CHAPTER XIX.
THE HEBDOMON.
The Hebdomon (τὸ Ἕβδομον, “Septimum”) was a suburb of Constantinople, situated on the Egnatian Road, at the distance of seven miles from the centre of the city. It obtained its name, as so many villages and towns on the great Roman highways did,[[1184]] from the number of the milestone beside which it stood (ἐν τῷ Ἑβδόμῳ Μιλίῳ), and holds a noteworthy place in history on account of its military associations and its connection with the Court of Constantinople. Considerable interest attaches to it also on account of the discussions which the question of its site has occasioned.
There can be no doubt that the Hebdomon is represented by the modern village of Makrikeui, situated on the shore of the Sea of Marmora, three miles to the west of the Golden Gate. But the opinion which has been generally accepted, and has had the greatest names in its favour, is that the suburb stood at the northern extremity of the Theodosian Walls, where the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus and the quarter of Blachernæ were found.
Map of the Territory Between the City and the Hebdomon.
Now, of all the mistakes committed by students of the topography of Byzantine Constantinople, none is so preposterous or inexcusable as this identification. It is a mistake made when to err seems impossible, for it is in direct opposition to the plainest and most convincing evidence that the famous suburb was situated elsewhere. A blind man, Valesius exclaims in his indignation at such a baseless opinion, might see the truth in the matter.
The blunder started with Gyllius, and was afterwards supported with all the immense learning of Du Cange. It was soon denounced by Valesius,[[1185]] and shown to be utterly inconsistent with the most obvious facts in the case; but the reputation of the great authorities upon its side gave it a vitality which made it the commonly received opinion until the most recent times. Unger, however, contested the error, once more, in his important work entitled Quellen der Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte,[[1186]] published in 1878, and maintained the correct view, but without discussing the question at length. Schlumberger, also, in his monograph on the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, has seen the facts in their true light.[[1187]]
Under these circumstances one is strongly tempted to let the fallacies with which Gyllius and Du Cange maintained their views pass into oblivion, and to be satisfied with proving the truth on the subject. But the great authority and eminent services of these students of the topography of the city, and the tenacity with which the error they countenanced has held the field demand some account of the arguments which have been employed in support of an untenable position.
Gyllius[[1188]] entered upon the discussion of the subject with the fixed idea that no locality entitled to be regarded as a suburb could be seven miles distant from the city to which it belonged. With this conviction rooted in his mind, he found himself called to interpret the passage in which Sozomon relates how Theodosius the Great, upon leaving Constantinople for Italy to suppress the rebel Eugenius, stopped at the seventh mile from the city to invoke the Divine blessing upon the expedition, in the Church of St. John the Baptist which the emperor had erected at that point of the road.[[1189]] Gyllius knew his Greek too well not to recognize the obvious meaning of this statement. He acknowledges that the passage may be understood to intimate that the church above mentioned stood at the seventh milestone from Constantinople. But while allowing that this is a possible meaning of the historian’s words, he contends that it cannot be his actual meaning, because the Hebdomon, being a suburb, could not be so distant from the city as seven miles. Hence Gyllius separates the numeral adjective “seventh” from the noun “mile,” and treating the former as a proper name, construes the passage to signify that the Church of St. John the Baptist, in the suburb of the Hebdomon, was one mile from the capital. The proposed construction is so original that it must be given in its author’s own words: “Theodosius egressus unum milliare extra Constantinopolim, in æde Divi Joannis Baptistæ, quam ipse construxerat in Hebdomo suburbio, a Deo precatus est.”
Under the guidance of this strange interpretation of Sozomon’s statement, the indefatigable explorer of the ancient sites of Constantinople set himself to discover the precise locality which the Hebdomon had occupied. As the suburb was in existence before the erection of the Theodosian Walls, the specified distance of one mile had to be measured from the original limits of the city, viz. from the Wall of Constantine. This, Gyllius thought, would put the suburb somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Walls of Theodosius. Searching next for more definite indications, he found the ruins of a splendid church dedicated to St. John the Baptist on the Sixth Hill, at Bogdan Serai near Kesmè Kaya. But a church of St. John the Baptist, as already intimated, adorned the Hebdomon, and so Gyllius leaped to the conclusion that the Hebdomon was the district on the Sixth Hill: “Suburbium Hebdomon appellatum in sexto colle fuisse, qui nunc est intra urbem, ostendit ædes Divi Joannis Baptistæ, quam etiam nunc Græci vulgo vocant Prodromi.”