Why, precisely, the entrance was styled the Gate of the Hunter is a matter of conjecture. Some explain the name as derived from a Kynegion, or theatre for the exhibition of wild animals,[[694]] such as existed on the side of the city facing Scutari; and in favour of this opinion is the term “Kynegesion” (τοῦ Κυνηγεσίου), employed by Phrantzes[[695]] to designate the quarter adjoining the entrance. But the ordinary style of the name lends more countenance to the view that the gate was in some way connected with the huntsmen attached to the Byzantine Court, hunting being always a favourite pastime of the emperors of Constantinople. Their head huntsman (ὁ πρωτοκυνηγὸς) was an official of some importance. Besides directing his subordinates, it was his prerogative to hold the stirrup when the emperor mounted horse, and the Imperial hunting-suit was his perquisite, if stained with blood in the course of the chase.[[696]]
A gate, known as the Gate of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist (Πόρτα τοῦ ἁγίου Προδρόμου καὶ Βαπτιστοῦ), was also situated in the quarter of the Kynegon, and near the Church of St. Demetrius.[[697]] That name might readily be given to a gate in this vicinity, either in honour of the great Church and Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Petra, on the heights above Balat Kapoussi, or in honour of the church of the same dedication, which, there is reason to think, stood on the site of the Church of St. John the Baptist, found, at present, on the shore to the north-east of that entrance. Whether the Gate of St. John has disappeared, or was the Gate of the Kynegos under another name, is a point upon which there may be a difference of opinion. Dr. Mordtmann[[698]] identifies it with the Gate of the Kynegos, which, according to him, was the archway adorned with the Nikè. It may be identified with the Gate of the Kynegos, even on the view that the latter was Balat Kapoussi. That a Church of St. John stood in the neighbourhood of the Gate of the Kynegos is also intimated by Pachymeres, who records a fire which, in 1308, burnt down the quarter extending from that gate to the Monastery of the Forerunner.[[699]]
The gate next in order, as its Turkish name, Fener Kapoussi, proves, is the entrance which the foreign historians of the last siege style Porta Phani, Porta del Pharo.[[700]] This designation was, doubtless, the rendering of the Byzantine name of the gate, for the adjoining quarter, as appears first in a document dated 1351, went by its present name, Phanari (τοποθεσία τοῦ φανάρι),[[701]] also before the Turkish Conquest. A beacon light must have stood at this point of the harbour.
From the Porta Phani eastwards to Petri Kapoussi, the next gate, the fortifications consisted of two lines of wall which enclosed a considerable territory, the inner wall describing a great curve on the steep northern front of the Fifth Hill. The enclosure was called the Castron of the Petrion[[702]] (τὸ κάστρον τῶν Πετρίων), after Petrus, Master of the Offices in the reign of Justinian the Great;[[703]] and the surrounding district was named the Petrion (Πετρίον, τὰ Πετρία,[[704]] “Regio Petri Patricii”).[[705]] It must be carefully distinguished from the district of Petra (Πέτρα), at Kesmè Kaya, above Balat Kapoussi.
In the angle formed by the junction of the two walls, a little to the west of the Porta Phani, was a small gate, Diplophanarion,[[706]] which led from the Castron into the city.
Petri Kapoussi, at the eastern extremity of the Castron, and in the outer wall, communicated with the street skirting the Golden Horn, and retains the ancient name of the district.[[707]] Dr. Mordtmann[[708]] identifies it with the Porta Sidhera (Σιδηρᾶ Πίλη), near the Convent of the Petrion.[[709]] That the Petrion was not confined to the Castron, but included territory on either side of the enclosure, is manifest from the fact that whereas the wall between the Porta Phani and the Porta Petri is without a single tower, mention is yet made of towers in the Petrion.[[710]]
Of the churches in this quarter, St. Stephen of the Romans, St. Julianè, St. Elias, and St. Euphemia, the two last were the most important. The Church of St. Euphemia claimed to be an older foundation than Constantinople itself, being attributed to Castinus, Bishop of Byzantium, 230-237. It was restored by Basil I., and his daughters entered the convent attached to the church.[[711]] The Convent of Petrion, as it was called, must have been of considerable importance, for it was on several occasions selected as the place in which ladies of high rank, who had become politically inconvenient, were interned; as, for instance, Zoe, the dowager-empress of Leo the Wise, for conspiracy against Romanus Lecapenus;[[712]] Theodora, by her sister the Empress Zoe;[[713]] and Delassaina, the mother of the Comneni, with her daughters and daughters-in-law, by Nicephorus Botoniates.[[714]]
In the assaults made by foreign fleets upon the Harbour Walls, the Petrion, or Phanar, occupied a conspicuous place.
It was before the Petrion[[715]] that the Venetian galleys under Dandolo stood, July 17, 1203, and established the free end of their flying bridges upon the summit of the walls, whereby twenty-five towers were captured, and the city was recovered for Isaac Angelus. The Petrion was again prominent in the assault which the Crusaders delivered on April 12, 1204, when Constantinople passed into their hands and became the seat of a Latin Empire. Here the flying bridge of the ship Pelerine lodged itself on a tower, and allowed a bold Venetian and a French knight, André d’Urboise, to rush across, seize the tower, and clear a way for their comrades to follow. Here ladders were then landed, the walls scaled, three gates forced, and the city thrown open to the whole host of the invaders.[[716]]
In the siege of 1453, early on the morning of the 29th of May, the Phanar was fiercely attacked by the Turkish ships in the Golden Horn.[[717]] The attack was repulsed, and the Greeks remained masters of the situation, until the occupation of the city by the enemy’s land forces made further resistance impossible. The memory of the struggle is said to be preserved in the quarter by the name of the street Sandjakdar Youcousou (the Ascent of the Standard-bearer) and by the Turkish name for the Church of St. Mary Mougouliotissa, Kan Klissè (the Church of Blood).[[718]]