For the sake of security against surprise the posterns were few in number, and occurred chiefly in the great wall and its towers, leading to the peribolos. It is rare to find a postern in a tower of the Outer Wall opening on the parateichion.
Proceeding northwards from the Sea of Marmora, there is a postern immediately to the north of the first tower of the Inner Wall. It is an arched entrance, with the laureated monogram “ΧΡ.” inscribed above it.
The handsome gateway between the seventh and eighth towers north of the Sea of Marmora, Yedi Koulè Kapoussi, is the triumphal gate known, from the gilding upon it, as the Porta Aurea. Its identity cannot be questioned, for the site and aspect of the entrance correspond exactly to the description given of the Golden Gate by Byzantine historians and other authorities.
Plan of the Golden Gate
It is, what the Porta Aurea was, the gateway nearest the Sea of Marmora,[[211]] and at the southern extremity of the Theodosian Walls,[[212]] constructed of marble, and flanked by two great marble towers.[[213]] Beside its outer portal, moreover, were found the bas-reliefs which adorned the Golden Gate, and upon it traces of an inscription which expressly named it the Porta Aurea are still visible. The inscription read as follows:
HAEC LOCA THEVDOSIVS DECORAT POST FATA TYRANNI.
AVREA SAECLA GERIT QVI PORTAM CONSTRVIT AVRO.
The history of our knowledge of this inscription is curious. There is no mention made of the legend by any writer before 1453, unless Radulphus de Diceto alludes to it when he states that in 1189 an old resident of the city pointed a Templar to certain words upon the Golden Gate, foretelling the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders.[[214]] And of all the visitors to the city since the Turkish Conquest, Dallaway is the only one who speaks of having seen the inscription in its place.[[215]]
The inscription is cited first by Sirmondi[[216]] and Du Cange,[[217]] the former of whom quotes it in his annotations upon Sidonius Apollonius, as furnishing a parallel to that poet’s mode of spelling the name Theodosius with a v instead of an o for the sake of the metre. How Sirmondi and Du Cange, neither of whom ever visited Constantinople, became acquainted with the inscription does not appear.