The gate is memorable in history as the entrance through which, in 1261, Alexius Strategopoulos, the general of Michael Palæologus, penetrated into the city,[[307]] and brought the ill-starred Latin Empire of Constantinople to an end. For greater security the Latins had built up the entrance; but a band of the assailants, aided by friends within the fortifications, climbed over the walls, killed the drowsy guards, broke down the barricade, and flung the gates open for the restoration of the Greek power. By this gate, in 1376, Andronicus entered, after besieging the city for thirty-two days, and usurped the throne of his father, John VI. Palæologus.[[308]] In the siege of 1422 Sultan Murad pitched his tent within the grounds of the Church of the Pegè;[[309]] while during the siege of 1453 a battery of three guns played against the walls in the vicinity of this entrance.[[310]]
There is reason to think that the gate styled Porta Melantiados (Μελαντιάδος)[[311]] and Pylè Melandesia (Μελανδησία),[[312]] should be identified with the Gate of the Pegè. Hitherto, indeed, the Porta Melantiados has been identified with the next public gate, Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi;[[313]] but that view runs counter to the fact that the Porta Melantiados stood in the Deuteron,[[314]] whereas the next public gate was, we shall find, in the quarter of the city called, after the Third Military Gate, the Triton (τὸ Τρίτον).[[315]] Unless, therefore, the Porta Melantiados is identified with the Gate of the Pegè, it cannot be identified with any other entrance in the Theodosian Walls.
The Gate of the Pegè.
That the Gate of the Pegè had originally another name is certain, since the Holy Spring did not come into repute until the reign of Leo I.,[[316]] nearly half a century after the erection of the Wall of Anthemius. And no other name could have been so appropriate as the Porta Melantiados, for the road issuing from the gate led to Melantiada, a town near the Athyras[[317]] (Buyuk Tchekmedjè) on the road to Selivria. The town is mentioned in the Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus as Melantrada and Melanciada, at the distance of nineteen miles from Byzantium; and there on different occasions the Huns, the Goths,[[318]] and the Avars[[319]] halted on their march towards Constantinople.
At the gate Porta Melantiados, Chrysaphius, the minister and evil genius of Theodosius II., was killed in 450 by the son of John the Vandal, in revenge for the execution of the latter.[[320]] It has been suggested that the Mosque of Khadin Ibrahim Pasha within the gate stands on the site of the Church of St. Anna in the Deuteron.[[321]] It may, however, mark the site of the Church of the SS. Notarii, which stood near the Porta Melantiados.
The Third Military Gate is but a short distance from the Gate of the Pegè, being situated between the fourth and fifth towers to the north. To the rear of the entrance was the quarter called the Triton (τὸ Τρίτον),[[322]] and, more commonly, the Sigma (Σίγμα);[[323]] the latter designation being derived, probably, from the curve in the line of the walls immediately beyond the gate. What precisely was the object of the curve is not apparent. One authority explains it as intended for the accommodation of the courtiers and troops that assembled here on the occasion of an Imperial visit to the Pegè.[[324]] But the Theodosian Walls were built before the Pegè came into repute;[[325]] and the visits of the emperors to the Holy Spring were not so frequent or so important as to affect the construction of the walls in such a manner.
In the quarter of the Sigma stood a column, bearing the statue of Theodosius II., erected by Chrysaphius.[[326]] And there, in the riot of 1042, the Emperor Michael Calaphates and his uncle Constantine were blinded, having been dragged thither from the Monastery of Studius, where they had sought sanctuary.[[327]]
The most noted churches in the quarter were dedicated respectively to the Theotokos,[[328]] St. Stephen, and St. Isaacius.[[329]] The site of the first is, in the opinion of Dr. Paspates, marked by the remains of an old Byzantine cistern off the street leading from the Guard-house of Alti Mermer to the Mosque of Yol Getchen.[[330]]
