To all this it is possible to reply that we do not see the tower in its original condition; that its upper story, which stood on the level of the palace area to the rear, is gone; that the tower, as it stands, consists largely of Turkish repairs; that the extent to which, in its original state, it resembled, or failed to resemble, the description of the Tower of Isaac Angelus as given by Nicetas, cannot be accurately known, and that, consequently, the question regarding the identity of the tower must be decided by the inscription found upon the building. There is force in this rejoinder; and it is the conclusion we must adopt, if there are not stronger reasons for identifying the Tower of Isaac Angelus with one or other of the two adjoining towers, N and S.
“The Tower of Anemas” and “The Tower of Isaac Angelus” (From the North-West).
The claims of the tower N to be the Tower of Isaac Angelus rest upon its strong resemblance to the description which Nicetas has given of the latter building. His description seems a photograph of that tower. Like the Tower of Isaac Angelus, the tower N, besides defending and supporting the Palace of Blachernæ, was pre-eminently a residential tower; and the numerous pillars employed in its construction betray clearly the fact that it was built with materials taken from other edifices, some of which may well have been churches. The upper story, which was reached from the court of the palace behind it, formed a spacious apartment 22-¼ by 27-½ feet, and about 18 feet high. Its north-western wall was pierced by three large round-headed windows, opening, as pillars placed below them for supports indicate, upon a balcony which commanded a beautiful view of the country about the head of the Golden Horn. Another window led to a small balcony on the south-western side of the tower, while a fifth looked towards the Golden Horn and the hills beyond. The apartment might well be styled the Belvedere of the Palace of Blachernæ. The lower story of the tower, which was reached by a short flight of steps descending from the palace court to the vestibule C1, cannot be explored, being filled with earth; but, judging from its arched entrance and the large square window in the north-western wall, it was a commodious room, with the advantage of affording more privacy than the apartment above it. What was the object of the dark rooms situated below these two stories, at different levels of the tower, and reached from the stairway-turret outside it, is open to discussion. The stairway, as already intimated, led also to the surrounding country. Taking all these features of the tower N into consideration, a very strong case can be made in favour of the opinion that it is the Tower of Isaac Angelus.
How this conclusion should affect our views regarding the inscription in honour of that emperor found on the tower L is a point about which minds may differ. The inscription may be in its proper place, and thereby prove that the tower it marks was also an erection of Isaac Angelus, although not the one to which Nicetas refers. And some countenance is lent to this view by a certain similarity in the Byzantine masonry of the towers L and N. But, on the hypothesis that L and N were both erected by Isaac Angelus, it is extremely strange that the inscription in his honour should have been placed upon the inferior tower, and not upon the one which formed his residence and had some architectural pretensions.
This objection can be met, indeed, either by assuming that another inscription in honour of Isaac Angelus stood on the tower N, but has disappeared; or, with Dr. Paspates,[[532]] it may be maintained that the inscription is not in its proper place, but belonged originally to the counter-fort supporting the tower N, and was transferred thence to the tower L when the latter was repaired.
In favour of this alternative it may be urged that the tower L has, manifestly, undergone repair; that some of the materials used for that purpose may have been taken from the counter-fort G4, which has been to a great extent stripped of its facing; and that the inscription on the tower L is not in a symmetrical position, being too much to the left, and somewhat too high for the size of its lettering. But to all this there is the serious objection that the inscribed slab is found in the Byzantine portion of the tower; while the idea that the counter-fort G4 was defaced in Byzantine days for the sake of repairing the tower L is against all probability.
We pass next to the identification of the Tower of Anemas with the tower S. The Tower of Anemas is first mentioned by Anna Comnena in the twelfth century, as the prison in which a certain Anemas was confined for having taken a leading part in a conspiracy to assassinate her father, the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. According to the Imperial authoress, it was a tower in the city walls in the neighbourhood of the Palace of Blachernæ, and owed its name to the circumstance that Anemas was the first prisoner who occupied it.[[533]]
Another indication of the situation of the tower is given by Leonard of Scio,[[534]] when he states that the towers “Avenides” stood near the Xylo Porta, the gate at the extremity of the land-walls beside the Golden Horn. To this should be added the indication that the tower was one of a group, for Phrantzes[[535]] and Leonard of Scio employ the plural form, “the Anemas Towers.”
Whether the tower was an erection of Alexius Comnenus or an earlier building is not recorded; but in either case it was in existence in the reign of that emperor, and, consequently, was older than any work belonging to the time of Isaac Angelus.