), placing it on the bay into which Sultan Mehemet brought his ships over the hills from the Bosporus.[[732]]
As appears from the passage of the Chronista Novgorodensis, cited above, near the Porta Puteæ stood the Monastery of Christ the Benefactor, interesting as a conspicuous landmark in the scenes associated with the Latin Conquest of the city.
The fire which the Venetians set near the portion of the Harbour Walls captured in 1203, reduced to ashes the quarters extending from Blachernæ as far east as that monastery.[[733]] The monastery marked also the eastern extremity of the line of battle in which the ships of the Crusaders delivered the final attack upon the walls on April 12, 1204;[[734]] while the fire which illuminated the victory of that day started in the neighbourhood of that religious house, and raged eastwards to the quarter of Drungarius.[[735]] During the Latin occupation the Venetians established a dockyard on the shore in the vicinity of the monastery;[[736]] the adjoining district, including the Church of Pantocrator[[737]] (now Zeirek Klissè Djamissi) and the Church of Pantopoptes[[738]] (now Eski Imaret Mesdjidi), on the Fourth Hill, being their head-quarters.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WALLS ALONG THE GOLDEN HORN—continued.
The next gate on the list of Pusculus and Dolfin is the Porta Platea, or Porta ala Piazza,[[739]] evidently the Porta of the Platea (Πόρτα τῆς Πλατέας) mentioned by Ducas.[[740]] The entrance, judging by its name, was situated beside a wide tract of level ground, and is, consequently, represented by Oun Kapan Kapoussi, which stands on the plain near the Inner Bridge, at the head of the important street running across the city from sea to sea, through the valley between the Fourth and Fifth Hills. The district beside the gate was known as the Plateia (Πλατεῖα),[[741]] and contained the churches dedicated respectively to St. Laurentius and the Prophet Isaiah.[[742]] The blockade of the Harbour Walls in 1453 by the Turkish ships in the Golden Horn extended from the Xylo Porta to the Gate of the Platea.[[743]] If the legend on Bondelmontius’ map may be trusted, this gate bore also the name Mesè, the Central Gate, a suitable designation for an entrance at the middle point in the line of the harbour fortifications.
The succeeding gate, Ayasma Kapoussi, was opened, it would seem, after the Turkish Conquest. It is not mentioned by Gyllius, or Leunclavius, or Gerlach. The conjecture that it represents a gate in the Wall of Constantine, styled Porta Basilikè, situated near the Church of St. Acacius ad Caream (τὸν ἅγιον Ἀκάκιον, τὴν Καρυὰν, ἐν τῇ Βασιλικῇ Πόρτα)[[744]] does not appear very probable. The Church of St. Acacius, situated in the Tenth Region,[[745]] was the sanctuary to which Macedonius, the bishop of the city, removed the sarcophagus of Constantine the Great, from the Church of the Holy Apostles on the summit of the Fourth Hill, when the latter edifice threatened to fall and crush the Imperial tomb.[[746]] The bishop’s action encountered the violent opposition of a large class of the citizens, and led to a riot in which much blood was shed. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the sarcophagus of Constantine was transported from its original resting-place to a point so distant as the neighbourhood of Ayasma Kapoussi, especially when the removal was a temporary arrangement, made until the repairs on the Church of the Holy Apostles should be completed. It is more probable that St. Acacius was near the Church of the Holy Apostles. Furthermore, we cannot be sure that the Porta Basilikè was a gate in the Wall of Constantine. The Church of St. Acacius stood near a palace erected by that emperor (πλησίον τῶν οἰκημάτων τοῦ μεγάλου Κωνσταντίνου):[[747]] or, as described elsewhere, was a small chapel (οἰκίσκον εὐκτήριον) near a palace named Karya, because close to a walnut-tree on which the saint was supposed to have suffered martyrdom by hanging.[[748]] The Porta Basilikè may have been a gate leading into the court of that palace.
