(5) Because Ducas (who was not a witness of what he relates) says that the Turkish fleet set out to wait for the fleet off the harbour of the Golden Gate.[587]
There probably never was a harbour of the Aurea Porta. Paspates says there was a scala near the Golden Gate, which, indeed is shown in Bondelmonte’s map, but the ships could not discharge at an open scala in the Marmora with a south wind blowing, even if there had been depth enough of water where it existed, which, at the present day at least, there is not.
The statement of Ducas is improbable, because, as the object of the ships was to get past the boom from St. Eugenius to Galata, the ships with the wind which was blowing would have simply passed the fleet or gone triumphantly through them, if they had been waiting off the Golden Gate, and have made for Seraglio Point and the harbour.
I suggest that the words of Ducas (Χρύση Πύλη) are either an error in the copying or are a mistake made by Ducas. They may be a transcriber’s mistake for Horaia Porta—that is, the gate near Seraglio Point, on the Golden Horn. Horaia Porta and Aurea Porta are almost undistinguishable in sound, the aspirate being unpronounced. The similarity in sound had led at an early period to confusion.[588]
It may nevertheless be true that the fleet set out to await the ships off the end of the landward walls. There is not, however, the slightest evidence that it ever got there. On the contrary, as we shall see, the evidence shows that it did not. Once it is established that it never got so far, the contention that the fight was off Zeitin Bournou falls.
These are all the arguments which, so far as I know, have been urged in favour of the Zeitin Bournou position. Some of them are destructive of the others, and, with the exception of the statement of Ducas as to the Turkish fleet setting off for the Harbour of the Golden Gate, are all deductions from the evidence of the authorities rather than direct evidence. Moreover, as will be seen, important statements of witnesses testifying to what they themselves saw are either entirely overlooked or set aside without any sufficient reason.
My contention in the text is that the fight commenced at the mouth of the Bosporus off Seraglio Point; that the wind suddenly dropped while the ships were under the walls of the Acropolis at that Point; that the ships drifted towards the Galata or Pera shore, and that the most serious part of the fight took place off such shore, where it was watched by the sultan and into the waters of which shore the sultan rode. The evidence in support of this view is the following:
(1) It is agreed on all sides that the Turkish fleet was stationed at the Double Columns (Diplokionion).
(2) Leonard the archbishop says that he was a spectator from the city, and that the sultan was on the slope of the Pera hill. Leonard is a witness deserving of confidence. He was present during the whole siege. He had much to do with the people of Galata, who were, like himself, of the Latin Church. In describing this particular incident, he speaks of himself as a spectator of the fight.[589] His letter is an official report addressed to the pope within three months after the event, and therefore while its details were fresh in his memory and not like the account of Ducas, who was not present at the siege and only wrote years afterwards. His testimony, if he is to be believed—and I know no reason why he should even be doubted—is decisive. ‘The King of the Trojans’ (as he calls the Turks throughout) looked on from Pera hill.[590]