The Gate of Gyrolimnè.

The gate derived its name from a sheet of water called the Silver Lake (Ἀργυρὰ Λίμνη), at the head of the Golden Horn, and beside which was an Imperial palace.[[487]] The gate was at the service of the Palace of Blachernæ, a fact which, doubtless, explains the decoration of the arch of the entrance with three Imperial busts.[[488]]

Several historical reminiscences are attached to the gate. Through it, probably, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade went to and fro in carrying on their negotiations with Isaac Angelus.[[489]] By it Andronicus the Younger went forth in hunter’s garb, with his dogs and falcons, as if to follow the chase, but in reality to join his adherents and raise the standard of revolt against his grandfather.[[490]] Hither that prince came thrice in the course of his rebellion, and held parley with the officials of the palace, as they stood upon the walls, regarding terms of peace;[[491]] and here the intelligence that he had entered the city was brought by the peasants who had seen him admitted early in the morning through the Gate of St. Romanus.[[492]]

To this gate Cantacuzene also came at the head of his troops in 1343, to sound the disposition of the capital during his contest with Apocaucus and the Empress Anna.[[493]]

The Palace of Blachernæ.
Τὸ ἐν Βλαχέρναις Βασίλειον, Παλάτιον.

Until the site of the Palace of Blachernæ is excavated, little can be added to the information which Du Cange[[494]] and Paspates[[495]] have collected respecting that Imperial residence, from the statements made on the subject by writers during the Byzantine period. If the quarter of Egri Kapou, on the western spur of the Sixth Hill, was included in the Fourteenth Region of the city, the Palace of Blachernæ appears first as the palace which, according to the Notitia, adorned that Region.[[496]] In the reign of Anastasius I. the residence was enlarged by the addition of the Triclinus Anastasiacus (Τρίκλινος Ἀναστασιακὸς),[[497]] and in the tenth century[[498]] it boasted, moreover, of the Triclinus of the Holy Shrine (Τρίκλινος τῆς ἁγίας σοροῦ), named so in honour of the shrine in which the robe and mantle of the Theotokos were kept in the Church of Blachernæ; the Triclinus Danubius (Τρίκλινος Δανουβιὸς); and the Portico Josephiacus (τὸν Πόρτικα Ἰωσηφιακὸν). Under Alexius I. Comnenus it was frequently occupied by the Court, and there the emperor received the leaders of the First Crusade, Peter the Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond, and others.[[499]] By Manuel Comnenus it was repaired and embellished[[500]] to an extent which obtained for it the name of the New Palace,[[501]] and it was one of the sights of the capital with which he entertained Amaury, King of Jerusalem.[[502]] The lofty building named after the Empress Irene,[[503]] and, probably, the Domus Polytimos,[[504]] were the work of Manuel Comnenus. He also increased, as we have seen, the security of the palace by the erection of new bulwarks; to which Isaac Angelus added a tower.[[505]] In 1203 the palace was the scene of the negotiations between the latter emperor and the envoys of Baldwin of Flanders and Henrico Dandolo, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade.[[506]] In 1204, upon the capture of the city by the Crusaders, it surrendered to Henry, the brother of Baldwin,[[507]] but the Latin emperors seem to have preferred the Palace of the Bucoleon for their residence.

General View of the Wall of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.

Baldwin II., however, resided in the Palace of Blachernæ, and left it in such a filthy condition that when taken possession of by the Greeks in 1261, Michael Palæologus could not occupy it until it had been thoroughly cleaned and renovated.[[508]] It was the usual residence of the Byzantine Court during the period of the Palæologi,[[509]] and from this palace the last emperor who sat upon the throne of Constantinople went forth to die “in the winding-sheet of his empire.”[[510]] All descriptions of the palace agree in representing it as of extraordinary splendour.[[511]] Foreign visitors could not find words in which to give an idea of its magnificence and wealth. According to them, its exterior appearance was incomparable in beauty, while within it was decorated with gold, and mosaics, and colours, and marbles, and columns, and jewels, at a cost hard to estimate, and with a skill that could be found nowhere else in the world.[[512]]