In the course of time, as the prominent position of the Palace and the Harbour of Bucoleon rendered natural, the name Bucoleon, it would appear, was extended to the whole collection of buildings which formed the Great Palace, facing the Sea of Marmora. That is certainly the sense in which Ville-Hardouin employs the term in his work on the Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders. He associates “le palais de Bouchelyon” with the Palace of Blachernæ, as one of the principal residences of the Greek emperors. In the division of the spoils of the city, the Palace of “Bouchelyon,” like the Palace of Blachernæ, was to belong to the prince whom the Crusaders would elect Emperor of Constantinople;[[1049]] upon the capture of the city, the Marquis of Montferrat hastened to seize the Palace of Bucoleon, while Henry, the brother of Baldwin, secured the surrender of the Palace of Blachernæ;[[1050]] the treasure found in the former is described as equal to that in the latter: “Il n’en faut pas parler; car il y en avait tant que c’était sans fin ni mesure.” Indeed, the statements of Ville-Hardouin concerning the Palace of Bucoleon make the impression that of the two Imperial residences which he names, it was, if anything, the more important.[[1051]] Thither Murtzuphlus fled when his troops were discomfited.[[1052]] There, the Marquis of Montferrat found congregated for safety most of the great ladies of the Court, including Agnes of France, wife of Alexius II., and Margaret of Hungary, wife of Isaac Angelus.[[1053]] And to the Palace of Bucoleon, the richest in the world (“el riche palais de Bochelyon, qui onques plus riches ne fu veuz”), the Latin Emperor Baldwin proceeded in great state, after his coronation in St. Sophia, to celebrate the festivities attending his accession to the throne.[[1054]] There, also, were held the festivities in honour of the marriage of the Emperor Henry with Agnes, the daughter of the Marquis of Montferrat.[[1055]] It is not possible that the two comparatively small buildings at Tchatlady Kapou could be the palace which Ville-Hardouin had in mind in connection with these events. The terms he employs, in speaking on the subject, were appropriate only to the Great Palace as a whole.

The designation of the Palace of Bucoleon as “Chastel de Bouchelyon”[[1056]] is no evidence that Ville-Hardouin used the name in its restricted sense, as Labarte contends. For the Great Palace was within a fortified enclosure, and could therefore be styled a castle with perfect propriety, just as the same historian, for a similar reason, speaks of the Palace of Blachernæ as a “chastel.” Nor does the fact that the Marquis of Montferrat reached the Palace of Bucoleon by riding along the shore (“chevaucha tout le long du rivage, droit vers Bouchelion”)[[1057]] prove that the residence beside Tchatlady Kapou was the one he wished specially to secure. For the grounds of the Great Palace were thus accessible by a gate which stood at the eastern extremity of the Tzycanisterion, on the plain beside the Sea of Marmora, and which communicated with the quarter of the city near the head of the promontory.

Two incidents in Byzantine history, cited by Labarte[[1058]] himself, establish the existence of such a gate, beyond contradiction. When Stephen and Constantine, the sons of the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus, deposed their father, in 944, and sent him to a monastery on the island of Proti,[[1059]] great fears were entertained in the city, that a similar, if not a worse, fate had befallen his associate upon the throne, the popular Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus. The people, therefore, crowded about the palace to ascertain the truth, and were reassured that their favourite was safe by his appearance, with dishevelled hair, at the iron bars of the gate which stood at the end of the Tzycanisterion (“Ex ea parte qua Zucanistrii magnitudo portenditur, Constantinus crines solutus per cancellos caput exposuit.”) The existence of a gate at this point is, if possible, still clearer from the statement of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,[[1060]] that the Saracen ambassadors, after their audience of the emperor, left the palace grounds by descending to the Tzycanisterion, and mounting horse there. To approach the palace by that entrance evinced, therefore, no particular intention on the part of the Marquis of Montferrat to reach the buildings to which the name of Bucoleon strictly belonged. On the contrary, by that entrance one would reach the principal apartments of the Great Palace, sooner than the palaces beside the group of the Lion and the Bull, at Tchatlady Kapou.

The Bucoleon is mentioned for the last time in Byzantine history, in connection with the events of the final fall of the city. “To Peter Guliano, consul of the Catalans, was entrusted,” says Phrantzes,[[1061]] “the defence of the quarter of the Bucoleon, and the districts as far as the neighbourhood of the Kontoscalion.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HARBOURS ON THE SEA OF MARMORA—continued.

The New Harbour[[1062]] (Portus Novus), known also as the Harbour of Julian[[1063]] (Portus Divi Juliani: Λιμὴν τοῦ Ἰουλιανοῦ), and the Harbour of Sophia,[[1064]] or the Sophias[[1065]] (Λιμὴν τῆς Σοφίας, τῶν Σοφιῶν).

About 327 yards to the west of SS. Sergius and Bacchus traces are found of an ancient harbour extending inland to the foot of the steep slope above which the Hippodrome is situated. The Turkish name for the locality, Kadriga Limani, “the Harbour of the Galleys,” is in itself an indication of the presence of an old harbour at that point. When Gyllius visited Constantinople, the port was enclosed by walls and almost filled in, but still contained a pool of water, in which the women of the district washed their clothes, and at the bottom of which, it was reported, submerged triremes could sometimes be seen.[[1066]]

Here, as we shall immediately find, was the site of the harbour known by the three names Portus Novus, the Harbour of Julian, the Harbour of Sophia.

The harbour obtained its first name, when newly opened in the fourth century, to distinguish it from the earlier harbours of the city; while its other names were, respectively, bestowed in honour of the Emperor Julian, the constructor of the harbour, and of the Empress Sophia, who restored it when fallen into decay.

That these three names designated the same harbour can be proved, most briefly and directly, by showing first the identity of the Portus Novus with the Harbour of Sophia, and then the identity of the latter with the Harbour of Julian.