[268] P. 1013. The locus arduus of the Myriandrion is the highest site of the city walls. Professor Van Millingen makes it identical with the Mesoteichion (p. 85), but Critobulus distinguishes between the two places (ch. xxvi.).
[269] Leonard; but Phrantzes says, p. 253, that Manuel, a Genoese, was in command at the Golden Gate.
[270] See Professor Van Millingen as to position of this gate, pp. 230–234. There were probably two Imperial Gates on the Golden Horn.
[271] According to Pusculus, Trevisano was from the first at Aivan Serai, the extreme west of the walls on the Horn and close to the Xyloporta.
[272] Barbaro, p. 19.
[273] Phrantzes states that the reserve was under Cantacuzenus and Nicephorus Palaeologus, and that the Grand Duke was in charge of the region from the Petrion to the Gate of St. Theodosia.
[274] Leonard’s account hardly varies from that of Phrantzes and others, except that, with his strong religious prejudices, he prefers to name foreigners rather than Greeks. The distributions of the defenders of the city given by Zorzi Dolfin and Pusculus do vary, however, from those given by Phrantzes and Barbaro. These differences are set out in Dr. Mordtman’s Esquisse Topographique, p. 23. See also Krause’s Eroberungen von Constantinopel, p. 169.
[275] Dethier’s Siege, p. 110. Chalcondylas says that it was found that the big gun of the Greeks did more damage to them by its recoil than to the enemy.
[276] Crit. xvii. The word machine is usually used by contemporary writers to designate a cannon, though here, as elsewhere, it may be employed in a general sense. What is certain is that such cannon as the Greeks possessed were few in number and of small value.
[277] Isidori Lamentatio, p. 676; also Christoforo Riccherio, Sansovin, p. 957: both in Dethier’s Siege.