Constantinople, v. 1 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

From here we ascend the second hill, where rise the Nûri Osmaniyeh mosque (Light of Osman) and the Burnt Column of Constantine, formerly surmounted by a bronze statue of Apollo, whose head was a likeness of the great emperor himself. This column marked the centre of the forum, and was surrounded by marble porticoes, triumphal arches, and statues. On the farther side of this hill opens the Valley of Bazârs, extending from the Bayezid mosque all the way to that of the Validêh Sultan, and including a huge labyrinth of covered streets filled with noise and confusion and crowded with people, from which you issue with your ears deafened and your head in a whirl.

Upon the summit of the third hill, overlooking both the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, stands the gigantic rival of St. Sophia, the mosque of Suleiman—joy and glory of Stambul, as it is called by the Turkish poets—and the marvellous tower of the minister of war, erected on the ruins of the ancient palace of the Constantines, at one time occupied by Muhammad the Conqueror, and converted later on into a seraglio for the old sultanas.

Burnt Column of Constantine.

Between the third and fourth hills the enormous aqueduct of the emperor Valens stretches like an aërial bridge composed of two tiers of delicate arches, around which vines trail and clamber, falling in graceful festoons as far as the roofs of the houses crowded together in the valley beneath.

Passing under the aqueduct, we now ascend the fourth hill. Here, on the ruins of the celebrated church of the Holy Apostles, founded by the empress Helena and rebuilt by Theodosius, rises the mosque of Muhammad II., surrounded by schools, hospitals, and khâns. Alongside the mosque are the slave-bazâr, the baths of Muhammad, and the granite column of Marcian surmounted by a marble capital, on which is a cippus still ornamented with the imperial eagles. Near by is the Et-Meidan, where the famous massacre of the Janissaries took place.

Traversing another valley, likewise closely built up, we mount the fifth hill, surmounted by the mosque of Selim, near the site of the ancient cistern of St. Peter, now converted into a garden. Beneath us, along the shores of the Golden Horn, extends Fanar, the Greek quarter and seat of the Patriarch, where ancient Byzantium has taken refuge, the scene of the revolting carnage of 1821.

Descending into a fifth valley and ascending a sixth hill, we find ourselves upon the territory once occupied by the eight cohorts of Constantine’s forty thousand Goths, beyond the circuit of the earlier walls, which only embraced the fourth hill: this is the precise spot assigned to the seventh cohort, hence the name Hebdomon given to that quarter.

On the sixth hill may be seen still standing the walls of the palace[B] of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, where the emperors were formerly crowned, now called by the Turks Tekfûr Serai—Palace of the Princes. At the foot of the hill lies Balat, the Ghetto of Constantinople, a filthy quarter extending along the banks of the Horn as far as the city-walls: and beyond Balat is the ancient suburb of Blachernæ, where once arose the mighty palace with its gilded roofs, a favorite resort of the emperors, and famous for the sacredness of the relics contained in the church erected by the empress Pulcheria. Now the whole quarter is filled with decay and ruin and melancholy. At the Blachernæ begin the turreted walls which extend from the Golden Horn across to the Sea of Marmora, enclosing the seventh hill, on which stood the Forum of Arcadius, and where may still be seen the pedestal of the column of Arcadius—the largest and most eastern of the hills of Stambul, between which and the other six flows the little river Lycus, which, entering the city near the Charsiou[C] Gate, empties itself into the Sea of Marmora near the ancient gate of Theodosius.

[B] Prof. A. Van Millingen places the site of the Hebdomon Palace on the shore of the Sea of Marmora, outside the walls, near the village of Makri Keui; other authorities state that there are unanswerable arguments in favor of this view.—Trans.