We should feel obliged to insist upon this conclusion, even in the absence of any remains of a harbour in the situation indicated. Our task, however, is not so arduous; for manifest traces of such a harbour have been identified. In the first place, traces of a harbour in the district above mentioned came to view in 1819, and were then officially noted by so competent an authority as the Patriarch Constantius.[[1175]] In that year a great fire burned down a large part of the Turkish quarter near Yeni Kapou—Tulbenkdji Djamissi—and brought to light a portion of an ancient circular enclosure around that quarter. The discovery excited considerable attention, and the patriarch was specially instructed by the Turkish Government of the day to examine the wall and report the result of his investigations. Accompanied by two distinguished members of the Greek community, the prelate proceeded to the scene of the conflagration, and found a wall built of huge blocks of stone, about seven feet long, four and a half feet wide, and over a foot thick. The stones were carefully hewn and placed in three tiers; the blocks in the two lower tiers being the ordinary limestone found on the banks of the Bosporus, while the blocks in the highest row were of marble from the Island of Marmora. The territory enclosed by the wall presented the appearance of a great hollow which had been filled in, since the Turkish Conquest, and raised to afford ground for building. All that the patriarch saw convinced him that he stood upon the site of one of the ancient harbours of the city. The wall has disappeared, as the excellent building material it provided rendered natural. But other remains of a harbour at this point, the complement of those discovered by the patriarch, have been recognized, and can, to some extent, be still distinguished.
Off the shore in front of the territory enclosed by the wall described above is a mole formed with boulders (marked “Molotrümmer” on Stolpe’s map of the city), similar to the mole before the old harbour at Koum Kapoussi. At a point about half-way between Koum Kapoussi and Yeni Kapou, there is a wide gap in this mole, dividing it in two unequal parts, and forming a passage through it. The shore[[1176]] opposite the gap was, until the construction of a quay in 1870 for the Roumelian railroad, a sandy beach extending back to the foot of the city walls. The portion of the walls at the rear of the beach was, however, not Byzantine; but a piece of Turkish work[[1177]] inserted between the Byzantine walls on either hand to close an opening which gave admittance to the area occupied by the quarter of Tulbenkdji Djamissi.
Here, accordingly, we have traces of all that constitutes a harbour: its mole, its entrance, its basin and enclosure, indicating where the Neorion at the Heptascalon, which the language of Cantacuzene and Nicephorus Gregoras obliges us to distinguish from the Kontoscalion, was probably situated. At this point, it seems reasonable to think, stood also the Harbour of Kaisarius, if we may judge from the circumstance that a fire which originated at that harbour extended up the valley from Vlanga to Ak Serai.[[1178]]
In the opinion of the Patriarch Constantius,[[1179]] indeed, the harbour discovered in 1819 was the Kontoscalion. The statement of Pachymeres[[1180]] and Bondelmontius,[[1181]] that the Kontoscalion was near Vlanga, cannot, perhaps, be held to lend much countenance to this supposition, for in view of the short distance between Vlanga and Koum Kapoussi, the Kontoscalion might be thus described, although situated in front of the latter. But what presents a most serious consideration in favour of the patriarch’s opinion is the fact that the wall which he examined answered exactly to the description of the wall with which Michael Palæologus enclosed the Kontoscalion.
That emperor, according to Pachymeres,[[1182]] surrounded the Kontoscalion with very large stones; and closed the entrance in the stones with iron gates (Ὥστε γυρῶσαι μὲν μεγίσταις πέτραις τὸν κύκλῳ τόπον, ... πύλας δ᾽ ἐπιθεῖναι ἀραρυίας ἐκ σιδήρου τῇ ἐν ταῖς πέτραις εἰσίθμη ἔξωθεν).
No language could describe better the enclosure of large blocks discovered in 1819; while the expression “the entrance in the stones” applies admirably to the gap in the mole which protected the harbour. Nothing of the kind is found at the harbour before Koum Kapoussi, which lay within a mole and a great curve of the ordinary city walls. This, it must be admitted, is an exceedingly strong argument in support of the patriarch’s contention. On the other hand, we have seen how strong also are the arguments in favour of the view that the Kontoscalion stood at Koum Kapoussi.[[1183]] Perhaps the solution of the difficulty is found in the supposition that while the name Kontoscalion strictly belonged to the harbour at Koum Kapoussi, it was sometimes applied also to other harbours in the vicinity, because the name of the most important member of the group.
Note on the Locality where the Ancient Harbour Wall, discovered in 1819, was found.
The Patriarch Constantius, our sole informant on the subject, refers to this discovery twice; first, in his work on Ancient and Modern Constantinople (Κωνσταντινιὰς Παλαιὰ τε καὶ Νεωτέρα), published in 1844; secondly, in a letter, dated April 12, 1852, which is found in the collection of his minor works (Συγγραφαὶ αἱ Ἐλάσσωνες), and which was addressed to Mr. Scarlatus Byzantius, upon the publication of that gentleman’s work on the history and antiquities of the city. In that letter the patriarch corrects several mistakes made in his own work on the same subject, and gives additional information on other points.
The earlier reference to the discovery is brief, and when viewed in the light of the later statements, altogether misleading. It occurs in the paragraph upon Koum Kapoussi, the ancient Gate of Kontoscalion (English translation, p. 21; Greek original, p. 30). After expressing the opinion that the Neorion of the Kontoscalion stood at that gate, and quoting the description which Pachymeres gives of the wall around the harbour, the reverend author adds: “A portion of this circular enclosure appeared in 1819, consisting of three layers of very large stones placed one upon the other” (Ἕν μέρος δὲ τούτου τοῦ κυκλικοῦ περιφράγματος τοῦ λιμένος ἀνεφάνη τῷ 1819 ἔτει, συνιστάμενον ἐκ τριῶν θέσεων παμμεγίστων ἀλλεπαλλήλων πετρῶν).