The three succeeding gates, Odoun Kapan Kapoussi, Zindan Kapoussi, Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, bore respectively the names Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων); Gate of the Forerunner (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris, known also as St. Johannes de Cornibus); Gate of the Perama or Ferry (τοῦ Περάματος). They can be identified, perhaps, most readily and clearly by the following line of argument:—
The three Byzantine gates just named were situated in the quarter assigned to the Venetians in Constantinople by successive Imperial grants from the time of Alexius Comnenus to the close of the Empire. The Gate of the Drungarii marked the western extremity of the quarter;[[749]] the Gate of the Perama, its eastern extremity;[[750]] while the gate beside the Church of the Forerunner was between the two points. Where the Gate of the Perama stood admits of no doubt. All students of the topography of the city are agreed in the opinion that the entrance so named was at Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi. Consequently, the two other gates in the Venetian quarter lay to the west of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, in the portion of the fortifications between that entrance and the Gate of the Platea, all gates further west being out of the question. But as the only two gates in that portion of the walls are Zindan Kapoussi and Oun Kapan Kapoussi, they must represent, respectively, the Gate of the Forerunner and the Gate of the Drungarii.
The Gate of the Drungarii (τῶν Δρουγγαρίων) derived its name from the term “Drungarius,” a title given to various officials in the Byzantine service;[[751]] as, for example, to the admiral of the fleet (μέγας δρουγγάριος τοῦ θεοσώστου στόλου), and to the head of the city police, the Drungarius Vigiliæ. (ὁ τῆς Βίγλας δρουγγάριος). In this particular case the reference was to the latter officer, for in the neighbourhood of the gate stood an important Vigla, or police-station, which is sometimes mentioned instead of the Gate of the Drungarii, as the western limit of the Venetian quarter.[[752]]
The street running eastwards, outside the city wall, was known as the Via Drungariou (De Longario),[[753]] and the pier in front of the next gate bore the name Scala de Drongario.[[754]]
The practice of storing timber on the shore without the gate has come down from an early period in the history of the city. One of the questions put to Justinian the Great by the Greens, during the altercation between him and the Factions in the Hippodrome, on the eve of the Nika riot was, “Who murdered the timber-merchant at the Zeugma?”[[755]]—another name for this part of the shore. An inscription on the gate reminded the passing crowd that to remember death is profitable to life (Μνῆμη θανάτου χρησιμεύει τῷ βίῳ).[[756]]
It is in favour of the identification of Zindan Kapoussi with the Gate near the Church of St. John (Porta juxta parvum templum Precursoris) to find only a few yards within the entrance a Holy Well, venerated alike by Christian and Moslem, beside which stood, until recently, the ruins of a Byzantine chapel answering to the small Church of the Forerunner mentioned in the Venetian charters.[[757]]
Leunclavius found the gate called in his day Porta Caravion, because of the large number of ships which were moored in front of it.[[758]] The landing before the gate, the old Scala de Drongario, now Yemish Iskelessi, in front of the Dried Fruit-Market, is one of the most important piers on the Golden Horn.
Dr. Paspates[[759]] and M. Heyd[[760]] identify this entrance with the Gate of the Drungarii. But this opinion is inconsistent with the fact that whereas the gate near St. John’s stood between the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama, no entrance which can be identified with the gate near St. John’s intervenes between Zindan Kapoussi and Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi (Gate of the Perama).
M. Heyd, moreover, identifies Zindan Kapoussi with the Porta Hebraica,[[761]] mentioned in the charters granted to the Venetians in the thirteenth century. But, as will appear in the sequel, the Porta Hebraica of that period was either the Gate of the Perama itself, or an entrance a little to the east of it.
The Gate of the Perama (τοῦ Περάματος), as its name implies, stood where Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi is found to-day, close to the principal ferry between the city and the suburb of Galata; communication between the opposite shores being maintained in ancient times by boats, for the only bridge across the harbour was that near the head of the Golden Horn. The Perama is first mentioned by Theophanes,[[762]] in recording the dedication of the Church of St. Irene at Sycæ (Galata), after the reconstruction of that sanctuary by Justinian the Great. Special importance attached to the event, as the emperor attributed his recovery from an attack of the terrible plague that raged in Constantinople, in 542, to the touch of the relics of the Forty Martyrs which had been discovered in pulling down the old church, and which were to be enshrined in the new building. Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Apollinarius, Patriarch of Alexandria—who was then in the capital—were appointed to celebrate the service of the day; and the two prelates, seated in the Imperial chariot, and bearing upon their knees the sacred relics, drove through the city from St. Sophia to the Perama, to take boat for Sycæ, where Justinian awaited them. The ferry was also styled Trajectus Sycenus;[[763]] Transitus Sycarum, after the oldest name for Galata. It was, moreover, known as Transitus Justinianarum,[[764]] from the name Justinianopolis, given to the suburb in honour of Justinian, who rebuilt its walls and theatre, and conferred upon it the privileges of a city.[[765]] The pier at the city end of the ferry was known as the Scala Sycena.[[766]]
It would seem that there was a spice-market[[767]] in the vicinity of the Gate of the Perama, like the one which exists to-day to the rear of Balouk Bazaar Kapoussi, the latter being only the continuation of the former. According to Bondelmontius, the fish-market of Byzantine Constantinople was held before this gate, as the practice is at present; for upon his map he names the entrance Porta Piscaria. So fixed are the habits of a city.
