Between it and the Gate of St. Barbara must have stood the Mangana (τὰ Μάγγανα),[[898]] or Arsenal, with its workshops, materials of war, and library of books on military art. Its site is identified by the statement of Nicetas Choniates,[[899]] that it faced the rocky islet off the shore of Chrysopolis, on which the beacon tower Kiz Kalehssi, or Leander’s Tower, is now built. For, according to that historian, Manuel Comnenus, with the view of closing the Bosporus against naval attack from the south, erected two towers between which he might suspend a chain across the entrance of the straits; one of them, named Damalis and Arcla (Δάμαλις, Ἄρκλα), being on the rock off Chrysopolis,[[900]] the other, opposite to it, very close to the Monastery of Mangana.
The Tower of the Mangana was exceedingly strong, capable of withstanding a siege by the whole city.[[901]] Hence, in the struggle between Apocaucus and Cantacuzene, the former held it with great determination.
To the rear of Deïrmen Kapoussi a hollow, now occupied by market-gardens, indicates the site of the Kynegion, the amphitheatre erected by Severus when he restored Byzantium.[[902]] A combat of wild animals was held here as late as the reign of Justinian the Great, in honour of his consulship.[[903]] Subsequently, the Kynegion became a place of execution for important political offenders. There, Justinian II., on his restoration to the throne, put his rivals, Leontius and Apsimarus, to death, after subjecting them to public humiliation in the Hippodrome, by resting his feet upon their necks, while he viewed the games.[[904]]
A little to the south of the Kynegion stood the Church and Monastery of St. George at the Mangana (Μοναστήριον κατὰ τὰ λεγόμενα Μάγγανα, ἐπ᾽ ὀνόματι τοῦ ἁγίου μεγάλου μάρτυρος Γεωργίου). It was an erection of Constantine Monomachus,[[905]] and one of the most splendid and important monasteries in the city. Its site is determined by the following indications; the church was opposite Chrysopolis,[[906]] and near the Mangana and the Kynegion;[[907]] it stood in the midst of meadows, and to it were attached gardens and a hospital.[[908]] “There was,” says Clavijo, the Spanish envoy, “before the entrance (of the church), a wide court containing many gardens and houses; the church itself stood in the middle of these gardens.”[[909]] Now, room for a church with such surroundings existed only to the south of the Kynegion, where a comparatively extensive plain is found; while the territory to the north was contracted, and was, moreover, otherwise occupied. This conclusion is corroborated by the statement of the Russian pilgrims that the Monastery of the Mangana lay to the west of the Church of St. Saviour.[[910]] That church, we shall find, stood at Indjili Kiosk.[[911]] Hence, a building to the west of that point would be on the plain above indicated.
From the Church of St. George mediæval writers derived the name of Braz Saint George for the Sea of Marmora and the Hellespont.[[912]] The Emperor John Cantacuzene, upon his abdication, was for some time a monk in the Monastery of Mangana, under the name Joasaph (Ἰωάσαφ), until he withdrew to the deeper seclusion of the Monastery of Batopedi, on Mount Athos.[[913]]
The next gate, Demir Kapoussi, is a Turkish erection that may have replaced an older entrance.[[914]]
A little further south, arched buttresses, forming the substructures on which the villa known as Indjili Kiosk, in the Seraglio grounds, once stood, are seen built against the walls. Through these buttresses the water of a Holy Spring within the city was, until recently, conducted to the outer side of the walls, and thus rendered accessible to the Christians of the Greek Orthodox Church, who sought the benefit of its healing virtues. This was the Holy Spring of the Church of St. Saviour, celebrated as a fountain of health long before the Turkish Conquest. “Tout cet endroit ressemble la piscine de Salomon qui est à Jérusalem!” exclaims one of the Russian pilgrims, who visited the shrine during the period of the Palæologi.[[915]]
Its identity cannot be disputed. For the memory of the fact that the Church of St. Saviour stood at this point has been preserved by the annual pilgrimages made to the spot, on the Festival of the Transfiguration, from the time of the Turkish Conquest until the year 1821, when the privilege of frequenting the spring was withdrawn, on account of the political events of the day. Such popular customs afford strong evidence.
The first writer who refers to the church and spring after 1453 is Gyllius,[[916]] who, speaking of the water-gates in the walls around the Seraglio, describes the position of Demir Kapoussi thus: “The fourth gate (counting from Yali Kiosk Kapoussi) faces south-east (solis exortum spectat hibernum), and is not far from the ruins of the church dedicated to Christ, for the remains of which, found built in the wall, the Greeks show much reverence, by visiting them in great crowds.” Thevenot[[917]] and Grelot[[918]] give a long account of the animated scene witnessed here on the Festival of the Transfiguration, in their day. The Sultan himself would sometimes come to Indjili Kiosk to be entertained by the spectacle presented on that occasion, particularly by seeing sick persons buried up to the neck in the sand on the seashore, as a method of cure. Hammer writes to the same effect, but supposed the spring to be the Hagiasma of the Virgin, and thought it marked the site of the Church of the Theotokos Hodegetria, which was in this vicinity, and to which also a Holy Spring was attached.[[919]] But this opinion, adopted also by Labarte,[[920]] is opposed to all the evidence upon the subject.
Finally, there is the testimony of the Patriarch Constantius, already alluded to, that from 1453 to 1821 the Hagiasma at Indjili Kiosk was annually frequented on the 6th of August, as the Holy Well associated with the Church of St. Saviour: “The Greeks still revered, until a few years ago, as a matter of tradition, the Hagiasma of the Saviour, which was under Indjili Kiosk.”[[921]]