Upon the restoration of the Greek Empire in 1261 the condition of the seaward walls became a matter of graver importance than it had been at any previous period in the history of the city. For, until the rise of the Ottoman power, the enemies whom Constantinople had then most reason to fear were the maritime States of Western Europe, with their formidable fleets.
The loss of the city by the Latins put a new strain upon the relations between the East and the West. It provoked more intense political antagonism, keener commercial rivalries, and a fanatical religious hatred, which all the attempts to unite the Churches of divided Christendom only fanned into fiercer flames. Nor was the situation improved when Michael Palæologus established the Genoese at Galata. A hostile power was then planted at the very gates of the capital; a foreign fleet commanded the Golden Horn; occasions for misunderstandings were multiplied; and selfish intriguers were at hand to foment the domestic quarrels of the Empire, and involve it in disputes with the rivals of Genoa. “The Roman Empire,” as Gibbon observes, “might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the Republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power.”
The earliest concern of Michael Palæologus, therefore, after the recovery of the city, was to put the fortifications in a condition to repel the expected attempt of the Latins to regain the place.[[639]] Having no time to lose, and as lime and stone were difficult to procure, the emperor was satisfied, at first, with heightening the walls, especially those near the sea, by the erection upon the summit, of great wooden screens, covered with hide to render them fire-proof. In this way he raised the walls some seven feet.[[640]]
But later in his reign he conceived the ambitious idea of making the walls along the shores of the city, like the land walls, a double line of bulwarks.[[641]] The new fortifications, however, cannot have been a piece of solid work, for no traces of them have survived.[[642]]
Coat-Of-Arms of Andronicus Ii. Palæologus.[[643]]
Repairs were again executed upon the seaward walls when Andronicus II. undertook the general restoration of the fortifications of the city.[[644]] Until recently a slab bearing the monogram and coat-of-arms of that emperor, a lion rampant, crowned and holding an upright sword, was to be seen on a tower of the wall surrounding the ancient harbour at Koum Kapoussi.
So far, at least, as the wall beside the Sea of Marmora was concerned, the work of Andronicus II. was soon injured. For on the very eve of his death, on the 12th of February, 1332, a furious storm from the south burst upon the fortifications beside that sea. The waves leaped over the battlements, opened breaches in the wall, forced the gates, and rushed in like a hostile army to devastate every quarter they could overwhelm.[[645]]
Although the fact is not recorded, the damage done on that occasion must have been repaired by Andronicus III.
Occasion for attending to the state of the seaward fortifications, especially along the Golden Horn, was again given, in the course of the conflicts between Cantacuzene and the Genoese of Galata.