Besides bearing the name Gate of the Perama, the entrance was also styled the Porta Hebraica. This appears from the employment of the two names as equivalent terms in descriptions of the territory occupied by the Venetians in Constantinople. For example, according to Anna Comnena,[[768]] the quarter which her father, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus, conceded to the Venetians, extended from the old Hebrew pier to the Vigla. In the charter by which the Doge Faletri granted that district to the Church of San Georgio Majore of Venice, the quarter is described in one passage, as extending from the Vigla to the Porta Perame, as far as the Judeca (“ad Portam Perame, usque ad Judecam”);[[769]] and in a subsequent passage, as proceeding from the Vigla to the Judeca (“a comprehenso dicto sacro Viglæ usque ad Judecam”).[[770]] In the grants made to the Venetians after the Restoration of the Greek Empire in 1261, the extreme points of the Venetian quarter are named, respectively, the Gate of the Drungarii and the Gate of the Perama.[[771]]
To this identification of the Porta Hebraica with the Gate of the Perama it may be objected that on the map of Bondelmontius these names are applied to different gates, and this, it may further be urged, accords with the fact that after the Turkish Conquest, also, a distinction was maintained between the Gate of the Perama and the gate styled Tchifout Kapoussi, the Hebrew Gate. But in reply to this objection it must be noted that the Tchifout Kapoussi of Turkish days was the gate now known as Bagtchè Kapoussi,[[772]] beside the Stamboul Custom House, while the “Porta Judece” on the map of Bondelmontius stands close to the Seraglio Point. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the Venetian quarter[[773]] did not extend so far east as Bagtchè Kapoussi, much less so far in that direction as the neighbourhood of the head of the promontory. Bagtchè Kapoussi corresponds to the Byzantine Porta Neoriou (the Gate of the Dockyard), which had no connection whatever with the quarter assigned to the Venetian merchants in the city, but was separated from that quarter, on the west, by the quarters which the traders from Amalfi and Pisa occupied, while to the east of the gate was the settlement of the Genoese. Consequently, the fact that in the age of Bondelmontius and after the Turkish Conquest the Porta Hebraica was a different entrance from the Gate of the Perama affords no ground for rejecting the evidence that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the two names designated the same gate. It only proves that the epithet “Hebrew” had meantime been transferred from one gate to another.[[774]]
At the distance of seventy-seven feet to the east of the Porta Hebraica, or Gate of the Perama, there stood, according to a Venetian document of 1229, an entrance known as the Gate of St. Mark (Porta San Marci).[[775]] It probably obtained its name during the Latin occupation, after the patron saint of Venice, but whether it was a gate then opened for the first time, or an old gate under a new name, cannot be determined.
Yet further east, at a point 115 pikes before reaching Bagtchè Kapoussi, stood an entrance styled the Gate of the Hicanatissa (Πόρτα τῆς Ἱκανατίσσης).[[776]] The adjoining quarter went by the same name, and there probably stood the “Residence of the Kanatissa” (τὸν οἶκον τῆς Κανατίσης) mentioned by Codinus.[[777]] The designation is best explained as derived from the body of palace troops known as the Hicanati.[[778]]
Between the Gate of the Perama and that of the Hicanatissa was situated the quarter of the merchants from Amalfi; at the latter gate the quarter of the Pisans commenced.[[779]]
The Gate of the Neorion (Πόρτα τοῦ Νεωρίου),[[780]] the Gate of the Dockyard, stood, as its name implies, beside the Dockyard on the shore of the bay at Bagtchè Kapoussi, close to the site now occupied by the Stamboul Custom House. It is first mentioned in a chrysoboullon of Isaac Angelus, confirming the right granted to the Pisan merchants by his predecessors, Alexius Comnenus and Manuel Comnenus, to reside in the neighbourhood of the gate.[[781]] While the western limit of the quarter thus conceded to Pisans was marked, as already intimated, by the Gate Hicanatissa,[[782]] the eastern limit of the settlement extended to a short distance beyond the Gate of the Neorion.
