A strong fortress stood here, raised by a strong man, Theodosius, in the young days of ancient Byzantium. It was built on to by successive Emperors, and became one of the most important centres of the City on memorable occasions, for this stronghold became known as the “Golden Gate,” the Porta Aurea, and its towering walls looked down upon great historic happenings. Without on the plain dense hosts would form into ordered procession and follow their Emperor in his triumphal entry through the gates. Under a heavy sky, festooned with sombre ivy, crumbling in its last stage of decay, the Golden Gate with difficulty recalls the glories that have passed beneath it. The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was wider and loftier than the others, like those to be seen in the Roman Forum. These were dedicated to Severus and Constantine, and were closed by gilded gates taken from Mompseueste and placed here by Nicephorus Phocas after his victories in Cilicia. The gate is said to owe its origin to Theodosius the Great, who built it to commemorate his victory over Maximus. Though I thoroughly appreciate Theodosius and subscribe to all his claims to greatness, I have ever been sorry for Maximus. After all, it seems, he did not really wish to rebel against Gratian and assume the Imperial Purple. Rather was he urged to it by popular opinion, the politicians of Britain having decided that he should, and the youth of Britain flocked to his standards, so Maximus was bound to move. It was a big move, too, and successful at first, for his rapid progress alarmed Gratian, who fled from Paris, his army of Gaul having gone over to Maximus. The campaign was like the migration of a nation, 30,000 fighting men and 100,000 others, and of these numbers settled in Brittany, where their descendants live to this day. To make things pleasanter, a great number of ladies set out from Britain with the intention of joining the men when the fighting was over. St. Ursula took charge of this column, 11,000 noble, 60,000 plebeian maidens, destined as brides for the settlers, but they lost their way, and when at last they got to Cologne they met the Huns and were all slaughtered. For this St. Ursula was canonized, as is only right and proper, and a beautiful window in Cologne Cathedral sets forth the whole story, giving portraits of the ladies, so that in face of evidence as conclusive as that of our half-penny illustrated dailies there is no more room for doubt. Maximus came up against Theodosius in the end, and that was the end of him.
Nearly three centuries later Heraclius, the Emperor, entered the Golden Gate in triumph after his victory over the Persians, and again a century later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden arches after defeating the Bulgarians. They came in one long stream of conquerors in those earlier centuries of the Byzantine Emperors, names now forgotten or but dimly remembered; then awoke the “Daughter of the Arches,” as Echo was poetically called, as one hero after another was acclaimed by a vainglorious mob: Theophilus, in the middle of the ninth century, he routed the Arabs. Basil I, the Macedonian—a strange story his. It was in the middle of the ninth century that a young, strong, and active, but weary and travel-stained man came over the heights beyond the Golden Gate. He entered by a side entrance close to, or part of, the Golden Gate at sunset, and being a stranger in the City with no friends to go to, he lay down to sleep on the steps of the Monastery of St. Diomed, which stood near the Golden Gate. A kindly monk extended the hospitality of the monastery to him, and the brothers helped him to find suitable employment. His good fortune led him to a cousin, in whose train Basil went to the Peloponese. Here he became acquainted with a wealthy widow, Danielis, who adopted him as her son, and helped by her wealth and by his own merits, Basil rose to high honour, and finally stepped from the body of the Emperor, killed by himself, to the steps of the throne. Years after his first entrance into Constantinople Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, moved in under the arches of the Golden Gate in triumph.
Another Basil, second of that name, rode in at the Golden Gate after his victory over the Bulgarians. The slaughter he inflicted on them gained him the appellation “Bulgaroktonos”; the memory of the cruelty he practised on his Bulgarian captives lives still in the minds of their descendants, those men whose big guns were battering at the outer defences of Constantinople, those men who would that their sovereign should enter the City as conqueror.
The Bulgarians found the road to Constantinople soon after their appearance in Eastern Europe. Clouds of dust heralded the coming of Crum, their King, with a large host amid flocks of sheep and goats. They pitched their leather tents on the slopes outside the Golden Gate and laid siege to that stronghold, but all their efforts were unavailing, even the human sacrifices offered by their King to his strange gods failed of effect, and a receding cloud of dust told the watchman on the Golden Gate that his savage enemy had withdrawn.
Another figure in the glittering pageant that passed through the Golden Gate in triumph was John Zimisces, the Armenian, of whose rise to power over the corpse of his imperial master, aided by his mistress the Empress, the walls of the Palace of Hormisdas were silent witnesses.
The last of all the Emperors to enter triumphantly by the Golden Gate was Michael Palæologus, in August, 1261. The Latin Emperors had held Constantinople for some time when Michael came with an army to claim his rightful inheritance, and Baldwin, last of the Latins, fled at his approach. The Golden Gate was thrown open, the Emperor dismounted, and on foot meekly followed the miraculous image of Mary the Conductress into the City as far as the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Michael re-established the dynasty of the Palæologi on the throne of Constantine, and they held it for two short centuries. The next conqueror to enter the City of Constantine was Mohammed II, and he rode over the heaped corpses of Janissaries and of Byzantine princes and their mercenaries, in over the breech made by his engines of war, and with him came the spirit of another age and race which yet holds possession, while those distant guns thundered at the lines of Chatalja, threatening to close yet another epoch in the long, tense history of Constantinople, Stamboul, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.
