For his dear Consort, fair Sophia’s Use.
The Wonders of thy Beauty, potent Rome,
Europe, and Asia, half th’ extended World
With Pleasure view, and silently admire.
The Word which in the Original Inscription is wrote δέρκεαι, Zonaras writes δέρκεται. ’Tis easy to discover from these Verses, that the Palace of Sophia was not seated near the Bosporus, but without the Walls of the City, waich is attested by Cedrinus, and many other Historians, in their Descriptions of the hard Frost, which happen’d in the Reign of Leo Copronymus, by which the Bosporus was frozen so hard, that whosoever had a mind to pass over from the Palace of Sophia to the City, or from Chrysopolis to the Church of St. Mamas, or repass to Galata on the Shore of the Bosporus, might cross over the Ice without the least Danger. The Port of Sophia, before it was call’d the Port of Julian, seems to me to be the same, which was formerly called the Neorium, and which the ancient Description of the Wards places in the same Ward with the Hippodrom; but whether it be one, or either of these, it is now fill’d up; or if it was that Port which stands West of the Church of Bacchus, ’tis now almost demolish’d, and enclosed with a Wall. There is only a small Part of it remaining, which is a standing Water, where the Women wash their Linnen. The People tell you, that they have seen some Three-Oar’d Gallies which have been sunk there. ’Tis call’d at present by the Inhabitants Caterga limena, or the Port of the Three-Oar’d Gallies; whether it be the same Port, which is standing on the East of the Church of Bacchus, near the Gate of the City call’d Porta Leonis, which Name it took either from a Lion near it, which was carved in Stone, or from the Emperor Leo, who, they tell you, had a Palace there, I shall not determine. Nicephorus, an Historian of modern Date, tells us, that an Emperor of Constantinople, when besieged by the People of Italy, summoned a Multitude of Smiths into the Morion, which ran round the Hippodrom. I could never discover at Constantinople the Place which was called the Pyctacia; yet I cannot but take Notice from Cedrinus, and other modern Historians, that in the Place which they called the Pyctacia, there was a Pillar which supported the Statue of Leo the Emperor, the Consort of Verina. This Statue, as some write, was erected by his Sister Euphemia, a Lady of great Wisdom and Continency, near her own House, where Leo every Week, used to pay her a Visit. All Persons who laboured under Afflictions of any Kind, laid their Petitions to the Emperor, upon the Steps of this Pillar. The Apparitors took them up, and when the Emperor waited upon his Sister, they presented them to him. Budæus says, that the Pyctacia, or as he calls them, the Pystacia, were Briefs; though I see no Reason why they may not also be called Petitions. For as Pyctium signifies a Book, I do not see why Pyctacium may not signify any smaller Writing. The Greeks at present generally call their Letters Pyctacia. In an History written by an unknown Author, I have read, that Eudoxia had set up her own Statue, made of massy Silver, in a Place called the Pyctacium. If the Author be not mistaken, I should take this to be the same Statue which stood near the Church of St. Sophia, by which, as I have shewn before, stood the Statue of Eudoxia. I have seen a small Treatise of Constantinople, which says, that Constantine the Great built a Church to St. Euphemia, near the Hippodrom, which was afterwards turned into an Armory by Constantine, surnamed Copronymus, a professed Adversary to Images in Churches, and who cast the Reliques of St. Euphemia into the Sea. Suidas writes, that the Statue of Euphemia (the Consort of the Emperor Justin, who was a Thracian) was placed in the Church of St. Euphemia, which she her self had built. Some modern Writers say, that in the Time of Basilius the Emperor, there was a great Earthquake which overturned the Church of St. Polyclete, and killed all that were in it; and that from that Time it was called Sigma. I am more inclined to believe, that it took its Name from a Portico so called, many Ages before this Earthquake, because it was built after the Similitude of the Letter Sigma, and is placed in the antient Description of Constantinople, in the same Ward with the Hippodrom. Cedrinus seems to take Notice of this Place. They dragged, says he, Michael the Emperor in his Monks Habit, by the Heels, out of the Monastery of Studius, through the Market, and leading him beyond the Monastery called Periblepton, in a Place called Sigma, they put out both his Eyes. The same Author tells us, that Basilius the Emperor, a Native of Macedon, rebuilt from the Foundations, a Church to the Honour of the Blessed Virgin, which was called Sigma. Chrysaphius Zomas, an Eunuch, set up the Statue of Theodosius the Less, in a Place called Sigma. Some Writers affirm, that Constantine the Great built a Church to St. Stephen, in a Place called Sigma. The Sigma therefore here intended, must needs be another Place in the City, distinct from that which I observed was in the third Ward, and ought to be written with the Letter e, as Segma; by Reason, as I hinted just now, that the Fall of the Church of St. Polyclete by an Earthquake, crushed to Death all that were in it.
Chap. XVI.
Of the Fourth Ward.
IF the Miliarium Aureum had been now in Being, or the People of Constantinople had preserved the Memory of its Situation, we might easily discover, from the antient Description of the Wards, (which tells us, that the fourth Ward extended it self, the Hills rising on the Right and Left, from the Miliarium Aureum to a plain level Ground) that it was in the first Valley, or on the Ridge of the Hill that arises just above it. Nor could we have failed to make the like Discovery from the Remains of the Augustæum, the Basilica, the Nymphæum, and other fine Buildings, had they not been entirely buried in their own Ruins. But since no Observations at present can be made that Way, I was in Suspense, whether or no the Valley, where the fourth Ward stood, was not the same Valley which I had described at the first; because it is common to other Vales, to have Hills rising on the right and left. And when I had sufficiently instructed my self from the Writings and Histories of learned Men, what Monuments of Antiquity had formerly been in the fourth Ward, and where they had stood, I was soon sensible that the fourth Ward stood in the first Valley, and on the Sides of it, and on the Hill near to the Church of St. Sophia, as the Reader will perceive from the following History.