The Neorion dated from the time of Byzantium, when it stood at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls of the city.[[783]] It was, therefore, distinguished from all other dockyards in Constantinople as the Ancient Neorion (τὸ Παλαιὸν Νεώριον), or the Ancient Exartesis (Ἐξάρτησις). Nicolo Barbaro calls it “l’arsenada de l’imperador.”
Here the Imperial fleet assembled to refit or to guard the entrance of the harbour;[[784]] here, until the reign of Justin II., was the Marine Exchange;[[785]] and here was a factory of oars (coparia),[[786]] in addition to the one mentioned in the Justinian Code, which stood elsewhere. As might be expected, several destructive fires originated in the Neorion.[[787]]
According to Gyllius,[[788]] Gerlach,[[789]] and Leunclavius,[[790]] this entrance was in their day named by the Turks, Tchifout Kapoussi, and was regarded by the Greeks as the Πύλη Ὡραία (the Beautiful Gate), mentioned by Phrantzes[[791]] and Ducas[[792]] in the history of the last siege. The epithet Horaia is supposed to be a corruption of the original name for the entrance (τοῦ Νεωρίου); the Turkish designation of the gate being explained by the fact that a Jewish community was settled in the neighbourhood of the gate.[[793]]
As to the transformation of Neorion into Horaia, it seems somewhat far-fetched; still, Greeks think it conceivable.[[794]] If both names, indeed, belonged to the gate, a simpler and more probable explanation of the fact would be that the two names had no connection with each other, and that the epithet “Beautiful” was bestowed upon the entrance, towards the close of the Empire, in view of embellishments made in the course of repairs.
The identification of the Gate of the Neorion with the Horaia Pylè involves, however, a difficulty. It makes Ducas contradict other historians, as regards the point to which the southern end of the chain across the Golden Horn was attached during the siege of 1453.
According to Ducas,[[795]] that extremity of the chain was fastened to the Beautiful Gate. Critobulus,[[796]] on the other hand, affirms that it was attached to the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi), the gate nearest the head of the promontory, and his statement is supported by Phrantzes[[797]] and Chalcocondylas,[[798]] when they, respectively, say that the chain was at the harbour’s mouth, and fixed to the wall of the Acropolis. Now, the correctness of the position assigned to the chain by the three latter historians cannot be called in question. It was the position prescribed for the chain by all the rules of strategy. To have placed the chain at the Gate of the Neorion would have left a large portion of the northern side of the city exposed to the enemy, and permitted the Turkish fleet to command the Neorion and the ships stationed before it. Hence the accuracy of Ducas can be maintained only by the identification of the Beautiful Gate with the Gate of Eugenius instead of with the Gate of the Neorion.
We are, therefore, confronted with the question whether the historian is mistaken as regards the gate to which the city end of the chain was attached, or whether the view prevalent in Constantinople in the sixteenth century respecting the position of the Horaia Pylè should be rejected as unfounded.
In favour of the accuracy of Ducas, it must be admitted that his statements concerning the Horaia Pylè, in other passages of his work, convey the impression that under that name he refers to the entrance nearest the head of the promontory, the Gate of Eugenius (Yali Kiosk Kapoussi). Speaking of the arrangements made for the defence of the sea-board of the city, he describes them as extending, in the first place, from the Xylinè Porta, at the western extremity of the Harbour Walls, to the Horaia Pylè; and then from the Horaia Pylè to the Golden Gate, near the western extremity of the walls along the Sea of Marmora.[[799]] Again, when he describes the blockade of the shore of the city outside the chain by the Sultan’s fleet, he represents the blockade as commencing at the Horaia Pylè and proceeding thence past the point of the Acropolis, the Church of St. Demetrius, the Gate of the Hodegetria, the Great Palace, and the harbour (Kontoscalion), as far as Vlanga.[[800]]
Now, the gate which would naturally form the pivot, so to speak, of these operations was the Gate of Eugenius. There the two shores of the city divide; and that was the farthest point to which the Turkish fleet outside the chain could advance into the Golden Horn. It would be strange if Ducas ascribed the strategical importance of the Gate of Eugenius to another gate. And yet, it must be also admitted that Ducas can be inaccurate. He is inaccurate, for example, in the matter of the gate before which the Sultan’s tent was pitched during the siege,[[801]] and at which the Emperor Constantine fell,[[802]] for he associates these incidents with the Gate of Charisius, instead of with the Gate of St. Romanus; he is inaccurate, as we have seen, in his account of the entry of the Turks through the Kerko Porta;[[803]] and he is inaccurate, again, in saying that the ships which the Sultan carried across the hills from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn were launched into the harbour at a point opposite the Cosmidion (Eyoub),[[804]] instead of at Cassim Pasha. Under these circumstances it is impossible to maintain his accuracy as to the connection of the chain with Horaia Pylè at all hazards, and in the face of all difficulties. His credit will depend upon the value attached to the evidence we have, that the Horaia Pylè was another name for the Gate of the Neorion during the last days of Byzantine Constantinople.
