[1121]. Gyllius, ut supra. “Cujus ostium vergebat ad solis ortum æstivum, a quo moles extendebatur ad occasum æstivum, supra quam nunc muri adstricti existunt.”
“In faucibus portus, adhuc navium capacibus, extra murum urbis, etiamnum videtur turris undique mari circumdata, et saxa, reliquæ ruinarum.”
Grelot, in his Relation Nouvelle d’un Voyage de Constantinople, pp. 79, 80, refers to the tower thus (to quote the quaint English translation of his work by J. Philips, London, 1683, p. 68): “Going by sea from the Seven Towers to the Seraglio, you meet with a square tower upon the left hand, that stands in the sea, distant from the city wall about twenty paces. The inhabitants of the country call it Belisarius Tower, affirming that it was in this tower where that great and famous commander, for the recompense of all those signal services which he had done the Emperor Justinian, in subduing his enemies, as well in Asia and Africa as in Europe, being despoyled of all his estate and honour, and reduced to the extremity of necessity, after he had endured putting out both his eyes, was at length shut up and forced for his subsistence to hang out a bag from the grate of his chamber, and cry to the passengers, ‘Give poor Belisarius a farthing, whom envy and no crime has deprived of his eyes.’ Near to the place where stands this tower was formerly the harbour where Theodosius, Arcadius, and their successors kept their galleys.”
[1122]. From Broken Bits of Byzantium. (By kind permission of Mrs. Walker.)
[1123]. Nicetas Chon., p. 733.
[1124]. Nicetas Chon., p. 170.
[1125]. Pachymeres, vol. i. p. 365; Actus Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani, year 1400, p. 394, where a vivid description of the site of the old harbour is given: Κῆπος περὶ τὸν Βλάγκαν, ἔξω που καὶ σύνεγγυς τοῦ τείχους τῆς πόλεως.
[1126]. Anonymus, iii. p. 47; Theophanes, p. 723.
[1127]. Guillelmus Bibliothecarius.
[1128]. Anonymus, iii. p. 47.