There can be but one meaning to this language, namely, that the enclosure referred to stood beside the harbour at Koum Kapoussi. But the difficulty with this language has always been how to make it coincide with the facts in the case. For, as already intimated, the enclosure around the harbour at Koum Kapoussi is almost intact, and consists of the ordinary walls of the city at their usual elevation. There has never been room at that point for another enclosure such as the patriarch describes. But his later, and, fortunately, fuller statements (Συγγραφαὶ αἱ Ἐλάσσωνες, pp. 443, 444) make the matter clear, although, at the same time, they convict the patriarch of inaccuracy in his first statement, so far as the locality of the discovery is concerned. According to the patriarch’s letter, the locality in question was not at Koum Kapoussi, but between that gate and the gate Yeni Kapou of Vlanga, and nearer to the latter entrance than to the former. This fact is confirmed by the additional indication that the discovery was made in a Turkish quarter; for the only Turkish quarter near the shore between Kadriga Limani, on the east of Koum Kapoussi, and Daoud Pasha Kapoussi, on the west of Vlanga, is the quarter of Tulbenkdji Djamissi near Yeni Kapou. But to render all doubt as to the situation of the locality impossible, the route taken to reach it is minutely described; the patriarch and his friends passed first through Kadriga Limani and the parishes of St. Kyriakè and St. Elpis; then they went beyond Koum Kapoussi itself, and, keeping within the line of the walls, proceeded to the neighbourhood of the gate of Yeni Kapou at Vlanga, where the wall had come to light. These particulars are, indeed, at variance with the statement found in Ancient and Modern Constantinople, but as they constitute the patriarch’s clearest and fullest declarations on the point at issue, and are made in a letter correcting mistakes in his former work, they have been adopted as his most authoritative statements. The subject being important and the patriarch’s letter but little known, the passages bearing most directly upon the question are here appended: Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν Προποντίδα λιμένος, περὶ οὗ σημειοῦμεν ἐν τῷ ἡμετέρῳ Συγγράμματι, τοῦ παρὰ Μιχαὴλ τοῦ Παλαιολόγου κατασκευασθέντος, αὐτὸς κεῖται ἐν τῷ μέσῳ τῆς Πύλης Κοντοσκαλίου (Κοὺμ-καπουσοῦ) καὶ τῆς τοῦ Γενὶ-καπουσοῦ τῆς Βλάγκας, καὶ ὑπῆρχε, διὰ τὸ ἀσφαλέστερον, ἔνδον τῶν παραλίων τειχῶν κατεσκευασμενος. ... Ἀλλ᾽ ὅλου τοῦ μέρους, ἐν ᾦ ὁ τοῦ Παλαιολόγου ἔκειτο, κατοικουμενου ὑπὸ Ὀθωμανῶν, κατὰ τὸ 1819 ἔτος πυρπολυθέντος, ἀνεφάνη τὸ τοῦ λιμένος τούτου κυκλικὸν περίφραγμα, κατὰ τὸν Παχυμέρην, γεγυρωμένον ἐκ τριῶν ἀλλεπαλλήλως τεθειμένων μεγάλων πετρῶν, εἰργασμένων ὡς πλακῶν, ἐχουσῶν μῆκος μὲν τριῶν πήχεων, εὖρος δὲ δύω, καὶ βάθος ἡμίσειαν, τῶν μὲν δύω κάτωθεν ἀλλεπαλλήλων πλακῶν ἐκ πετρῶν τοῦ Βοσπόρου, λευκομελανοχρόων, τῆς δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν τρίτης σειρᾶς καὶ ἀνωτέρας, ἐκ μαρμάρων ἰσομέτρων Προκονησίων. He then refers to the order received from the Government to investigate the discovery, and mentions the persons who accompanied him on that errand; after which he continues thus: Διήλθομεν δὲ τὸ Κάτεργα-λιμὰν, τὰς ἐνορίας Ἁγίας Κυριακῆς καὶ Ἐλπίδος, παρήλθομεν τὸ Κοὺμ-καπουσοῦ, καὶ προεχωρήσαμεν ἔχοντες ἀριστερόθεν τὰ παράλια τείχη ἔνδοθεν, ἐγγὺς τῆς Πύλης Γενὶ-καπουσοῦ τῆς Βλάγκας, ὅπου εἴδομεν τὸ ἐκ πετρῶν καὶ μαρμάρων κυκλοτερὲς περίφραγμα, ἐκτεινόμενον ὑποκάτω ἑνὸς τεφρωθέντος Τζαμίου, ἑνὸς μεγάλου Ὀθωμανικοῦ οἴκου καὶ περαιτέρω. Καὶ παραυτίκα ἐγνώκαμεν ὅτι τοῦτο αὐτὸ ἐστι, κατὰ τὸν Παχυμέρην, τὸ πρὸς τὴν Βλάγκαν νεῦον τοῦ Κοντασκαλίου Νεώριον. Ὅλος ὁ τόπος ὁ περιέχων ποτὲ τὸ Νεώριον αὐτὸ, μετὰ τὴν ἅλωσιν ἐπληρώθη, ἐχερσώθη καὶ ὑψώθη τὸ ἔδαφος, κατοικούμενος ὑπὸ Ὀθωμανῶν· αἱ δὲ ἀραρυῖαι ἐκ σιδήρου πύλαι, δι᾽ ὦν εἰσέπλεεν ὁ στόλος ἐλλιμενιζόμενος, ἀπῳκοδομήθησαν.