The application of both names to the same gate rests upon the authority of tradition, upon the use and wont followed in the matter by the Greek population of the city in the sixteenth century. If this is really the case, no evidence can be more decisive on the question at issue. Use and wont in respect to the name of a conspicuous public gate, in a much-frequented part of the city, constitutes an irrefutable argument, provided that use and wont goes far enough back in the history of the entrance. In that case, Ducas would be convicted of having mistaken the gate to which the chain was attached, and all the importance which he ascribes to the Horaia Pylè, in his account of the actions of friends and foes along the shores of the city, is only the consistent following up of that error. For any gate to which the chain was supposed, however erroneously, to have been affixed would be represented in the narrative of subsequent events as the point about which the assault and the defence of the sea-board turned, although the gate was not situated where it could, naturally, have sustained that character.
Now, according to Gyllius,[[805]] the gate anciently styled the Gate of the Neorion was called in his day Tchifout Kapoussi (“Hebrew Gate”) by the Turks, and Horaia Pylè by the Greeks, as a matter of common practice. The brief statement of Gerlach[[806]] that the second gate west of the Seraglio Point was named at once the Beautiful Gate and the Jewish Gate implies that these were the names of the gate in current use. Leunclavius[[807]] puts the facts in a somewhat different light. According to him, the common designation of the entrance was “Huræa” (Ebraia, “Hebrew Gate”), and it was only when the Greeks of the city wished to show themselves better acquainted with the truth on the subject that they claimed for the gate the epithet “Horaia.”
This may, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the application of the epithet “Horaia” to the Gate of the Neorion, in the sixteenth century, was due to the fact that it was then known also as the Hebrew Gate (Ebraia). But, on the whole, the more probable view is that the epithet was correctly applied, and, consequently, that Ducas, who was not present at the siege, is mistaken in associating the chain with the Beautiful Gate.
In the charters defining the privileges granted to the Genoese colony in Constantinople during the twelfth century, mention is made of a “Porta Bonu” and a “Porta Veteris Rectoris.”[[808]] As both were associated with the Scala, or Pier, at the service of that colony, they were doubtless the same gate under different names; the former appellation designating it by the proper name of the officer connected in some way with the entrance, the latter by his official title. Nothing is known concerning the Rector Bonus; the name and title are at once Byzantine and Italian. Now, the Genoese quarter in the twelfth century lay to the east of the Gate of the Neorion, and consequently the Porta Bonu, or Porta Veteris Rectoris, must be sought in that direction. It stood, probably, where Sirkedji Iskelessi is now situated.
