Back, after a pleasant rest at Balukli, to the third military gate, only a short space from that of the πήγη; then to the Porta Rhegion, the gate of Rhegium Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi, which led to Rhegium on the Marmora twelve miles away. On it are no less than five inscriptions on the gateway itself, and two on the southern tower. Of the latter, one reads—
+ ΝΙΚΑ Η ΤΥΧΗ
ΚωΝϹΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟ
ΦΥΛΑΚΤΟΥ ΗΜωΝ ΔΕϹΠΟΤΟΥ
+ +
"The fortune of Constantine our God-protected Emperor conquers."
The last line has been effaced.
After the fourth military gate comes the gate of S. Romanus, now Top Kapoussi, near which the last Emperor fell, and through which Mohammed entered in triumph. Opposite this point the Sultan's tent was placed, as Phrantzes tells us.
The next military gate is that of the Pempton. To this the road descends into the valley of the Lycus, and we pass the great breach made by the Turkish cannon in 1453, through which the troops forced their entrance. In the Lycus valley it was that Theodosius II. fell from his horse in 450, an accident from the effects of which he died. The next public gate is that called Edirnè Kapoussi, the Adrianople gate, which was of old the gate of Charisius. Within, the road led to the Imperial cemetery by the Church of the Holy Apostles, where Theodora, the wife of the great Justinian, was buried. Here was the part of the walls which was called Μεσοτείχον: and here was generally the chief point of attack against the city. "Here stood the gates opening upon the streets which commanded the hills of the city; here was the weakest part of the fortifications, the channel of the Lycus rendering a deep moat impossible, while the dip in the line of the walls as they descended and ascended the slopes of the valley put the defenders below the level occupied by the besiegers."