A statement by the ‘Moscovite’ (ch. vii.) also points to the Pempton as the chief point of attack. He mentions that on April 24 a ball from the great cannon knocked away five of the battlements and buried itself in the walls of a church. The only church in the neighbourhood either of Top Capou or the Pempton was one dedicated to St. Kyriakè, which was in the Lycus valley near the Pempton. But the attack is always stated to be against the Romanus Gate.
Near the Pempton the Peribolos is now about twenty feet higher than the level of the ground on the city side of the Great Wall. Beyond doubt this is largely due to the accumulation of refuse and broken portions of the wall, but, allowing for this, an observer will probably conclude that the Peribolos was at the time of the siege several feet higher than the level on the city side. This same discrepancy of level did not exist—if, indeed, any existed—at Top Capou. Hence when the small gate was opened from the city by Justiniani to give easier access to the stockade, men had to ascend to it. This is what Critobulus implies they had to do. The gate was opened to lead ἐπὶ τὸ σταύρωμα (lx. 2).
Critobulus states that Mahomet drew up his camp ‘before the Gates of Romanus.’[577] The argument Dethier draws from the plural, ‘gates,’ is not perhaps worth much, but it is remarkable that in speaking of other gates Critobulus usually employs the singular: as, for example, in ch. xxvii. 3, ‘The Wood-Gate, as far as the gate called Chariseus.’ Gregoras also employs the plural: παρὰ τὰς πύλας τοῦ Ῥωμανοῦ (Book ix. ch. vi.).
The Turkish writers throw very valuable light on the question and show clearly that the assault was not at Top Capou, but rather nearer the Adrianople Gate.
The imaum Zade Essad-Effendi says that in the final assault Hassan mounted the broken wall where the Franks were defending it, ‘which wall was to the south of Edirne Capou’—that is, of the Adrianople Gate. The Turkish writer Sad-ud-din, who died in 1599, gives similar testimony. He states that Constantine ‘entrusted to the Frank soldiers the defence of those breaches which were on the south side of the Adrianople Gate.’ And again: ‘The Turks in the final assault did not rush to the gates but to the breaches that were made in the broken wall between Top Capou and the Adrianople Gate, and, after the capture, went round and opened the gates from the inside, the first to be opened being the Adrianople Gate.’[578] If the Venetian and Genoese soldiers had been near Top Capou the writer would not have described their position as he does. Probably he was ignorant of any name for the gate in the valley where the assault occurred, and therefore describes the breaches with sufficient accuracy as south of the Adrianople or Edirne Gate.
Lastly, Dr. Mordtmann calls attention to the fact that on old Turkish maps the Pempton is marked as Hedjoum Capou or Gate of the Assault.[579] If it were the Gate of the Assault, as I also believe, it was the gate spoken of by contemporaries as Saint Romanus, and all difficulties as to the place of the general assault, the position of the stockade defended by Justiniani, and the station of the great guns vanish.
Thereupon the description of Critobulus makes the arrangement of Mahomet’s army clear. His guards were encamped opposite the Mesoteichion and the Myriandrion—that is, opposite the whole length of walls between Top Capou and the Palace of Porphyrogenitus (ch. xxvi.). His three largest guns were stationed opposite the Pempton or Military Gate of Romanus, and his imperial tent was pitched in a place, and at a distance from the walls, where it could properly be described indifferently as opposite either the Chariseus or Romanus Gate.
In conclusion, I would suggest that the name Top Capou was given or transferred by the Turks, after the siege and when the Pempton was walled up, to the Civil Gate of St. Romanus. There was no need for a name among ordinary people for an unused gate, and the Turks, instead of using the name of a Christian saint, spoke of it as that near which the great cannon was placed, or shortly as Top Capou—that is, Cannon Gate. It is remarkable that Gyllius, though mentioning that there was a gate at the situation of Top Capou, calls it neither by that name nor by that of St. Romanus.[580]