Near this gate must have been the Scala Chalcedonensis and the Portus Prosphorianus, which the Notitia places in the Fifth Region.[[809]] The former, as its name implies, was the pier frequented by boats plying between the city and Chalcedon; it is mentioned twice, as the point at which relics were landed in solemn state to be carried thence to St. Sophia.[[810]]
The Portus Prosphorianus[[811]] was in the bay which once indented the shore immediately to the east of the Gate of Bonus, where the line of the city walls described a deep curve. The name is probably derived from the word Πρόσφορον, and denoted that the harbour was the resort of the craft which brought products from the country to the markets of the city.[[812]] The harbour was also called the Phosphorion, as though associated with the sudden illumination of the heavens which saved the city from capture by Philip of Macedon. But its most common designation was τὸ Βοσπόριον, ὁ Βοόσπορος, ὁ Βόσπορος, probably because the point to which cattle were ferried across from Asia. The cattle-market was held here until the reign of Constantine Copronymus, who transferred it to the Forum of Taurus;[[813]] here also stood warehouses for the storage of oil, and granaries, such as the Horrea Olearia, Horrea Troadensia, Horrea Valentiaca and Horrea Constantiaca.[[814]] The granaries were inspected annually by the emperor.[[815]] According to Demosthenes, the three statues erected by Byzantium and Perinthus in honour of Athens for the aid rendered against Philip of Macedon were set up at the Bosporus.[[816]] But it is not certain whether the great orator used the name in a general sense, or with special reference to this port. The great fire in the fifth year of Leo I. started in the market near this harbour, through the carelessness of a woman who left a lighted candle on a stall at which she had bought some salt fish.[[817]]
We reach, next, the last gate in the line of the Harbour Walls, the Gate of Eugenius (Πόρτα τοῦ Εὐγενίου), represented now by Yali Kiosk Kapoussi. Its identity is established by the following indications. It marked the eastern extremity of the fortifications along the Golden Horn,[[818]] as the Xylo Porta marked their western terminus. Hence, the ditch constructed by Cantacuzene in front of those fortifications is described as extending from the Gate of Eugenius to the Gate Xylinè.[[819]] In the next place, the gate was close to the head of the promontory, or Acropolis, for ships outward bound rounded the promontory soon after passing the gate, while incoming ships passed the gate soon after rounding the promontory.[[820]] Again, the Church of St. Paul which stood near the gate is described, as situated in the quarter of the Acropolis, at the opening of the harbour.[[821]] This is consistent with the fact that the gate was at a point from which St. Sophia could be easily reached.[[822]]
Eugenius, after whom the gate, the adjacent tower, and the neighbouring district were named,[[823]] was probably a distinguished proprietor in this part of the city. The gate bore an inscription commemorating repairs executed by a certain Julian;[[824]] possibly, Julian who was Prefect of the City in the reign of Zeno, when Constantinople was shaken by a severe earthquake.
There is reason to believe that besides its ordinary designation this gate bore also, at one time, the name Marmora Porta; for certain ecclesiastical documents of the year 1399 and the year 1441 speak of an entrance in the quarter of Eugenius, under the name Marmora Porta, Μαρμαροπόρτα ἐν τῇ ἐνορίᾳ τοῦ Εὐγενίου.[[825]]
The Scala Timasii, so named after Timasius, a celebrated general in the reign of Arcadius, was in the Fourth Region,[[826]] and must therefore have been a pier near the Gate of Eugenius.
At this entrance it was customary for the bride-elect of an emperor to land, upon reaching the capital by sea; here she was received in state by her future consort, and having been invested with the Imperial buskins and other insignia of her rank, was conducted on horseback to the palace.[[827]] But what lends most interest to the gate is the fact that beside it rose the tower which held the southern end of the chain drawn across the harbour in time of war.[[828]] Originally, the building, styled Kentenarion (Κεντενάριον), was a stately structure, but after its overthrow by an earthquake, Theophilus restored it as an ordinary tower.[[829]] The chain was supported in the water by wooden floats,[[830]] and its northern end was made fast to a tower in the fortifications of Galata, known as the Tower of Galata, “Le Tour de Galatas.”[[831]] According to Gyllius, the gate near that tower was called Porta Catena,[[832]] but, unfortunately, he does not indicate its precise position. From the nature of the case, however, it must have been near Kiretch Kapoussi, directly opposite the Gate of Eugenius.[[833]]
Portion of the Chain Stretched Across the Entrance of the Golden Horn in 1453.
The employment of a chain to bar the entrance of the Golden Horn is mentioned for the first time in the famous siege of the city by the Saracens in 717-718, when the Emperor Leo lowered the chain with the hope of tempting the enemy’s ships into the narrow waters of the harbour.[[834]] It appears next in the reign of Michael II., who thereby endeavoured, but in vain, to keep out the fleet with which his rival Thomas attacked the city.[[835]] It was again employed by Nicephorus Phocas, in expectation of a Russian descent into the Bosporus.[[836]] The Venetians found it obstructing their path when they stood before Constantinople in 1203, but removed it after capturing the Tower of Galata, to which it was secured.[[837]] Finally, in 1453, it proved too strong for Sultan Mehemet to force, and drove him to devise the expedient of carrying his ships into the Golden Horn across the hills to Cassim Pasha.[[838]] A portion of the chain used on the last occasion is preserved in the Church of St. Irene, within the Seraglio grounds.
In the district of Eugenius were some of the most noted charitable institutions of the city, among which the great Orphanage[[839]] and the Hospitia,[[840]] built on the site of the old Stadium of Byzantium by Justinian the Great and Theodora, for the free accommodation of poor strangers, were conspicuous. There, also, stood the Church of St. Michael and the Church of St. Paul.[[841]]