It seems to have been a custom in medieval times, and probably earlier, for the besiegers in war time to endeavor to enter a city which they would sack through a breach in the walls, or by scaling the walls, rather than by entering the gates. On the other hand, if a conqueror would protect the inhabitants of a captured city, he would pass in through the opened gates. To deliver up the keys of the city gates to a hostile commander was equivalent to capitulating or making formal terms of surrender. In the military museum at Berlin are preserved the keys of cities captured by the emperors of Germany at various times along the centuries.
There is a trace of this custom of besiegers, even in Old Testament times, in the injunctions to Israel with reference to its warfares: “When thou drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it [proffer quarter]. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open [the gates] unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thine hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.”[[693]]
It has been suggested on a former page,[[694]] but perhaps not sufficiently explained, that this idea of subjecting one’s self to the covenant obligations of citizenship by passing through the city gates, over the threshold, had to do with the Grecian custom of welcoming back to his own city the victor in the Olympian games through a breach in the walls, instead of through the gate. The meaning of this Greek custom (continued in Rome) was not clear in the days of Plutarch, and he, in seeking to account for it, suggests that it may have been intended to show that a city having such men among its citizens needed no walls of defense.[[695]] But, as they rebuilt their walls after the entrance of the victor, this explanation is not satisfactory. The world-wide recognition of the covenant obligations of a passage through a gate over the threshold is a more satisfactory explanation. If the victor, on returning in triumph from the games, were to enter his city through the gates, like any other citizen, he would be subject to the laws of the city as a citizen or a guest; but if the city would recognize him as a conqueror, at home as well as at Olympia, they would let him come in through a breach in the walls. In this act the citizens nominally submitted themselves to him; and a city thus entered, and, as it were, captured, often felt that it received more honor from its victor than it could confer upon him.[[696]]
DOORKEEPER, AND CARRIER.
A “porter” and a “porter” are two very different persons, as the terms are employed in both Europe and America. We speak of a porter as a menial who carries burdens, such as parcels or baggage, a mere carrier for hire. Again, we speak of a porter as the attendant at, or the custodian of, the entrance gate of a mansion or public building. In the one case the porter is a very humble personage, in the other case he is a person of responsibility and importance. How it came about that the same term is applied to both these personages is worth considering, in view of its bearing on the importance of the door and the gate.
It is said to have been a custom of the ancient Etruscans and Romans, and perhaps of older peoples, in laying out the foundations of a city, to mark first the compass of the whole city with a plow. When they came to those places where they were to have the gates of the city, they took up the plow and carried it across the gateway, “transported” the plow at that space. It is said that from this custom the Latin word porta came to apply to “a gate,” “a portando aratrum,” “from carrying the plow,”–porta, in Latin, meaning “to carry.” Whether or not the traditional custom referred to had a historical basis, it will be seen that the mere fact of the tradition will account for the twofold use, in languages derived from the Latin, of the word “porter” as a carrier, and again as a doorkeeper, or a gate watcher, or a guardian of the threshold. Apart from the question of the origin of the terms, we find that the porter or carrier is one who goes through the gate as the place of entrance or exit in his carryings; or, again, the porter or guardian of the gate is one who watches the place of carryings, and of outgoing and incoming.
Among the stories told of the founding of Rome by Romulus, it is said that at the threshold of this enterprise the people kindled fires before their tents, and then leaped through or over the flames.[[697]] In connection with this ceremony sacrifices were offered, and offerings of the first-fruits of forest and field were made to the gods.[[698]] A heifer and a bull were yoked to the plow, as in symbol of marriage, and afterwards were offered in sacrifice, thus supplying the symbolic blood on the threshold of the new city.[[699]] Plutarch, it is true, thinks that, in consequence of this custom of laying out a city, the walls of a city, except the gates, were counted sacred; but in this, as in other matters relating to the threshold,[[700]] it is evident that Plutarch was not sure to be correct as to the meaning of archaic customs.
There seems to be force in the suggestion that the two Latin words, porta and porto, like the Greek poros, were derived from the common Aryan root par or por, “to go,” “to bring over,” “to pass through.”[[701]] However this may be, we have the common English use of the term “port” in words meaning a door or entrance, and again a carrying or a place of carriage, as “export,” “import,” “transport,” “portico,” “porthole,” “portfolio,” etc.
An illustration of the twofold use of the word is found in the word “a portage” or “a carry” as the designation of “a break in a chain of water communication over which goods, boats, etc., have to be carried, as from one lake or river to another.” It is not merely that this is a place where a canoe, or other luggage, must be carried, but it is the definite “carry” or “portage,” the bridge, or isthmus, or door, or threshold,[[702]] by which they enter another region. This is the common American use of the term in pioneer life.[[703]]